Cadets Learn Through "Fields of Despair"

Cadets in LTC Channing Greene's Section 4 of History of the Military Art from 1900 played out the Battles of the Somme and Verdun in a board game called "Fields of Despair: France, 1914-1918" by GMT Games. The game's designer, Mr. Kurt Keckley, teamed up with LTC Greene to develop a lesson plan which incorporated an abbreviated game scenario into lesson objectives. Mr. Keckley is a teacher at Frontier High School in Bakersfield, California. Cadets also roleplayed historic leadership personalities to learn about the conflicts and tensions in the middle of World War I and the difficulties in overcoming the challenges presented by technology and trenches in 1916. For the cadets, the eye-opening moment came when the attacking player had to cede the initiative to the defending player by letting them roll their combat dice first, replicating the historical reality of the strength of established defenses and wide-open engagement areas