Wow, is this a blast from my past. Dealing with the effects of gear has been an issue since time began and will continue to become an even greater and greater issue as we get more and more "lightweight" gear to haul.
Dan
Side note, Unfortunately LCDR (sel) Kylan Jones-Huffman was shot and killed by a sniper while in a convoy in the early months of the war in Iraq...
July 6, 2001
Mids validate Greek historian's battle account
by Phyllis Culham
History Department
Few section leaders in a history class take their troops into action, but in the spring. Midn. 1/C John Culpepper led a contingent of history majors in a re-enactment of the Athenian charge at Persian forces at the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C.
Designed and organized by Midn. 2/C Ruth Wilson, the hard-charging midshipmen set out to prove the fitness and fighting spirit of outnumbered Athenian forces defending their homeland against Persian invaders.
The midshipmen in HH 262D, a seminar on the Greco-Persian Wars, rejected scholarly articles that claimed that the Greek historian Herodotus exaggerated the fitness and fighting spirit of the Athenian forces, so they staged an experiment in military science at Hospital Point.
Wearing about 40 pounds worth of equipment or the equivalent of a set of classical Greek armor for a foot soldier, they ran a mile in about ten and a half minutes, stayed reasonably in formation, and still had the spirit to raise their spears (guerdons) and charge with a battle cry at the cameras standing in for the Persians.
Their approximately 10 minute time demonstrated the plausibility of the Greek historian Herodotus' account in which the Athenian onslaught startled the stationary Persians who did not even have time to deploy all their forces.
Faculty observers agreed that their accomplishment was an important contribution to the scholarly controversy, and Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman, the lead instructor for the class, is writing up the experiment for publication in a professional journal.
Midns. 2/C James Boehm, Rudyard Olmstead, Ramin McFadden, and visitor from HH 381 Daniel Trembula thought that they could cut down their initial 10 minute time and still have enough stamina for a fight, so they set out to run the course in full equipment again. The second effort took just over seven minutes, which reinforced the results of the first experiment.
Other midshipmen who participated in the first run were Culpepper, Wilson and Midns. 2/C Lauren Keene, Ian McColley, Michael Meador and Gregory Roberts.
History department faculty observing at Hospital Point admitted that they felt much as the Persians had according to Herodotus; they were impressed at the attempt to run that far in body armor but wondered about the sanity of the participants.
Both mids and faculty agreed that the armored experiment on an actual field had been uniquely educational. A previous attempt at re-enactment had not been so thorough, so no one had previously considered problems such as where the shields (field packs) went during the run.
Instructors debated whether or not they should be slung behind the back and whether they could be brought around to the front during the run without hitting another Athenian. Mids experimented on the spot with whether all could sing a battle paean, a song, as the Athenian originals had.
Everyone discussed how spears could have been held during the run and then turned to striking position while the runners accelerated for a final clash. Scholars around the world will eventually be reading about the questions and potential answers suggested by the mids' experiment.
The mile run to the actual clash with the Persians took the Athenians from the hills around Marathon to the Persian beachhead on the water. It should not be confused with the legendary longer run a messenger named Pheidippides took to bring news of the victory from Marathon to Athens. That second event is the basis for today's marathons.
