Society For Military History @ VMI

Well, here I am at VMI for the next few days.  I must admit I have a strange feeling here thanks to my very close contact with the Citadel.  I made a point not to bring any Citadel wear as I think that would be rude.

The campus is well done, the parade ground VERY large and nicely kept.  At the moment it is in much better shape that the parade deck at the 'del.  Not sure why as each are used for the whole year for training. 

I had a wonderful chat with the VMI Sergeant Major, Neel.  He is an 82nd Airborne guy and have been here for the last 10 years.  Great guy, great example of what the Army is. 

The conference, for me,  kicked off today with an interesting sessions on Logistics from the last 1700s to the Civil War.  Nicely done.

Then a session in the George C. Marshall Library on the Army in the Pacific during WWII.  It started with an informative overview of Army education in the inter-war years.  Then Pete Mansoor (some of you may know of him) spoke about the 1st Cavalry in the Pacific.  It was one of the premier divisions there.

In the afternoon, I attended a session chaired by Rob Citino  called: "What is Victory?"  All the presenters are from USMA and they provided a comprehensive picture of the difficultly of defining victory in the current war.

I finished my session day with a wonderful discussion of the Southern way of War.  I especially enjoyed Susannah Ural's paper on The Texas Brigade and the Lost Cause.

I also went to the VMI museum and the Washington & Lee chapel where Lee and all teh distinguished members of his family are buried, including Traveller!

I will be posting pictures on Facebook when I get back.  As an aside, I HATE typing on a lap top so apologies for the shorten comments.

Tomorrow it is off to the New Market battlefield where cadets from VMI played fought and died and played a pivotal role.,

I worked all day Sunday re-reading my draft. I am not quite done but getting there. Later this week, I will be mailing it to Al Nofi and Susannah Ural, both outstanding historians in the hopes that they can get me on the right track, presentation & style wise. Susannah works at Southern Miss. where she is an Associate Professor & Senior fellow @ the Center for the Study of War & Society. We met a about 4? years ago at a conference. Al, well I have known him quite a while. He is now retired from teaching but is not really retired (after all, what teacher can afford to do so?). He has his hands in many endeavors: writes for StrategyWorld.com, has numerous publications to his credit, back in the day he designed numerous wargames with Jim Dunnigan and others, he is also a defense consultant and, unless it has changed, currently works for the Navy. He helped my students in Texas on a few projects as well; most notably a trip to Bracketville, TX and the "John Wayne" Alamo where we worked on a project for the Institute of Texan Cultures. I will also be sending various excerpts to others including Tom Parson at the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center.

On the downhill side and hope to have the "final" draft for AMU by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.

Keep History Alive.

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