Recognizing the importance of always striving to reduce the mobility-destroying load-bearing requirements of the guerrilla fighter, it is critical to first dispel some long-cherished myths regarding the historical American woodsman-scout. When most Americans consider the archetype of the woodsman-scout, their visualization typically involves a frontiersman (eastern long-hunter or western “mountain man”) slipping silently and effortlessly through the timber, carrying everything he owns in a shoulder-slung “possibles” pouch or a small knapsack slung across his back. This, like the cowboy-plainsman with his bedroll strapped behind the cantle of his saddle, is for the most part, nothing more than Thoreauan mythology.
Prior to the World War Two introduction of realistically practical off-road motorized transport, long-term travel in the backcountry almost always involved the use of livestock for transportation of personnel and logistics. Guerrilla and irregular forces have historically made wide-spread use of the local indigenous beast of burden as well, whenever possible, even as recently as the GWOT (SF made rather extensive use of animal transport in the early days of OEF, thanks to the Northern Alliance's reliance on horseback transportation. Both SOF and conventional forces have continued to make use of pack animals, in various degrees, according to my sources, especially in the more remote, extremely alpine regions of Afghanistan.--J.M.). Nevertheless, for the light-infantry force, the paradigm in large part remains the focused on man-portable sustainment load-bearing equipment, in the form of rucksacks.
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