#15--Erik Villard

Controversy & Clarity

Erik's Social Media Links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Erikhistorian

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikthehistorian

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikvillard/⁠

In this episode, we discuss the following topics.

*How Erik became a military historian

*Roleplaying games as training for military historians

*Which military historians influenced Erik most

*Becoming a digital military historian

*The creation of Vietnamwarhistoryorg

*What Erik’s ideal training for future military historians would look like

*Making military history useful to operational commands

*The US Army’s History and Heritage efforts

*Those Center for Military History (CMH) projects Erik finds most rewarding

*The challenges of writing official military history

*The monograph review process at CMH

*How studying military history provides literacy in evaluating sources

*The claim that military history is under siege in US universities

*Some of the giants of Vietnam War historiography in the English-speaking world

*Historical works that Erik recommends for US small unit leaders

*Small unit military history

*Unit historians (“5X” in the US Army)

*General William Westmoreland’s strategy in Vietnam

*Friction between Army and Marine Corps commands

*The controversy of Westmoreland’s single air manager concept

*1st Cavalry Division and 101st Airborne Division units in the Battle for Hue

*The possibility of North Vietnam capitulating

*Whether or not the US lost any battles during the war

*Why the Army lost the lessons of Vietnam

*Requests for historical materials in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom

*The poor state of record keeping in US commands during the Global War on Terror

*Some of Erik’s solutions to that problem

Links

Combat Operations: Staying the Course, October 1967 to September 1968 by Erik Villard

The 1968 Tet Offensive Battles of Quang Tri City and Hue City by Erik Villard

U.S. Army Center of Military History

--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/damien-oconnell/support