Military History: Field Of Study

“For the Common Defense, a military history of the United States from 1607-2012” is a military historic book written by Allan R. Millet, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis. Millet is a historian and a retired colonel of the Marine Corps. Maslowski is a professor at the University of Nebraska. Feis is a professor at Buena Vista University. This book was published in September 2012. It focuses on chronologically describing the changes of the United States military for over 400 years. Even though that is the main purpose, it does include political information. Although this book does not have an exact thesis, its purpose is to inform readers of the creation and enhancements of the US military. At almost 700 pages, this book educates about

John Lynn, on the other hand, tries to conceptualize the relationship between practical dimensions of war and cultural factors. Although he tries to undermine Victor Hanson?s idea of war, he discusses the realities of combat and discourse of war based on social and political

The psychological effects, the mentality of fighting and killing another human, and the sheer decimation of human values is what makes war atrocious. War is not only fought on the battlefield though. This book also describes the feelings of a soldier fighting his own demons that war has brought on. The battle that the soldier has with himself, is almost if not more damaging than the physical battle of war. He will never forget his experience with battle, no matter how hard he tries the memories of artillery, blood, and death cannot be erased. “I prayed like you to survive, but look at me now. It is over for us who are dead, but you must struggle, and will carry the memories all your life. People back home will wonder why you can't forget.” (Sledge). This struggle still happens to soldiers today. Sledge’s words of the struggles still captures the effects of warfare that lingers today. The other effects that war has on the men is the instability that surrounds them at every hour of the day. They are either engaged in battle having bullets and artillery fired at them, or waiting for battle just so they can be deposited back in the pressure cooker of survival. “Lying in a foxhole sweating out an enemy artillery or mortar barrage or waiting to dash across open ground under machine-gun or artillery fire defied any concept of time.”

The study of history and the teaching of history has come under intense public debate in the United States in the last few decades. The “culture-wars” began with the call to add more works by non-Caucasians and women and has bled into the study of history. Not only in the study of history or literature, this debate has spread into American culture like wildfire.

When most people of think of war, they generally think of the glorified aspects. Love and violence. Or perhaps their minds are drawn to an image of a soldier’s homecoming: A father embracing his son, crying tears of joy, all while the solider relays his experiences of the war among celebratory decorations. He is now considered a hero. But what difficulties has he faced to get there? This is the side of war that many of us don’t recognize. In the memoir, A Long Way Gone, author and protagonist, Ishmael Beah, experiences civil war and its effects first hand when he is forced into becoming a child soldier in the poor third world country of Sierra Leone. As the novel progresses, Ishmael becomes increasingly addicted to drugs,

Not every man who 's fought in a war planned on doing so. In fact, not all of them even want to. It 's rare to find enough people voluntarily willing to lay down their lives for their country, so more often than not militaries used what we would call “citizen soldiers.” Citizen soldiers are exactly what they sound like, regular citizens taken from society and turned into people capable of serving in the military. Although it may seem obvious when plainly written out, citizen soldiers had vastly different experiences compared to career soldiers, and Stephen Ambrose attempted to pin down that specific experience in his book Citizen Soldier. Ambrose uses oral interviews from World War II veterans and other materials to explain the experiences of the common American soldier who served in WWII between D-Day and the eventual surrender of the German forces. However, when examining his book, it 's important to ask how successful Ambrose was in painting an accurate picture of this kind of soldier 's life during his service. Is the information he uses specific to the men who served in Europe, or can it also be linked back to the soldiers in the Pacific? This paper will evaluate his work by comparing it to oral interviews from WWII veterans both from the same areas that Ambrose 's veterans serve in and in locations not included in his work.

Remembering a Forgotten war by Donald R. Hickey 2012, an academic journal, talks about the military history where by people were subjected to a difficult and different lifestyle than the one they were used too at that time.

Even though soldiers are able to distract themselves from the horrors that they witness on the front, war psychologically damages them and creates the “lost generation”. The young men find it increasingly difficult to think and act with the mindset of a civilian. In war, the men only experience despair, death, and fear, so their mind is enveloped by negative thoughts that

The New Western Historians such as Patricia Nelson, William Cronon, Donald Worster, Walter Webb and Walter Nugent have different views of the West. They believe the West is not a process and not a place that civilization took a place. The West is the place that like other regions such as the South, the Midwest we can set no boundaries. As Patricia Nelson mentioned, “recognized the history of the West is a study of a place undergoing conquest and never fully escaping its consequences” (Patricia Nelson, p. 8). The West as a place instead of process explains the migratory. Immigration could never have been explained by calling the West as a process or the frontier. Patricia Limerick sees the West as another chapter in Europe’s enlargement

Historiography is the writing of the past. It is also the study of the way history events has been written by historians with their perspective and interpretations. As everything is interpreted to each owns perspective, some parts of history could have been skewed while being written with biases and favoritism according to the authors. We all understand things slight differently according to how we were raised, social and culture background, experiences, etc.

In this essay, I will discuss how Tim O’Brien’s works “The Things They Carried” and “If I Die in a Combat Zone” reveal the individual human stories that are lost in war. In “The Things They Carried” O’Brien reveals the war stories of Alpha Company and shows how human each soldier is. In “If I Die in a Combat Zone” O’Brien tells his story with clarity, little of the dreamlike quality of “Things They Carried” is in this earlier work, which uses more blunt language that doesn’t hold back. In “If I Die” O’Brien reveals his own personal journey through war and what he experienced. O’Brien’s works prove a point that men, humans fight wars, not ideas. Phil Klay’s novel “Redeployment” is another novel that attempts to humanize soldiers in war. “Redeployment” is an anthology series, each chapter attempts to let us in the head of a new character – set in Afghanistan or in the United States – that is struggling with the current troubles of war. With the help of Phil Klay’s novel I will show how O’Brien’s works illustrate and highlight each story that make a war.

While the definition of historiography has been slightly amended over time, ‘the study of the way history has been and is written’ appears to be the approved meaning.1 Essentially, from my understanding, historiography is the evaluation of interpretations by historians over time. For example, Geoffrey de Villehardouin’s Memoirs of the Fourth Crusades stands out as a prominent historical foundation, as very few written accounts of the Crusades describe the political, economic, religious and military events preceding up to, and subsequently succeeding, from a [the] first person standpoint.2 Memoirs of the Fourth Crusade is thus reviewed as a uniquely distinguishable, primary source that affords historians with an incomparable written record

From reviewing the questions from my professor, I gained a wider knowledge about the state of historians, improvements in the gathering of resources, and some great methods to conduct research. Over the last decades, it seems as if change in methodology and inclusivity has occurred. This is a great asset to historians or anyone in general because it opens more historical topics or more jobs. This may affect the future of the historic field, for the use is not as limited.

Historiography in a brief definition is the record of what is known about the past and a number of interpretations through scholarly criticism. It focuses on historical research as it is constantly changing. Most of the interpretations before the nineteen sixties dealt with politics. It is through socials movements that scholarly literature began to include social, cultural, racial, gender and countercultural histories. Many people that studied history interpreted it very differently and out of this interpretive schools occurred. These interpretive schools sparked debates which continues to influence history today. Thus, the importance of historiography is that it involves many different views, many different ideologies and many different

It is necessary for military professionals to take the time to study military history, for it aids in not only their personal success but also in the success of the mission at hand. When one understands past failures and the causes, they are able to better wage what necessary actions must be taken to achieve success. Also knowledge is power. The more information a NCO has, the greater ability he has to make decisions which will allow him and his team to operate in a more safe and effective manner. By combining past success and failures with personal experiences, a NCO is better equipped for quick and effective decision making.