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View Full Version : Robert Rodgers 28 Rules of engagement


hunter63
02-22-2008, 09:21 AM
Cool site:
Not much has changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangers_Standing_Orders#Original_rules

<[edit] Fictional version
This version comes from Kenneth Roberts' novel, Northwest Passage, in which an uneducated but veteran Ranger explains Roger's rules to the narrator, a former artist who joined Rogers:

1) Don't forget nothing.
2) Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds powder and ball, and be ready to march at a minute's warning.
3) When you're on the march, act the way you would if you was sneaking up on a deer. See the enemy first.
4) Tell the truth about what you see and what you do. There is an army depending on us for correct information. You can lie all you please when you tell other folks about the Rangers, but don't never lie to a Ranger or officer.
5) Don't never take a chance you don't have to.
6) When we're on the march we march single file, far enough apart so one shot can't go through two men.
7) If we strike swamps, or soft ground, we spread out abreast, so it's hard to track us.
8) When we march, we keep moving till dark, so as to give the enemy the least possible chance at us.
9) When we camp, half the party stays awake while the other half sleeps.
10) If we take prisoners, we keep 'em separate till we have had time to examine them, so they can't cook up a story between 'em.
11) Don't ever march home the same way. Take a different route so you won't be ambushed.
12) No matter whether we travel in big parties or little ones, each party has to keep a scout 20 yards ahead, 20 yards on each flank, and 20 yards in the rear so the main body can't be surprised and wiped out.
13) Every night you'll be told where to meet if surrounded by a superior force.
14) Don't sit down to eat without posting sentries.
15) Don't sleep beyond dawn. Dawn's when the French and Indians attack.
16) Don't cross a river by a regular ford.
17) If somebody's trailing you, make a circle, come back onto your own tracks, and ambush the folks that aim to ambush you.
18) Don't stand up when the enemy's coming against you. Kneel down, lie down, hide behind a tree.
19) Let the enemy come till he's almost close enough to touch, then let him have it and jump out and finish him up with your hatchet.

RangerRick
02-22-2008, 03:03 PM
And still just as valid as the day it was penned.

Ranger Rick

TheUnboundOne
02-23-2008, 09:05 PM
Dear Hunter63,

Howdy, Hunter! Thanks for the great and informative link. It's not a pleasant thought, but nowadays, when facing enemies that regard civilians as fair game, even civilians have to know a thing or two about strategy!

Now, a question to Hunter, RangerRick, and anyone else: Have any of you ever heard of Robert Greene and his books The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, and The 33 Strategies of War?

From what I've seen looking through them, they are well worth reading for strategy, since Greene cites examples from historical battles and intrigue, as well as classical myth and legend from a wide variety of cultures. He draws heavily from insights from Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Aesops, and many others and provides good bibliographies.

hunter63
02-24-2008, 06:41 AM
TUO, Thanks for the info;

Haven't checked these out, except Machiavelli, (econ classes, management classes) for quite some time.

Of course Aesop's, I think the fable guy, although what what I under stand, many of these were either translated or collected, by him, under his name.
The teaching of many these had a more sinister/ political under score, disguised as children's stories, sort of like today's political cartoons.

But as history mostly repeats it self, probably pertenant reading.

So I will look them up, see what I see.

TheUnboundOne
02-25-2008, 07:45 AM
Dear Hunter63,

You wrote:

TUO, Thanks for the info;

Haven't checked these out, except Machiavelli, (econ classes, management classes) for quite some time.

It's obviously been some time for me too. The managers at my present full-time job make Machiavelli seem saintly.

;D

Of course Aesop's, I think the fable guy, although what what I under stand, many of these were either translated or collected, by him, under his name.
The teaching of many these had a more sinister/ political under score, disguised as children's stories, sort of like today's political cartoons.

I never saw anything sinister about Aesop. If anything, I thought Aesop's Fables were often very libertarian in their message.

For instance "The Ant and the Grasshopper" illustrates what happens to the self-reliant who are prepared for the future vs. the lazy who don't prepare. And the story of the Scorpion asking the Frog to take him over the pond illustrates the folly of dealing with those who live by brute force. Maybe a bit intense for little kids, but not sinister.

But as history mostly repeats it self, probably pertenant reading.

So I will look them up, see what I see.

Cool. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I've read The 48 Laws of Power and part of The Art of Seduction. Plus, I've looked over The 33 Strategies of War and it looks fascinating.

The subject matter can be grim, but if people are ever to live free and in peace, they must learn of these topics, so they can reverse-engineer and defeat their enemies.

hunter63
02-25-2008, 01:56 PM
Amen, what you said.

Badger
03-28-2008, 07:07 AM
Rangers lead the way. ALL THE WAY!

edward_4576
03-29-2008, 04:54 AM
This may not be relevent but two posts up folks were talking about fables and brought up one I knew from childhood. However times have cahnged ...

Subject: story of ant and grasshopper

This has a different twist to the story we have all read before....

Two Different Versions! Two Different Morals!

OLD VERSION: The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the
summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!


-------------------------------------------

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house
and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands
to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others
are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table
filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is
allowed to suffer so.

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries
when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the
news stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Jesse then has
the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act Retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Be careful how you vote in 2008


;D