Saturday, April 5, 2014

Day Two Almost in the Books

I didn't attend one Civil war session today as none were really offered.  I did however, thoroughly enjoy the day so far.  The first session I attended was The War of 1812: Insights on generalship and the Operation Art in 1814.  Few even remember that we are celebrating the 200 anniversary of that war.  Most interesting presenter was Steve Rauch, Cyber Center of Excellence historian. He is a personal friend I mine as Jim Timmerman and I used to work for him capturing the history of GWOT for the Signal Corps.  He spoke on the war in Georgia something I was not aware of.

Second sessions was Intelligence in WWII and I ran into Lori Tagg, MI school historian from ft. Huachuca.  I worked for her producing historical documentaries for the past 2 years.  Most interesting talk was about Intelligence (or perhaps the lack there of) in Operation Market Garden.  I fully agree that Monty and he crew developed tunnel vision and relied too much on a single source for intel, Ultra. 

Third session dealt with Memory, Victory, and Defeat.  Curious thing, deja vous actually, for some reason one presenter was delivering his same presentation form a year or two ago about Misconceptions About the Tuskegee Airmen. Why?

Final session dealt with the evolution of amphibious warfare.  Serhat Guvenc from Kadir Has University, did a wonderful presentation on the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.  I was interested to hear how daylight savings time on Cyprus and the lack thereof in Turkey effected the operation.  Douglas Nacsh of the Marine Corps University did a good job of presenting the evolution of amphibious warfare in the Pacific, something I always ask my WWII students about.

Tonight is the annual dinner and the speaker will be GEN Anthony Zinni (RET). Should be a good time.

One session early tomorrow and then it is off to the airport.

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