Integration of Cultural Property Protection into a Decisive Action Training Exercise

Maj. Kristoffer T. Mills, U.S. Army

Laurie Rush, PhD

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Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division train in the vicinity of a protected cultural site 28 July 2005 on Fort Drum, New York. Part of 10th Mountain Division predeployment training involves learning to recognize and protect sensitive cultural and historical sites during operations by conducting training on and around actual protected sites found on Fort Drum. (Photo courtesy of authors)

Since the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in 2014, its deliberate and discriminant campaign to stamp out non-Islamic cultural history by destroying ancient and culturally significant non-Islamic sites has captured the attention of the world. An effective strategic response to calculated genocidal actions perpetrated by forces such as IS requires a sophisticated understanding of the role cultural property has in creating and sustaining community identity. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict defines cultural property

as including religious and historic structures, monuments, archaeological sites; objects such as works of art, manuscripts, books, and other objects and collections of artistic, historical, scientific or archaeological interest; and repositories such as museums, libraries, and archives.1

It is incumbent upon those engaged in stability operations to understand how such destruction of cultural property is an expression of aggressive power aimed at reducing a cultural community’s capacity for resilience and continued existance. Supporting the stabilization of communities attempting to recover from the atrocities of genocidal occupation that aimed to eradicate not only the existence but also the entire history and memory of a people requires education and training to be able to identify, respect, and protect cultural property on the battlefield.

In September 2016, the G-9 (civil-military operations) office, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) initiated a unique partnership with the Cultural Resources Branch (CRB) at Fort Drum, New York. The deputy G-9, Maj. Kristoffer Mills, consulted with the installation’s Cultural Resources Program manager (CRM), Dr. Laurie Rush, to gain a better understanding of the culturally significant sites within the Fort Drum training area while planning for a brigade-level exportable combat training capability exercise, which is a field training exercise based on the Decisive Action Training Environment. This particular exercise, Mountain Peak 17-02, was conducted on Fort Drum to prepare the unit for a subsequent training rotation to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

The initial purpose of reaching out to the CRM was to build a “no strike list” for the exercise scenario that would be based on actual Fort Drum protected sites. As the planning progressed for the exercise, the deputy G-9 realized that Fort Drum’s Cultural Resources Program (CRP) could facilitate civil-military operations training scenarios, and the CRM recognized an opportunity to inject training on cultural property protection throughout the 10th Mountain Division. The partnership between the G-9 office and the CRB has since continued to enhance 10th Mountain Division training and operations in this area.

Background

The Fort Drum CRB is subordinate to the Environmental Division of the garrison public works office, and it is a functional office within Installation Management Command. Unfortunately, training units traditionally view these types of offices as a hindrance because many installation archaeologists approach cultural resources stewardship by telling soldiers, trainers, and range control what they are not allowed to do and where they cannot dig, while also imposing restrictive latitudes for maneuver within the training areas. As a consequence, archaeology maps of Army installations have sometimes been referred to as “measles” maps by military planners—archaeological sites characterized as symptoms of a disease infecting a military installation.

Army archeologists conduct a test dig 2 August 2007 on Fort Drum, New York, to assess the potential value of further excavation at the site. Maneuver training around such sites habituates soldiers to incorporating protection of culturally important locations into their operational planning and their actions on the ground. (Photo courtesy of authors)

Unfortunately, this somewhat adversarial approach to management of training lands also results in the failure of military leadership to recognize that installation archaeologists represent social science education and expertise that can be of extreme value to personnel preparing to deploy and operate in the complex cross-cultural battlefield environment that today characterizes much of the potential operational area globally. In view of the need to prepare for such complexity, Department of Defense (DOD) archaeologists are potentially a great resource for units preparing to deploy because they are trained in analysis of cultural behavior, predictive modeling for patterns of occupation across a wide range of environments, and recognition of evidence of past human behavior that includes sophisticated approaches to imagery analysis.

In contrast to many other DOD installations, Fort Drum’s CRP emphasizes the use of archaeological sites and cultural property in the training areas to provide realistic training opportunities. It makes no sense to prevent U.S. military personnel from operating around significant cultural property on training lands at domestic U.S. installations when they are preparing to deploy to some of the most archaeologically rich and sensitive areas of the world, such as the ancient Mesopotamian cities of Iraq and Afghanistan’s historical Silk Road. Recognizing the significance and importance of training with regard to cultural property, the Department of the Army endorsed the use of installation cultural resources as training assets in its most recent guidance to cultural resources managers.2

As the home of 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum has also benefitted from the opportunity to learn about cultural property challenges directly from the experiences of military personnel who have returned to the installation after multiple deployments. 10th Mountain soldiers and trainers work extremely hard to ensure that training opportunities adjust and respond to lessons learned from forward deployments. The CRP has supported these efforts, especially when the challenges include cultural property. For example, when soldiers reported that Iraqi insurgents were using headstones as firing points, the Cultural Resources Team (CRT) constructed culturally reminiscent replica cemeteries and added them to urban sprawl and urban terrain training sites on Fort Drum so that dealing with such scenarios could be practiced. And, after the global news media featured reports of damage to the ancient city of Babylon by U.S. and Polish forces in 2004, the CRT constructed mock ruins in the training areas to offer field training opportunities to identify, avoid, and respect ancient places as well as sites regarded as sacred by indigenous peoples during the course of military operations.3

The 'distinctive Blue Shield emblem' is described in Article 16 of the 1954 Hague Convention. The emblem is used to identify cultural property and those personnel responsible for its protection. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Using Former Communities as Training Opportunities

Citizens who lost their homes in the 1940s on Fort Drum provide additional incentive for making actual archaeological sites available to military personnel. Five northern New York villages were vacated when the installation expanded. These were initially managed as off limits due to their designation as National Register-listed archaeological districts, much to the annoyance of some former residents.4 As one of the citizens pointed out, “we gave up our homes for military training, not for archaeology.”5 However, in response, the cultural resources staff turned to the Integrated Training Area Management program and the Land Rehabilitation and Maintenance (LRAM) managers for help with transforming off-limits acreage filled with nineteenth- and early twentieth-century ruins into a training opportunity that would protect the remaining features, offer an educational opportunity, and be safe for soldiers.6 The LRAM staff cleared the historic features of vegetation so that the CRM and the LRAM manager could develop prescriptions for stabilization and protection.

The first property listed by the National Register was the archaeological district of historic Sterlingville. This company town was established in the mid-nineteenth century for the purpose of manufacturing pig iron. The village, situated on a crossroad, featured two churches with associated cemeteries, a school, a hotel, a general store, a post office, and multiple village homes, in addition to the iron furnace and associated mill pond. The Army purchased it in 1940, evicted the residents, and destroyed all the structures.7 Foundations, wells, cisterns, and other robust features were all that remained by 2002 when the CRM and LRAM personnel began to transform the property into a training asset. Its location on a crossroad, relatively close to the cantonment, made the village especially valuable for a wide range of training scenarios from traffic checkpoints to bivouac.

The greatest challenge when transforming an area such as Sterlingville is to create protection for historic features while retaining evidence for the soldiers that they are operating in an area designated as historic. Standard treatments include covering crumbling foundations with geotextiles and filling them with sand and gravel—the parking lot approach, reinforcing beautifully laid masonry walls with pressure-treated wooden framework structures, sandbagging small features such as cisterns, and even using recycled tank treads to cover features to be used as potential vehicle fighting positions. Once complete, the area was signed “Historic Area; Training Permitted; No Digging.”

The Blue Shield, an international symbol of protected cultural property per the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, was also added to some of the signage to provide familiarization.8 The trainers also eventually added some wooden structures to the properties where the features had been completely covered by the fabric and fill, so that the village began to once again take on the appearance of a community.

The initial approach of the cultural resources and LRAM managers in terms of potential use of the cultural resource training assets was a version of “If you build it, they will come.” The sites are left for the trainers and soldiers to use in any way they found to be useful. During the early years of 10th Mountain engagement in Iraq, the replica ruins were often used for identification of triggers for improvised explosive devices, and historic Sterlingville emerged as an extremely important location for marketplace and checkpoint challenges.

In 2014, the CRP had an opportunity to advise the division on how the sites could be used more proactively to enrich scenario opportunities for the annual Mountain Peak military exercises. In preparation for the exercise, one of the division exercise planners approached the CRM to learn more about the nature and locations of cultural resources in the training areas. The CRT provided a field briefing with a tour of historic Sterlingville, replica sites and features, historic cemeteries, indicators for historic features hidden in the landscape, and the Conservation Corps camp complete with dam, pond, and picnic area. The planner worked with the CRT to prepare signage for the cultural properties that fit scenarios associated with the fictitious country of Atropia, its neighbors, ethnic groups, and insurgents. He offered the CRM an opportunity to brief the red force, who were going to be playing insurgents in the scenario on how to read the historic landscape. This scenario would use the cultural features to their best advantage.

It was not until 2016 that the CRT would be able to build on this modest beginning to offer more significant support to 10th Mountain Division field exercises and Mountain Peak exercises. The increased support was due to the proactive approach and contributions of the division G-9.

Laying the Groundwork for Cultural Property Protection Exercises

As plans for 2016 Mountain Peak unfolded, the first product the Cultural Resource Branch contributed to exercise planning was the map of the culturally significant sites on Fort Drum, which are protected by local, state, national, and international laws. These sites include cemeteries, abandoned towns, homesteads and farms, foundations, churches, ancient Native American ceremonial places, and archeological sites dating back ten thousand years or more. All of these sites are historically significant to local communities, Native Americans, and interested global citizens, and they are preserved by the federal government on behalf of all the American people. Initially, the CRM provided this information to the exercise planners who were responsible for implementing the elements of environmental protection required for all training on Fort Drum in compliance with all New York state and federal environmental protection laws and regulations.

It is important to note that the map of protected sites on Fort Drum and similar maps for all U.S. domestic training installations are analogous to the cultural property inventories of protected sites and institutions that operations planners must consider for all forward operations under not just 1954 Hague but also laws of armed conflict, domestic law including Section 402 of the National Historic Preservation Act, and DOD and Army regulations such as U.S. Central Command Environmental Regulation 200-2, Environmental Quality: CENTCOM Contigency Environmental Guidance.9 These inventories contribute to the “no strike” component of the targeting process, so the opportunity to implement target avoidance during an exercise is another valuable aspect of the efforts to integrate such exercises into Fort Drum training.

Once the inventory was established and shared, the next step was for the CRM and her team to provide guided tours of the training areas to show locations of protected sites, mock training sites, and various examples of the methods for identifying and marking culturally significant locations. These tours offered an understanding of the human terrain in the training areas, with the hope that skills developed at home for “reading” a crosscultural landscape could be applied in challenging situations overseas.

Installation tours of cultural property by subject-matter experts may also serve as a stand-alone training opportunity. These locations can be incorporated into land navigation exercises, and Fort Drum has established cultural property guides for staff rides and offers field exercises for Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets during which they are challenged to identify aboriginal stone features within the wider Fort Drum forested landscape.

The CRP has also created multiple products to support warfighter education and training for cultural property protection, including archaeology awareness playing cards for Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan; a pocket guide; and specialized cultural property briefings.10 The playing cards are distributed widely throughout the DOD to promote cultural property protection and have inspired a series of comparable materials across the international community. The cultural property pocket guide has been widely distributed, and the deputy G-9 included the guide as an appendix to Annex K (Civil Affairs Operations) of the operations orders for the exercise.

A Fort Drum-specific cultural property briefing created by Rush was also included as an appendix in Annex K and incorporated into pre-mission training for units.11 The briefing provided information on how to identify and respect cultural property, and it emphasized the strategic value cultural property possesses for both friendly and enemy forces.

The aforementioned products, tour, and materials assisted the deputy G-9 in writing a detailed Annex K and Annex V (Interagency) for the Mountain Peak 17-02 tactical operations order, and enabled the development of robust scenarios to support civil-military operations training. However, there was one problem—there was a lack of available and qualified role players to support the exercise and its associated master scenario event list (MSEL) injects. The solution to this problem came from the CRP when the CRM and her team of ten dedicated professionals offered to provide their assistance and expertise as role players.

To support overseas predeployment training, the 10th Mountain Division issues playing cards to soldiers that describe actions to be taken to protect sensitive historical and cultural sites. (Photo courtesy of authors)

Exercise Execution

The Fort Drum Cultural Resource Program provided a significant amount of support to the deputy G-9 in the development of Annex K and Annex V, as well as the development of the scenario and MSEL injects. In addition to complementing the planning support to the exercise, members of the CRT volunteered their time to serve as various Atropian characters to add more realism to the scenarios. The CRM was scripted as the senior government official, or the Atropian minister of cultural affairs, antiquities, and archeology (MoCAAA). The ten personnel on staff were scripted as various role players that constructed multiple nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international governmental organizations (IGOs), and an indigenous native Atropian organization (see figure, page 112).

The benefits of cultural resources personnel functioning as role players is that they are intimately familiar with the training area and understand the cultural and historic significance of the sites because the training area serves as their workplace outside of the office in garrison. By profession, the role players were either archeologists or anthropologists, so the deputy G-9 created scenario organizations that reflected their real professions. Prior to the execution of the exercise, the role players were provided detailed scripts, talking points, rules of engagement, and background stories of their respective organizations and characters. The deputy G-9 also facilitated rehearsals and strategized possible questions, discussions, and issues that might be encountered during the key leader engagements (KLEs) and interactions with the training units. He provided daily exercise updates to keep the role players informed of events that occurred in the scenario so that they remained better prepared for their roles.

  • Atropian Minister of Cultural Affairs, Antiquities, and Archeology (MoCAAA)
  • Deputy Minister, MoCAAA
  • Security, MoCAAA
  • Director, Atropian Cultural Resource and Environmental Preservation Organization (ACREPO)
  • Deputy Director, ACREPO
  • Director, Council of the Atropian Native Indigenous People (CANIP)
  • Deputy Director, CANIP
  • Regional Director, World Islamic Humanitarian Assistance Group (WIHAG)
  • Assistant Regional Director, WIHAG
  • DART/OFDA (USAID)

The CRB had additional resources that contributed to the realism of the training. Between the ten personnel, there were enough costumes, jewelry, and props so that each person was wearing some type of traditional “Atropian” clothing. The role players were dressed in scarves, beads, turbans, robes, sashes, belts, vests, and daggers. The most significant contribution was that the office had replica artifacts that were incorporated into the scenarios. The inclusion of the artifacts added yet another level of realism and depth to the exercise.

Most importantly for the G-9, the presence of actual objects promoted training and awareness of cultural property protection. The artifacts included tablets, a stamp, and a goblet, which were emplaced by observer/controllers in enemy territory with the expectation that the artifacts would be recovered during sensitive-site exploitation by the training unit. The CRM’s character introduced the artifacts into a scenario during the initial KLE with the brigade commander, where she presented photographs of the stolen artifacts in the form of catalog information from the National Museum of Atropia. Atropian delegations from the various NGOs, IGOs, and private organizations provided information about the artifacts, and emphasized the cultural significance and specific handling instructions for each artifact. The inclusion of the artifacts provided an opportunity for the training unit to hone their interpersonal-communication and rapport-building skills during KLEs. It also exercised several staff sections within the brigade to include the civil-military operations (S-9), intelligence (S-2), and operations (S-3) sections, the public affairs and legal officers, and the attached civil affairs company. The brigade commander immediately built rapport with the Atropian government officials and delegation representatives, and conveyed to his staff the importance of returning the artifacts to the Atropian government. He also understood the tremendous potential to capitalize on the possible strategic messaging opportunities and the potential to gain invaluable intelligence from the recovery of the artifacts. Success in recovering the artifacts proved to be both a strategic and tactical success for the brigade.

The successful integration of cultural property protection during the brigade exercise at Fort Drum was replicated during a second exercise at Fort Polk, Louisiana, to support 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. Unfortunately, the ten personnel from the CRO could not travel to Fort Polk, but the CRM accepted the deputy G-9’s invitation to be a role player and advisor during the exercise. She returned as her Atropian character, MoCAAA, to conduct two KLEs with 3rd Brigade, and to meet with the brigade to coordinate training for their academic week in preparation for deployment in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.

Col. Scott Naumann, commander of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and his staff meet with civilian role players 1 December 2016 during Mountain Peak 16-02 at Fort Drum, New York. The role players act as local nationals to help train the units on interacting with their host-nation leaders. (Photo by Maj. Kristoffer Mills, U.S. Army)

During the initial KLE, the CRM introduced herself and expressed her concerns about the combat operations’ potential impact on the cultural sites in the unit area of operations. At the subsequent KLE the following day, she presented photos of Atropian artifacts stolen from the Atropian National Museum that was looted and destroyed by enemy forces. The brigade S-9, legal officer, and protections cell officer took the photos and disseminated guidance to subordinate battalions on the proper handling of the artifacts. The brigade public affairs officer also published a press release about the KLE and that the main topic of the meeting was the missing artifacts.

Two days later, another role player was introduced to the scenario. This role player was an Atropian landowner who discovered a bag with two artifacts while cleaning trash left behind by enemy forces. The landowner also came to request compensation from the unit as a result of maneuver damage. This inject provided an opportunity for the staff to take advantage of the strategic messaging opportunity and to demonstrate their competency in respecting a host nation’s cultural property. The inject also provided an opportunity to collect additional information about the enemy force.

The next day, another role player entered the scenario to add more depth. This role player was a subordinate archeologist who worked at the provincial level. He came to the brigade to request the artifacts at the behest of the minister. While meeting with the brigade, he also stated that he encountered enemy forces while inspecting archeological sites in the unit’s area of operations. This particular inject provided an opportunity for the unit S-2 to ask questions of the role player to not only understand ways to protect the archeological sites but to also collect information about enemy activities.

During this second exercise, aspects of cultural property protection were injected into the scenario to provide unique training opportunities that would otherwise not be available to the unit. The cultural property protection-focused scenario injects drove the civil-military operations training objectives for the units. The unit conducted KLEs in order to build rapport with the host-nation government, the injects afforded opportunities to promote strategic messaging through the public affairs office, information provided by role players allowed the S-2 to conduct military source operations to support intelligence operations, and the staff exercised their ability to understand the policy and laws associated with cultural property. Prior to the conclusion of the exercise, the brigade S-9 repatriated the stolen artifacts and returned them to the Atropian government. Considering the upcoming mission and destination for 3rd Brigade, the most important training provided was the understanding and appreciation for cultural property protection.

U.S. Army soldiers walk down the Great Ziggurat of Ur, a temple at the ancient city of Ur and an archaeological site on the outskirts of Nasiriyah 13 May 2009 about 320 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. The U.S. military transferred control of the site to Iraqi authorities on the same day. (Photo by Nabil al-Jurani, Associated Press)

Tip of the Spear

As increased attention is placed on the defeat of IS and the restoration of stability in Iraq and Syria, the international community will continue to emphasize the importance of implementation of meaningful protection of cultural property during the course of military operations. Fort Drum has also provided expertise to international military efforts to establish cultural property protection policies, doctrine, and best practices, including leadership for a NATO Science for Peace and Security-funded series of advanced research workshops devoted to the subject.

In the summer of 2016, ROTC interns at Fort Drum provided cultural property inventories for Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia in support of cultural property protection injects for a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea.12 According to NATO Allied Joint Force Command Naples, these data were used effectively to contribute to injects where vibrations from heavy vehicle traffic were threatening a historic church and where an ancient seaside castle required special protection.13 In the after-action report, there was consensus that these injects added meaning and realism to the training effort.

At Fort Drum, the integration of the CRB and inclusion of cultural property protection into an U.S. Army exercise was most likely unprecedented in the history of the modern force, according to the CRM, who has been working with the DOD for almost twenty years. The successful incorporation of cultural property protection and role players provided by the CRB demonstrates innovation in providing civil-military operations training that provides opportunities for units to interact with host-nation government officials, NGOs, IGOs, and private institutions.

The collaboration between the 10th Mountain Division G-9 and CRB, and the resulting successful injects, offers a division- and brigade-level training model for the rest of the Army that can also be duplicated by other military organizations across the globe. The United Kingdom recently ratified The Hague Convention and, as a result, the UK Ministry of Defence has identified the Fort Drum injects as a best practice worthy of study.14 The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization is interested in providing cultural property protection training to UN member militaries and has consulted the Fort Drum CRM for assistance.15 Also, the Austrian military has used the historic Sterlingville training asset concept to develop the villages found on their training areas in a similar fashion and are incorporating their ruins into exercises.16

The collaboration between the CRM and the deputy G-9 is innovative, and in terms of DOD archeology, is the “tip of the spear” for cultural property protection training. The creative inclusion of artifacts into training scenarios and military exercise participation by CRB personnel provides tremendous opportunities to share lessons learned with NATO partners and UN members as they develop strategies and programs to implement cultural property protection into military training. Additionally, there is an opportunity to update and expand current U.S. military doctrine addressing cultural property protection as the only existing dedicated doctrine to the topic at present is the Graphic Training Aid 41-01-002, Civil Affairs Arts, Monuments, and Archives Guide, October 2015.17

Conclusion

As multinational, coalition partners cooperate to defeat IS and other organizations that would eradicate parts of human history for their own political objectives, the international community must also cooperate and leverage every capability possible to preserve and protect the cultural heritage of past civilizations. Tragically, too many ancient sites and artifacts have been lost to the hands of time and human malfeasance, but there remains hope and opportunities to protect and preserve the record of human history as it has developed among all peoples for our children and future generations.

Notes

  1. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention 1954,” UNESCO website, accessed 4 October 2017, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.
  2. Kathleen McLaughlin, Historic Property Guidance (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 2016).
  3. Jonathan Steele, “Damage Inquiry at Ancient Babylon,” The Guardian online, 11 June 2004, accessed 20 September 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/12/iraq.jonathansteele.
  4. “National Register of Historic Places,” National Park Service website, accessed 21 September 2017, https://www.nps.gov/nr/.
  5. Thomas Bogenschutz, now deceased, and his wife were the last couple to be married in Sterlingville before the village was destroyed. The comment was made in either 2002 or 2003 during a bus tour at Fort Drum for families who lost homes on the installation.
  6. Army Regulation 350-4, Integrated Training Area Management (ITAM) (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office, May 1998).
  7. Keitha Kellogg Peterson, Drummed Out (Watertown, NY: Benjamin Printing, 2002), accessed 20 September 2017, http://nyheritage.nnyln.net/cdm/pageflip/collection/jcclibrary/id/3959/type/compoundobject/show/3821/cpdtype/ document/pftype/image#page/2/mode/2up.
  8. “The Blue Shield Emblem,” U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield website, accessed 21 September 2017, http://uscbs.org/blue-shield-emblem.html.
  9. National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. § 300101 et seq. (2016), accessed 20 September 2017, http://www.achp.gov/nhpa.pdf; U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Environmental Regulation 200-2, Environmental Quality: CENTCOM Contigency Environmental Guidance (MacDill, FL: U.S. CENTCOM), accessed 20 September 2017, https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/pdf/CENTCOM_ITTR_CCR_200-2-1.pdf.
  10. James A. Zeidler and Alexandra V. Wallace, “Product Catalog for Cultural Property Planning and Training in the Department of Defense,” Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands, Fall 2010, accessed 4 October 2017, http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/lrmp/factsheets/reports-and-other-products/product-catalog-for-cultural-property-protection-planning-and-training-legacy-09-324/; “Heritage Preservation, ROE First!: Pocket Guide for U.S. Military Personnel,” DOD Environmental, Safety, and Occupational Health Network and Information Exchange (DENIX) website, accessed 21 September 2017, http://www.denix.osd.mil/cr/lrmp/factsheets/reports-and-other-products/soldier-pocket-guide-english-heritage-preservation-roe-first-legacy-08-324/; Laurie Rush, Cultural Briefing, 24 October 2016.
  11. Kristoffer T. Mills and Laurie Rush, appendix 3 (Cultural Briefing) to Annex K (Civil Affairs Operations) to Operation Order 17-02 Atropian Resolve, 1 November 2016, https://army.deps.mil/Army/CMDS/FORSCOM_10mtn/g9/Excercise (CAC required).
  12. Laurie Rush, mentor, Fort Drum ROTC Cultural Property Protection Internship.
  13. Unnamed flight lieutenant (OF-2) (British Air Force coordinator) to assistant chief of staff, J9 I CMI/CIMIC [classified military information/civil-military cooperation] Operations and Targeting SO, Joint Force Command Naples (presentation, NATO Workshop, Sanremo, Italy, 7–9 December 2016).
  14. Timothy Purbrick (lieutenant colonel, The Royal Lancers, Army Reserves staff officer, Concepts Branch, Army Headquarters, UK), personal communication, travel to Fort Drum, New York, to study the Fort Drum approach, 12–14 June 2017.
  15. Request for support from UNESCO’s Giovanni Boccardi, chief of unit, Emergency Preparedness and Response, and Jan Hladik, secretary of the 1954 Convention. Laurie Rush was invited faculty for UNESCO Cultural Property Protection Training for African peacekeeping forces at the Regional Peacekeeping Training Center, Harare, Zimbabwe, September 2017.
  16. Anna Kaiser (director of the Donau University at Krems, Cultural Property Protection Master’s Program), exercise organized for the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, August 2017.
  17. Graphic Training Aid 41-01-002, Civil Affairs Arts, Monuments, and Archives Guide (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, October 2015), accessed 21 September 2016, https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog-ws/view/100.ATSC/B64AFE99-CA98-4891-AD9E-5D69EC28A14F-1302924733371/gta41_01_002.pdf.

Maj. Kristoffer T. Mills, a U.S. Army civil affairs officer, is the deputy G-9 at 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York. He was previously assigned as a civil affairs company commander and G-9, 4th Infantry Division Mission Command Element in support of Atlantic Resolve and Joint Military Training Group-Ukraine. He holds a BS in human regional geography from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, and an MMAS from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Laurie Rush, PhD, is an anthropologist and Army archaeologist, serving as a civilian in support of the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York. She initiated a series of projects to support implementation of cultural property protection (CPP) during U.S. military operations and codirected the recent NATO project for development of CPP policy, doctrine, and best practices. She has a BA from Indiana University Bloomington, an MA and PhD from Northwestern University, and is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a Smithsonian research associate.

November-December 2017