The Brattleboro Literary Festival invites you to join us for our first Literary Cocktail Hour of 2025 with Lance Blyth, Command Historian of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command.
Blyth's new book, "Ski, Climb, Fight: The 10th Mountain Division and the Rise of Mountain Warfare," looks at how the 10th Mountain Division of World War II met the challenge of fighting in the mountains, where armies must overcome the challenge via survival strategies and mobility, and how the U.S. military does so today.
There were several Vermonters from the area who were part of the 10th, including those young men with ties to The Putney School, including Bing Briggs, George Heller, Ted Moore, John Quisenberry, Lawrie Brown, and Donald Watt, Jr.
These men underwent rigorous training in rock-climbing and mountain survival at Camp Hale, Colorado, at an elevation of 9,200 feet. "The untrained mountain soldier has two foes – the enemy and the mountain," noted an Army manual written for the division. "But he can make a friend and ally of the mountain by learning to know it. The mountain can give him cover and concealment, points of vantage and control, and even, at times, food, water, and shelter."
Lance R. Blyth is Command Historian of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command. Blyth's new book, Ski, Climb, Fight The 10th Mountain Division and the Rise of Mountain Warfare, looks at how the 10th Mountain Division of World War II met the challenge of fighting in the mountains, where armies must overcome the challenge via survival strategies and mobility, and how the U.S. military does so today. His is also the author of Chiricahua and Janos which received the Weber-Clements Book Prize and examines two centuries of violence in northern Mexico between the Chiricahua Apaches and the Hispanic garrison community of Janos.
Jan 7, 2025, 12 to 1:30 PM
Sarasa Ensemble: the Color BurstJan 10, 2025, 7 to 8:30 PM
Death-Over-DrinksJan 12, 2025, 5 to 6:30 PM