Staff Rides?

1LT (Join to see), in my 22 years as a warrant officer (and part of OPDs), we had two staff rides. Of course, I was in military intelligence units, so maybe that's why so few. I remember that both staff rides were to Civil War battlefields. One was to Gettysburg; the other, I can't remember, because I didn't go.

I learned a lot by walking part of the Gettysburg battlefield with one of the officers of my unit leading and narrating the way. I do believe that there is a lot to be learned from staff rides, and I would vote for "making" people go, because they'll learn and experience a lot, despite an initial lack of enthusiasm. I look at staff rides much like professional reading programs. People grumble about both, but there's a lot to learn from both, and I'm an advocate.

My CSM and I made an effort to take our battalion leaders on two staff rides over the past couple of years. Here are some of the thoughts we put down after completing them.

Many of us have taken advantage of the rich history around us to learn more from the profession of arms we call our own, however, these are often historical battlefield tours with experts in those areas, or our own self-study as we explore the terrain. Once we decided to add a historical study to our battalion Leader Development Program, we decided to create a staff ride more in line with the US Army Center of Military History model. As we planned our battalion staff ride, we wanted to go beyond a simple battlefield walk with our leaders, so carved out time and resources to conduct a staff ride to the highest standard possible. South Carolina offers multiple options from which to study and learn, including frontier skirmishes, Revolutionary War battles and guerilla campaigns, Civil War battles and effects of national campaigns, and later wars of the 20th Century along the coast as the United States protected itself from the sea. We chose Cowpens then Camden for our two separate Staff Rides.

Like most others we broke our battalion Leader Development Program down into NCO Professional Development, led by the Command Sergeant Major and other senior NCOs, with the primary audience non-commissioned officers; Officer Professional Development, led by the Battalion Commander, and assigned to different officers across the battalion throughout the year with the primary audience all officers in the battalion; and Leader Development, jointly led by the CSM and Commander, bringing both groups together with the audience being all officers, the senior NCOs from the staff sections and company command teams – commander and first sergeant. Each of these are nested with the others so that each population can then interact together and further increase knowledge. We did combine three events, the unit historical study, the staff ride, and our team building ‘fun’ event in order to maximize our time and resources.

We chose the Revolutionary War as our staff ride area of study for several reasons. The first is that as we started asking our leaders what they knew about the military history of South Carolina we realized that while many knew about the state’s role in the US Civil War, not many had taken the time to read and research the colonial civil war fought within the internal borders during the Revolutionary War. Additionally, South Carolina has more Revolutionary War battlefields and locations for study than any other conflict fought in and around the state. There are several locations in very close proximity to Fort Jackson, allowing for less travel time and the ability to visit, conduct the staff ride, and return in one day, reducing time away from our responsibilities at Fort Jackson. Finally, as we conducted our initial review of potential sites, we saw several close parallels from the organization, tactics, strategy and conduct of several battles to the way our battalion is composed of so many different units, organizations, missions and specialties, all in support of the greater Fort Jackson mission.

Utilizing the method of having everyone do the research of different aspects of the battle allows a more focused approach but still gives everyone the overview of the fight. The specific experts on their units, leaders and actions could provide specifics, while the group as a whole could then relate those into their own research to complete their understanding. It is necessary however, for the leaders facilitating the staff ride to have a better overall understanding of the battle in order to better link the various perspectives, both in the classroom and on the ground.

Take time to properly brief prior to departing to the battlefield and do so early enough for the information to sink in rather than briefing on the day of the staff ride. By having the overviews earlier, each individual can better link their own research into others’ making for clearer understanding. The time between also makes it less likely for the exact same thing to be briefed within hours of each other, potentially becoming boring.

Coordinate so you don’t go on a day full of other large groups. Both visits were on days that did not have large groups, but we had not done the coordination to ensure that happened. Both sites were extremely friendly and welcoming, offering additional resources during our preparation and execution, use them.

1LT (Join to see), I went on one staff ride which was a tour of Stones River Battlefield in Murfreesboro, TN. It was conducted by two majors in our unit, who happened to be superior military historians. My main takeaway from this event was that whenever possible, the presenter should be or have been in the military. They can simply add a military perspective to the event that a park ranger or docent simply may not be capable of providing.