Erik's Social Media Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Erikhistorian
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikthehistorian
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikvillard/
In this episode, we discuss the following topics.
*How Erik became a military historian
*Roleplaying games as training for military historians
*Which military historians influenced Erik most
*Becoming a digital military historian
*The creation of Vietnamwarhistoryorg
*What Erik’s ideal training for future military historians would look like
*Making military history useful to operational commands
*The US Army’s History and Heritage efforts
*Those Center for Military History (CMH) projects Erik finds most rewarding
*The challenges of writing official military history
*The monograph review process at CMH
*How studying military history provides literacy in evaluating sources
*The claim that military history is under siege in US universities
*Some of the giants of Vietnam War historiography in the English-speaking world
*Historical works that Erik recommends for US small unit leaders
*Small unit military history
*Unit historians (“5X” in the US Army)
*General William Westmoreland’s strategy in Vietnam
*Friction between Army and Marine Corps commands
*The controversy of Westmoreland’s single air manager concept
*1st Cavalry Division and 101st Airborne Division units in the Battle for Hue
*The possibility of North Vietnam capitulating
*Whether or not the US lost any battles during the war
*Why the Army lost the lessons of Vietnam
*Requests for historical materials in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom
*The poor state of record keeping in US commands during the Global War on Terror
*Some of Erik’s solutions to that problem
Links
Combat Operations: Staying the Course, October 1967 to September 1968 by Erik Villard
The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue City by Erik Villard