Military Historians are People, Too!

Today's guest is the enthusiastic and fun Heather M. Haley of the US Naval History and Heritage Command. A PhD from Auburn, Heather is a scholar of LGBTQ+ in the American military. In addition to several publications with the Naval History and Heritage Command, Heather is the author of Queer in the Cold War: The Civil-Military Battle over the Lavender Scare, which is forthcoming from Cornel University Press. If you've been to recent Society for Military History conferences, you'll have seen Heather, who is very active in the SMH. We'll talk career serendipity, imposter syndrome, cats, Badger Killers, Bob's Burgers, and much more. Enjoy! Shoutout to Rudy's BBQ! Rec.: 12/06/2024

Our guest today leads the double life of being an academic at Trinity College, Dublin, by day and doing stand-up comedy by night! Andrew Dorman is a Research and Policy Officer with TCD's Centre for Economics, Policy, and History, and recently earned his PhD in history from Dublin City University. A specialist on soldiering in 18th century Ireland, Andrew has published with the British Journal of Military History and the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, and his first book is coming out with Broydell and Brewer in early 2025. Andrew's night gig doing stand-up has taken him to Asia, the US, and Europe, and he's twice performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Andrew has a great story—growing up in Dublin, watching war movies as a kid, then discovering history and comedy in college and deciding to pursue both! We'll talk 3-minute thesis competitions, crafting a joke, My Chemical Romance, hecklers, Ulf the Quarrelsome, among a lot of other stuff—this one is packed! Shout-out to Friend of the Pod Zack White for putting us in touch with Andrew, and shout-out to Andrew's local in Dublin, The Stag's Head! Rec.: 11/21/2024

Our guest today is the guy who led the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection team that created the ubiquitous yellow Energy Guide labels on your appliances. Oh yeah, he's also an award-winning historian of the American Civil War. Hampton Newsome recently retired from a long career as an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Hampton did his undergraduate degree at Duke University and earned his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He is the author of several books, including Richmond Must Fall: The Richmond-Petersburg Campaign (Kent State University Press), The Fight for the Old North State: The Civil War in North Carolina January-May, 1864 (University Press of Kansas), and most recently Gettysburg's Southern Front: Opportunity and Failure at Richmond (University Press of Kansas), which won the Emerging Civil War Book Award ad the Edwin C. Bearss Book Award for Oustanding Scholarship in Civil War History. We'll talk being a non-academic historian, doing archival research, Civil War Roundtables, Danny Ferry, Uncle Tupelo/Wilco, among other pressing issues. We really enjoyed this one! Shout-out to The BBQ Exchange in Gordonsville, Virginia! Rec.: 11/14/2024

Today's guest is a Canadian! Jason Ridler is a Course Developer and Lecturer with Advanced Academic Programs at Johns Hopkins University, where he designs and teaches remote courses for the Johns Hopkins Globa Secutires and Master of Liberal Arts programs. Jay earned his PhD in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and has published in Diplomacy and Statecraft, Small Wars and Insurgencies, and Defense and Security Analysis, among others. His books include the well-received Mavericks of War: The Unconventional, Unorthodox Innovators and Thinkers, Scholars, and Outsiders Who Mastered the Art of War (how's that for a subtitle!), published with Stackpole in 2019. An avid writer, Jay is also a novelist - his The Brimstone Files series is available from Nightshade Books. If you are hitting the writing wall, take a look at his Undefeated: Stay a Writer Against the Odds. We'll talk Canadian military history, what makes one a "maverick" in history, luchadors, the Von Erics, being in a punk band, and, oddly, the best BBQ in Decatur, Georgia! Shout-out to Pho City in Sacramento! Rec.: 11/05/2024

Today's guest is the thoroughly amazing Mary Elizabeth Walters of the USAF Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB in Alabama. A native of Cheraw, South Carolina, Mary Elizabeth fell in love with history doing oral histories with D-Day Pathfinders for National History Day, but she had no idea that would lead to living in Albania, studying refugee crises from Kosovo and Afghanistan, and now teaching theory of war and strategy to Air Force majors. We'll talk cows, hippie parents, National History Day, host mothers in Albania, the Wayne Lee Experience at UNC, moving from the university world to professional military education, and more. Enjoy our entertaining chat with Mary Elizabeth Walters! Rec. 10/08/2024

We've been wanting to do this for a while now, as we're always pushing our BBQ chops on you, dear loyal listeners, so we talked with a legit pitmaster - Mary Beth Brown of Dolan's BBQ down the street from Georgia Southern University here in Statesboro, Georgia. Along with her sister Lazar Brown Oglesby, Mary Beth is the owner and pitmaster of one of the best BBQ places in Southeast Georgia. A Georgia Southern University graduate experienced in the restaurant and hospitality industry, Mary Beth has proved that "Girls Can 'Que, Too!" She was kind enough to sit down with us while we had lunch outside on the Dolan's porch (complete with Statesboro Pick-Up Truck Traffic on Main Street!). We'll talk things BBQ - business, life choices, being a woman pitmaster and BBQ restaurant owner, and sauce - as well as Dwight Yokum, paying your dues early on, cooking through a hurricane, and further confirmation that the best ideas can come from a cooler of cold beer enjoyed on a riverbank (a lot of parallels with military historians). We know you'll enjoy this episode as much as we did doing it. And, we got to see the pit smoker! Rec.: 10/08/2024

Today's guest is one of the nicest and brightest new scholars in the military history community - Cameron Zinsou of the US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. A native of Ft. Worth, Texas, Cameron thrived at North Texas as an undergraduate and earned his PhD at Mississippi State University. He's a World War II guy, focusing on French meanings of citizenship during the conflict. There's a lot in this one, so get ready - we'll talk growing up in Ft. Worth, early interest in Civil War history (a la Lesley Gordon), grief and loss of a sibling, the influence of Rob Citino, getting hooked on F1 after a lifetime of misguided NASCAR fandom, among many other topics. Enjoy. Shoutout to Arthur Bryant's BBQ in Kansas City! Rec.: 09/19/2024

Today, we go Down Under to chat with the pleasant, fun, and wicked-smart Michael Finch. Mike is a Senior Lecturer in the History of War and Strategy at the Centre for Future Defence and National Security at Deakin University. A graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford University, Mike has written extensively on French colonial violence and the First World War and just published a thoughtful history of the seminal Makers of Modern Strategy books titled Making Makers: The Past, the Present, and the Study of War (Oxford, 2024). A native of the Newcastle region of England, Mike and his family made the big move to Australia and haven't looked back. We'll talk Oz, the serendipity of archival discoveries, ACT Brumbies, Korean BBQ, being a Geordi, caravan vacations, and, yes, kangaroos. Join us for this enjoyable chat with Mike Finch while he has his morning coffee and we wait for dinner! Don't forget - 30% off at the University Press of Kansas with code 24MILPEOPLE. Rec.: 09/17/2024

Today's guest took a non-traditional path to becoming a historian, working in the private sector while gradually becoming a researcher and writer on the Vietnam War. A native of Pennsylvania, Jay Veith served in the post-Vietnam US Army, worked in management for Proquest and other corporations, and earned a PhD at Australia's Monash University (at the encouragement of the late Jeffrey Grey) later in life. Jay's books include Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-1975 and Drawn Swords in a Distant Land: South Vietnam's Shattered Dreams, and he is currently working on a book examining the North Vietnamese side of the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Jay has been active in supporting identifying remains of missing American servicemembers and has testified before Congress on behalf of families of missing servicemembers. If you've attended the annual Texas Tech University Vietnam conference, you've heard Jay speak on these and other Vietnam War-related topics. Join us for an entertaining and interesting chat with Jay Veith. We'll talk being in the Cold War US Army, Rambo, researching and writing on topics raw in living memory, earning a PhD in Australia, being an "independent scholar," and the best pho in Falls Church. Remember the 24MILPEOPLE 30%-off code at the University Press of Kansas! Shoutout to Mission BBQ and Pho 75! Rec.: 08/27/2024

Today's guest is the host of the Mother of Tanks/Why We Fight podcast - Sasha Maggio! Sasha's background is actually in intelligence studies and psychology, but she's had an interest in military history and World War II for many years. She's held various contractor jobs with the US Army and the Department of Defense, including the Army Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth. She is currently a unit deployment manager with the US Air Force's 37th Airlift Squadron at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. She will soon begin doctoral studies in military history at Maynooth University in Ireland, focusing on non-military-related soldier crime in the US Army in Europe during World War II. A Boston native, Sasha is also a classically trained singer and a pastry chef. We'll talk being an Army spouse, working as a defense contractor, the evolution of the successful Why We Fight podcast, touring Sicily, Larceny Bourbon, and the 1941 US Army GHQ maneuvers, among other topics. Don't forget - 30% off at the University Press of Kansas online store with code 24MILPEOPLE. Rec.: 09/06/2024

Today's guest is Mark Folse - BBQ intellectual, shameless Alabama fan, and, by the way, historian of manhood and the Marine Corps, as well as the US Army in Afghanistan. A native of the Deep South, Mark enlisted in the Marine Corps after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and served in Afghanistan and Iraq. After four years in the Marines, Mark returned to school, earning his BA, MA, and PhD at the University of Alabama, where he worked under Friend-of-the-Pod Andrew Huebner (this is where Mark says "Roll Tide" or whatever). Now a historian at the US Army Center of Military History at Ft. McNair in Washington, DC, Mark writes on the US Army in Afghanistan for his day job but remains a historian of manhood and masculinity in the early 20th century Marine Corps. His first book, The Globe and Anchor Men: US Marines and Manhood in the Great War Era, was recently published by the University Press of Kansas (use code 24MILPEOPLE for 30% off!). We'll talk about growing up in the South, Alabama football, serving in the Marine Corps, comparing academic and official history, and a BBQ treatise that rivals Adam Seipp's! Get settled, grab the beverage of your choice (if you aren't driving), and enjoy. Rec.: 08/23/2024

We kick off Season 5 with fellow directional-state utlitiy infielder Devlin Scofield of Northwest Missouri State University. Devlin is a historian of Germany and the First World War, and also researches on Alsatian veterans and nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Born in New York but raised in Livingston, Montana, Devlin earned his PhD at Michigan State University. So, we'll talk "Yellowstone" and Mark Dantonio, along with tattos, bears, and Austrian restaraunts in Kansas City! Don't forget to use the 30% off code 24MILPEOPLE at the University Press of Kansas - a very generous offer from our friends out there at The Ranch in Lawrence! It's good to be back - thanks for listening! Rec.: 06/28/2024

Our guest today is Kansas native-turned-West Texan Kelly Crager. Kelly is Head of the Oral History Project at the Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive at Texas Tech University, where he is also the Associate Archivist. Before coming to Texas Tech, Kelly was a visiting assistant professor at Texas A&M University. He holds a BA and MA degree in American history from Pittsburg State University and earned his PhD in from the University of North Texas. Kelly is the author of Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma‐Thailand Death Railway (Texas A&M University Press). His articles have been published in the Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Military History of the West, and Southwestern Historical Quarterly, and he curated physical and online exhibits on The Tet Offensive and the Helicopter War in Vietnam. His current research focuses on myth and memory in the Vietnam War. Kelly is the Book Review Editor for Military History of the West, an advisor to the Dartmouth Vietnam Project, and has appeared on C-SPAN’s American History TV. Join us for a relaxed and very interesting chat with Kelly Crager. We'll talk adolescent missteps, working in a hot dog factory, the impact of that special history teacher, doing oral history, George Strait, Shiner Boch Beer, and much more. Shoutout to Hard Eight BBQ in Stephenville, Texas, and The Shack BBQ in Lubbock! And a very special shoutout to our listeners - this is our 100th-numbered episode! Congrats to us and to all of you for supporting Military Historians are People, Too! Special Discount for our listeners from the University Press of Kansas - 30% off any book purchase! Use discount code 24MILPEOPLE at the ⁠UPK website⁠! Rec.: 03/14/2024

Our guest today is another Napoleonic-era scholar and also prolific podcaster Zack White. Zack is a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the Centre for Port Cities and Maritime Cultures at the University of Portsmouth. He earned a BA in History from the University of Southampton, a Postgraduate Certificate of Education in Secondary Education and Teaching from the Wessex Schools Training Partnership, and an MA and PhD in History from the University of Southampton. His thesis, “Pragmatism & Discretion: Discipline in the British Army, 1808-1818” was awarded the Wellington Prize in 2022. Zack has experience in the secondary school classroom as well. He taught History and Politics at St. Catherine’s Catholic School in Dorset. Zack is the editor of the forthcoming An Unavoidable Evil: Siege Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Helion) and is the editor and presenter of The Napoleonic Wars Podcast, which has over 2,000 weekly listeners in over 100 countries. Zack is the founder and the current Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Romance, Revolution & Reform, serves as the Postgraduate Liaison and Social Media Officer for the British Commission for Military History, and is the creator and editor of the online hub The Napoleonic Wars. He is the founder and chair of the Napoleonic & Revolutionary War Graves Charity, a program dedicated to war graves restoration and burying Napoleonic-era veterans when bodies are disturbed. Zack is currently researching his next project, “Sepoys and Slave Seamen: Race, Empire and the Law in British India, 1795-1830.” Join us for a really interesting chat with one of the more busy new scholars in the military history community. We'll talk podcasting, air traffic control, Green Day, Wellington, British military justice, violins, and much more! Special Discount for our listeners from the University Press of Kansas - 30% off any book purchase! Use discount code 24MILPEOPLE at the UPK website! Rec.: 03/15/2024

Our guest today is Napoleonic-era scholar Luke Reynolds, who is an assistant professor of history at the University of Connecticut at Stamford. He has taught at colleges and universities in greater New York City, including Hunter College and Brooklyn College. Luke holds a BA in history from Trinity College in Dublin, an MA from Hunter College in New York, an MPhil in history from Cambridge, and a PhD from the City University of New York. Luke's first monograph, Who Owned Waterloo? Battle, Memory, and Myth in British History, 1815-1852 (Oxford University Press), won the Society for Military History 2023 Distinguished Book Award and was a runner-up for the Society for the Society for Army Historical Research's 2023 Best First Book Prize. He has also published in the Journal of Tourism History and the Journal of Victorian Culture. He is currently working on a monograph titled The Complete Battle of Waterloo: All Three Versions of J. H. Amherst's Blockbuster Spectacle. Luke is a frequent guest on the The Napoleonic Wars Podcast, and is Committee Secretary for the Napoleonic and Revolutionary War Graves Charity. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (huzzah!). Join us for a fun and interesting chat with Luke Reynolds. We'll talk growing up in New York City, going to school abroad, choosing between theater and history, Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's novels, the Lambs Club, and, of course, "the recent film that shall not be named." Special Discount for our listeners from the University Press of Kansas - 30% off any book purchase! Use discount code 24MILPEOPLE at the ⁠UPK website⁠! Rec.: 03/08/2024

Today's special Leap Year guest is World War II social historian and oral history advocate G. Kurt Piehler. Kurt is the Director of the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University. He has held academic appointments at the City University of New York and Drew University, and was the founding director of the Rutgers Oral History Archives and served as Director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Tennessee. He was a Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at Kobe University and Kyoto University and served as a National Historical Publications and Records Commission Fellow in Historical Editing at the Peale Family Papers in the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery (that's a mouthful!). Kurt earned his BA in History at Drew University before taking an MA and PhD at Rutgers. Kurt is the author of A Religious History of the American GI in World War II (Nebraska), Remembering War the American Way (Smithsonian Institution Press) and World War II (Greenwood), which is part of the American Soldiers' Lives series. He edited the Encyclopedia of Military Science (2013) and The United States in World War II: A Documentary Reader (Wiley-Blackwell). He has co-edited at least five volumes, including the Oxford Handbook of World War II. Kurt is the series editor of Fordham University Press' World War II: The Global, Human, Ethical Dimension series and the Legacies of War series at the University of Tennessee Press. He is on the advisory board of the NEH-funded American Soldier Project at Virginia Tech University (Shoutout to GFOP Ed Gitre!) and a member of the editorial board of the Service Newspapers of World War II digital publication. Kurt is an active member of the Society for Military History, and he organized the 2003 annual meeting in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the 2017 conference in Jacksonville, Florida (seriously, he did that TWICE!). Join us for a fun and fascinating chat with the very affable Kurt Piehler. We'll talk fun shirts, Fresh Meadows, congressional internships, Pink Martini, oral history and veterans' stories, and John le Carré novels, among many other topics. This is a good one (as they all are!)! Special Discount for our listeners from the University Press of Kansas - 30% off any book purchase! Use discount code 24MILPEOPLE at the ⁠UPK website⁠! Rec.: 02/29/2024

Our guest today is a historian of the Civil War, the Vietnam era, and the prisoner-of-war experience - Glenn Robins in Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History and Political Science at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, Georgia. He formerly served as the Director of GSW University, and was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Southern Mississippi and spent one year at Brewton-Parker prior to his arrival in Americus. Glenn received his BA from Carson Newman College, an MA from East Tennessee State University, and his PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi. Glenn was a West Point Summer Fellow in 2009. Glenn is the author of The Longest Rescue: The Life and Legacy of Vietnam POW William A. Robinson (Kentucky), and The Bishop of the Old South: The Ministry and Civil War Legacy of Leonidas Polk (Mercer). He is the editor of They Have Left Us Here to Die: The Civil War Prison Diary of Sgt. Lyle G. Adair, 111th U.S. Colored Infantry (Kent State), which was a finalist for the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award, the co-editor of America and the Vietnam War: Re-Examining the Culture and History of a Generation (Routledge) and co-author with Paul Springer of Transforming Civil War Prisons: Lincoln, Lieber, and the Politics of Captivity (Routledge: 2014). Glenn’s new book, A Debt of Gratitude: How Jimmy Carter put Vietnam Politics on the National Agenda, is forthcoming from the University Press of Kansas. Join us for a very interesting chat with Glenn Robins. We'll talk chance and circumstance in becoming a historian, working for NASA, POWs, veterans in Congress, the Ford EXP, Eminem, and home-cooked viz retail BBQ! Rec.: 02/15/2024

Today’s guest is the amazing teacher, Civil War historian, and former Gettysburg battlefield guide Dr. Jennnifer Murray. Jennifer is a teaching associate professor of history at Oklahoma State University and was formerly an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia at Wise and served as a historian in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Jennifer was also, for several summers, a seasonal ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park and has led hundreds of battlefield tours. She earned a BS at Frostburg State University and an MA from James Madison University before being awarded a PhD from Auburn University. Jennifer is the author of On A Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933–2013 (Tennessee), which won the Bachelder-Coddington Award in 2014, and The Civil War Begins: Opening Clashes, 1861, which is part of the US Army Center of Military History’s Campaign Series. Her current book project is a biography of General George Gordon Meade. Jennifer has participated in dozens of Civil War Roundtables and has been featured on C-SPAN and NPR. She also consulted for “Who Do You Think You Are?” Jennifer is a member of the editorial board of Kent State University Press’ Interpreting the Civil War: Texts and Contexts Series and formerly served in the same capacity at Gettysburg Magazine. Join us for a fun and interesting chat with Jennnifer Murray. We’ll talk Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, “Stump the Ranger,” college softball, Mrs. Maisel, and writing a massive biography of an often underrated Civil War general. Content warning: Brian reveals he has attended a Billy Joel concert! Shoutout to Wright’s BBQ in Johnson, Arkansas! Rec.: 02/16/2024

Today’s guest is the funny and brilliant Matthias Strohn. Matthias is Head of the Historical Analysis Program at the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research and an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham. Matthias has also served as a senior lecturer in War Studies at the UK Ministry of Defence and a Military History Instructor at the German Staff College in Hamburg. He is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the German Bundeswehr and as a member of the German Military Attaché Reserve served in Paris, London, and Madrid. Matthias deployed to Iraq with the British Army and Afghanistan with the British Army and Bundeswehr. In 2022, he was awarded the Golden Cross of Honour, the German Armed Forces’ highest non-combat decoration. Matthias was educated at the University of Münster before earning his MSt and DPhil at the University of Oxford. He is the author or editor of more than 20 books, including The German Army and the Defence of the Reich (Cambridge), How Armies Grow: The Expansion of Military Forces in the Age of Total War 1789-1945 (Casemate), Winning Wars: The Enduring Nature and Changing Character of Victory from Antiquity to the 21st Century (Casemate), and World War I Companion (Osprey). His forthcoming book Blade of a Sword: Ernst Jünger and the 73rd Fusilier Regiment on the Western Front, 1914–18, will be published by Osprey in 2025. Outside of his military and academic life, Matthias gives battlefield tours through The Cultural Experience. “So join us for an energetic and wide-ranging discussion of speaking English, studying at Oxford, growing up in Muenster (the “most livable place on Earth”), being a historian while deployed, Stalingrad staff rides, pink Stetsons, and Johnny Cash! Rec. 02/08/2024

Our guest today is Ohio University PhD candidate Cody J. Billock. Cody is a Fellow at the Contemporary History Institute Fellow at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where he is completing a dissertation titled “Huế & The Global Vietnamese Civil War, 1945-1980,” under the direction of Alec Holcombe. Cody completed his BA and MA in History at San Diego State University, working with Pierre Asselin, and has studied at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Hanoi, Vietnam. Cody is the recipient of several Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) grants and is fluent in Vietnamese. He has worked in three of the four main national archives in Vietnam. Chatting with an advanced doctoral student is essential to what we do here on Military Historians are People, Too. Join us as we discuss growing up around Marines, high school doldrums, discovering Vietnam’s rich history, learning Vietnamese and working in Vietnam’s Nation Archives, White Buffalo, and Chakhokhbili! For our graduate student listeners - it’s great to hear from a young scholar. Shoutout to Kiser’s BBQ in Athens, Ohio! Rec.: 02/09/2024