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Thread: The Abuse of Military History

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    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default The Abuse of Military History

    The Abuse of Military History by LTC Bob Bateman at SWJ Blog.

    The Abuse of Military History: An Introduction to the Problems of Victor Davis Hanson

    By Bob Bateman

    I am a soldier, first and foremost, and this is as it should be. But I am also an academic historian.

    As a member of two cultures, I find that they have much in common, at least in theory. Foremost among those is an inclination to distrust the first report, and to privilege the written word. In my historical writing, however, I seek to create a thesis for the reader which accurately represents a synthesis of facts and ideas that come from sometimes quite disparate sources. In developing that thesis, I am bound by the facts. This, also, is as it should be. But there is something else my two professions share. In short, members of both professions hate liars and those who twist the truth around.

    My book on the events at No Gun Ri in 1950 devotes fully half of the text to understanding how lies worked their way into the historical record and people's understanding of what took place near that small South Korean village more than 50 years ago. The bottom line is that I have a strong sentiment against people putting falsehoods into the record...
    Much more at the link.

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    Council Member Brian Hanley's Avatar
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    Did he ever talk to Colonel Dave Hughes about No Gun Ri? Dave is a Korea vet who has something to say and agrees with Bateman.

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    Default LTC Bateman

    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Hanley View Post
    Did he ever talk to Colonel Dave Hughes about No Gun Ri? Dave is a Korea vet who has something to say and agrees with Bateman.
    Ask him, his e-mail contact info is contained at the end of his post.

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    I think these are going to be awesome articles I can't wait to read the next one.
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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Hanley View Post
    Did he ever talk to Colonel Dave Hughes about No Gun Ri? Dave is a Korea vet who has something to say and agrees with Bateman.
    The article itself actually has precious little to do with No Gun Ri. You could always get ahold of his book and check the bibliography...

    The type of people Bateman's ranting about have been lurking on the fringes of history for some time...and often within the profession itself. They crop up any time a professor says "you aren't X, so you can't speak about the experiences of X," but then feel free to run their mouths about X, Y, and Z without any sort of context or framework (just a generalized sense of entitlement).
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

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