The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has one of the most robust and proactive cultural resources programmes in the world. Archaeologists working for all branches of the services have inventoried hundreds of thousands of acres, have discovered tens of thousands of archaeological sites, have set aside thousands of sites for preservation, and have made many significant archaeological discoveries on the North American continent and Hawaii. It is difficult to imagine a group of professionals who could have been more dismayed than US military archaeologists when the news of damage done to Babylon hit the global media. Since military archaeologists work for an organisation whose mantras include ‘we train as we fight’, it was difficult to understand how the US could have failed during global operations to implement the outstanding heritage ethics and practices routinely followed at home.

Ironically, domestic stewardship practices contributed in part to the lack of US preparation for successfully taking archaeological sites into consideration when operating abroad. Traditionally, in the US, the most important archaeological properties on military lands are put off-limits to military personnel as a preservation measure. As we continue to learn, we discovered that this approach limits opportunities to teach about the issue.

To address the problem of inadvertent damage to archaeological sites in-theatre, a group of military archaeologists realised that they would need to design and institute heritage awareness for personnel training to deploy. A second critical role that military archaeologists recognised they could play would be to help archaeologists who were subject matter experts on the affected sites and areas approach the Department of Defense to address the issue more effectively. A team composed of a military and an Old World archaeologist approached the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Legacy Resource Management Program to fund an ‘In-Theater Heritage Training Project’. Over the past three years, this project has successfully established an In-Theater Heritage Planning and Training Program. The ongoing project goal is to move toward a permanent office within the DoD that would have responsibility for planning and training for heritage issues related to any global operation. It is important to note that this project has focused on planning and awareness related to archaeological sites, historic structures and sacred places in the landscape.