In Memoriam: Clark G. Reynolds

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March/April 2006 Historically Speaking 49 Afghanistan. Nor should we be too squeamish about what warriors do best: killing. War, John Keegan famously pronounced when challenged to produce a definition, is "collective killing for a purpose." We do it, as do our enemies . It is the obvious tonal contrast, however, between the respective humanity of the Western warrior and the inhumanity of his opponents that explains why we're so reluctant to think of the suicide bomber as a warrior —and we're right not to. But it would be equally misguided to delude ourselves that we can keep the warrior ethos alive in our soul if we continue along the path we are going. In Memoriam: Clark G. Reynolds Donald A. Yerxa Prominent naval historian and contributor to Historically Speaking Clark G Reynolds died suddenly of a heart attack following a jog on December 10, 2005 at his home in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina. He was 65 years old. Reynolds was a recognized authority on the fast carriers of World War II. He is best known for his The Fast Carriers: The Forging ofan Air Navy (McGraw-Hill, 1968), a classic work of naval history recognized by the U.S. Naval Institute as one of the ten best English-language naval books published in its first 100 years. His biography, Admiral John H. Towers: The Struggle for Naval Air Supremacy (Naval Institute Press, 1991), won the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize and the K. Jack Bauer Award. In addition to his work in 20th-century American naval history, Reynolds wrote three books that updated and refined concepts of sea power and command of the sea initially made famous by Alfred Thayer Mahan. Reynolds earned his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1964 where he studied under Theodore Ropp. He taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, the University of Maine, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and the University/College of Charleston where he received the faculty distinguished teaching award and the faculty research award for 1999 and retired as distinguished professor emeritus in history in 2002. He served two five-year terms on the Executive Board of the International Commission for Maritime History and was a member ofthe Secretary of the Navy's Advisory Committee on Naval History from 1987 to 1995, chairing it from 1987-1989. A lover ofjazz music of the 1920s-1940s, "Doc" Reynolds was a volunteer disc jockey for jazz radio programs from 1973-76 on Maine Public Broadcasting Network and from 1983-2002 on South Carolina Educational Radio. He is survived by his wife of 42 years, Constance Caine Reynolds (who was his typist and proofreader), two sons, and a daughter. I will never forget the first day I met him in 1972 at the University of Maine, where with Robert Greenlaugh Albion he created an extraordinary, albeit short-lived, program in naval history. I was a very green graduate student interested in exploring naval history, and as I made my way down the hall to his office, a booming voice and the aroma of Borkum Riff whiskey blend tobacco greeted me. He was thoroughly intimidating that day. He told me that military and naval history tended to attract "weirdos" who had no concept ofwhat rigorous historical inquiry entailed and that if I studied with him, I would have to be a serious historian with ambitions to make significant contributions to the field. I must leave it to others to assess whether I was/am a weirdo or whether my work in naval history ever reached the threshold of significance, but these were important words to hear at the outset of a graduate career. His deep love of naval history was infectious, and his expectations of high performance from his students showed respect not only for them but also for the important work of the historian . He was the best lecturer I have ever heard, and I left many a class excited with some new insight that altered how I viewed the past. As the student-mentor relationship matured over the years, Clark Reynolds became a great source of encouragement. When I ventured into new intellectual waters related to the interface between science and...