Shiloh staff ride

Military Police,  April, 2005  by Emily E. Eagan

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While many Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, residents were asleep at midnight on 8 December 2004, the Military Police Captains Career Course Class 4-04 was just arriving at the parking lot of the Maneuver Support Center armed with overnight bags, pillows, and blankets. The class of 31 students and 3 instructors boarded a bus for a seven-hour ride to the Shiloh National Military Park at Shiloh, Tennessee. Shiloh was the first major battle in the Western theater of the Civil War. The trip was a huge success. The class had studied the strategic and tactical importance of the April 1862 battle and applied the two-day campaign's principles of war to today's conflicts.

The staff ride began by raising the American flag over the national cemetery in the morning mist. Led by a six-soldier color guard, the flag-raising honored the battle's 24,000 Federal and Confederate casualties. The second stop on the staff ride brought the group to the west bank of the Tennessee River at Pittsburg Landing. There, students presented an overview of the battle and the significance of the terrain. Many students said this was their favorite stop of the day. Later, the group visited eleven other significant spots on the 4,000-acre battlefield. Students, including international exchange officers, briefed a significant event at each stop throughout the day. After the six-hour staff ride, students concluded by focusing on the lessons learned from this battle 142 years ago.

After the tour, the class drove to Jackson, Tennessee, to spend the night before driving back to Fort Leonard Wood the following morning.

"Doing a staff ride really gives you an appreciation for history," said one student. "Right now we are in the business of making history in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's important to realize that decisions we make today are going to be read about and analyzed one day. And of course, there is the fact that even though times are so different, some things still are the same. For instance, the fighting spirit of the individual soldier."

Captain Eagan is a 2001 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and a 2005 graduate of the Military Police Captains Career Course. She is stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

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