Staff ride

The staff ride originated in the mid 19th Century with the German general and theorist Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, who saw it as a way to train general staff officers on key military and strategic concepts. Eben Swift may be properly seen as the father of the American Army staff ride. As the assistant commandant of the General Service and Staff School (today's Command and General Staff College), Major Swift led a group of twelve students on a staff ride to the Civil War battlefield of Chickamauga in 1906.

Since that time, army schools have used staff rides to enhance professional military education and training. It began at CGSC and has continued at the War College and the various officer schools; however, staff riding is not limited to officers. Indeed, Non-commissioned officers, too, find the process useful to understand higher level decision-making, military tactics, and leadership; they also benefit from a historical view of training.

A staff ride differs from a guided battlefield tour:


 * it is an educational technique for studying leadership, decisions taken and whether alternatives could have been employed, and
 * it requires active participation, where each group member assumes the role of a participant in the battle, and he is questioned by the others as to the view on what occurred in the battlefield.

A properly conducted staff ride consists of three phases:


 * 1) Preliminary Study: Participants study the battle or campaign in detail with guidance from the staff ride instructor. During this phase, each participant assumes a role or position to brief during the ride. This active learning enhances the educational value of the staff ride.
 * 2) Field Study: A well-led staff ride with a competent instructor on the campaign or battle site is an invaluable lesson for all. The instructor should set the stage at each stand, orienting the students to key terrain, and then guide the students through the discussion of the actions at each position, finishing the stand with questions that help spark deeper analyses of the actions. Understanding the terrain, technology, force structure, and backgrounds of the key commanders is critical to understanding the battle. Properly prepared students will gain immeasurably from the experience of presenting information to their peers in this environment.
 * 3) Integration: Integrating the insights and understandings developed during the staff ride and applying them to the current environment is crucial to the learning experience. At the end of the staff ride, the instructor should provide a final integration phase to examine the experience and firmly link the insights of the past to the army of today.