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I can disagree with nothing Mr. Hoffman has written [on Mon, 12 Nov
2001 21:18:23 -0500] except for the assertion that I have launched "a
broadside attack on Marines who write history." Picking out the flaws in
works written by some Marines is not a broadside attack.
I must accept partial blame for this misperception, because my
previous comments in this dialogue have accentuated the negative. Those
scholars that I consider to stand at the cutting edge in Marine Corps
history include Allan R. Millett, Jack Shulimson, Merrill L. Bartlett,
Kenneth E. Estes, Hans Schmidt, Keith B. Bickel, and Craig M. Cameron.
Joseph Alexander has also turned out some excellent work. A good number of
these folks are former Marines, but they have risen above the norm in
Marine Corps history, which Graham A. Cosmas characterizes as "polemical,
sensational, autobiographal, or some combination thereof."
John Grider Miller's _The CO-Vans: U.S. Marine Advisors in Vietnam_
(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2000), is a sterling example of a former
Marine combining the insights gained from personal experience with good
research and scholarly detachment in a truly thoughtful book. It can be
done. It just is not done often enough.
I do not mean to disparage those who write drum and bugle
operational history. That requires certain hard-earned skills and a lot of
work, and it certainly fills the needs of the armed forces, but I have
always felt that military history had a higher purpose than simply
schooling future generations of officers in how to kill more efficiently.
The Marine Corps is important enough to warrant more first-rate scholarship
than it has attracted. Go into almost any research university library, and
you will find that the number of serious studies on the U.S. Army and the
U.S. Navy dwarf similar volumes on the USMC.
This should not be the case. The USMC has been around almost as
long as the U.S. Army and just as long as the U.S. Navy. True, it is
smaller than the other two services, but that very smallness should
facilitate more serious research -- not less -- especially when one
considers the glamourous mystique that surrounds the USMC. The survival of
a such a conspicuous organization whose values run counter to what passes
for popular culture in this country is a fascinating phenomenon, especially
when that organization is so highly prized by millions of Americans who
would never have the guts to join it.
The fact remains that Marine Corps history is dominated by Marines
and former Marines, a situation that has been long fostered by the Marine
Corps History and Museums Division, which is the nearest thing to a "closed
shop" that we have among the historical programs affiliated with America's
armed forces. So perhaps the notion of collective guilt is not
inappropriate in this case. I wish the Marine Corps History and Museums
Division would sponsor a true program of glasnost to encourage more
professional historians and doctoral students to subject the Corps, its
history, and the writing of Marine Corps history to closer scrutiny. The
gatekeepers need to fling open the gates. That would involve putting more
money into research and dissertation grants, but I am afraid that is not
going to happen until the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation raises the $25
million required to build the new Marine Corps Heritage Center at Quantico.
A military background can supply certain insights, or it can be a
source of presentism, chauvinism, and partisanship. What matters is the
quality of the historical works in question, and top quality usually rests
on solid research, a broad perspective, and an ability to deal with the
past on its own terms, and not the standards, traditions, and current
interests of a modern military organization.
And for the record, I would like to state that I wrote my review of
Mr. Hoffman's _Chesty_ for the _Journal of Military History_ at least a
month before we crossed pens on this listserve. I would not like anyone to
assume that an honest and politely conducted disagreement would affect the
way I evaluate a fellow historian's work.
Gregory J. W. Urwin
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