Looking back at the Gettysburg/ Washington D.C. Undergraduate Staff Ride

The Fellows participated in the Center’s first staff ride at Gettysburg, led by Professor Doug Douds, who teaches history and strategy at the Army War College. Students followed the course of the famous battle between General George G. Meade’s and General Robert E. Lee’s armies, visiting significant sites such as General Meade’s headquarters, Culp’s Hill, Cemetery Hill, the Wheat Field, and Little Round Top. The staff ride concluded by reflecting on President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at the Gettysburg National Cemetery. By traversing the battlefields of Gettysburg, students also learned about the military as an instrument of national policy and gained tactical insight on leadership and professional skills applicable to their professional and academic endeavors.

In Washington, D.C., the cohort proceeded to a home and property formerly owned by General Lee, which are now Arlington National Cemetery and Fort Myer. They visited the grave sites of Generals Colin Powell and John Pershing. They visited Section 60, where many soldiers are interred after being killed in service in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Sentinel of the Tomb of the Unknowns gave them a tour of the amphitheater and led them to the steps overlooking the plaza, where they observed a changing of the guard. After, they visited the Caisson Stables. The Fellows toured the United States Capitol, visiting the Rotunda, the Old Senate chamber, and the National Statuary Hall. The group then met up with Clements Center Alumni Taryn Woody, who treated them to a special tour of the United States House Foreign Affairs Committee chamber. On their last day, the Fellows toured Navy Hill and learned about the State Department’s Office of the Historian and the making of the legislation-mandated Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) Series, spent the afternoon at the International Spy Museum, and closed the trip with a reception at the American Enterprise Institute where they were joined by Clements Center alumni based in Washington, D.C.

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