Each ICSC(L) course finishes the thirty week course with a Staff Ride of Op MARKET GARDEN. The aim is to tie together all that the course members have learned from their studies and to apply it to a historical context. Students are required to lead discussions at the various locations around Arnhem and Nijmegen. To add colour Arnhem veterans are invited along to explain their perspective of the battles and engagements and explain the planning and execution of the various options that were played out through this both famous and in Montgomery’s analysis ‘85% successful operation’.  For ICSC(L) Cse 4A there was the added benefit of one American student per syndicate from the Intermediate Level Education (ILE) course at Ft Leavenworth Kansas. These students, who worked with ICSC(L) students during Ex EAGLE OWL earlier in the course, came over with two of their DS to give the added perspective on the operations of the 82nd AB and 101st AA Divisions within the operation.

Two days are spent on the ground. The Nijmegen day is spent on buses driving around the landing zones and walking over the ground. The Arnhem day is spent on bicycles riding from the Landing and Drop Zones through the Oosterbeck perimeter locations and then finally down to John Frost Bridge, the now infamous ‘Bridge too Far’, a total of about 18 miles. The exercise is made by the evident research of the students, their application of the lessons learned to the present day,  input from the veterans and the KCL academics and the simple, short yet poignant service held at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in Arnhem at the end of the final day.