S4 Bonus Bill Allison - Georgia Southern University

09/05/23 • 78 min

As we prepare to kick off Season 4, by popular demand and return of the favor today Brian interviews Bill! Bill Allison is Professor of History and former chair of the Department of History at Georgia Southern University. He started his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of St. Francis (Indiana) and then spent several years at Weber State University. Bill earned a BA and MA in History at East Texas State University and took his PhD at Bowling Green State University, where he started as a diplomatic historian before embracing military history. He has done several stints in professional military education, first as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Strategy and International Security at the USAF Air War Colle,ge followed by a Distinguished Professorship in Military History at the USAF School for Advanced Air and Space Studies. From 2012-2014, he was General Harold K. Johnson Visiting Chair in Military History at the US Army War College.

Bill is the author of several books, including My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War (Johns Hopkins), Military Justice in Vietnam: The Rule of Law in an American War (University Press of Kansas), and The Gulf War, 1990-1991 (Palgrave). His first book, American Diplomats in Russia: Case Studies in Orphan Diplomacy, 1916-1919 (Praeger) was published in 1997. He is co-author with Janet Valentine and the late Jeffrey Grey of American Military History: A Survey from Colonial Times to the Present (Routledge), which is now in its third edition.

Bill's professional service is a sign of his dedication to our profession. He is a former Trustee and Vice-President of the Society for Military History and was awarded the Society's Edwin Simmons Award for Distinguished Service in 2019. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Military History and is series editor for Routledge's Critical Moments in American History Series and Modern War Studies at the University Press of Kansas. In 2014, he was awarded the Department of the Army's Meritorious Public Service Medal. In June 2023, Bill served as the Program Director at the Society for Military History Summer Seminar in Military History, held at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, and he is a current member of the Department of the Army's Historical Advisory Subcommittee.

Join us for a fun and interesting chat with one of the co-hosts of Military Historians are People, Too! We'll talk growing up in East Texas, Vietnam, music, guitars, blocked algebra memories, reinventing yourself, and Rudy's BBQ in Texas!

Rec.: 08/18/2023

Rec.: 08/18/2023

Previous Episode

S3E25 Charles Bowery - US Army Center of Military History

To close out Season 3 (and our 75th overall episode!), our guest today is retired US Army colonel Charles R. Bowery, Jr. Charles, the Executive Director of the US Army Center of Military History and Chief of Military History at Ft. McNair in Washington, DC. He oversees all historical matters in the Department of the Army and the twenty-nine Army museums, including the National Museum of the United States Army. He also advises the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the Army and other Army Senior Leaders on historical background relevant to events and projected actions affecting the Army. This included advising the recent Naming Commission.

Charles earned a BA in History at the College of William and Mary and his MA in History at North Carolina State University. He is currently finishing his PhD in History at George Washington University, with a dissertation titled “Black Officers in Army Green: African American Officers in the All-Volunteer Army, 1973-2020.” Charles is the author of The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, 1864-1865 (Praeger) and Lee and Grant: Profiles in Leadership From the Battlefields of Virginia (American Management Association). He is also the co-editor with Ethan S. Rafuse of The Army War College Guide to the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign (University Press of Kansas).

Charles has conducted staff rides at American Revolution, Civil War, and American World War I & II battlefields. He has been awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Award, the Legion of Merit, the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award, and the General George C. Marshall Award. Charles is also a retired colonel in the United States Army, where he taught history at West Point but spent much of his career as a Master Army Aviator (helicopters!) and Parachutist. His deployments included Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He has earned numerous commendations, including three Bronze Star medals.

This is a very interesting and informative episode. Join us as we chat with Charles about growing up in rural Virginia near the Seven Days battlefields, making career choices, flying helicopters, the Tom Glavine, INXS, and the myriad challenges facing Army historians today.

75 episodes! Thanks, everyone, for the support and for listening!

Rec.: 07/28/2023

Next Episode

S4E01 Paul Huddie - University College, Dublin

To kick off Season 4, we welcome to The Pod Paul Huddie of University College, Dublin. Paul is a European Research Council Project Manager at University College, Dublin, for European Research Council initiatives, including the Age of Civil Wars project. He is also a member of the UCD Centre for War Studies. He previously served as Research Programmes Administrator at UCD and was a lecturer at the University of West London. Paul received his BA and MA degrees at University College Dublin and his PhD at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Paul is the author of The Crimean War and Irish Society (Liverpool) and the forthcoming Military Charities in Victorian and Edwardian Britain & Ireland: A New Directory (Pen & Sword). He has published articles in British Journal for Military History, Mariner’s Mirror, Women’s History Review, and Irish Economic and Social History. Paul is at the forefront of military welfare history, and in 2023 he co-edited a special edition of War & Society on the subject with Amy Carney. He is working on an edited volume with Amy Rutenberg and Anndal Narayanan, titled Military Welfare History: The Third Field of Warfare History. Paul’s work has been supported by the Dublin City Council, the Royal Historical Society, and the British Association for Victorian Studies. In 2013, he was awarded the Crimean War Research Society’s President’s Trophy.

A former Irish Defense Forces Reservist, Paul is an Executive Member of the Irish Association of Professional Historians and the coordinator of the International Network for Crimean War Studies and the new Military Welfare History Network.

Join us for a rainy-day-in-Dublin chat with Paul Huddie - we’ll talk attending a rugby school in Dublin, being a bookie runner as a kid, the field of military welfare history studies, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Dermott Kennedy, among other pertinent issues!

Rec.: 07/26/2023