The Roving Historian

The National Museum of American History

2012-01-16T14:50:00.001-05:00

Post-holiday winter doldrums? Us too. Sheila and I needed an excellent adventure. Luckily, January is a great time to take in a museum, especially in Washington, DC. Yes, it's cold, cold, cold! But it beats melting in the heat of the National Mall during the summer and you can't beat the crowds, because there aren't any. So the road trip was on. This weekend we drove down and took in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

I'll be the first to admit that there is so much there that it is hard to see everything in one day. On this trip we spent a lot of time in the exhibits "America on the Move" and "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War." There are some really interesting artifacts there (understatement, duh). For some reason I found General Phillip Sheridan's stuffed horse "Winchester" to be fascinating. I guess it's one of those situations where you feel a direct link to the past. I'm looking at a horse, albeit a stuffed one, that was ridden during the Civil War. Don't ask why I didn't get excited over George Custer's buckskin jacket or George Washington's saber. We each find our own connection to history, right? Turns out, the Smithsonian is a good place to go look for it.

I must add that since I've written a book about the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion and I am currently working on researching the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, I found the WWII display particularly appealing.

I'm not a travel writer, but here's a tip for you. Rather than eat at the museum cafeteria, or pay high prices for bad food at one of the "restaurants" in the neighborhoods that surround the mall, go inside the Ronald Reagan building (14th Street between Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues). There is a food court in the lower level much like a nice shopping mall. A Subway sandwich and the best mocha latte since we moved from Seattle really hit the spot.

But here's a warning for you as well, sometimes going to one place will just require that you go to another. Now that we have seen the original "Star Spangled Banner," we are compelled to go visit Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Well, maybe when it warms up. ;-)

Photography is not allowed in this exhibit. Photos of the Star Spangled Banner
are provided courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Doing the Appalachian Trail

2012-01-10T10:10:00.000-05:00

In case you are not on the east coast, I will tell you that the weather here in Pennsylvania has been unseasonably mild this winter. Therefore, needing to take a break from reading about airborne operations in the Pacific during WWII, the girls (the wife Sheila and the cattle dog Sydney) and I decided to take a walk on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail last weekend. We had never been on the “AT” even though in passes right through Cumberland County between Carlisle and Mechanicsburg, around five miles from where I live.

Again, for those not in the know, the AT is a hiking trail that runs from Springer Mountain in north Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Folks who cover the entire 2,184 miles (approximately) in one summer hiking season are referred to as “thru-hikers.” If you aim to complete the whole thing, but not in one season, you are a “section hiker.” The rest of us, are just hikers. The trail is one of the “Triple Crown” of long distance hiking trails in the United States. The others are the Pacific Crest Trail at 2,663 miles and the Continental Divide Trail at 3,100 miles.

For a very entertaining read and to find out more than you ever wanted to know about the AT, check out “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson. Or for an even quicker history of the trail, read the Wikipedia article. The idea for the trail was advanced by forester Benton MacKaye in 1921. The trail was completed in 1937. In 1968 the AT was designated a National Scenic Trail and placed under the management of the National Park Service in partnership with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. However, the trail is maintained by volunteers from more than 30 trail clubs and partner organizations who do the work and raise the money. In fact, a new parking area was created on Hwy 641 between Mechanicsburg and Carlisle through the work of the Cumberland Valley A.T. Club. I passed by this new feature on my way to the AHEC last week, and that is what prompted me to go for our little walk. Also, my thanks to the Susquehanna Appalachian Trail Club for the map graphic of the Appalachian Trail, and for providing an online listing of hiking opportunities in south-central Pennsylvania. ;-)

So we finally "did the AT." Admittedly, we didn’t do the whole 2,184 miles last weekend. We really only did four. But it was a great way to get out and get some fresh air and exercise in order to chase away the post-holiday winter blues. And now, we can say, “Oh sure, we’ve done the AT.” What? Like it’s hard?

Oh, by the way, I had to throw this picture in at the last minute. I love how you get over a fence on the AT. -->

"The Boldest Plan is the Best" now available on Kindle

2012-01-02T15:01:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year everyone! 2012? How did that happen?! Well, Sheila and I are happy to start off the New Year with some good news. We're excited to announce that The Boldest Plan is the Best: The Combat History of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion during WWII is now available in a Kindle edition.
I've been hesitant to try out any form of e-reader. I'm old school and I like my books, to hold in my hands while I read them and to display them on the shelf when you're done. You can tell a lot about a person by the books that they read, and when I go to someone's house the first thing I do is check out what books they have on the shelf.
All that being said, as I see it there are several advantages to owning a Kindle. First of all, most books are cheaper in the Kindle version. Some are only a couple of dollars cheaper, some are much more. The Kindle version of The Boldest Plan is the Best is half the cover price of a print copy. Amazon carries a lot of free content, mostly classic literature that is in the public domain and start-up authors who give away their work to gather a following. Amazon also makes Kindle editions available to local libraries to loan electronically. You can fit literally thousands of books on your Kindle device and carry it with you anywhere. It is light and very portable to the point where I must admit that I prefer to have one with me when I'm out of the house rather than carrying a book along.
So like anything else in this world, there are positives and negatives. But the bottom line is that if you are a book lover who has been thrust into the twenty-first century by Santa this Christmas, enjoy!

THOMAS online, brought to you by the Library of Congress

2011-12-19T14:32:00.000-05:00

I really enjoy finding a new resource on the web. Sometimes it’s kind of a Homer Simpson moment though (“Doh!”), when I think I should have known about this thing earlier. Thanks to a blog post about the Federalist Papers by my friend Paul over at History Delivered, I discovered THOMAS, brought to you by the wonderful folks at your Library of Congress. I thought I would share it with you here.

THOMAS, named for Thomas Jefferson, is the section of the Library of Congress website that provides a bit of transparency to our government. Here’s an explanation from the site’s About page: “THOMAS was launched in January of 1995, at the inception of the 104^th Congress. The leadership of the 104^th Congress directed the Library of Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the public.”

The site provides all of the legislative information you could want to get your eyes on, so you don’t have to suffer the biased summations of the media, whatever your political philosophy. On this site you can read the real text of bills and resolutions that our Congress is debating, along with treaties, the Congressional Record, and more (not to mention the Federalist Papers). The site has actually been around since 1995. Realizing that and having not looked into it sooner is definitely one of my Homer Simpson moments. But who has time for all of this reading? Well, perhaps I do watch too much television, but since all of my favorite shows are in repeats, the holiday season is an excellent time to do a little extra reading and research. ;-)

A Significant Pearl Harbor Day

2011-12-06T13:46:00.000-05:00

My thanks to Barry Simpson from the 509^th Parachute Infantry Association for posting a link via Facebook to a newspaper article in the Birmingham Press Register. This was how I found out that this year will make the last formal December 7^th ceremony for the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association chapters around the country. This is the 70^th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. With most of their members in their nineties, and fewer and fewer able to attend events, the national organization and many local chapters plan to disband on December 31^st of this year.

I find this news saddens me more than I thought it would. December 7^th is not only “Pearl Harbor Day,” but also signals the anniversary of the United States’ entry to the Second World War. As a student of this war, the most tumultuous event of the twentieth century that set the stage for the Cold War and formed our current international landscape, I hope that despite the passing of our veterans we will continue to honor the day and remember the sacrifice.

War Diaries and Green Berets

2011-11-18T14:18:00.001-05:00

War Diaries

I’m thrilled at the positive response to The Boldest Plan isthe Best: The Combat History of the 509th Parachute InfantryBattalion during WWII. We’ve had some positive feedback from readers, and the most exciting is the letters I’ve received from two WWII veterans that I had not heard from prior to the release of the book. I’ve also had an email from the son of a 509^th veteran who was looking for more detailed information on his dad’s service. This last item is what prompted us to add another primary source document to the website. The S-3 Journal and the Headquarters Company War Diary for November 1943 has been posted. These documents cover the period of time that the gingerbread men were on Mt. Croce in the Venafro area of Italy.

So what is a “war diary”? Military units down to the company level are required to keep a daily journal of their activities during periods of combat. They are focused on the administration and operations of the unit, and as such often list the names of soldiers killed and wounded, or returned or departed for leave, school, or hospital. However, that is not a requirement and just as often the document will only list numbers. These journals are found at the National Archives and Records Administration along with After Action Reports, Operations Orders, and other official documents. Together with veteran’s oral histories tell the story of what a military unit did in combat to complete the historical record and help the military improve its training and doctrine.

50 Years of Green Berets

November 17^th marks the 50^th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy authorizing Special Forces to wear the distinctive green beret. The Special Forces were formed in 1952, but the President personally approved the wearing of their unique headgear in 1961. I note that date here because two of the former commanders of the 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion, Colonel Edson Raff and Lieutenant General William Yarborough, were instrumental in bringing about the President’s authorization. That story is contained in the epilogue of "The Boldest Plan is the Best," so I won't post it again here. An article in Army Times tells us, though, that even though the Green Berets have expanded their 8,500 man force by 1,000 over the last four years they might have to fight for their share of the budget pie. We’re reminded that the Special Forces were formed for the express purpose of training indigenous troops and conducting counter insurgency operations. Let’s keep our terminology straight: Army Green Berets are officially designated “Special Forces.” They and any other organization that performs a special mission from any other service branch (like Navy Seals) are collectively called “special operations” units.

For those that might be wondering, let me save you the time of looking up the history of the other colors of berets worn by the American Army. Of course, the maroon beret was authorized for wear by the 509^th Parachute Infantry Battalion in 1942 as honorary members of the British Parachute Regiment. However, that headgear was never officially recognized as a uniform item by the American Army. Berets of various colors were worn unofficially be various special operations units during Korea and Vietnam. In 1973, as a morale building venture, local commanders were allowed to approve distinctive headgear for their command. As a result airborne units chose to wear a maroon beret while the ranger battalions wore a black beret. Non-standardization in other units (like the cav wearing their Stetsons) prompted the policy on headgear to be rescinded temporarily in 1979. By 1980 the regulation was in place for airborne units to wear the maroon and rangers to wear the black beret. As another move to boost the morale of conventional units, the Army chose to make the black beret a standard uniform item for all soldiers in 2001. In that year, the rangers switched to a tan beret. The color was chosen to honor the buckskin berets worn by the original Roger’s Rangers of the French and Indian War. The airborne continues to wear the maroon beret and Special Forces the green.

The “High Water Mark” of the Confederacy

2011-10-27T11:03:00.000-04:00

The phrase “high water mark of the Confederacy” is traditionally applied to Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. It’s meaning is that before the assault there was hope for a Confederate victory and after the charge was repulsed the “tide had been turned” and the South was rolled back like the tides to their eventual capitulation. However, if we look at the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania from strictly a geographical perspective, then the “high water mark” would have to be the farthest penetration north by Confederate military forces. That point just happens to be very near my home in Mechanicsburg – Camp Hill area of Cumberland County. So, after procrastinating for some months I finally got out early on a Sunday morning to go see how these locations are remembered. For a complete history of Civil War events in Cumberland County, visit www.cumberlandcivilwar.com.

During the Gettysburg Campaign in the summer of 1863, Confederate General Richard Ewell moved his corps north from Chambersburg through the Cumberland Valley lead by General Albert Jenkin’s cavalry brigade. Faced with overwhelming odds, the Union forces in Carlisle withdrew to defend the approaches to Harrisburg. On June 28, 1863, Mechanicsburg, about ten mile east of Carlisle, was the northernmost town to surrender to Confederate forces. The Rupp House, just outside of Mechanicsburg at the time, was occupied as headquarters for General Jenkins. A monument commemorating Jenkins and his Confederate cavalry is now located at the location (an office building at 5115 Trindle Road in Mechanicsburg).

Union forces set up defenses on the west side of the Susquehanna to protect the approaches to Harrisburg, about five miles northeast of Mechanicsburg. Under the command of Major General Darius Couch built two earthwork forts on Washington Heights (then known as Hummel’s Heights) in today’s community of Lemoyne, overlooking Harrisburg across the Susquehanna River. Fort Washington was the main fortification was located in an area around Cumberland Road between Walnut and Indiana Avenues. (I found no commemoration of the fort, but it’s a nice neighborhood.) A few blocks west was built a smaller, forward position that was dubbed Fort Couch. Honoring Fort Couch is a large monument and remains of the earthworks set aside in a small park at 8^th Street and Indiana Avenue. This park is surrounded by residences on all sides and there is no dedicated parking. Unfortunately with the urban growth you can’t see the approach that General Couch would have seen, but you can certainly appreciate the military significance of the positions on Hummel’s Heights.

Pennsylvania State Historic Markers commemorating the northernmost skirmishes are a little harder to spot if you are whizzing by in your car. Two small engagements took place between Mechanicsburg and Lemoyne. On June 28, General Jenkins sent a small force to engage Union militia units that fled Mechanicsburg as the Confederates entered the town. The Union troops set up a battery of artillery and a hasty defense at Oyster Point, a tavern located on Market at 31^st Street in Camp Hill. The Confederates returned the next day with a larger force, but could not dislodge the Yankees. The engagement at Oyster Point was probably a diversion to cover Jenkins reconnaissance of the river crossings to Harrisburg from Slate Hill in New Cumberland. The state marker was hard to spot. It was a foggy morning and the sign was hidden behind some trees. I’ve probably driven past it at least eight times without ever noticing it before.

On June 30^th two New York militia regiments supported by a battery of Pennsylvania artillery engaged two Virginia cavalry regiments around the McCormick farmhouse, just north of Mechanicsburg along the Carlisle Pike. This engagement became known as the skirmish at Sporting Hill. There is a state marker at the corner of Sporting Hill Road and the Carlisle Pike. It’s a busy intersection, but you can pull into the parking lot of the “Ye Old Ale House” and walk out to the corner to read the marker. Sporting Hill was the northernmost engagement in the Gettysburg Campaign, and as such can be called the high water mark of the Confederacy. In fact, Pennsylvania historian Robert Grant dubbed it so in his article “Highwater 1863: The Confederate Approach to Harrisburg” in Pennsylvania History, 1963 (placed online courtesy of ExplorePAHistory.com).

Sporting Hill can be considered a Union victory, in that the Confederates left the field. But in all fairness, their hurried departure was due to Ewell’s orders to move his corps to Gettysburg, the famous battle kicking off the next day. The Cumberland County Visitors Bureau has produced an excellent self-guided tour brochure/map for “The Civil War on the West Shore.” It is available in pdf for download. Get the full feel of the Gettysburg Campaign by taking this tour. It’s worth it.

There You Have It

2011-10-12T13:23:00.007-04:00

One of the reasons I named this blog “The Roving Historian” is that not only do I like to travel and live in different areas of the country, but I have an eclectic mix of historical interests as well. I enjoy military history from any era and usually buy books along those lines, but occasionally I “rove on over” to business, social, and political history as well. Though I have to admit that other than watching Ken Burns’ documentary on baseball; I have never ventured into the area of sports history before. This week that changed a little bit when I read “There You Have It: the life, legacy, and legend of Howard Cosell” by John Bloom.

I took a couple of classes from Dr. John Bloom going on five years ago, when I was going through the masters program at Shippensburg University. When I saw that he was the author of this book about sportscaster Howard Cosell, I wanted to give it a try even though I'm not a fan of sports history. I'm glad that I did. Stepping out of the comfort zone once in a while is not a bad thing. It was a really good read.

I grew up with Howard Cosell, Monday Night Football, Wide World of Sports, and Muhammed Ali. However I was not aware that behind the scenes of what, until I read this book, I considered to be simply sports entertainment programming, was a demonstration of social change at work. I was unaware that Howard Cosell was the first broadcaster to acknowledge Muhammed Ali's name change from Cassius Clay, nor did I ever stop to recognize Cosell's further support of civil rights. I was also unaware of the prejudices against Mr. Cosell's ethnicity that had to be overcome for him to rise to his position in sports broadcasting. Quite frankly, it never occurred to me that Howard Cosell was Jewish, or that it mattered. Things have certainly changed in the last forty years, and some credit can be given to Mr. Cosell.

For this work the author went to the source and interviewed members of Howard Cosell's family, and legends in the field of sportscasting like Frank Deford, Keith Jackson, Frank Gifford, and others. John Bloom has expertly weaved together a work of popular sports history with academic social analysis. The best evidence I can provide is that the book lead to a lively discussion about 70's sports around my house. If it makes you talk about it, it must be a good book.

Government Funding Is Not Always Required

2011-10-05T14:26:00.001-04:00

I’m always impressed when I hear of people preserving history through voluntary efforts. In these times of shrinking budgets the monumental task of honoring and caring for our historical sites and records does not lessen. Just many archives, museums, and historic sites have volunteer programs and use unpaid college interns. Volunteers working under the guidance of paid history professionals have my appreciation and thanks for the donation of their time. But here I have some examples of groups and individuals who take on their chosen task without pay, training, or supervision.

The group we started in Seattle called the Friends of the Ballard Locks is still working hard. While they have points of contact with the Corps of Engineers, the operating agency for the Hiram Chittenden Locks and the Carl English Botanical Garden on the Seattle Ship Canal, there is no trained history or archive professional available to provide guidance and supervision. However, local people in the community saw the need for organizing archival materials and artifacts that have to do with the facility and have stepped up to donate their time and often their money for out of pocket expenses. When they are in need of professional opinion, they seek it through contacts at surrounding museums and archives. The FOBL does not have a budget, because they don’t need one. All they really need, and always welcome, is new volunteers. Read about how the FOBL is doing at their website and blog: www.friendsoftheballardlocks.org.

I saw an article recently in the local paper in Carlisle, Pennsylvania that the Molly Pitcher monument needed some work. Molly was a legendary figure here in the Cumberland Valley. The story goes that Molly got her nickname by carrying a pitcher of water to soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth on July 28, 1778. When her husband, who was part of a cannon crew, was wounded during heavy fighting, Molly stepped in to take his place. A statue and cannon are placed at her grave in the old Carlisle cemetery on South Street. For a number of years the Sunrise Rotary Club volunteers to landscape around the monument. And when the statue needed maintenance and the cannon needed a new coat of paint, that organization of local businessmen stepped up and raised the money to get it done.

I recently became aware of Jack Loveday’s website, www.hqco9thmarines.com. Jack is a marine veteran of Headquarters Company, 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division during Vietnam (also, Jack’s dad was a veteran of the 509th PIB during WWII). Jack put together this website that has brought together, in his estimation, about a hundred veterans from his unit. That is awesome on its own, but what impressed me the most was that the site is a treasure trove of pictures, videos, and primary sources like rosters and unit logs. The website has a professional look and straightforward navigation that makes these resources easy to find. If I was researching the 9th Marines in Vietnam, I would refer to this site. Well done, Jack.

So my suggestion is this: a large amount of government funding is not always required in a history project. Don’t wish that someone would do the thing that you plainly see needs to be done. Volunteer and get others to volunteer. Remember the old saying, “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

News items: Reenactors and reviews

2011-09-19T13:31:00.003-04:00

I have the utmost respect for historical reenactors. Whether they are working at a historic site or a private group, these living historians work hard at an accurate portrayal of the period that they are reenacting. They bring history to life for every age group. I would like to give a shout out to one group of World War II reenactors who, as far as I know, are they only group to represent the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion: The 509th Historical Reenactment Group. They will be participating in WWII Days at the Midway Village Museum in Rockford, IL this coming weekend, September 24-25. If you are in the area, check out the event. Or, if you live too far away like me, check out their website soon for some pictures.

Since we released “The Boldest Plan is the Best: The Combat History of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion During WWII” I’ve sweated out the most critical review possible, from my dad. He is a combat veteran of the 187th Regimental Combat Team (Airborne) in Korea, and an avid reader of military history and military historical fiction. He received his copy of “The Boldest Plan is the Best” last Saturday and told me to give him a couple of days to read it, and then he’d give me a critique over the phone. ;-)

One of the best things about the U.S. Army Center for Military History is that just about everything they publish is available online for free download. I wanted to pass along that the latest issue of their journal, Army History, is available online in pdf format. Looks like a great article on the U.S. Cavalry that I’m looking forward to reading. It’s a subject that is near and dear to my own heart.

Blackhorse!

Questions Re: “The Boldest Plan is the Best”

2011-09-06T14:05:00.006-04:00

“The Boldest Plan is the Best: The Combat History of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion During WWII” is now available on Amazon.com. We will soon be launching an “author’s website” with maps and extra pictures that did not make it into the book. More details on that very soon. Sheila and I are thrilled with the response so far. As a matter of fact, I have already received some questions via email that I thought I’d share with you here:

In writing your book, how is it distinguishable from “Stand in the Door” by Charles Doyle and Terrell Stewart? What will I find that is not covered in previous books? Was there anything that you found in your research that was not accurately described in previous accounts?

“Stand in the Door: The Wartime History of the Elite 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion” was written by two veterans of the 509th PIB and published in 1988. It is now out of print and difficult to find short of visiting the AHEC or having your local reference librarian borrow it through WorldCat. The co-authors of the book gathered narratives from many other veterans to tell the story of their experiences during World War II. Stand in the Door was a major reference for “The Boldest Plan is the Best” and as a historian I wish more veterans had undertaken a project for their unit like Doyle and Stewart did. However, Stand in the Door is a veteran’s narrative written for other veterans and their families. I tried to present the story of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion in WWII in a greater historical context for a broader audience. There is also more devoted to the wartime commanders of the 509th PIB: Edson Raff, Doyle Yardley, William Yarborough, and Edmund Tomasik, than I feel was presented in Stand in the Door. You’ll see in the bibliography that I gathered every source available to bring in some voices that aren’t heard in Stand in the Door.

The target audience for “Boldest Plan is the Best” is one that is not necessarily familiar with early airborne, much less the Geronimos. There really is no other “one source” volume, other than perhaps “Stand in the Door,” devoted to the gingerbread men of WWII. Other works of military history mention the 509th Parachute Infantry when they appear at a certain point in their narrative, but I have no knowledge of any other books devoted solely to this unit.

For you military history aficionados, you’ll appreciate that I did find a number of minor differences and discrepancies in, and between, secondary source works by Devlin, Flanagan, and Breuer. But they were minor; mostly in time, date, place, numbers of casualties, etc. The usual, I assume, that would occur in the absence of the volume of primary source documentation that exists with the airborne divisions from WWII, and nothing that would change the course of the story.

I’m always looking forward to your feedback. Feel free to email me at jim@rovinghistorian.com.

Book Released Today!

2011-08-30T17:44:00.007-04:00

The day has finally arrived. Today we released The Boldest Plan is the Best: The Combat History of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion During WWII. I say “we” because a lot of people helped with the book, not the least of which is my wife, Sheila, who did the maps, the cover design, and helped with the proofing and editing.

I’ve been working on this project for about ten months, but a lot longer when if you add in the time I thought about it, talked about it, and casually researched it, before finally sitting down to write it. I haven’t talked a great deal about it on this blog because I wanted to have the project completed before bringing it out to the public. After all, it was bad enough having my dad ask me once a week when the book would be done. ;-)

Before writing this book I had no affiliation to the 509th Parachute Infantry, the “Geronimos,” other than being tortured by some of their members when I went through an air assault school they were running at Fort Rucker, Alabama in 1984. But in 2009 I did meet a former “gingerbread man” by the name of Mike Ponzini of Helper, Utah. Mike told me about the history of the unit and really sold me on the idea. Here’s some points on why this unit history is so compelling:

- They were the first American Airborne unit to deploy to England in WWII.

- They were the first American Airborne unit to make a combat jump during WWII (North Africa).

- The unit fought as an independent battalion alongside other elite units like Darby’s Rangers and the First Special Service Force at Anzio, in southern France, and at the Battle of the Bulge. The 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion was awarded three Presidential Unit Citations during the war. Twice, at Anzio and during the Battle of the Bulge they held off attacks by superior numbers of the enemy, which had they not, would have arguably changed the outcome of the battle.

In the coming weeks I’ll post more information on the 509th PIB and some excerpts from the book. Soon we’ll have a companion website for the book with some extra pictures and copies of some of the primary source documents. In the meantime, I truly hope you’ll give it a read and let me know what you think: jim@rovinghistorian.com.

Pretzels, Chocolate, and History: Lititz, Pennsylvania

2011-08-03T16:46:00.008-04:00

Where has this guy been for two months?! Not roving, I’ll tell you that much. A couple of weeks got shot down when we moved from Hagerstown, MD up to Mechanicsburg, PA. No offense, Maryland, but we like it a lot better up here in Yankee-land. Besides, now I’m only a twenty minute drive from the AHEC!

The rest of the time I’ve been finishing up the manuscript for the book on the 509th Parachute Infantry. When I say “finishing up” I mean editing, which seems like it’s taking as long to do as it did to write the book. We are also now in the layout stage, which means formatting and putting in pictures and maps. All very exciting. I’ll tell you more about that later.

In the meantime, Sheila and Meaghan convinced me to take a day off a couple of weeks ago, so we went for a drive over to Lititz, Pennsylvania, “Lancaster County’s Sweet Spot.” Lititz is a charming (yes, I said charming) little town about ten miles north of Lancaster. Our first destination: The Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery.

In 1861, Julius Sturgis established the first pretzel bakery in the New World. It says so on the plaque outside, dedicated by the National Pretzel Bakers Institute. So you know it’s true. Go early, it’s a popular tour and worth it. Our tour guide, Ivy, was very knowledgeable, articulate, and friendly. During the presentation, that lasts about 30 minutes or so, the tour group gets a lesson in how to twist a pretzel. I think “hands on” history is great. And fun too. But it probably wasn’t for the 19th century pretzel makers who had to stand there twisting pretzels all day. After the tour, stop by the shop and pick up a bag for the way home. They also have fresh baked soft pretzels for sale, my favorite.

I admit that I had forgotten that the Wilbur Chocolate factory was in Lititz. That turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I had seen Wilbur featured on one of the Travel Chanel shows. They weren’t kidding, the chocolate is better than Hershey’s, in my humble opinion. So from the Sturgis Pretzel Bakery it is worth a stroll through Lititz a few blocks to the house of chocolate. For over 125 years, Wilbur has been making chocolate in Lititz. Their signature product is the “Wilbur Bud” (not to be thought of as the other guy’s “kiss,” this is waaaay better!). Admittedly, the majority of the square footage in Wilbur’s is devoted to the store. But in the back there is a viewing window where you can watch the chocolate treats being made. On the way is a self-service museum of sorts with lots of antique kitchen utensils and Wilbur ephemera on display.

I know this is sounding a lot like a travel piece, but I have to give a shout out to the girls working at the Sandwich Factory, located about a block north of Wilbur’s. Fantastic burgers, sandwiches, and my personal favorite, batter-dipped and deep fried onion rings. The service with a smile was even better than the food.

You know that every once in a while you have to take a break from military history, for family harmony, if nothing else. I highly recommend a trip to Lititz, PA. A little food history with some samples to bring home, what’s not to love?

Army Heritage Days at the AHEC

2011-05-26T17:01:00.010-04:00

This past weekend (May 21st and 22nd) was “Army Heritage Days” at the Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Sheila, Meaghan, and I went on Saturday, of course, along with about four thousand fellow military history buffs. It was awesome.

The event was held mainly on the Army Heritage Trail, that I recommended you visit last September. However, the AHEC Foundation also unveiled a new building at the complex that houses a multi-purpose meeting room, and new museum area, and…wait for it…a museum shop and bookstore!

This event drew reenactors from every era of American Military History. Some, naturally, were better than others. But everyone did a great job and shared their enthusiasm for their favorite period of history. My special favorites were the World War I reenactors. Why? First, they were not overweight, [sorry reenactors, you’ve got to look the part, there are way too many chubby Civil War soldiers out there.] Second, they were dirty, [if you are bright and clean, you are not looking realistic, unless of course you are reenacting being in a parade or something.] And third, they really knew their subject [some of you German soldiers were a little weak, hit the books!]

I have traveled around quite a bit, and I have never encountered another place like the Army Heritage Trail, where people can look at, climb on, and immerse themselves in, military history like this. The WWI trench is my favorite; I also like the Vietnam Firebase. I also get to look at a WWII era tank destroyer, which I encountered in my research for my book on the 509th Parachute Infantry during WWII, but had never seen one before.

AHEC Under Threat of Closure

So why would someone want to close this facility? That’s right, the AHEC has been placed on a list for consideration to be closed. The archive materials would go to the Center for Military History at Fort McNair (who says they don’t have room for it) and the museum collection would go to the planned Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir (which hasn’t been built yet and still needs to raise close to $50 million in additional funds to complete). If the AHEC is indeed closed, it will take effect in the 2013 budget year.

Normally, I try very hard to not be political. Oh, I have opinions, but I don’t like to debate because I find that most people argue with their emotions and are pretty short on facts. I must make an exception in this case, however. It is true that I am biased in favor of keeping the AHEC open. I do research there. I enjoy visiting there. But there are valid reasons to protect this facility from the budget ax.

The AHEC provides jobs for Cumberland County. The AHEC brings tourist dollars to Cumberland County. Moving the research material to congested downtown D.C. is in fact inhibiting access to it. Removing the exhibits on the Army Heritage Trail will sadly remove a valuable, one-of-a-kind education resource. Here’s one more for you: It reportedly costs $6 million a year to operate the AHEC. In the recent spending cut mania our country finds itself in, it sounds like that would be big savings. But as the DOD budget goes, that’s like one of us regular folks buying a pack of gum. We’d be able to run the AHEC for years if we would just bring our forces home from Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya, a few days early. Why are people crying out to save a few dollars by closing facilities that add to the quality of life, yet ignore our troops overseas and the massive debt we are piling up in order to accomplish…what?

The Paw Paw Tunnel on the C&O Canal

2011-05-03T14:49:00.017-04:00

I’ve talked a lot about the C&O Canal on this blog, but that’s because with 184.5 miles of trail, there’s a lot to see. One of the locations I’ve waited all winter to go see is the Paw Paw Tunnel. The spring weather finally arrived and I got in a few bicycle rides to get back to the level of shape I was in last fall. It was finally time to go for a big ride last Saturday.

The Paw Paw Tunnel lies between mileposts 155 and 156, near the appropriately named town of Paw Paw, West Virginia. The builders of the canal decided to cut the tunnel through a ridge to save 5 miles of canal and towpath rather than follow all of the switchbacks of the Potomac River known as the Paw Paw bends. Construction on the tunnel began in 1836, but it took twelve years to complete due to the financial problems of the company and different episodes of labor unrest. After the workers punched through the mountain, it took another two years to place the approximately 5,800,000 bricks that line the tunnel.

The tunnel is about 3100 feet long, or three fifths of a mile. It is only wide enough for one canal boat to transit the tunnel at a time. Therefore, the Paw Paw Tunnel caused a few traffic jams in the heyday of the canal. Boats going down stream would have to yield for those going up river. Before entering the tunnel, a boat would hang a white lantern on their front and a red lantern on the rear, so others would know which way they were going.

You can get to the Paw Paw Tunnel by car. It’s about a half an hour drive from Cumberland, Maryland or an hour from Hancock, Maryland. Plenty of parking is available in the campground just across the river from Paw Paw, West Virginia. Let Google Maps tell you how to get there. For my bike ride on Saturday, I had Sheila drop me off in Hancock. The 32-mile ride along the towpath was full of pretty scenery, but for the most part the several locks and aqueducts on this section of the trail are not nearly as interesting as Williamsport’s aqueduct over the Conococheague (mile 99.6) and Lock 44 (mile 99.1) with its restored lockhouse. The towpath trail narrows as you climb a slight rise into the gorge leading to the tunnel. A boardwalk was built into the side of the gorge and small waterfalls are spilling onto the trail. When you go to visit the tunnel, BRING A FLASHLIGHT or a headlamp. It is mad dark in there and you are going to want a light.

Visiting the Paw Paw Tunnel is definitely worth an afternoon. For all practical purposes, there are no facilities in the town of Paw Paw…a couple of diners, a gas station that sells sodas and snacks, but that’s it. It is a pretty drive through West Virginia and there is a nice park there to eat a picnic lunch. I, of course, recommend riding your bicycle. It is about 28 miles by bicycle from Cumberland and 32 miles north from Hancock. Or bring your bikes with you and take a little ride up and down the towpath. I was pretty happy having my ride home waiting for me on the south side of the tunnel. And that Subway sandwich after the ride was pretty good too. ;-)

Reference for the history of the Paw Paw Tunnel, and mileage locations are from The C&O Canal Companion by Mike High (John Hopkins University Press, 2000).

Spring has sprung in Maryland!

2011-03-19T13:08:00.007-04:00

I knew it would get here if we just waited long enough. Spring is finally here. I’m sure you’ve noticed a reduction in the number of posts over the winter. That is because I turned up the burner on the book and haven’t really been out to any new sites for several months. Nevertheless, my way of checking in with you will be to provide a weather report from Antietam and bring you up-to-date on the writing project.

Antietam by Bicycle

The last post I told you about going for a winter hike at Antietam Battlefield and showed you some pictures of the trails covered in snow. Well, how things change in just a few weeks. Yesterday was our first day over 70 degrees (Thursday it was in the middle 60s). I feel like a groundhog coming out of hibernation. Thursday I took a short bike ride on the C&O Canal. Yesterday, my lovely wife Sheila and I went for a bicycle ride around Antietam.

We parked by the Poffenberger Farm (Auto tour stop number 2) and rode down to Burnside’s Bridge and back. There are a couple of decent hills on the battlefield, but nothing that the average recreational bicycle rider can’t handle. The only thing that made it hard was the fact that we haven’t been working out all winter. Bicycling is a great way to tour the battlefield. It is quiet, you can take in the terrain, and enjoy the warm weather. This is a great time of year for it too, before the summer crowds arrive. We know how lucky we are to live so close to sites like Antietam, Gettysburg, and the C&O Canal. But when you are heading out on vacation, plan a stopover and bring your bicycles. ;-)

When we left the battlefield, we drove out the east side of the park on Mansfield Ave. This country road winds through farmland and intersects with Keedysville Road at the upper bridge over Antietam Creek. This area is outside of the park boundaries. It is the bridge that some of the Union forces, under Hooker and Mansfield, used to cross the Antietam the night before the battle. We saw a man working with a metal detector in a farmer’s field. It all reminded me that the Civil War was not just limited to the area claimed by the National Park Service.

Book Project Update

The book project on the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion continues. We now hope to get the book “on the street” sometime in May or June. Again, as it is my first book project, it is hard to estimate how long it will take to accomplish our intermediate goals. I’m currently working on the sixth of nine chapters. This one concerns fighting in Italy prior to Anzio. As I’ve said before, I wish someone would write a book on how to write a history book. I have started to keep a spreadsheet with daily average writing goals. This seems to be the perfect cure for procrastination, sometimes misidentified as “writer’s block.” Unfortunately, life does get in the way and that makes it hard to estimate completion. The whole family had a bout of the flu the week before last, which kept me from writing for almost a week. And then there was the weekend festival that was my 50th birthday. I’m sure that right now, anyone reading this is probably thinking “quit messing around and finish the book!” Well, I’m right there with you. But even though we want to get to the destination, I’m really enjoying the journey. I only wish I had started sooner.

In December, I sent out a survey letter to a list of surviving WWII veterans who served in the 509th. I’m happy to say that I’ve been in contact with about a half dozen of them. With a couple, I have had lengthy written correspondence or telephone conversations. I’m sure I will have more. I cannot begin to describe what a privilege it is to have these veterans share their stories and pictures with me. I only hope that the book will do them the honor and convey the gratitude that I hope for.

The last bit of news is that Sheila is starting to work on a companion website for the book. We will post some of the primary source documents, additional pictures, some video clips, and appendix articles that compliment the book. Stay tuned, more to follow.

New Years Roundup

2011-01-30T17:20:00.008-05:00

I know I have been remiss in keeping up my blog. An error that I will endeavor to rectify. I hope your New Year is off to a great start. Mine is. I’ve been diligently working on my book project. However, I thought I might take an afternoon off to write about that a few miscellaneous items.

Who says you can’t walk a battlefield in the wintertime?
Okay, I know I did in an earlier post. Nevertheless, this past Saturday morning we walked the Snavely Ford Trail at Antietam Battlefield. This easy hiking trail is under 2 miles. It begins and ends at the parking lot above the Burnside bridge and most of the trail is beside Antietam creek. It was beautiful. We had a good ten inches of snow in that area two days prior. Only a few people had walked it before us. We did not need them, but we actually could have used our snowshoes. The point here is that although the area is historic, hallowed ground…our National Parks like Antietam, Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, and the C&O Canal are wonderful recreation opportunities. Get off the sofa, get out of the house, and take a hike! It’s a great cure for the winter blues. (or winter grouchiness, whichever the case may be.) If you are not here in Maryland to enjoy the trail yourself, here’s some pictures for you.

Learning how to be a writer…
One of the best things my dad ever did was to teach me how to read. When I was a little kid, still in elementary school, he’d take me to the public library to get books. He told me that whatever you wanted to know, someone had written a book about it. I used to think that was true, but unfortunately I have never found a book that tells you how to be a popular history writer. I wish Steven Ambrose had written about his methods of research, organization, writing habits, etc.

This is my first book. Therefore, there is a learning curve. I have never written anything this long before, and the majority of my other writing was done in a more academic style. I hope that I will do the veterans of the 509th Parachute Infantry justice. While I will not disclose any of the work until it is finished, I can talk about the process, which is exciting. Well, if you are a history geek like me, it is exciting. I’ve gathered my research through several trips to the AHEC and NARA. I’ve corresponded and conducted telephone interviews with several veterans of the 509th, which is an honor. They have been very open, forthright, and have even shared photographs that I have not seen in archives or other sources.

I’m enjoying this process so much that Sheila and I are already talking about the subject of the next project. It might be something during the Vietnam period, or Army Aviation, of which I am intimately familiar having served as an instructor pilot. A veteran of the unit suggested the 509th project to me and I am forever grateful for him steering me toward this compelling story. I know there are others out there.

I’ve completed the first draft of about a third of this book. I have a sense of urgency to finish the project by the time of the next 509th reunion this summer. I’ll share with my fellow would-be writers the perfect cure for writer’s block (procrastination). Just make up a spreadsheet with a column for the day and one for the number of words you wrote. Pick an average number of words a day you want to write like 500 or 1,000 (harder than it sounds). If you fall behind your goal average, you don’t get a day off. Treat it like a job or that long-term project will never get finished. So if you don’t hear from me, I’m in the office working, where I’m supposed to be. ;-)

Looking for 509th PIB Vets from WWII

2010-11-30T17:40:00.004-05:00

The folks who regularly read this blog know that I’ve been working on a book project for some time now. The subject is the combat history of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion during WWII. Along with secondary sources, I’ve completed my search for primary source documents at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. I’ve started writing a first draft and I am enjoying the process immensely.

For those who are not familiar with the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, they were one of the first battalions of parachutists fielded by the American Army. The 509th, the “Geronimos,” were one of only four independent airborne battalions in U.S. military history. The unit has an amazing list of “firsts.” For example, they were the first airborne unit deployed to England, before the 82nd or 101st Airborne Divisions had been formed. They were also the first airborne unit to make a combat jump (North Africa). The unit jumped behind the lines during our landings at Salerno, Italy, and fought at Anzio. They parachuted into Southern France during Operation Dragoon. The unit also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Shortly after that, the Army chose to disband the independent airborne battalions and the survivors were used as replacements for other units. The accomplishments of this unit have long been overlooked and underrepresented, hidden in the shadow of the larger airborne regiments and divisions.

I am now looking for the oral histories of the members of this unit that took part in the campaigns of World War II. I have seen the letters written to author William Breuer that are stored in the AHEC and read a few oral histories obtained from other sources. However, I am hoping to obtain the recollections of veterans who have yet to share their stories.

Barry Simpson, the secretary of the 509th Parachute Infantry Association, recently contacted me. He actually heard of the project through this blog. Barry has offered to help me get in touch with the members of that organization who are veterans of WWII. I am most grateful for his offer of assistance. I would also ask any readers that are not affiliated with the 509th organization for their assistance in locating former members of the 509th PIB. If you know a veteran of this unit, please direct them to this blog or if they are not online, please assist them in contacting me.

I’ve created a short survey with several questions to answer. My contact information is on this form. Click this link to download the survey in a PDF format. This is just a starting point, as I am hoping to give the veterans the opportunity to share their stories with us, rather than answer pointed questions. My intent is to donate the responses I receive to the AHEC when this project is complete.

Let me express my gratitude in advance to anyone who can help with this endeavor. Moreover, let me particularly thank the veterans of this great unit for their service to our country.

Visiting Monocacy National Battlefield

2010-10-31T14:21:00.006-04:00

The season for tramping around battlefields is quickly drawing to a close. A couple of weeks ago Sheila, Meaghan, and I went to Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick, Maryland. If you have never heard of the battle or visited Monocacy, don’t feel too bad. It is not one of the better known Civil War battles or National Parks. I would definitely recommend spending an afternoon at Monocacy, but not as your only experience in studying Civil War sites. Your one-stop, of course, is Gettysburg. However, I would highly recommend Antietam as well. (Which I just realized I’ve never talked about and it’s only 20 minutes away from my house. I promise I will rectify that soon.) Nevertheless, there are other reasons to visit Monocacy.

For a thorough discussion of the battle at Monocacy, see the NPS website. I’ll give you the gist of it here. In the early summer of 1864, Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early and an army of approximately 15,000 crossed into Maryland near Sharpsburg. This would constitute the confederates third invasion of the North. When Early passed Harpers Ferry on July 4, 1864, personnel with the B&O railroad there alerted the Union army. Early’s mission was to draw Union forces arrayed against Robert E. Lee away from Petersburg, Virginia, by threatening the little defended Washington, D.C.

Union Major General Lew Wallace commanded the “Middle Department” that included Washington, Baltimore, Frederick, and Harpers Ferry, etc. Upon hearing of the threat posed to Washington or Baltimore by Jubal Early’s army, put together a force that would eventually number close to 6,000. Wallace rushed his force to Monocacy Junction on the B&O Railroad, just southeast of Frederick, Maryland. In this area the B&O Railroad, the Georgetown Pike (present day Hwy 355), and the National Road to Baltimore (present day Hwy 40) all crossed the Monocacy River. It was the most likely place to delay the rebels until reinforcements arrived.

On the morning of July 9, 1864, Confederate forces moved forward out of Frederick and began to engage Union forces. Although outnumbered three-to-one, the Federals under Lew Wallace successfully blocked Early’s confederates in the daylong battle. By nightfall, the Union had withdrawn from the field and sustained casualties of approximately 1,300 men dead, wounded or captured.

While considered a Confederate victory, as Early’s men continued to hold the field, the rebels were delayed for an entire day and sustained casualties of approximately 900 killed, wounded, or captured. The delay gave the Union time to reinforce Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia, which Early moved forward and attacked two days later. The Confederates fired on Fort Stevens, but Early knew that now that Union reinforcements had arrived, he did not have the resources to take the fort and threaten Washington further. Early withdrew the next day, July 12th, and headed back to Virginia.

Today, Monocacy National Battlefield has a modern visitor’s center/museum/gift shop and a 5-stop auto tour. It’s a relatively small affair, but it is certainly worth an afternoon of your time. At each auto stop there is a walking trail. Therefore, you can either just look around and read the waysides, or have a pleasant walk of a few hundred yards or up to a mile and a half. This ground on which the Civil War was fought also has a history that dates from colonial times. For example, the walking path at the Thomas Farm, auto stop number four, goes by the site of the Middle Ferry over the Monocacy River. This ferry site dates from before the French and Indian War. The Best Farm, stop number one on the auto tour, was formerly l’ Hermitage, a plantation established in 1794 that at one point kept up to 90 enslaved African Americans. The NPS has done an archeological dig on the site and information can be found on the website.

And speaking of the website, make sure you visit the NPS’ Monocacy National Battlefield website before you go, or especially if you can’t visit the park in person. This is an excellent site for their historical articles and multimedia downloads. On the website, you can download MP3 files for an audio tour while you are driving the auto tour. The NPS has even created some virtual tour videos of different points on the battlefield. The website is worth a look. Monocacy is worth a visit.

Riding on the C&O Canal

2010-10-05T15:29:00.014-04:00

Since moving to Maryland two months ago, I have discovered the secret to weight loss and mental relaxation. Better than a pill and it’s free! That’s right, I’ve been riding my bicycle on the towpath of the C&O Can al National Historical Park. What’s really sad (on my part) is that I had not heard of this opportunity before I started looking into moving to Maryland. It seems that the C&O Canal is a secret kept from the rest of the country outside of the Potomac River Valley.

George Washington’s life-long dream was to open up the length of the Potomac River to navigation. The aim at first was to link his home in Mount Vernon with his land holdings in the Ohio country. However, the Revolution was his first distraction. After the war, Washington participated in the Patomack Company, whose goals were to build skirting canals around the several falls on the river. His next distraction was the call to serve as first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797. During his presidency, Washington added to the development of the Potomac River corridor by ordering the construction of both a Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry and the new capital city near Georgetown that would bear his name.

Washington died in 1799, but the work of the Patomack Company continued with additional funding from both Maryland and Virginia. The several skirting canals at Little Falls, Great Falls, and the Harpers Ferry area were completed by 1802. However, due to floods and high water part of the year, versus drought and low water in other parts of the year, the Potomac was only navigable for a few months out of the year. Additionally, Harpers Ferry was a long way from the Ohio.

The opening of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 was a modern marvel. Business in the lower Potomac Valley needed a better means of transportation to the Ohio. In order to make Georgetown a port city to rival New York, Maryland and Virginia needed a canal of their own. Unable to secure government funding, a private company, the Chesapeake and Ohio canal company was formed to take on the project. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on July 4, 1828 to begin digging a canal the whole length of the Potomac from Georgetown. As it happened, on the same day in Baltimore a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, also headed for the Ohio.

Overcoming legal issues, funding problems, and construction challenges, the C&O canal made it to Cumberland, Maryland (at the “top” of the Appalachians) and formally opened on October 10, 1850. To create this manufactured river, the canal consisted of a complex system of feeder dams, lift locks, and aqueducts. The canal covers 184.5 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland and an elevation difference of 605 feet. It took canal boats, pulled by mules walking the adjacent towpath, a week to travel the canal one way. The canal was already outdated technology when it opened, as the B&O Railroad had beaten them through the Appalachians by close to a decade.

Although the canal was never an extremely profitable endeavor, it operated commercially for nearly 75 years. The C&O canal survived the Civil War, economic downturns, and a number of floods over the years. By the flood of 1924, it was determined that it was not cost effective to repair the canal further. The federal government purchased the canal, then owned by the B&O Railroad, in 1938. It was the depression years, and the Civilian Conservation Corps was put to work on repairing the structures along the canal. Nevertheless, after the end of the depression and World War II, the government wasn’t sure what to do with the canal.

By the 1950s, there were a number of ideas of what kind of development should take place along the north side of the Potomac. One of the most popular ideas was to create a motor parkway along the route of the towpath so people could see the beauty of the river all the way to Cumberland. Lucky for us today, in 1954 the canal had a champion in the form of Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Largely due to his efforts, we get to walk or bike the towpath today in peace and quiet, rather than share it with cars.

Justice Douglas was an avid outdoorsman who worked to save the environment and the natural state of rivers. When in Washington, D.C., he would hike along the canal, stating that he “was grateful that an accident of history created a continuous strip of park land along one of America’s most beautiful rivers.” In March of 1954, Justice Douglas led a group of conservationists and reporters on a hike of the entire 184.5 miles of towpath from Cumberland to Georgetown.

Although Justice Douglas’ walk didn’t resolve the issue of what to make out of the canal immediately, the event did publicize the effort to preserve the canal. On January 8, 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the law that designated the C&O Canal a National Historical Park (NHP). Today, the National Park Service maintains the towpath trail and restores the structures along the canal. They not only maintain the physical structure of the park, but also interpret the history of the canal through five visitor centers for an estimated 3.8 million visitors a year.

Visitor Centers are located at Georgetown, Great Falls, Brunswick, Williamsport, Hancock, and Cumberland, Maryland. There are also numerous access points along the canal that range from a small gravel parking area to a larger paved parking lot with restroom facilities. Costumed interpreters and canal boat rides are available during the summer months at the Georgetown and Great Falls Visitors Centers. Anywhere on the length of the canal are excellent opportunities for walking, running, or bicycling. The towpath is packed gravel with a marker at each mile.

We now live about three miles from the Williamsport Visitors Center, which is at about mile 99.7, considered roughly the midpoint of the canal. We enjoy this park so much that a conservative estimate would be that we’ve been on the towpath, either walking Sydney (our cattle dog) or riding bicycles, four days a week for the last two months. The family has been to the visitors centers at Cumberland (mile 184.5), Hancock (124), and Brunswick (54). I’ve ridden my mountain bike from Hancock to Harpers Ferry (mile 60). Some of those sections I’ve been on several times. And the best news of all is that I’ve lost over 20 pounds in the last two months.

Besides the exercise and the solitude, I enjoy the history that you find all along the canal towpath. Along with the structures of old mills and lock houses, I like to scout the crossing points along the river used during the Civil War. My goal is to walk or ride my bike over every mile of the canal. I’ve met several people on my bike rides that share the same goal. I have not yet visited Georgetown or Great Falls, but I understand it can get crowed there in the summer months. I like the less populated areas of the canal. A mile or so from an access point and you are in a world all of your own: just you, the river, the forest, and the history.

For more information on the C&O Canal NHP and its history, visit the park’s website at http://www.nps.gov/choh/. The Western Maryland Historical Library Project has digitized historical maps and photos online at http://www.whilbr.org/candocanal/index.aspx. Or check out the book The C&O Canal Companion by Mike High (John Hopkins University Press, 2001) for mile by mile descriptions and an excellent history of the Potomac River valley.

Go visit the Army Heritage Trail!

2010-09-21T17:22:00.010-04:00

You haven’t heard from me since we’ve moved to Maryland, but I swear I haven’t been on summer vacation. Along with my day job at Wave of the Future, I have posted a new unit history over at Military Vet Shop, researched a couple more, and started volunteering at Harpers Ferry NHP. In addition, we’ve been making a lot of day trips, hikes, and bike rides to historic sites. For the last six weeks, we have been visiting old haunts and finding some new ones. I am overdue in telling you about them and I thought I start with one of my favorites (if you can even pin me down to a favorite), the Army Heritage Trail up at the Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Back in June, I told you about doing research at the AHEC. I was back there again in August looking up some information for a history of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade (yet to be written, sorry). My daughter Meaghan was with me, so I thought it might be fun to walk around the Army Heritage Trail before we left. The Army Heritage Trail is a walking path through a series of outdoor exhibits that you can walk through, touch, climb on, and otherwise immerse yourself in military history of different periods. I had not walked out there since 2006 when the AHEC had opened a replica of “Redoubt #10” from the Battle of Yorktown. They have since added an interpretation of a Vietnam Firebase and a World War I trench system. The Heritage Trail also has displays of a WWII barracks compound, a Civil War artillery display, and a blockhouse from the colonial era as well as many others.

It was the WWI trenches that we probably enjoyed the most. Meaghan is 26 now, and not at all a history geek like me. Nevertheless, she says that being able to walk through something like this brings history to life. You should have seen her running around taking pictures. We’ve only included a few images here. You absolutely have to experience this exhibit (and the whole trail) for yourself. The signage is excellent. The trench “system” includes a mortar pit, an aid station, troop sleeping area, and officer’s command post. If you peer over the top of the trench, you can see the German concrete bunker across “no man’s land.” Then leave the American trench, and walk through an underground tunnel to observe the Americans through the window in the German bunker.

The AHEC is open M-F from 9:00 am to 4:45 pm for research or to view indoor museum displays. Weekend hours are available from April to October. The great thing about the Heritage Trail is that it is open every day from sunup to sundown. On summer weekends there is usually a reenactor event. Check out their website for details and directions.

We honor our vets by not forgetting them. One way to do that is by learning what they went through and what their experiences were. If you’ve got friends and family that you want to hang out with, but aren’t really into history, try out the Army Heritage Trail. It is kids-of-all-ages friendly and I guarantee that fun learning will take place. You never know, with hands-on history they just might be engaged in a way you’ve never seen before.

Next post: Bicycling on the C & O Canal!

Another Move, Honoring a Traitor, and Augmenting Reality

2010-08-04T16:07:00.001-04:00

Late in posting again, but I have a good reason. That’s right, the Roving Historian has moved again. Back to the Cumberland Valley! Sheila, Meaghan, Sydney and I are now in the Hagerstown, Maryland area. Although we enjoyed our time there, the “Tip of the Mitt” was a little too quite, too cold, too far from the archives, and too far from the history that we enjoy. We have now more or less split the distance between the National Archives (NARA) in College Park and the Army Heritage Education Center (AHEC) in Carlisle, PA. I’ve only been here three days and I’ve already made the time to ride my bicycle on the C&O Canal path at Williamsport, MD. More on the local history and some pictures of this area to follow soon.

My friend Paul over at History Delivered put up an interesting post. He made us aware of an article on the Smithsonian website about how an American was the force behind a memorial in London that honors Benedict Arnold. Paul asks us how we feel about honoring a man whose name is synonymous with traitor. Can a person do something so bad that it trumps the good? In this case we’re talking about Arnold offering up the plans to West Point to the British versus his leading Continental troops to victory at Quebec and Saratoga. I won’t repeat Paul’s argument…I hope you’ll visit his blog and read it for yourself. Nevertheless, I’ll add to the questions he poses and ask if a historical figure can be remembered as so great and good that we fail to study and learn from their faults and foibles as well?

Several weeks ago, I received an email from Jeff Mummert at the Civil War Augmented Reality Project. Jeff asked me to review their project on this blog and I am honored to do so. I have never met Jeff or anyone else connected with the project but I’ll admit that I’m intrigued by what they are working on. Of course I share their passion for history, and as some of you will recall, my “day job” for the last 14 years has been running a computer consulting and website development business (http://www.ridinthewave.com/).

They have a Kickstarter site to help with the funding for their project. I highly recommend that you visit the site to find out what this project is all about. In essence, they are developing software to run on tablet PCs that will help students learn about historical sites, while standing on the ground. For example at Gettysburg, the student will look out at the terrain in front of them, then on the tablet PC they will see the same view with unit dispositions superimposed on that sight picture. This video (also on the Kickstarter site) can better explain what they’re doing:

I think this technology is fascinating. It also has some amazing potential for learning. However, and don’t take my opinion as a criticism of the work that the Civil War Augmented Reality Project is doing, I don’t agree that this technology is best serving the public, as it is meant to be used “on site.” After all, the target user of this technology is already there, on the site. While the student or visitor has their attention drawn to the technology in their hands, will they be more likely to miss the thrill of being on the site? What about the teacher, docent, park ranger, or guide who has developed their knowledge and honed their presentation to bring the history alive? Don’t we owe them an attentive audience?

I’m a big fan of technology. However, we often ask, “Can we?” and forget to ask, “Should we?” or even, “Do we need to?” After 14 years in the business, I have seen this many times. Sheila and I often talk about the availability of our historic sites and archives. We are so pleased to see that historic sites like Gettysburg and large museums like the Smithsonian are free. Anyone can go to NARA and look at the nations documents…for free! The sarcastic punch line is always the same… “You just gotta get here.” I think we should be using our technology to assist the students who do not have the means to travel to the sites, to the museums, and to the archives. In a perfect world, a person with few resources could go to their public library, sit down at a computer, and via the Internet obtain an image of any document, or virtually walk through any museum or visit any historic site. But there’s no taking away from it Jeff, what you guys are working on is COOL. ;-)

Trippin' through Gettysburg

2010-06-30T11:06:00.000-04:00

The Fourth of July holiday weekend is right around the corner. I’m such a military history geek, that thinking about the Fourth always reminds me of the anniversary of the Civil War battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863). This is the perfect time to tell you about my visit to the Battlefield while I was on my research trip in May.

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, my friend John works as a park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park and rents a house on the battlefield from the NPS. Of course I wanted to visit my friend that I hadn’t seen in three years, but I was also looking forward to another visit to one of my favorite Civil War battlefields and getting a personal tour from the most knowledgeable person I know about the battle and the war.

I had visited Gettysburg on several occasions over the years since my first visit back in 1988. However, this was the first time I had toured the Battlefield and the town with a guide. Even for those of you who are familiar with the battle (as I thought I was), I highly recommend touring the battlefield with a licensed guide or attending one of the presentations given by the NPS staff. John was able to show me, on the ground, parts of the battle that have gotten little attention from both historians and popular culture. I won’t go into the history of the battle, but leave you with the guidance that there is much more to the battle than what is portrayed in the movie Gettysburg. The more you learn about it the more you want to know.

I invoke the Hollywood version of the battle (one of my favorites mind you), because during our tour John pointed out several items that the movie got wrong. He also gave me the background on a few of the monuments that over the decades since the battle have been placed for politics and tourism as well as honoring the sacrifices of our soldiers. Actually, the history of the battlefield as “hallowed ground” versus “tourist attraction” is as fascinating for me as the battle itself. For example, the term “high-water mark of the Confederacy” applied to Gettysburg, and specifically Pickett’s Charge, was coined by a tourism promoter years after the battle. If we are speaking in terms of Confederate military strength, one could argue that there are other points during the war when things looked much worse for the Union. In terms of geography, organized Confederate forces fought in the same campaign about 35 miles north of Gettysburg near Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, in what is known as the Skirmish of Sporting Hill.

Since I had visited the area before, it is interesting to see what is changing and what stays the same. The park is conducting projects to restore the terrain to what it looked like during the battle. Read about it in the park newspaper. There have been some trees removed around the Devil’s Den since my last visit. There are now some new peach trees in the Peach Orchard. The NPS has acquired a new “witness” house on the Emmitsburg Road, and the new Visitor Center opened in 2008 (which is fantastic!). Some things never change: the debate is raging in town about a proposed casino and hotel on US 15. That was voted down the last time I was there back in 2006. The casino promoters are back for another attempt at a permit.

Therefore, this trip to Gettysburg brought up several of those internal debates I have with myself. The primary being: At what level should we teach, or expect the public to know, history? Moreover, is a little drama such a bad thing if we can engage the public to tune in to the lessons of history? How far should we go to protect our historic sites? Does a place like Gettysburg deserve protection from what is built nearby? The analysis of these questions, whether I discuss and debate them with others or just in my head, is what excites me about public history.

I’ll close by saying, "Thanks again, John!" for the fantastic tour and a great steak dinner.

The Army Heritage and Education Center

2010-06-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I told you about my research trip during the first week of May. I started with the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. In this post, I would like to tell you about the Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) in Carlisle, PA. This was actually my first stop during my research trip for photos and primary documents on the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.

The AHEC is several things in addition to a repository for primary source documents pertaining to military history. Originally, (and still its primary function) the AHEC was created to support the Army’s War College at Carlisle Barracks. In 2002, they moved to their current campus, off base, so you don’t have to have your vehicle and ID checked to park there. If you visit, plan an extra afternoon to visit the museum and the Army Heritage Trail. The trail is a walking path of about a mile that has interactive exhibits that are recreations from army history. For example, you can go into Redoubt #10 from the battle of Yorktown, get into a WWI trench, or walk through a WWII era tarpaper billet.

The fact that the AHEC is a library as well as an archive makes it a “first stop” for researching military history. Before you visit in person, look at several of the AHEC’s online resources, like their list of finding aids and the online catalog. Finding aids have been created for many unit histories and military history subjects. These documents are available online. With these finding aids and the online catalog, you will know what secondary works are available as well as primary source documents. Looking for secondary sources through interlibrary loan with your local public library will save you days of research time at the AHEC. Knowing the primary source material available will help you determine if you need to visit in person, and if so, estimate how many days you will need in the library.

When you enter the main building of the AHEC, you will have to sign in with security before going in the research library. Lockers are provided to store your coat and any carry cases. You can only bring laptops, cameras, writing paper, and pencils into the research room. A research assistant is available to help you fill out your “pull request” from the library. Don’t try to go it alone, use their expertise. The staff is extremely knowledgeable, very friendly, and eager to help you with your project.

While all libraries and archives have similar procedures, they also differ from place to place. Unlike NARA, at the AHEC you cannot bring in a flatbed scanner. I use a small digital camera to take pictures of documents (reproduction costs would kill you) that are too lengthy to take notes on. I used the same camera at AHEC to reproduce photographs. A photo station is set up in the research room for this purpose. You mount your camera on a photo stand and adjust two studio lights beside the table on tripods. I at first had my doubts, but this system worked beautifully. For textual items, I just set my camera to a “copy” preset and use it handheld. I reproduced 13 photographs and over 200 pages of documents in one long day at the AHEC.

I am a huge fan of digitizing primary documents so we don’t have to travel to an archive to look up this information. However, I know we will never be able to put every document and picture held in repositories online. There is just too much. You have to travel to where it is stored. Also, there is just no beating the thrill of holding the document in your hand, or to read the contents in its entirety for yourself, unedited and not interpreted for you by someone else. Again, I urge anyone who is interested in any subject to visit the appropriate archive and look up the information. I do not consider myself to be a scholar, an academic, or an intellectual. No one asked me what my qualifications or reasons were before allowing me access to any materials at either the AHEC or NARA. It is our history. Go get it.

Picture credits from the top:

Screen capture of AHEC website, 6/1/2010.
WWII in-service airborne recruiting poster, AHEC.
Text document from William B. Breuer Collection, AHEC.

An Excellent Adventure at NARA

2010-05-18T10:19:00.000-04:00

The Roving Historian has finally gotten to rove again. The first week of May, I was out on my research trip to down to the D.C. area. I visited the Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) in Carlisle, PA, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the D.C. suburb of College Park, MD. At both archives, I was looking for photographs and primary source documents on the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion during WWII. This trip was the last major step in my research for a book project that I’ve been working on for the last several months. I’ll tell you about my visit to the AHEC and the afternoon I spent traipsing around Gettysburg Battlefield in other posts. In today’s post I would like to try to alleviate some of the apprehension that novice researchers might feel about going to visit NARA. What better way than to tell you about my visit?

The National Archives facility at College Park is also referred to as “Archives II.” Archives I is the main NARA building on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Archives II is a huge facility that was specially designed to house archival records and support research. There are five floors that contain separate research rooms for textual records, still pictures, motion pictures and sound, cartographic and architectural records, and electronic media. Once you go through security, you then go to the basement where lockers are available to store your belongings. The only items that you can carry into a research room are laptops, flatbed scanners, and cameras. Pencils and notepaper are provided.

The first day that I visited College Park my friend Paul (http://www.historydelivered.com/) went with me and helped in the still pictures branch. It was the first visit for both of us. I have to admit that it is nice to have a friend along on the first visit until you feel comfortable with the procedures. I wouldn’t blame you for being uneasy…simply because you don’t know what to expect. However, there is really no reason for hesitation. The folks that work at NARA, especially in the research rooms are super friendly and helpful.

My first day was spent in the Still Pictures research room. Teresa and Holly, the NARA staff members on duty that day were incredible to work with. Teresa showed us how to search the card catalog by keyword. Yes, the estimated 8 million images are indexed by an old-fashioned card catalog. Then she helped us fill out the request form to have the boxes “pulled.” I was lucky to have Paul with me that day as a research partner. He cut my work time in half and at the end of the day we had found and scanned more than three dozen photographs. The biggest distraction you have to fight is the desire to go browsing through the boxes of photographs you’ve had pulled. You have to make a quick decision on whether you need the image or not. Time flies, and what is fun early in the morning becomes work by early afternoon.

Two days later, I was in NARA again. This time flying solo, I visited the textual records room. Here, like in Still Pictures, the catalog was not computerized. A research staff member is there to help, but once you know the procedure, finding what you need is a piece of cake. An index of records of military units from WWII and Korea are kept in three ring binders on the shelf. You can literally help yourself, and write down the boxes you need on a request form. Again, you have to wait for your records to be pulled, which for textual records takes a little longer. But I only had to wait about twenty minutes. You check out your records cart, push it over to a table, and go to work. If you have so much information that you can’t finish in one session, check it back in. Your records are held for you for up to three days, ready for you to work on when you return. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about “pulling” them each day that you are in the archive. For text records, I used my “research camera” and made images of more than 200 pages of primary source documents…mostly operations orders and after action reports created by the 509th PIB.

I would not say that I am an overly experienced researcher. However, I have worked with primary source documents in several local historical societies, two university libraries, and the AHEC on several occasions. In my opinion, my short time at College Park was the best research experience I have ever had. The staff was patient, friendly, and helpful. The work environment was relaxing. Most importantly, I found what I was looking for. Lack of computerized catalogs was not a problem, other than the fact that you can’t find out exactly what is held at NARA until you go there.

Admittedly, most research for a project like mine can, and is, done through secondary sources. Even if you live in a rural or remote area like I do, you can take advantage of interlibrary loan and find most of the information you need. However, for a historian and writer of any experience level, nothing can replace reviewing the primary documents pertaining to your subject. I encourage anyone interested to make the trip to the repository that houses the information you are looking for. Moreover, if it happens to be in the National Archives, you will enjoy the experience.

For more information on conducting research at NARA, take a look at General Information Leaflet #71: The National Archives in the Nation's Capital: Information for Researchers.

Picture descriptions, from the top:

Entry gate to the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

The Still Pictures research room at Archives II. Image from Microsoft Case Study.

The Textual Records research room at Archives II. Image from Microsoft Case Study.

LTC William P. Yarborough, Commanding Officer of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion (left) and LTC Roy A. Murray, Commanding Officer of the 4th Ranger Battalion, aboard the Winchester Castle, study model of the beach where troops aboard the ship will make their assault on Anzio, Jan 1944. NARA image SC 186957.

Infantrymen of the 509th Parachute Infantry moving out with a tank from the 7th Armored Division near St Vith, Belgium, January 24, 1945. NARA image SC 279944.

Memorial Day Once Again

2010-05-04T15:10:00.000-04:00

May is upon us once again. The last day of the month will bring us Memorial Day Weekend. For most Americans that means the official start to summer. Here on the Lake Michigan shore it also means the informal beginning to the tourist and resort season. (Our town’s population more than doubles during the summer with the return of all the snowbirds.) That being said, how could I not take the opportunity to talk about the real meaning of Memorial Day?

The tradition of a day of remembrance for fallen soldiers began as early as the end of the Civil War. Various communities around the nation held their own day to honor their dead. The first attempt at a nationwide observance was the proclamation of “Decoration Day” by General John Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the national organization of Union Army veterans. General Logan proclaimed that May 30th of 1868, and each year thereafter, be set aside to decorate the graves of fallen Union soldiers. Most communities in the South did not participate, mainly due to a lack of Union graves, not to mention a lingering resentment toward the North.

The name “Memorial Day” did not come into use until after 1882. The sentiment of the holiday became accepted nationally after World War I when the country came together to honor all of our war dead. Now the day is officially Memorial Day by a Federal law passed in 1967. It is celebrated on the last Monday in May as per the National Holiday Act of 1971, passed to ensure that we get a three-day weekend for Federal holidays. Although Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee still have alternate days set aside to honor their Confederate war dead.

Many Americans seem to forget the meaning of the day. Some believe that this was fostered by the creation of the guaranteed three-day weekend in 1971. Some, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, believe that returning the date for Memorial Day to May 30th would help to re-educate Americans and encourage a more traditional day of remembrance and honoring of our fallen warriors. Over ten years ago, separate bills to do just that were introduced into the House and Senate. Unfortunately, neither bill made it out of committee (the place that most bills go to die). However, in 2000 a resolution was passed into public law to encourage a National Moment of Remembrance, “which invites everyone to pause where they are at 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day in a uplifting act of national unity.”

I do not glorify the sacrifices that were made in wars past and present. In fact, I view them as a tragedy. Nevertheless, wars do happen and someone has to go and fight them. As a historian and a veteran who was raised in a family of veterans, I am saddened to see the growing numbers of naïve and idealistic, not to mention the legions of the ignorant and apathetic. Memorial Day is a learning opportunity and an excellent day to take a reality check. I don’t want to be a buzz kill or party pooper and take away from the tradition of the barbeque, or the tailgate, or the camping trip you have planned for this Memorial Day weekend. By all means, enjoy. However, I do encourage you to take a moment to remember the sacrifices of others and pass on that reverence to your children…so that they can pass it on to theirs.

A History Mystery: Who's in first?

2010-04-21T16:25:00.000-04:00

I still keep in touch with my friends at the Friends of the Ballard Locks (of FOBL for short). For those of you new to this blog, we started our own historical society of volunteers who are putting together an archive at the Hiram Chittenden Locks in Seattle, Washington. If you like, you can catch up on the project from the first post about the project. Well, I couldn't be more proud of the way the group has flourished since I left Seattle in August of last year. In fact, they've been presented with a little history mystery by a local resident.

The Locks were formally opened on July 4, 1917 with a grand celebration. The "official" first ship through what was then known simply as the Government Locks, was the steamship Roosevelt. However, the FOBL was recently contacted by the daughter of Elmer Reed who always maintained that HE piloted the first vessel through the Locks on that opening day. Elmer was a local outdoor enthusiast with a passion for canoeing. When the gates of the locks were opened to allow boats into the canal leading to Lake Union, Elmer allegedly jumped in front of the Roosevelt...in his canoe!

But here's the rub. There are pictures of boats large and small on opening day. There are pictures of rowboats and canoes. We have a picture of Elmer in his canoe and we have a picture of the Roosevelt taken from Elmer's canoe. Unfortunately, we don't have any documentation, written or photographic, that Elmer's canoe was the first vessel to enter Salmon Bay when the Locks opened. And now we have a mystery to solve. Who was in first? Was it Captain E. Blerd piloting the steamship Roosevelt or Seattle's own Elmer Reed?

So we're putting out the call for help. Can you help to prove that Elmer Reed was the first person out of the Government Locks in Seattle on Opening Day, 1917? If you have any information to contribute, OR if you're in the Seattle area and would like to stop by for a visit, the Friends of the Ballard Locks are a great bunch of people who are doin' history. Contact them through Susan Connole at susanatthelocks@gmail.com.

All images courtesy of the Friends of the Ballard Locks and/or US Army Corps of Engineers. Please do not duplicate without permission.

Getting Out of the Den

2010-04-13T14:59:00.000-04:00

Spring is here in Northern Michigan and all of the snow is gone from the ground. It’s time for us all to crawl out of our dens after a long winter hibernation. It’s our first year here so we have to go with what the neighbors tell us, and what we get in the news. Apparently, it was a very mild winter up here at the tip of the mitt. Normally the snow is on the ground until the end of March. I get the impression that it is the truth, as most of the local museums and historical societies are still closed until later next month. I don’t think that their budgets are prepared for an early spring. However, we’re still getting out and learning new things about this part of the country.

For example, did you ever hear of a pastie? No, not the uniform item worn by exotic dancers. This pastie is pronounced with a “soft a.” It’s a meat and vegetable pie that is popular in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. It’s kind of like a turnover, only with beef or chicken, etc. The story goes that it became popular with Cornish miners of England. Their wives would cook up this “balanced meal in a crust” and send their men off to work with their lunch wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. When the immigrants came to the Upper Peninsula to work in the mines, they brought the pastie with them and the rest, as they say, is history.

I enjoy the history behind local food, but probably I like eating the food more. We tried one of these pasties a couple of weeks ago at Hunt’s Mackinaw Pastie & Cookie Company in Mackinaw. This restaurant was featured on the Travel Channel, although I didn’t know that at the time we stopped in. Lucky for us, they were the only restaurant we found open on the afternoon we went to look at the ice under the Mackinac Bridge. Nevertheless, that does not mean we settled. Unlike the picture of pasties in an English bakery here, we Americans smother ours in gravy and have a little coleslaw on the side. Pie crust and beef, covered in gravy, what’s not to love?! No, the beef pastie was tasty and I would highly recommend you give one a try. This can go in my “good stuff” file along with the shoe-fly pie from Adams County, Pennsylvania, the tri-tip roast of Fresno, California, and there will never be another reuben sandwich like in that corner market in Port Townsend, Washington.

We explored down the lakeshore on the west side of Michigan last weekend, visiting Manistee and Ludington. I’ll leave you with pictures of the breakwater in Ludington, Michigan. It was a windy day last Saturday, and the breakwater was doing its job.

The "Borinqueneers”

2010-04-01T08:12:00.000-04:00

I must admit my ignorance. Before yesterday, I did not know who the “Borinqueneers” were, or the history of the 65th Infantry Regiment. Now that I am enlightened to the contributions of this military unit, I had to share the information with you. First, hear the how and the why that led me to read a little bit about this historic unit.

I have a particular interest in the Korean War, as my father was a combat veteran of that conflict, besides my being a military historian. Korea came up on my radar last week due to an article in the NY Times that tells us that North Korea is threatening reprisals if South Korea and the United States do not stop civilian tours to view the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). As we approach the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War (June 25, 1950) it is appropriate that we take the time to remember the sacrifices of the veterans who have served in that “forgotten war.” Remember that not only do we still have troops stationed in South Korea, but also that the Korean War technically is still going on. Hostilities ceased with the signing of an armistice on July 27, 1953, but the war was never officially ended.

[Photo is of a U.N. cemetary in Pusan, Korea, 1950. Image archived at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA.]

With that motivation, I searched the NY Times for other recent articles about Korea and came across the obituary for Modesto Cartagena, who as a staff sergeant serving with the 65th Infantry during the Korean War was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and is the most decorated Puerto Rican soldier in history. Mr. Cartagena passed away at his home in Puerto Rico on March 2, 2010 at the age of 87. His obituary in the Times explained that the 65th Infantry was an all-volunteer unit from Puerto Rico. Since I had never heard of this unit of Puerto Ricans, I had to satisfy my curiosity.

A simple Google search provided me with the story. Here is a link to the Borinqueneers’ website that contains photographs and archival video. In addition, here is a link to an excellent Wikipedia article summarizing the history of the unit. It would seem that the 65th Infantry Regiment experienced similar prejudices as other ethnic units in the history of the United States Army. Moreover, like the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (Japanese-American), the 92nd Infantry Division (African-American), and others, this unit distinguished itself beyond all expectations.

The unit’s nickname, “Borinqueneers,” is a combination of the words Borinquen, which is what the Puerto Rican natives called their island before the arrival of the Spanish, and Buccaneers. The soldiers coined this name during an exhausting month long boat trip from Puerto Rico to Pusan, Korea in September 1950.

The unit met its greatest challenges in Korea. Many new officers transferred into the unit by the army where white continentals who could not speak Spanish, the native language of the common soldier in the unit. After more than two years of distinguished service in combat, an action occurred in which one of the regiment’s line companies was pushed off a hill by Chinese forces. A new Regimental Commander, a continental, accused the unit of cowardice. The commander ordered the unit to stop calling themselves Borinqueneers, took away their special ration of beans and rice, ordered the men to shave off their distinctive mustaches, and even had one soldier wear a sign that said, “I am a coward.” Due to the humiliation, combat exhaustion, and cultural barriers, it is understandable that the unit rebelled and refused to continue fighting. Ninety-one of the unit members were found guilty at court martial and sentenced to prison. Later, the sentences were remitted through intervention by the Puerto Rican government. Though the men who were court martialed were pardoned, there currently is a campaign for a formal exoneration.

This “mass court martial” does not take away from the fact that members of the unit were awarded 10 Distinguished Service Crosses, 256 Silver Stars, and 606 Bronze Stars during their time in Korea. The 65th Infantry Regiment earned streamers for nine campaigns during the Korean War. Approximately 61,000 Puerto Ricans served during the Korean War, most of them were volunteers.

The island of Puerto Rico became a U.S. Territory in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War. The United States immediately appointed a military governor of the island and the army established a presence there. The Army Appropriation Bill passed by Congress in 1889 authorized the creation of the first unit of “native troops.” The “Porto Rico Provisional Regiment of Infantry” first formed in 1901 would evolve into the 65th Infantry Regiment in the Regular U.S. Army. The unit fought in WWI, WWII, and Korea. The unit was transferred to the Puerto Rico National Guard in 1956, the only active army unit to ever be transferred to the Guard. As National Guard units, members of the 65th Infantry have deployed in support of the Global War on Terror to Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and the horn of Africa.

Update on Non-nonfiction

2010-03-25T17:23:00.000-04:00

This is an update to my last post. I was remiss in sharing this sooner. A March 8th article in the NY Times tells us that earlier this month Henry Holt and Company, the publishers of Charles Pellegrino’s book Last Train From Hiroshima has stopped printing and selling the book.

The publisher placed a statement in the product description of the books offering on Amazon. However, Amazon is still selling their stock of the suspect book. For a while there was a rousing debate going on in the customer reviews of the product where the author joined in to defend himself and the book that he says is factual with the exception of a small part where he was “duped.”

Back to the NY Times article. It’s a good read for us budding authors, as well as fans of nonfiction. It reminds the reader of several recent and notorious cases of fabricated nonfiction works. I’m still at a loss as to why one would need to make up a story when real life and history is so full of action and excitement in its truth. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, my first book project (research coming along quite well, thank you) concerns the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion in WWII. Their story is so much better than fiction that I can’t wait to tell their story.

One glimmer of hope for us history fanatics: The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose is #5 on the current NY Times Best Seller list for hardback nonfiction. I’m glad to see the interest in military history, even if it is the result of a television miniseries. It put a good history book on the list that is clearly dominated by books about fad diets and “tell all” gossips. I’m reading Mr. Ambrose’s book now and will review it for you later. Spoiler alert! I’d go ahead and buy it. ;-)

Stolen Valor and Getting It Wrong

2010-03-01T15:41:00.000-05:00

I want to bring your attention to an article I read in the NY Times recently that frankly got my goat both as a historian and as a veteran. It concerns a recently released book titled “The Last Train from Hiroshima” by Charles Pelligrino. Apparently, sections of the book that reveal never-before-told events and details of the mission to drop the first atomic bomb are based on interviews with a veteran who was never there. Take the time to read the article. This veteran, Mr. Joseph Fuoco, claimed to have flown as part of the crew of one of two observation planes that accompanied the Enola Gay. Fuoco claimed that he was put on the flight at the last minute when another crewmember, Mr. James Corliss, got sick. As it turns out, documents and witness accounts tell that Corliss was on the flight in question. There is no proof available that places Fuoco in the 509th Composite Group, much less on the flight in Mr. Corliss’ place. Both veterans have since passed away. The author says that he now realizes he was “probably duped.”

The book is out there on the shelf at your local bookstore. It is number sixteen on the list of bestselling military history on Amazon. If it is not recalled, it becomes part of the historical record. Historians almost always base their works on the secondary sources created previously. It is quite possible that twenty years from now, a writer might find this book and cite something from it, and perpetuate the fabrications it contains. The fact that the book does not cite any sources and the author admits that it contains fabrications, makes suspect the remainder of its contents. I will not purchase or read this book.

At first our righteous indignation might be directed at the veteran who fabricated his story, and rightfully so. However, I have personal experience in taking oral histories and I know that memories fade and sometimes get filled in with what is learned after the event. We each have our own truth as to what we experienced and what happened and when and who was there. Moreover, some want to have “been there” so bad that they will make up their own truth, whether consciously or subconsciously. You know they are out there. If you do not, or don’t think there are that many, read the book “Stolen Valor” by B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitely.

As a historian, my ire is directed at the author, Charles Pelligrino, and his publisher. This entire episode could have been avoided with some simple fact checking and review of primary sources. When the author was interviewing Mr. Fuoco, how hard would it have been to look at his discharge or other documents like award certificates? Did the author not make a trip to the National Archives or other repositories to view the official records like flight plans and passenger lists? We do not know because there is no list of sources in Mr. Pelligrino’s book. Moreover, the most distasteful part is that Pelligrino has been published previously (albeit this is his first history book) and had a movie made based on one of his earlier books. Not only should an author of his experience know better, but he also has the financial wherewithal to easily conduct primary source research and fact checking.

I don’t want to tell you how to think or who to blame. Make up your own mind. I’m just going to give you my opinion, my philosophy if you will. I believe that the job of the nonfiction writer, whether an academic or a popular historian, is to honor those who came before us by telling their story so it is not lost to history. The recollections and eyewitness accounts of individuals are an integral part of telling that story. However, the absolute primary function of the interviewer is to check the validity of a claim before publishing it as fact.

As far as we veterans are concerned, I know this in my heart to be true. I think that however you got there; circumstances make the hero. You might have joined or you might have been drafted. You might have volunteered for Special Forces, or prayed for the Finance Corps. Nevertheless, fate, kismet, or karma put you in the line of fire or it didn’t. You either witnessed history, or wish you had, and it wasn’t totally up to you, no matter how hard you tried either way. That being said, anyone who steps forward and signs up, no matter what their role, should be thanked for their service and their courage should never be in question. Not by anyone else, and certainly not by themselves.

Response: Getting a Job with the NPS

2010-02-22T16:23:00.000-05:00

In my last post, while introducing you to the blog "In The Service Of Clio," I talked about how hard it is to get a job teaching history at the college level. If I failed to make the point, it's very competitive in other areas of history as well. A lot of people want to get paid for "doin' history." My friend John, who I talked about last post, responded in an email. I wanted to share with you his comments (with his permission) on applying for a job with the National Park Service (NPS):

It is just as hard getting a job with the NPS as it is teaching. During the summer we employ about maybe six graduate students as seasonal rangers and another four as interns. Many of them would love to work for the NPS once they graduate from school but for every position, (when they become available) there is usually over one hundred applicants. Some are only open to permanent, (as opposed to seasonal) NPS employees. For all positions, the Park Service considers KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities), education, experience, and assigns a certain point value. I don't know how this works exactly but there is a system. Veterans and applicants with disabilities get an additional 5-10 points. That means that usually a recent college graduate with a bachelor’s degree, or even a master’s degree, usually isn't going to make the cut.

All hope isn't lost though. There are a couple of other ways to get in. One way is through the STEP program, where a student can work full time for the Park Service while they are going to school. While you may work the entire year through STEP, you still aren't considered a permanent, full time employee. There are no benefits except a paycheck and once school is finished you are still out of a job, but I have known a few people who have managed to stretch their time in STEP over several years and in one case, it did lead to a permanent position.

Another way to get in is through what are known as "gateway parks.” These are parks that see a lot of turnover. They are usually very popular with visitors, but are somewhat stressful and exhausting to work at. Examples of "gateway parks" are the Mall in Washington D.C., Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and Boston National Historic Park. Because they have high turnover it is a little bit easier to get a job at these parks. [Then hope to transfer to another park at a later date] However, it may be years before a position at the park that the applicant really wants to work at opens up.

While these are permanent, full time jobs with benefits, it doesn't necessarily mean you will be working the entire year. Some of these jobs are subject to furlough, which means you may only work six or nine months out of the year. Also, these are entry level GS-4/5 jobs which means you aren't making a lot of money. Unless you have a [working] spouse or some other additional income, you might not be able to get by on just an NPS paycheck. If I didn't have an Army retirement paycheck I probably couldn't do this. Considering my experience and education, I'm making a lot less than most people my age with similar backgrounds, but this is one of the best jobs in the world.

Thanks for the input, John!

In the Service of Clio

2010-02-11T14:06:00.000-05:00

In Greek Mythology, Clio is the muse of history. Therefore, “In the Service of Clio” is what historian Nicholas Evan Sarantakes has titled his blog. I have been following this blog for several months now and enjoyed it so much that I went back and read every post in it. In the Service of Clio is a good read for those who have considered taking on the challenge of obtaining a doctorate in history. The benefit for the rest of us is seeing what there is to do in the field of history other than teaching on the university level.

Dr. Sarantakes is a military, diplomatic, and political historian who is the author of several books and multiple published articles. He has his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and is currently an associate professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. What is unique about his blog is that he has “guest bloggers” post articles concerning a career in academic history and the state of the profession. In the earlier postings on his blog, Dr. Sarantakes has discussed some alternate employment options for Ph.D.s in history. In the last couple of months, the subject is the budget strategy taken by universities to hire cheaper adjunct professors over more costly tenured positions and what effect that has on the job market in that field.

The bottom line is that there are too many Ph.D.s for the number of university teaching jobs available. That drives down salary and benefits, as it would in any profession. I hate to sound like my dad here, but a couple of old adages used to fly around my house, as I am sure they did in most of yours. The first piece of advice is to “do what you love and the money will follow.” The other thing dad used to say was “Whatever you do, be the best at it and you’ll always have a job.”

The best example I know of these wisdoms in action is my friend John. We met in the masters program at Shippensburg. We have a lot in common and I have a great admiration and respect for him. John retired from the army and is better read on the Civil War than anyone I know. The job market for MAs in history is as tight and pay is as low as it is for Ph.D.s. Nevertheless, John started the program knowing what he wanted to do when he finished. He wanted to work for the National Park Service and be a ranger at one of the Civil War Battlefields. While still pursuing his masters, John interned with the NPS. He networked and he studied the job market. Today, John is leading tours at Gettysburg Battlefield. I wonder if he knows how really amazing that is. Do what you love and the money will follow. Be the best at what you do and you will always have a job. Livin’ the dream. Way to go, John!

There's more to it than you think...

2010-02-01T13:53:00.000-05:00

The following post was originally published as a newsletter article for our graphic design business, Military Vet Shop. I thought I'd share it with you here, along with another appeal for you veterans to get your story and pictures into an archive or at least up on the web! Read what I've said about that in an older post. As always, I invite your comments.

Does making t-shirt graphics have anything to do with history? You bet it does. We thought it might be appropriate to share with our friends and fellow veterans what the process is for making our designs and in what order.

Let us say again that it is our goal to provide every veteran with the shirt or coffee mug that they want to honor their service to our country. That’s a pretty big goal considering the time limitations that we have. Military Vet Shop is our favorite pursuit. Unfortunately, it is not our only one. Sheila and Jim have a “day job” running Wave of the Future, our website development business. Moreover, Jim recently completed his MA in applied history and is researching a book length project: a history of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion. You’ll be able to read more about it on his blog, The Roving Historian, in the near future.

So how do we choose what to create, given the limited time available? Remember the old Burger King™ commercial with the song “hold the pickles, hold the lettuce...special orders don’t upset us...” You’re singing it right now, aren’t you? Well, that’s us. We love special requests. A request was behind the new badges section and the branches section. A request was made for the 30th Medical Command patch. A request was made for the CH-46, CH-47, and the M551 Sheridan. We figure that if you want it, there must be others out there that want it. Hopefully, you know some folks who want it and will tell them about it. For that reason, requests automatically go to the top of the “to-do” list.

Now here is where the history comes in. After the request list, we are then prioritizing a list of every major unit patch that was in Vietnam. For each patch that we choose to create a set of graphics for, while Sheila (the graphics artist) is making the patch object, Jim is researching the history of the patch. We have to determine if the patch was in Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan. Then we need to determine what vehicles the veterans who wore that patch used. It is in this task that veteran’s websites and the pictures posted on the web are invaluable. If enough information is available, we’ll even produce a summary history of the unit patch on our website.

Making patches is a relatively quick task, but making an original, photo-realistic, graphic image of a vehicle or aircraft is a time intensive project. Sheila puts hours of work into these projects. That’s why it takes a few weeks for requests of vehicle graphics to be fulfilled. Moreover, the operative word here is original. We completely respect the work of others and are careful not to violate the copyrights of any artist. We will not cut corners by copying from others. That is also why you won’t find the image you buy from us on any other site. (If you do, please let us know for obvious reasons!)

As you can see, you the veteran, our customers, are a crucial player in obtaining our goal of getting every veteran the design they want. We welcome your input!

Winter is for reading...

2010-01-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

Winter is back in full force here in Northern Michigan. For someone who enjoys local history and finding out what happened in his own backyard, this is a tough season. It’s not that we don’t enjoy the weather. We moved here to find the snowy winter we’ve never experienced, and we found it! (Actually, I have experienced it before. In the field in Germany. I wish I had snowshoes back then!) It is just that up here at the tip of the mitt, most every museum and historical society has closed for the winter.

Instead of pursuing my passion for museums and battlefields, for the time being I’m spending the season reading up on my WWII history and doing a little writing. One of the areas I’ve neglected over the months that I was working on the masters degree and the Locks project was writing unit histories for Military Vet Shop. Rectifying that, I’ve just posted a summary history of the 7th Infantry Division.

I enjoy writing these articles, but unfortunately, since I don’t live near an archive, I’m limited to the sources I find on the Internet. One of the sources I like to use the most is what veterans have posted on their sites, both as individuals and organization' sites. In lieu of finding any new or detailed information, I have to go with what I can find. Sometimes I get it wrong. Because, quite frankly, what has been posted is wrong. I really appreciate it when a veteran contacts me to set the record straight. I invite any comments, critiques, and clarifications. Just shoot me an email.

Marine Corps Restricts Use of Emblems and Terms

2009-12-01T08:29:00.000-05:00

Normally I would limit the content of this blog as much as possible to matters of public history. On occasion I do want to share with you some concerns that arise in my "day job" over at http://www.militaryvetshop.com/. Historians communicate to the public through writing, documentaries, websites, and museum displays. Therefore, issues of copyright and trademark do come up on occasion, so I think you will find the following information interesting:

The availability of t-shirts and coffee mugs with any reference to the United States Marine Corps (USMC) might be seriously curtailed. Recently the USMC, from their newly created Trademark Licensing Office, has claimed trademark rights on all emblems and terms that might reference the Corps. This includes the word “Marine” and any reference to Marine Veterans. The claim also encompasses terms like “USMC,” and even “Semper Fi.”

Each of the military services has always protected the use of the service seals representing the Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, etc. This is allowed in Federal Statutes and it is understandable to prevent an organization from inferring that they officially represent one of the branches of the military. However, there has never been any claim to copyright or trademark of terms against those designs that represent the military in a positive light and with respect to veterans. Civilian companies have always created products that celebrate the service of veterans without the requirement of licensing. With the advent of print-on-demand (POD) technology and Internet sales, these designs and products have multiplied to unimaginable numbers. It would easily be assumed that terminology that refers to the military branches, or emblems created by these government organizations would be in the public domain and free to use by anyone. Apparently, that is not true anymore.

In December of 2007, the Department of Defense (DOD) initiated a directive for each service to “establish a branding and trademark licensing office to manage and coordinate a DOD-wide brand development and trademark licensing program.” You can read that Directive here: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/553509p.pdf. The other services have exercised restraint in the application of this directive. For example, the Department of the Army enforces trademark on the Department of the Army seal and any copyright enforcement on shoulder sleeve insignia is delegated to the unit commander. The Air Force, so far, has chosen to only enforce their trademark on their seal, and the “high wings” emblem that you see on recruiting commercials.

The Marine Corps, however, has really taken the ball and run with it. They established their trademark office in July of 2009. Currently they are contacting print-on-demand companies and requesting that ANY design that refers to the USMC in ANY WAY, be removed from the site until a usage license is obtained from the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps was contacted directly and a representative stated that no licenses had been issued yet. Nevertheless, they were serious about enforcing what they saw as their trademark rights. When a license is issued, it will cost $1,000 to apply and a minimum of $5,000 per year in royalties. This figure puts most of us little guys out of business. For example, Military Vet Shop only earns a couple of hundred dollars per year on USMC veteran items, despite our loyal customers who wear our designs with pride.

Military Vet Shop uses two POD providers, Cafepress and Zazzle. We post on two different sites so that we can offer our customers a larger number of products and styles from which to choose. Currently, Zazzle is systematically searching their product database for any USMC designs and deleting them, with only an email notification to the designer that the removal was at the request of the Marine Corps. With no communication coming from Zazzle, the information in this article was gathered from other websites and the Zazzle seller forums. Within a few days we will no longer be able to offer any USMC veteran items on Zazzle.

So far, no action has been taken by Cafepress. We assume, and hope, that they are negotiating a collective license agreement for all designers who post their work on the Cafepress website. This is the option that we wish Zazzle had chosen, rather than becoming intimidated by the issue.

The USMC is perfectly within their rights to enforce a trademark that is specifically laid out in a federal law that allows them to do so. Even if the license fees go into the USMC Morale and Welfare Fund, we are still very disappointed in the direction the Marine Corps has decided to take. We think the morale of the veterans we honor is important too. It saddens us to see the “corporatization” of any of our military services.

If you would like to read more about this issue, here are some links for you:
Marine Corps Trademark Office, FAQs: http://www.marines.mil/unit/divpa/tmlo/Pages/faq.aspx
Federal Statute authorizing trademark of terms: http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title32/32-5.1.1.7.33.0.37.6.html
A simple (and short) explanation of trademark and copyright: http://www.lawmart.com/forms/difference.htm

National Day of Listening

2009-11-25T10:39:00.000-05:00

My history buddy, Susan with the Friends of the Ballard Locks, sent out an email reminding me that November 27th this year, besides being the biggest shopping day, is also designated as the “National Day of Listening” sponsored by the Story Corps. The object of the National Day of Listening is to encourage you to take an hour and record the memories of a relative or friend. They tell you how to go about recording it or just taking notes and if you like, submit it to Story Corps. If you have never checked out the Story Corps website or listened to one of their broadcasts on NPR, then I highly encourage you to do so. I believe that everyone has an interesting story to tell, if you just ask the right questions.

I have some experience with this. In 2007, I took the opportunity to interview my dad. He’s a Korean War veteran with the 187th Airborne and I wanted to record his experiences in the army. Admittedly, I had to ask him three times before he would sit down with a tape recorder going, but he did it. I was motivated to get his story by an oral history class I had taken and the knowledge that we are losing so many veterans every day. There are projects all over the country to record veteran’s oral history interviews, the two most prominent being the Veteran’s History Project at the Library of Congress, and my favorite, the Veteran’s Survey Program at the Army’s Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA. Long story short (too late!), I did the interviews and wrote an article about his experiences that the History Channel Magazine was gracious enough to print.

However, he had more interesting experiences with history than I, or he, realized. I don’t really remember how it came up in conversation, but I asked what it was like during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 (I was only about a year and a half old at the time). He told me that he was working in a grocery store in Hollywood, California at the time. Sure enough, the American public was in a panic about the possibility of a nuclear war. There was a run on the grocery store with people buying up everything they could to stock up for the apocalypse they thought was on the way. Dad told me he had to stay at the store for 4 nights stocking the shelves as quickly as they could unload the trucks. Moreover, the punch line was that after the crisis was over, many people tried to return all of the groceries they had bought!

My dad didn’t think that story was very historically significant. However, all I had ever read about the crisis was the political side and the military side. There might have been a mention of a terrified public, but my dad’s story put a face on that aspect of the event. It made it real.

Therefore, during the holidays, when you have your extended family around the house, and the meal is over and everyone is sitting around talking. Take the time to ask the questions. And listen.

The "Fall of the Wall." Has it really been twenty years?!

2009-11-02T16:22:00.000-05:00

Along with Veteran’s Day, November brings another day of remembrance with a great deal of significance to Cold War Veterans. November 9th marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While many remember the Berlin Wall from popular media, few non-veterans realize that the “iron curtain” was also represented by the inner German border that separated East from West Germany and West Germany from Czechoslovakia. Few who did not serve in Europe understood the threat that was posed by Warsaw Pact forces and the number of troops we maintained in West Germany for decades.

I remember that day in 1989. I watched on television with amazement at the people crawling all over the wall. I had returned to the United States exactly one year prior to that date after spending a three-year tour in Fulda, Germany patrolling the East German border with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. When I left the Blackhorse in 1988 there were no indications that only one year later the Wall (or the "Fence" as we called it) would come down and the two Germanys would reunify only one year after that. For me, and the army, the “Fall of the Wall” changed our mindset forever and ushered in a new post Cold War era.

While what would become NATO forces had faced off with Soviet armies since the close of World War II, the border fence and the Berlin Wall was not constructed until 1961. Before its construction, approximately 3.5 million East Germans had fled to the West. Approximately 5000 people tried to escape the East during its existence. Estimates of those killed vary widely between 98 and 200. I know from my own experience that between 30 to 50 people each year would escape across the border in our sector during the years I was serving with the 11th ACR.

In November of 1989, after only a few weeks of unrest in East Germany, the government announced that it would ease travel restrictions to the West. When asked at a news conference on the morning of November 9th when that law would take effect, a government official said that he assumed immediately. Spontaneously, thousands of East and West German citizens crossed the border and climbed on the wall, and activity that would have gotten them shot only hours before. A mass celebration erupted that quickly ushered in the reunification of the two Germanys and the dissolving of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

Now those Cold War days are all but forgotten. However, those times changed a lot of us. Everyone who served from WWII through the 1990s had a part in winning the Cold War and defeating the Soviet Block. To honor that service, I asked Sheila to create a graphic commemorating the date for our store Military Vet Shop. There is a generic version as well as a patch version that is currently made with 11th ACR and 2nd ACR patches. If you’d like your unit patch placed on that design, just let us know. Remember the day.

Plan for Veterans Day

2009-10-12T15:14:00.000-04:00

Sheila and I were working on our newsletter for Military Vet Shop and I decided to do a short article on Veterans Day. I thought I might share a few of those thoughts (and a few more) with you here. Veterans Day means a lot to me. Not for myself, but for our veterans. I think it is one of the most overlooked federal holidays we have. One where we have to remind ourselves what it was created for. As our veteran population decreases in this country, I think we are in danger of loosing the meaning of the day. Is it because there is not a 3-day weekend associated with it? Or do non-veterans confuse the intent of the day with Memorial Day? I'm not sure.

I enjoy meeting veterans. Perhaps it is because I am one, or because I like history and most all veterans have a story to tell. I don't get to meet that many any more, so I thought there weren't that many of us around. But I just checked out the VA website, and found out that it's not true. There are a lot of us around. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there are approximately 23.8 million living veterans in the United States. Women make up 7.5 percent of that number. Spouses and dependent children of living veterans and survivors of deceased veterans make up another 37 million Americans. Together those groups make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population. While those are big numbers, it is still an exclusive club. November 11th of each year is the day we set aside to honor the service and sacrifice of our living veterans.

Veterans Day has its roots in what was called “Armistice Day.” While World War I ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, most people assume it was the day of the cessation of hostilities. Germany and the Allied nations agreed that fighting would end on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The following year, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first observance of “Armistice Day” on November 11, 1919. For some reason, after the carnage of "The Great War," a lot of folks thought that we'd never have another one and called it "the war to end all wars." After 27 states had made the day a legal state holiday, Congress echoed President Wilson’s proclamation in 1926, and then passed a law creating a federal holiday in 1938.

Originally, Armistice Day was created to honor the veterans of WWI and to set aside a day “to be dedicated to the cause of world peace.” However, by 1954 the country had survived World War II, which had required the greatest mobilization of armed forces in our history, and the end of hostilities in Korea. Congress passed Public Law 380, which President Eisenhower enthusiastically signed, making November 11th of each year a federal holiday that would be called “Veterans Day” to honor all of our living veterans.

For a few years, starting in 1971, we tried moving Veterans Day to the closest Monday to the eleventh in order to create a three-day weekend. It didn’t work out too well. It was made obvious to Congress that this day has great historical, patriotic, and emotional significance to many of our people. A law was passed changing the official observance of Veterans Day back to the way it originally was. Since 1978 we have honored our veterans on November 11th regardless of what day of week it falls on.

Remember that Memorial Day is to honor those who have fallen in war. Veterans Day was created to recognize all of our veterans for their service. On this coming November 11th, take the opportunity to say "thank you" to an American veteran. If you are a veteran, then thank another vet. Because no one understands better than a fellow veteran. Since the day a WWII veteran thanked me for my service, I've never looked at the day the same.

Road Trip and Relocate

2009-09-09T15:50:00.000-04:00

With apologies for taking so long to get this post up. My part in the project at the Ballard Locks is complete. However, the work to be done there is not. I am leaving the project in the capable hands of the Friends of the Hiram Chittenden Locks. This group of volunteers, most of whom are not natives of the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, have stepped up to give back to the community and the home that they have adopted. Since our project started, the Friends have put in over 600 volunteer hours scanning slides and photos, cleaning storage rooms full of manuscripts and artifacts, and organizing a first class history group from the ground up. It was a privilege to know this fine group of people. Stay up-to-date on their progress at their website or their blog. If you're in the Seattle area, contact them and help out.

The completion of the internship project at the Locks also completed the requirements for my MA in Applied History at Shippensburg University. (As a matter of fact, my diploma arrived yesterday in the mail!) I also can't say enough good things about the faculty, staff, and students in this program. A lot of people have asked me what I'm going to do with a masters degree. My career goal was always to be an independent historian and do some writing. If you share this goal, I can't recommend a better "basic training" for nonfiction writing than pursuing a graduate degree.

Along those lines I wanted to be closer (relative to the west coast) to some of the archives I will need to visit for upcoming projects. More importantly, I was just not cut out for living in the big city. I love to visit them, but when it comes to where I live, I need to be in the country. With our "day jobs" as computer consultants and providing graphic designs for veterans, we are free to travel and relocate more or less where we want and when we want. So Sheila, Meaghan, Sydney and I have moved again. We're now near Harbor Springs, Michigan. That's right, up by the "tip of the mitt"! The countryside is beautiful here and okay, I'll just say it, the Lake Michigan shore is prettier than the Puget Sound. Our first morning here we had deer in the front yard. My kind of place. I'm wondering where Michigan has been all of my life. It's been a well kept secret from the rest of the country. Of course, the army would have never sent me to such a nice place. So it was only by accident and the grace of the Internet that we found it.

I'll fill you in on the history of this area as I learn it myself. It's great to be in an area that I've never been to before. The folks up here in rural Michigan are very friendly and compared to Seattle the traffic is non-existent. And to top it all off, I'm east of the Mississippi, which means that from here it's only about twelve hours of driving to the National Archives in D.C. And, oh by the way, I already have my frequent shopper card for ACE Hardware. More to follow. ;-)

The top picture of the opening of the Government Locks in Seattle, 1916, is courtesy of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and scanned by volunteers. The other two are proof that we are indeed in Michigan, courtesy of my daughter Meaghan, who was in the U-haul with Sheila that followed Sydney and I across the country. The first is of us crossing the Mackinac Bridge from the Upper Peninsula to Lower Michigan. The second is of our arrival in Harbor Springs on September 1st.

Two meetings for August

2009-08-04T18:09:00.000-04:00

The internship is coming to an end this month. I'm working on the last paper now. But that doesn't mean that our project at the Locks is slowing down at all. Last month our volunteer group has decided to use the proper name of the facility, so we are now the "Friends of the Hiram Chittenden Locks." We've also had some new volunteers join our group since last months meeting. We will have two meetings this month, August 6th and August 27th, both at 6:30 pm. On one of those meetings we'll have a tour of our artifacts stored in the Administrative Building, and on the other we'll tour the displays at the Visitor's Center. Of course we are working on the business of setting up a new historical society, so we will also be discussing bylaws and new project goals for the group. Anyone interested in volunteer and joining our group is welcome to attend. For more information, contact our new President, Susan Connole at susanatthelocks@gmail.com. Here's our new mission statement, adopted at the last meeting:

The Friends of the Chittenden Locks endeavors to identify, preserve, and make available records and papers, images, film and artifacts of enduring historical value concerning the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, Carl S. English, Jr. Botanical Garden, and the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The Friends perform this mission as individual volunteers for the Seattle District of the US Army Corps of Engineers with the common bonds of a desire to document the history of these sites and serve the local community.

The Hiram Chittenden Locks, known locally as the Ballard Locks, has been an institution in the area since it's inception. So much so that it has made it's way into the local pop culture many times. Here's an example found by one of our members on YouTube. Back in the 80s and 90s there was a local sketch comedy show on Seattle television called Almost Live. This was a very funny show, in my humble opinion, and they took turns poking fun at each of Seattle's unique neighborhoods. Here is a segment of the show that has a go at Ballard's Nordic Heritage, and reputation (at the time) for a lack of sophistication. There are several scenes in this short clip of the Locks and a couple of USACE employees even get to make a cameo appearance. Click here to watch it on YouTube.

So far since the start of this project last spring, we have scanned approximately 1200 photos and 2500 slides! Thank you to all our volunteers who have come in to do some scanning. We still have a long way to go, we're not even at the halfway point yet. I thought I would share a couple of images from our slide collection this month. The first image is of the rhodies in bloom to remind you that the Hiram Chittenden Locks is also home to the Carl English Garden. Our second image might come under the category of "strange things seen going through the Locks." It's a house being moved by barge. Both images are provided courtesy of the US Army Corps of Engineers and were scanned by Friends of the Hiram Chittenden Locks.

July Updated

2009-07-16T17:58:00.000-04:00

You might be wondering where I've been. All I can offer is the same excuse we all use: I've been busy. No, I really have! In my last post I told you about taking Dr. Burg's online course in Archives. Well, a ton of reading and writing, six weeks later, and Bob's your uncle, I'm done with the course. I had some great discussions online with my fellow students and really learned a lot. The standards of this online class were every bit as high as an in-person class. If I haven't told you enough about it before, go check out the MA in Applied History program at Shippensburg University. It's a great program taught by some really great people.

What's happening with the Locks Project? Great things! Back on June 18th we held the inaugural meeting of the "Friends of the Ballard Locks." We've elected a President, Vice President, and Secretary (none of them me, on purpose, as I will be leaving the area at the end of the summer). We've talked about goals for the project and organization. And what do you know, the second meeting is tonight.

We started a tradition of putting our meeting minutes and agenda into an archive box to go along with all the cool stuff we're finding that documents the history of the Hiram Chittenden Locks and the Carl English Garden. We've found a lot of neat artifacts from the construction era (1913-1917) that includes a surveyor's transit. We've discovered a binder full of newspaper clippings from that era and into the 30s and 40s as well. As a group we've scanned approximately 2000 slides and photo prints. But there is so much more to do. If you'd like to get in on this, contact our new President, Susan Connole at susanatthelocks@gmail.com.

We're on YouTube!

2009-06-07T20:42:00.000-04:00

Other than what I call my "day job" (IT Consulting, http://www.ridinthewave.com/ and the Vet Shop, http://www.militaryvetshop.com/), my life this summer is pretty much dominated by the project at the Ballard Locks. The Summer Term has started back at Shippensburg University so now my volunteering takes on the form of an internship for credit toward my masters degree. I'm also taking an online course about archives, which happens to be taught by my graduate advisor, Dr. Steven Burg.

Since the online class is taught through Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, and I assume that the rest of the class live locally, there will be a couple of "in-person" class meetings. Obviously, spending the summer here in Seattle, I will not be able to attend. In lieu of that, Dr. Burg asked that I make a YouTube video introducing myself to the class. That turned out to be a fun weekend project. Although I really hate seeing myself in pictures or video, I'd like to share it with you (here if the embed is not working):

So, hello to all the folks I'll be chatting with in my online class this summer. We're making great progress with our slide and photo scanning. Aproximately 1500 images scanned so far. We've also started cleaning and organizing one of the storage rooms that we'll use for our archives. We'll be having our first volunteer organization meeting (working name of the group is "Friends of the Ballard Locks) on June 18th, at 6:30 pm at the Locks. Contact us for more details if you'd like to attend. Anyone interested is welcome. And as always, if you are in the Seattle area and would like to volunteer some time to our project, please contact me at jim@ridinthewave.com.

Jim and Michelle's Excellent Adventure

2009-05-19T18:38:00.000-04:00

Update on the Ballard Locks Project

Last week Michelle and I went on a field trip to the Seattle District Headquarters of the Corps of Engineers. The Seattle District covers an area that includes the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. The Seattle District is the next step in the chain of command, leadership, management, and support for the Hiram Chittenden Locks and the Carl S. English Gardens. It is an enormous facility and I felt like the country boy gone to the big city.

Michelle and I took this trip in order to meet some of the players in key departments like Public Affairs, Records, Information Technology, and the District Library. My thanks to Casondra Brewster in Public Affairs for showing us around and introducing us to who we needed to meet. The good news is that there are funds available for us to have some of the 35mm film we have on hand previewed and if appropriate, digitized. Further, if we have records that need to be stored elsewhere to make room at the Locks, we know who to talk to for that.

Now the bad news for us as well as most other government agencies. Due to funding and staff cuts, there are very few, if any, dedicated staff for archiving records or historical activities, especially at the lowest levels of the agencies. Best example is our project here at the Locks. It seems that the usual effort for the archival, or just plain storage, of records is bottom driven to make room for more paper. And given those same budget constraints mentioned, actual archival activities must rely heavily on volunteers or it just won't get done.

The end result is that we now know that once our volunteers have finished scanning the photos and slide collections, the digitized collection can be added to a database maintained by the District. However, the photos themselves could be sent to storage with the District, but it doesn't sound like the optimal location. I think it will be preferrable to keep them on site. After all, where would you look for a photo collection of the Ballard Locks?

Our pictures on this post are both courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Hiram Chittenden Locks. The top photo is of a December snow in 1946. The second is of a seaplane forced to land in a snowstorm in the Puget Sound in February of 1947, that took passage through the Locks. If you are interested in helping to bring the rest of this photo collection online, please contact me at jim@ridinthewave.com

Moving Through The Locks

2009-04-27T19:35:00.000-04:00

Through the closets and shelves at the Locks that is. Our project of creating an archive out of the collections at the Ballard Locks is gaining momentum. The wonderful folks over at the MyBallard.com community forum posted a call for volunteers for us back on April 9th. The response was fantastic! Within minutes the offers to help started dropping into my inbox.

Unfortunately, right now we only have access to the facilities during the work week. So we have a few folks waiting in the wings to help us out in the evenings and on weekends once we get that worked out. However, we now have a crew of eight (8) volunteers signing up during the week to scan slides and photos. We also have a couple more who might join us shortly. My thanks to all of the volunteers who give of their time to help out with the project!

We've set up a Google Group in order to post messages and updates to all of the volunteers. We're also utilizing a Google Calendar to sign up for our scanning session. (Thank you, Amanda, for setting those up for us!) Basically we've divided up the work week into morning and afternoon work periods. Volunteers sign up for a work period on the calendar. Then they come in anytime during that period and put in as much time as they can spare, usually two to three hours. We might tighten up the schedule as more volunteers join us, but for now it is working out great. We have a talented and motivated group of volunteers with some great ideas. I could never do this project without them.

When it comes to setting up an archive, I will admit to being a rank amateur. I've researched in them, but I've never worked in one. I guess that is what makes this a good internship. I will be taking an online class this summer on Archive Management from Dr. Burg at Shippensburg University this summer. Nevertheless, like anything else I want to do and don't know how, I head for the library or Amazon. Currently, I'm reading "Managing Historical Records Programs" by Bruce Dearstyne. It's not nearly as dry as it might sound. In the first chapter, the author reviews the eight functions that archivists carry out. I thought they would make excellent mission goals for our project, so I'd like to share them with you:

1. Acting as agents of the present and the past for the future. All I can say is that I owe a debt of gratitude to those who saved documents, artifacts, and photos and those who determined that they were worth saving. I hope we can do the same.

2. Partnering in the information field. There is no point in saving the information if it is not in a usable form. That means our work is not complete until we've created finding aids and databases.

3. Organizing and managing coherent, comprehensive programs. Dearstyne says that archivists are not only custodians of important materials, but also program managers. There is no "Lone Arranger" here. This requires a team effort.

4. Deciding which records have enduring value and therefore warrant continuing retention. This is important to keep in mind as we work with Corps of Engineer staff to determine what is "archival." We will not need, or should not, keep everything. A lesson we are already learning with duplicate slides.

5. Asserting control and order. This is straightforward. There currently is no systematic approach to storage and organization.

6. Preserving and protecting. Again, very straightforward. Some artifacts and documents are not being properly stored.

7. Fostering access and use. This is very important in that once the collections are inventoried and organized, we must determine how to make it available to the public.

8. Broadening awareness and support. As this group of volunteers move on with their lives, we need to pass on the responsibility of caring for, and adding to, these collections to an ever changing group of new, motivated volunteers.

And finally I'd leave you with another piece of wisdom from this book. The author quotes an AASLH technical leaflet discussing leadership in an historical records program: "Programs must avoid 'obsolete traditions of elitism and aloofness' and be open to new ideas. While stored at the Hiram Chittenden Locks, and currently worked on by eight volunteers and one or two staff members, the history these collections represent belongs to everyone.

April Updates on the Ballard Locks Project

2009-04-03T18:23:00.000-04:00

We're off to a good start on scanning slides and photos down at the Ballard Locks project. (Take a look at the March 9th post to get the low down) Welcome to Susan Connole, who has joined us to help with scanning the slide collection, which I estimate to be around 3000 images. Glad to have the help. Thanks, Susan!

On March 27th we had a visit from my friend Dr. John Bloom, who is a professor of history at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Dr. Bloom was out here in Seattle for the Organization of American Historians conference and he took a few hours out to come tour the Locks and take a look at what we are trying to do. He had some good input and suggestions for us. It actually made me feel better to hear him say that the project was overwhelming. I was afraid I was the only one who was thinking that! But as they say, we'll eat this elephant one bite at at time. And I know I'll be getting more volunteers to join us soon. Here's a picture for you of (from left) Dr. Bloom, myself, and Michelle McMoran who is the gardener and volunteer scheduler at the Carl English Garden. Click here to view more pictures from Dr. Bloom's visit.

Just a reminder that all the photos you find on this site are courtesy of either me, Jim Broumley, or the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, United States Army Corps of Engineers. If you use them, please give photo credit. Right now we need more volunteers to help with scanning photos and slides, or conducting inventory of documents and artifacts. No experience necessary. If you are in the Seattle area and would like to help, contact me, Jim Broumley at jim@ridinthewave.com. We'll post our project updates on this blog. Stay tuned!

Project started, volunteers needed!

2009-03-09T19:32:00.000-04:00

A most exciting project is starting to gain steam. We have talked before about the “un-cataloged” archives at the Ballard Locks and Carl English Gardens. I have started a project that will benefit the Corps of Engineers, the local community, future visitors, and…me. I need an internship project to complete the requirements for my MA in History from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. (Sheila and I were on walkabout in 06/07 and found ourselves in Carlisle, so I went back to school. Long story) The Corps of Engineers, who run the facilities, needs volunteers to inventory and create finding aids for the collections at the Ballard Locks. I will be working with Michelle McMorran, gardener and volunteer coordinator at the Carl English Garden. Here’s what we are planning on accomplishing between now and the end of the summer:

- Inventory all photo collections, documents, and artifacts while creating finding aids by subject.

- Create a volunteer organization to fundraise for specific equipment and supplies, and recruit volunteers for the history project and gardens.

- Scanning all photos and slides in the collections (thousands!)

- Conduct several oral history interviews of former staff and volunteers

Eventually, we would like to see all of the finding aids and a database of the photos be available for convenience to the public online. For the garden side, our long-term goal is a new website showcasing photos of all of the plants in different seasons.

We’ll use this blog to keep you up to date on our progress. Read along with us and see how we do. Feel free to offer suggestions and (hopefully) encouragement. I've just gotten started scanning a huge collection of 35mm slides. Some of those pictures are in this post.

Obviously, there is a great deal of work to be done, and I can’t possibly accomplish this alone. Besides, the point is to organize a system of volunteers that will be caretakers of the Locks and Gardens and pass along this responsibility and privilege to others to continue after we’ve all moved on. As it should be with all historical sites and archives.

If you would like to help with scanning slides and photos, or working with creating a historical archive, please contact me, Jim Broumley, at jim@ridinthewave.com. This will be a unique opportunity for us to create an archive from scratch and really "do history."

If you would like to volunteer in the Carl English Garden (green thumb not required), please contact Michelle McMorran at Michelle.K.Mcmorran@usace.army.mil, or (206) 789-2622 ext 216. My wife, Sheila, volunteers in the garden and greenhouse and she has a blast “getting her green on.” Michelle is super nice and a wellspring of horticulture knowledge. So go get your hands dirty. ;-)

The Worst Job and One of the Best Jobs

2009-01-14T20:17:00.000-05:00

A couple of things that I found interesting in the news this past week:

I suppose I started following this premise that George W. Bush will be considered the worst President in U.S. history back in ’06 with the article in Rolling Stone. I’m not a regular reader of this particular periodical, but I must admit the caricature of the President wearing a dunce hat on the cover of the magazine really piqued my interest.

This idea that George Bush will be honored as the worst President came up again as I was watching CBS Sunday Morning. According to the story, it seems that “In a 2006 Siena College survey of 744 history professors, 82% rated President Bush below average, or a failure.” Back in April of 2008, George Mason University’s History News Network website conducted an informal poll of 109 historians. An incredible 98% considered Mr. Bush a failed president. And 61% said that he is one of the worst in American history. That’s quite an honor considering some of his fellow contenders like Buchanan, Harding, and Nixon. Oh! And with the recent downturn in the economy, Hoover is getting a lot of press lately.

Now it’s time for the good news. The employment website CareerCast.com recently researched and ranked 200 jobs. They have determined that Historian is rated the seventh (7th) best job in America! The jobs were ranked by income and employment outlook as well as other factors like job stress, working environment, and physical peril. Apparently, being a Mathematician (the number one rated job) is a lot better in all of these factors, including safety. But hey, maybe it really is cool to be a historian.

Update: I finally made it over to the Pacific Region of NARA here in Seattle. Not only did I find what I was looking for – original garden maps for the Carl English Gardens at the Ballard Locks – but the customer service was FANTASTIC. My thanks to archivists Kathleen Crosman and Patty McNamee as well as Senior Records Analyst Leslie Malek. These individuals not only helped me find what I needed there at the National Archives, but also got on the computer and found information at other archives and libraries. I was so impressed by the service and professionalism that I’m going to volunteer there.

Telling It Right

2008-12-29T20:20:00.000-05:00

First, of course, let me wish that everyone has had a happy holiday season so far. I enjoy the holidays because I can usually find some time to knock down my reading pile a bit. This is especially true this year with the snow storm we’ve been having in Seattle.

I have a theme that’s been running through my mind the past few days. I’m beginning to realize that there might not be one true version of a historical event. There is a fuzzy area out there that separates what is true and what is not, sometimes depending solely on perspective.

Of course we all know what is true. A known series of events, for example, or some other facts like names, numbers, etc. But how do we know it’s true? Well, we have to trust the source. But keep an open mind. Here’s an example:

I had posted on MilitaryVetShop.com a history of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. One of the sources I used for this summary history had credited the coining of the Brigade’s nickname of “The Herd” to the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment. I was contacted by a veteran who was in the 1st Battalion, who credits Colonel “Rawhide” Boland, his commander at the time, with coming up with the nickname. (Read the quote and history here) There is no choice here. When the only sources you have are an undocumented article on a website and an oral history from someone who was there, go with the in-person witness.

On the other end of the spectrum you have people who make things up. Hopefully, we can catch the untruths before they get absorbed into the historical record. I saw a great example of this in today’s New York Times. The article is worth your time to read. Unfortunately Oprah has been fooled again. It seems that Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust tale of his future wife tossing apples to him over the fence is not true. Fortunately, in this case other survivors and Holocaust researchers outed Mr. Rosenblat. While he is a Holocaust survivor, he felt he needed to spice up his memoir a bit and, like these things are wont to, the story ran away with the Rosenblats in tow. My point is not to judge this case specifically, but to show how some stories just need another source.

Somewhere between my two examples is that gray area. I just finished reading Tony Horwitz’ A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. (4.5 stars on Amazon, and I personally give it two thumbs up.) Part history and part travel narrative, Horwitz travels the country to learn about the founders of America from Columbus through the Plymouth Colony and Jamestown. It’s a fascinating and entertaining read. What struck me was how people around the country would usurp history to fit their political/ethnic agenda or even to simply further the local economy. Read the book and you might be amazed to find out that Ponce de León never looked for a “Fountain of Youth” but if you go to St Augustine (where the Conquistador never went) you’re likely to be offered a paper cup full of water. How many of us are dead certain that many of these types of historical mythology are true?

The State of Education

2008-12-04T20:22:00.000-05:00

First let me give a shout out to Doug, who is a veteran of Operation Desert Storm with the 18th Military Police Brigade. He read a unit history that I had posted on the web and informed me that I had been remiss by not mentioning that units from the 18th MP Brigade had participated in the Gulf War. I appreciate the email, and a correction has been made. And I will say that there is not enough information on the subject on the web. So let’s see some writing from you vets who were there. People want to hear your story.

Warning: The following post is a rant that doesn’t have much to do with history.

My friend Paul Kurzawa posted on his blog over at History Delivered about a test put out by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute with questions on civics, history, and economics. Here are links to the press release explaining the abysmal results and the test itself. Basically the average score of a random sampling of Americans who were given the test was 49%, or an “F.” However, the average score for a person with an undergraduate college degree was 74.4%. See where I’m headed here?

While I agree with Paul that we are pathetic citizens when it comes to knowledge about our own history and government, our bigger problem is the overall decline of education in this country. Currently, almost 30% of our students drop out of high school across the nation. According to an article in USA Today, only 29% of Americans have a bachelor degree. The article goes on to tell us that of the 70% of students who graduate high school, 65% of them go on to college. But if that many students enroll in college why do only 3 in 10 of us have a degree? It is because somewhere along the way, from kindergarten to college graduation, seven of us gave up on formal education. In addition to that, they’ve given up on life-long learning.

Here’s my take on it: Public school started pushing ALL kids to go to college, even if they don’t know what they want to do for a career. So the kids who can go to college go without any clue of what they want to do with their lives. They then burn out on classes that they have no interest in and drop out. Meanwhile, the kids who aren’t able to go to college, for whatever reason, have received the implicit message loud and clear. They are worthless in this society for not going on to college. So they give up and drop out of high school. The kids who stick it out and graduate have no love of, or skills for, learning on their own.

My father went to “Technical High School” where he learned trade skills like welding and cabinetry. But he also was taught math through trigonometry and a love of poetry so strong that he carried a book of Robert Service poems to Korea. I graduated from college, but most of what I’ve learned about history was from outside of the classroom. Mostly through visiting museums, watching documentaries, and that’s right, reading books! And who taught me to read? Right again! My dad. He told me that reading was the most important skill you can have because anything you want to know about is in a book somewhere. Are parents today doing that for their kids?

Of course I’m ranting and of course I’m grossly generalizing. But how do we fix the declining state of education in this country? Let’s work on the weakest link. How about teaching every student in public school to a standard level of skill and competence? For the last several decades it seems like we’ve been putting all of our resources into teaching the most talented and advantaged while leaving the others to struggle. Why do we do this in public education? I’d like to see a public high school education mean something again. Let’s have that basic education be able to stand alone. Let’s get off of the “college is everything” kick for awhile. Because I really don’t worry too much about the upper middle class kid whose parents are involved and can afford to pay for college. I worry about the kids who don’t have those advantages. So should you. Because they both get one equal vote.

What are you reading?

2008-11-23T18:18:00.000-05:00

I have a book problem. I never met a bookstore, library, or book club I didn’t like. I have stacks of unread books and magazines around the house, most of which are nonfiction, most of that, history. I'll get around to them all one day. Once in a while I pick up a work of fiction. As you might imagine, it's almost always historical fiction. The more accurate the better; I hate catching an author with a historical inaccuracy. It turns me off for the rest of the book. From then on I can’t trust any historical “facts” presented in the story. After that, it’s just brain candy. Admittedly, fiction is my guilty pleasure just the same. But I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. I picked up the book Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry in a used book store. It is actually part of a detective series set within the backdrop of the Civil War. I enjoyed the character of the heroic sleuth, Able Jones, who was a Welsh immigrant making his home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Since I was living in that area of the country at the time, I saw that the author was dead on historically accurate with the history of the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed the book, but I was upset when the author had the main character secretly meet President Lincoln, who asks him to work for him as a secret agent. Thus the stage is set for a detective series within the Civil War. Okay, so I read a few more books in the Able Jones series. It's a fun read, but as I said: brain candy.

One of the books that really turned me on to military history was The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. I read the book the first time as an assignment for a military history class when I was in ROTC. Since then I’ve read the book three more times and I must have watched the movie version, Gettysburg, at least a dozen more. One of the reasons I like the book so much is the attention the author paid to historical accuracy. All of the characters in the novel are historical personalities. The only thing made up in the book is the conversations the characters have with each other. Michael Shaara’s son, Jeff, has taken up the family business. Jeff Shaara writes with the same standard of historical accuracy and now has a long list of titles on Amazon. He has done a prequel and a sequel to the Killer Angels, and done works on the Revolution, the Mexican War, World War I and World War II. I just yesterday finished The Steel Wave, Jeff Shaara’s second volume about WWII. I liked it so much, as I do all of his work, I mailed it to my dad to read. It’s not brain candy, or even brain fast food. Think of it as a healthy brain sandwich.

The bottom line is that I think we can learn a lot from historical fiction, whether by reading a novel, or watching a movie. It doesn’t just have to be about military history. Movies (that are almost always books first) like Seabiscuit and A Beautiful Mind were box office successes AND historically accurate. Or at least these works are historically accurate enough to teach the story while entertaining. These works should not be discounted as a way to learn history. I find history exciting. It's unfortunate that many others don't. History makes for a good story. Why can’t we get people interested in, and excited about, history by presenting it as the drama that it is?

For Veterans Day

2008-11-10T19:32:00.000-05:00

It’s Veterans Day and I have strong opinions about it. I hate that to most people it just means that there will be a sale down at the big box store. I come from a family where everyone joined the army. Not because of patriotism or nationalistic fervor. As my dad said, it’s just “what we do.” My service was mostly during the Cold War. My father’s was during Korea. I like the irony that he was in at the start of the Cold War and I was there at the end. I’m much more proud of his service than mine, so I’ve included several photos from his album here for you to see.

The way I look at it, every time a “great man” did something that they teach you about in public school, there was a little guy making it happen, or enduring the consequences depending on the outcome. Please use Veterans Day to do two things. First, take the time to listen to veterans in your family or those you know. Ask them what they did, where they were, and what was it like. Record, write it down, and remember it. There are many programs going on now to record and archive veteran’s oral histories. I have a bias for the U.S. Army Heritage Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Visit their website and participate if you can. There are of course other programs like the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.

Second, use this day to think about, and talk with your family, about our military and how we use it. Because we employ it. The people decide how it is used. I will not use this blog to promulgate a political debate. I want to only promote the study, appreciation, and enjoyment of history. But please be aware that you can and must have an opinion on how we use our military to advance our agenda around the world as well as provide for our nation’s security. And know that there are young people out there right now who are the instrument of our policies. Only a precious few choose to join the military these days. We need to use them wisely.

To honor the veterans in my family and those that I’ve known in my life, I’m including the text of a speech I’ll be giving at my local Toastmasters Club tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it. And please, sometime tomorrow go up to a veteran, shake his or her hand, and say, “Thank you for your service.” That honor was given to me by a World War II veteran one day a few years ago and I’ve never forgotten it. I couldn’t believe that this man who had seen and done more than I could ever dream of would thank me for my service. It meant the world to me.

Getting To Know Clyde
I was a cavalryman. And on Veterans Day it is my duty to impart to you a little bit of cavalry wisdom. Do you know the difference between a fairy tale and a war story? A fairy tale starts out “Once upon a time…”, and a war story starts out “Well, there I was…” But other than that, they’re just about same thing. That being said, let me tell you one of my war stories, of which I assure you, every word is true.

I come from what you might call an army family. It seems that every male member of my family had served in the army. My great uncles chased Poncho Villa and fought in World War I. My dad’s brother Clyde left home to join the cavalry when they still had horses. He later fought in World War II, and Korea. My father was in Korea with the 187 Airborne Regimental Combat Team. Cousin Ivy Charles was there with him and he went on to serve in Vietnam as a Special Forces medic.

As you might imagine, I heard a few war stories growing up. My father told me once that he joined the army because he figured that everything that could be explored or discovered had been explored or discovered and the only adventure left for a poor kid from Texas was going to war. So of course I joined the army. How could I not? Not for patriotism or love of country, but because I had to live up to the standards set by these men. And the fact that I needed a job had a little something to do with it too. I went looking for adventure…and I found it. But those stories will have to wait for another day. Today, I want to tell you how I got to know my uncle Clyde.

I had seen pictures of Clyde when I visited his widow, Georgia Ann. I saw that picture of him. Khaki tie and campaign hat. Riding boots that laced up to the knee. Holding the reigns of his horse. His story fascinated me.

Years later I was in the Aviation Officers Advanced Course at Fort Rucker, Alabama. In this school, one of our exercises was to travel up to the Civil War Battlefield at Chickamauga, Georgia and conduct a terrain walk. Study the tactics. Conduct a “staff ride” if you’re from the cavalry. If you’d been there you’d have seen about 80 captains walking all over the battlefield stopping at key points to conduct a class. You would have stood on the exact spot where Longstreet saw the gap in the Union line. He sent thousands of troops under John Bell Hood through the opening, turning the battle into a route and a victory for the Confederate forces. If I’d been there, would I have seen the opportunity and acted on it?

For this multi-day event, we swung a deal with the local National Guard that we could stay in their barracks at a training site called Fort Oglethorpe. In return we’d take the time to tour a museum that some folks had started for the 6th Cavalry Brigade. The 6th Cavalry had been stationed at Fort Oglethorpe back when they had horses before World War II. No problem, so off we go to the museum. Someone had donated an old G-model Cobra from the Vietnam days and they had it parked out in front of a rather plain looking building about the size of a Seven-Eleven. Inside they had a couple of uniforms, an old McClellan saddle, you know, the usual stuff. Lots of pictures on the wall. No kidding, it really was interesting there just wasn’t that much of it. Most of the guys did their duty and moved through pretty quick. But waiting for us in the corner were our three tour guides.

Now, to say these guys were old would be an understatement. They had to have been in the cavalry back when Christ was a corporal, or at the very least rode into Mexico with Black Jack Pershing. I didn’t really have any questions for them and quite frankly I was about to cut out to the parking lot for a cigarette when I heard one of the gentlemen say he had been in the Cavalry in 1941 and had been on the Texarkana maneuvers, which we all remember was the last mounted cavalry maneuvers that the United States Army conducted. Well, my dad had told me many times that his brother Clyde had been on the Texarkana maneuvers.

So of course I had to ask, “Did you know a Clyde Broumley?” The old guy scratched his chin and said, “Yes, I think I did.” Wow. John MacArthur said “Small world.” Rick Rowzee said, “Small army.” The man leads me over to a picture on the wall and points out a couple of the soldiers in the old sepia tone picture. He said, “I think Broumley was one of these youngsters in the recruit troop.” You see, back then, there wasn’t basic training for cavalrymen. They were assigned to the recruit troop until they had “won their spurs” and then assigned to one of the line troops. The old gentleman went on to tell me that as he remembered, private Broumley was a good trooper. Then he proceeded to tell me all about life at Fort Oglethorpe in the 1930s. He told me about how the officers were on the base polo team and played the officer teams from other posts. Enlisted weren’t allowed on the team, so they’d made up their own. The officers played them for practice but never could beat the enlisted team. I listened to that old man’s stories until my friends got tired of waiting and came and got me.

As soon as I got the chance I called my dad to tell him about the man who knew Clyde. My dad had quite a chuckle. He said that Clyde wasn’t in the 6th Cavalry, ever. He was in the 3rd of the 7th out of Fort Bliss at the time of the Texarkana maneuvers. So the man was mistaken. I thought about that encounter for years. I finally decided that in this case the facts are so important. I’m sure that life at that time wasn’t so different at Fort Bliss than it was at Fort Oglethorpe. The old man knew that he knew Clyde Broumley. And as a result, I got to know him too.

All History Is Local

2008-11-04T21:34:00.000-05:00

Paul, my friend from the Masters in Applied History program at Shippensburg University, posted on his blog an essay about the challenges in finding archival records for a project involving a local church. His post served as a reminder that all history is found locally. You might live where something big happened, for example Paul lives just a few miles from the Gettysburg Battlefield. Or, you might be where the history is not so evident. Every town and county in America has its own story to tell. Whether you live near the “big stuff” or not, history can be found all around you. Maybe you’ll find an interesting story in the local cemetery, or in the history behind a plaque on a building or bridge, or in Paul’s case study, the story behind a not-so-old church in a very old town.

My wife and I recently moved to the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. A short walk from my home is the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, known by the more common name of “The Ballard Locks.” I thought I’d share this with you because and my local NPR station did a segment on the Locks today. Take a listen to the show and soak up some local Seattle history. Also, Arcadia Publishing recently released one of their local history books about it, The Ballard Locks by Adam Woog. I own the book and it is quite good. However, the work is like all of the Arcadia Publishing books in their “Images of America” series in that it is picture rich, but textually it is only a summary history.

There is no museum or archive at the Ballard Locks and that’s a shame. There is nice little gift shop that shows a short film and a lot of great volunteers. The history is in the site itself. The Ballard Locks was dedicated in 1917 and has been in operation ever since. The site, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, connects the Puget Sound to lakes Washington and Union. I stop by there with my cattle dog Sydney nearly every day to watch boats move through. It’s relaxing. However, looking at the 100-year old concrete structures makes me wonder what else they have to tell me in addition to what can be found in Mr. Woog’s book. So I started yet another quest. In a search of the National Archives online, I found some record groups pertaining to incidents at the Locks. And what do you know, they are housed right here at the National Archives Pacific Region Facility in Seattle. I’m planning my visit. I’ll let you know what I find out.

The History Behind the Patches

2008-11-02T17:11:00.000-05:00

My primary profession since 1997 is in information technology. My wife and I are self-employed (http://www.ridinthewave.com/). I’m the geek who works with spreadsheets and databases, consulting and instruction. My wife Sheila on the other hand is a graphic artist and website designer. Together we create t-shirts and gift items for veterans on another site called Military Vet Shop (http://www.militaryvetshop.com/).

The reason I tell you all this is not in a gratuitous attempt to sell you IT consulting or a veteran’s sweatshirt. The designs we make almost all have a unit patch on them. The patch we’re talking about is the shoulder insignia worn on the uniform. A soldier wears the patch of the unit they are assigned to on their left shoulder, and the unit they have been in combat with on their right. The reason that the patch that a veteran had on his shoulder is so important is because each of those colorful patches has a story behind it. When you become a part of a military unit, you become part of its history, part of the story behind the patch. The unit’s reputation is your reputation. Today, since I wore the Blackhorse patch of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, it is like I made the last cavalry charge in 1916 with them. I had gone into Cambodia with them. Those who wear it today patrolled the East German border with me. The future soldiers of the 11th ACR will have gone to Iraq with the troopers of today.
To honor those veterans, I enjoy posting a summary history (usually between 1000 and 1800 words) for some of the unit patches found on the site. I’ve created 22 so far with many more to follow. Today is significant because I just put up the first history of a marine unit (the other 21 are for army units). If you are interested, and I hope you are, take a look at the history of the 1st Marine Division, http://www.ridinthewave.com/thinkytees/1stMarDiv.html. From that page there are links to others. I’d like to hear what you think. I hope you’ll share them with others.

Our Forgotten Duty: Preserving the Present

2008-10-27T22:29:00.000-04:00

I’ve often heard people express the philosophy that as a history buff, family historian, local historian, antique collector, etc. that we are custodians of history. Basically, the notion is that we have a responsibility to future generations to “preserve the past.” The application of this credo might be in the form of preserving a historic place like a national battlefield, or presidential birthplace. It could be the act of digitizing photos that were originally taken on nitrate negatives that are now rapidly deteriorating. The collecting and preservation of antiques might be considered preserving the past. Recording the oral histories of our veterans and elder relatives before they leave us would top my list.

Certainly all of those things and more fall under the heading of being good custodians of our history and preserving the past. And in case you can’t read between the lines, I subscribe to that philosophy wholeheartedly. But what are we doing to preserve the present? Or more loosely defined: the history of your lifetime? It is amazing what we’ve seen during our lives. Some of us know first hand about the Great Depression. Many of us know what the Vietnam era was like on the home front. Most of us know what happened on 9/11. But what students of history want to know (and aren’t we all students of history?) is what your family did to make ends meet in the 1930s. We want to know that your dad supported the war while you protested for peace and how you both dealt with that. And future students will want to know where you were and how you felt on 9/11 and the days that followed. I submit to you that we, as lovers of history, know exactly what students in the future will want us to leave behind: your important possessions, your pictures, and your journal.

We all own something that really means something to us. Something that we acquired, not handed down to us. It could be a diploma or certificate. It could be a tool, or a dish. We have my mom’s first sewing machine. Still works, my wife Sheila uses it. I still have my Buck pocket knife that I bought with my first paycheck when I was sixteen years old. It was the same model as my dad’s and I’d wanted one as long as I can remember. I carried that pocket knife all through my time in the army and various jobs over the years. I never lost it. It’s thirty years old now. I don’t have anything else that I’ve owned "since I was a kid.” Maybe your important possession is your piano. It was bought brand new and you learned to play on it and you taught your children to play on it. It is an artifact of your family history with a story attached. That story will be passed on, and the story will help the piano to transcend from “old piano” to cherished family heirloom. Keep it. Care for it. Pass it on. Story included.

I remember volunteering in the photo archives of the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I was scanning photographs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I was fascinated with the pictures of what must have been mundane to the people at the time. Street scenes and the insides of homes and stores are so cherished by us a hundred years later. There were so many unidentified people posing to have their picture taken. Taken so long ago, there was little hope of identifying them today. They haunted me; I saw their faces as I walked home and wondered who they were. I must confess that my collection of pictures from my army days is stuffed in a huge envelope in a filing cabinet. There is no writing on the back and although when I look at the pictures of some of those guys, I can remember the conversations we had and everything about them...except some of their names. I’m working on it, I swear. And I urge you to work on it too. Take pictures. Print them out or database them on your computer. Write down the who, what, where and when.

I think the most significant thing we can leave behind is our own story. What happened when, what was your part, what were your perceptions, and most importantly, how did you feel about it. Earlier I said it’s amazing what we’ve seen in our lives. Here’s an example. My dad is a Korean War veteran and I conducted a formal oral history interview with him. I asked him everything I could think of about his wartime experiences. Then one day, months later, in just a normal conversation the subject of the Cuban Missile Crisis came up. My dad told me about working in a grocery store in North Hollywood and how he could not come home for three days straight because everyone in the surrounding neighborhood had panicked and made a run on the store. They were stocking up for what they thought would be a nuclear war. My dad told me they couldn’t keep anything on the store shelves. But the humorous conclusion to the story was that when the crisis was over, many customers came back and tried to return the canned and dry goods they were hoarding. I found that story fascinating and if it had not come up in conversation I would not have known about that little facet of the crisis. We spend so much time studying Kennedy and Khrushchev that we forgot to ask what it was like for grocery clerk Bob Broumley and the people in North Hollywood, California.

Don’t wait to be asked. Record your own oral history. Keep a journal or diary. Write letters. Keep an audio journal using a tape recorder. Don’t be shy; you can even video tape yourself. Not when you retire. Now. Tell your story. Pass it on.