Talking about War: Reflections on Doing Oral History and Military History

Abstract

history goes naturally with military history. After all, veterans have told their war stories since time immemorial. William Alexander Percy, who saw combat in World War I, explained why war etches memory of many veterans so deeply. It was the only heroic thing we all did together.... it, somehow, had meaning, and daily life hasn't. It was part of a common endeavor and daily life is isolated and lonely.1 Wars have understandably received most attention from military historians as human lives and fate of nations hang in balance. In an earlier essay in this series, Oral History and Story of America and World War II, Roger Horowitz deftly illustrated how oral history aided in our understanding of military, political, and social aspects of that era.2 Since 1940s, many historians have employed oral evidence in their works about recent conflicts and about social and institutional developments in peace as well as war. Over years, I have learned much from them and their work. In this essay, I reflect on how I used oral history in my scholarship on World War I and peacetime American army. I shall also offer a brief guide to some of rich oral history collections available to military historians. Although World War II marked beginning of acceptance of oral history by scholars, journalists and some historians had asked participants about their actions long before that. Almost two and half millennia ago, Athenian general Thucydides talked with other participants before he wrote his history of Peloponnesian War. In nineteenth century, Lyman C. Draper, famed collector of trans-Appalachian frontier manuscripts, interviewed veterans of various frontier wars and deposited his notes with other documents in State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Among many others over years were two American war correspondents in