Defense of Duffer's Drift | Part 4 | First Dream | Army Flashcards | Military Tactics

The Defense of Duffer's Drift is a classic in small unit tactics in the British and U.S. Army, this book is recommended, without qualification, for the modern professional soldier.

What would you do?

Lieutenant Backsight Forethought (BF to his friends) has been left in command of a 50-man reinforced platoon to hold Duffer’s Drift, the only ford on the Silliassvogel River available to wheeled traffic. Here is his chance for fame and glory. He has passed his officer courses and special qualifications.

“Now if they had given me a job like fighting the Battle of Waterloo…or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up....”

While BF’s task appears simple enough, the Boer enemy causes a multitude of problems, but you, astute reader, with a sharp mind and quick intellect, will no doubt, solve the problem before the first shot is fired.

This version of Duffer's Drift is published by Army Flashcards. Army Flashcards produces premier military educational material. In this edition, the lessons of Duffer's Drift are related to the present day experience of the American Soldier and Officer.

When I was a young Army Captain and Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy, I came across Duffer's Drift lying on a random book case in our offices. I remember picking it up, flipping through the pages, and wondering at what kind of curiosity I'd stumbled across. I remember reading about the adventures, and subsequent demises, of LT Backsight Forethought and how eerily similar it sounded to my own adventures as a LT (without all of the recurring deaths obviously)!

War is timeless. We come to the battlefield with new equipment and weapons, but the same human nature. In my decade plus in the Army (and more years to come!), I've found that our nature in war is to become complacent and overconfident. War is a dull bore punctuated by moments of intense conflict and emotions. It's during the lulls where we begin to believe that what we are doing is good enough and that our enemy is not as capable as we once thought. Then, inevitably, we suffer a loss, whip ourselves back into the shape and state we should have been in, and perform better.... for a time.

I've spent the majority of my career training Soldiers, Cadets, and other leaders to master their profession of combat during a time that we collectively call the War on Terror. Starting with the fall of our towers and the tragic loss we all felt, the War on Terror has spanned nearly 20 years and several conflicts across the planet. In the military we are guilty of looking at these conflicts as "counter-insurgency" fights, then we excuse ourselves for neglecting our doctrine and basic war- fighting principles as if they don't apply anymore. I saw this tendency over and over again in training, and have yet to master a way to break the mind set. To be completely honest, one of the best ways I've found is to make others read Duffer's Drift!

There is something about this tale that terrifies us. Though we read about BF far away in South Africa, we can't help picturing ourselves in places more familiar. I'm transported to Shir Khan Afghanistan, where as a young LT, I supervised the construction of an outpost on a remote and dusty hilltop on the Tajikistan border. Had I been attacked like LT BF, would we have survived? After reading Duffer's Drift, I must honestly answer no! I likely would have suffered the same fate as the heroes of our story!

I encourage you take this tale to heart. Even if you have yet to see combat, do your best to picture yourself in the most dire of circumstances, then consider how you can apply the lessons from LT BF to that situation. I'm here to tell you, it could make all of the difference!

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