Photo By Nathan Rivard | Clifford Mullen, period interpreter, discusses facts from the Second Battle on...... read more read more
ORWELL, Vt. - Vermont and Northern New York contains location after location of historical military battles. The staff of Headquarters Headquarters Company, 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain), took a staff ride to Mount Independence to examine a site of one of the many historical battles.
“This gives our officers an opportunity to learn about and apply the principles of warfare that they’ve been taught, but to a different setting than what we do normally,” said Lt. Col. Justin Davis, executive officer, HHC 86th IBCT. “It also gives us an opportunity to experience or to gain an appreciation for local history and that’s important partially for this unit because so much of the inception of the United States took place right here in this area. Right here in the Champlain valley.”
Retired 1st Sgt. Clifford Mullen led the Soldiers throughout the grounds of Mount Independence. Mullen is a period interpreter who not only provides historical information on the time period, but also dresses the part and carries authentic equipment. His biggest lesson for the Soldiers was that while the times may change, tactics stay the same.
“A lot of the importance deals with understanding principles of tactics and the principles of troop leadership do not change. Somebody else has already dealt with much of the problems we deal with now. It’s a matter of learning what they did to solve their problems. Technology changes the specifics, but the principles haven’t changed. In understanding how leaders solved things before is a great way to understand how to solve things now.”
Newly promoted Maj. David Sly, intelligence officer, enjoyed the history and took part in discussion of the similarities of these events.
“I think it’s a morale builder because it gives us a chance to see our lineage and our history and what it dates back to around here,” said Sly. “We go around and see what they had to deal with on a daily basis, what they had consider and we compare that to things we have to consider. A lot of differences, but there are a lot of similarities too. There is a lot we can gain from looking at their struggles and applying the same type of mindset, the same type of mettle to dealing with our struggles.”
The battle they were studying was the Second Battle on Snowshoes between French forces from Fort Carillon, now known as Fort Ticonderoga, in New York, and a British Ranger company led by Capt. Robert Rogers, famous for ‘Rogers’ Rangers’. This battle was part of the French and Indian War.
The battle was originally a reconnaissance mission for Capt. Rogers. He and his Rangers trekked from Fort Edwards to Fort Carillon in more than four feet of snow. The battle itself began as an ambush from Rogers’ Rangers, but his force was decimated when they charged without reloading after the French’s initial retreat. The majority of his men were killed in the battle.
The lost battle was not the focus of the staff ride. The operation of the mission, tactics used, logistics, and even survival skills were the focus. Soldiers have even used these learning points in this time period.
“I’ve used tactics I’ve picked up from 200 years previously as a squad leader, which in one specific case allowed me to defeat a platoon with a seven man squad,” said Mullen. It was a hilarious.”
Mullen said during training he set up groups of Soldiers as ‘shock-absorbers’ and as they started to engage opposing forces they would break contact and run further back into their next position. This caused the opposing force to waste ammunition and keep losing forces.
While the tactics were noteworthy, Soldiers also enjoyed other learning moments.
“Talking about the battles is interesting,” said Sly. “We also learned survival tactics from 1st Sgt, retired Mullen and Lt. Col. Davis. Just a wealth of knowledge on what life was like then and how they survived without all the comforts and Gen. 3 Seven-layer systems [cold weather gear] we have now.”
One of the survival skills was creating fire-building materials from cloth and starting a fire using flint and steel. Lt Col. Davis also brought food Soldiers from the time period would have eaten and cooked their dinner over the fire the same way Rogers’ Rangers would have.
The staff ride finished the night with Soldiers sleeping outside without tents in Vermont’s February cold. These Soldiers did have the comfort of modern developed sleeping bags compared to those of Rogers’ Rangers.
| Date Taken: | 02.09.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.09.2016 12:37 |
| Story ID: | 188343 |
| Location: | ORWELL, VT, US |
| Web Views: | 107 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Studying the past, by Nathan Rivard, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT