flying Elvis - Thank you for making the point about the parks being used by military men to study. That is precisely the reason I continue to return there. Being able to understand why so many die in a certain spot or why one side is able to to prevail when all logic tells you it should be otherwise is very important.
The key to understanding many battles is understanding the effects the terrain has on the events. A slight dip in the ground can be enough to allow a large part of a regiment to survive until reinforcements can help turn the tide of a battle. One of our tasks in OCS was to break apart that battle day by day and study it in depth. I can tell you that until I walked the ground, I had no way to apply or truly understand the facts I had learned.
Until I stood on Little Round Top and looked over my left shoulder at that sharp drop I didn't have a good appreciation of exactly why the Confederates could not simply go just around a little further to their right and come up from behind. I didn't need the trees removed to make that particular observation, but other events especially in the area of Devils Den were not so easy to grasp.
If one of our future or current leaders walks away with some insight which allows them to win a battle or engagement or save the lives of their men, then in my opinion it was worth the sacrifice of shade or some trees.
Walking the ground is everything. So are maps. On the Library of Congress website you can log onto 1863 maps of Gettysburg. It's a new feature. If you live on a battlefield like Gettysburg, as I do, and you walk the ground, and you refer to the 1863 maps, you pretty much understand the lay of the land.
I'm fortunate because I live here. The wooded areas that are being desecrated now did not stop me from understanding the terrain features because I've WALKED them.
Modern technological society has so many training aids now, such as topographical maps in three-dimensions. There is no real need in Gettysburg to annihilate 600 acres of trees and other vegetation to get one's point across. Leave the land as it is -- it's been renewed by a bloody sacrifice once, which is enough.