The relevance of history to the military profession: an American Marine's view

Abstract

When I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1956, the American military placed little emphasis on nontechnical professional education. The well-developed curricula – much of it based on the study of history – that served World War II's leaders so well no longer existed. In their place stood courses dominated by political science and management philosophies. Fortunately for the United States, the situation altered considerably over the next forty years, although only at great cost. Advancing from private to lieutenant general during those four decades, I found myself initially a victim and later a beneficiary of military schooling. The weak and uninspiring education system I first encountered might have survived far longer had it not been for the tragedy of the Vietnam War. That conflict and its aftermath provided the catalyst for much-needed change. At the center of the transformation lay a renewed interest in the study of military history. The American military's performance in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm and the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as its recent accomplishments in Afghanistan, offer compelling evidence of the value of the improvements made in the American armed forces between 1974 and 1991, none more so than the fundamental alterations in professional education. In the following pages – after briefly outlining how the American military education system progressed over a century and a quarter only to lose its way in the early Cold War years – I have chronicled my own professional education and its importance to my development as a leader.