2024 - 12 - 04
“We all recognize war as a horrible disease of civilization; Americans especially, of the peoples of the world, hate war and inveigh against it, particularly after a war has ended, but we do very little to avoid it. There must be specific causes for wars, and there must be ways to eliminate them. The question is, what can be done that has not been done?” (Marshall, speech to Historical Society of Maryland, June 11, 1945, Box 111, Folder 62, GCM)

2024 - 11 - 19
Sliced my hand open deep cutting an avocado for dinner this evening. Immediately felt a nerve go, and with all the blood I knew I’d never be able to close it myself. Brother-in-law rushed me to ER; ~6 hours and 12 stitches later, I was on my way home.

Most of the doctors weren’t even surprised. “Oh, avocado wound? Yeah, we see those all the time.” Problem was, it wasn’t even that good of an avocado! Cut right through the tiny pit and into my hand.

Right side of my index finger is completely numb, but glad it wasn’t worse.

2024 - 11 - 12
Two of the nuttier court martials I came across in a document today:

1. “1st Lt. D.M. Bryant, Ground Det., for knowingly and without authority breaching local limits, buzzing Municipal Airports and town of Delta, Utah, at 25 feet, and flying over highway so low that he struck a moving cattle truck and killed a cow. Tried April 6, 1944.”
2. “2nd Lt. J.L. Eicher, for knowingly breaching local limits without authority, making two low passes over his home in Los Angeles, pulling up violently and, presumably without intent, loosing from his bomb rack a spotting which exploded in driveway [not sure if it was his own!]. Tried 9 March 1944.”

2024 - 11 - 5
“The flight of time with me is so rapid that I find it very difficult to keep mentally abreast of things, and last week becomes last year and sometimes last year becomes last week. This business of fighting entirely around the world and the difficulties of the battle on the home front so completely engage one’s attention that personal life becomes a thing of the past.” (Christmas note, George C. Marshall to Charles P. Summerall, December 29, 1943, Box 86, Folder 44, GCM)

2024 - 10 - 29
My review of Greiner, Rome to the Po River, published today on H-War.

2024 - 10 - 26
Spent a rainy morning eating honeycrisp apples and building train sets with my son.

2024 - 10 - 25
Came across an interesting letter from Henry L. Stimson (Secretary of War during WWII) to Marshall written in January 1947. In it, Stimson reflects on his experience as Secretary of State and offers Marshall candid advice as he prepares to take on the same role. I found the following paragraph pretty eye-opening:

“Surprise bombshells from the outside world will drop upon you with much greater frequency than in the War Department even in time of war. Philander Knox (1853-1921) used to say that nothing surprising could happen in any part of the world without the news of it coming across his desk within four hours. That is a little exaggerated but it is in essence true, and the variety and unpredictability of these bombshells are greater than anything we experienced during the war in the War Department.” (Box 86, Folder 16, GCM)

I wonder what they would have thought about the interconnectedness of the globe and rapidity with which information is exchanged today. Still, four hours a hundred years ago isn’t half-bad, considering a hundred years before that it could take weeks, even months to receive the same information.

Here’s what Dean Acheson, Marshall’s Under-Secretary of State (and the man who would succeed him in 1949) had to say after reading Stimson’s letter:

“Mr. Stimson’s comments are good and are based upon knowledge of this place. I should say that, since he left it in 1932, the volume of work and problems has increased greatly over what he knew…His State Department conferences were on matters less vital than yours today.”

2024 - 10 - 24
Reuploaded a projects page to the site, as well as the shell of CSCAMP, the Center for the Study of Coalitions, Alliances, and Military Partnerships. I’m only just beginning to flesh out this project, so it’s going to be a real work in progress until I can figure out its dimensions–version 0.1 if you will.

2024 - 10 - 23
Another interesting wake-up getting nudged by A, next to T, both of them in between Claire and I. “Dad,” he whispered, “be careful, you’re going to fall off the bed.” Thanks…and no thanks to you!

2024 - 10 - 22

Don’t call him George! The Mr. Stettinius in question was Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., the administrator of the Lend-Lease program and by all means a close friend of the Marshalls (Marshall and Stettinius had gone fishing together in Florida the week before).

In fairness, Marshall writes that he was “pleased rather than offended” at the bottom of the note, but it does demonstrate the salience of Marshall’s reputation in Washington.

2024 - 10 - 21
I love waking up to my son asking me if I “wanna build a huge train set” before I’m remotely conscious. He knows me.

2024 - 10 - 19
Took some furniture over to my little sister’s new place in Portland this evening. It was so nice to catch up and see how well she is doing. Discovered what might be my new favorite Tim Maia song on the way home. Pretty great.

2024 - 10 - 13
I’m a sucker for great introductions. Perusing an old history textbook today, I was taken by this description of Columbus’ discovery of the Americas by Samuel Eliot Morison:

America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hopes of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.” (The Oxford History of the American People (1965), 23)

2024 - 10 - 12
Spent five hours railing against a blackberry bush today. Really took it out of me. Highlight of the day, however, came before during my morning hike with A. Afterwards he told everyone that we saw four banana slugs, a bunch of mushrooms, two horses, five dogs, and a chimney in the forest (indeed, we did).

2024 - 10 - 11
Came into our room this evening to find ten (!) string cheese wrappers in a pile on the bed. I’m certain who the culprits were, but I’m not sure whether I should be impressed or alarmed.

2024 - 10 - 10
Back to work today editing the prologue for Juul’s memoir. After work, did some “construction” projects in my office with the kids. We ended up repairing a door and building an impromptu shelf. They had their hard hats, tool belts, and everything.

2024 - 10 - 09
Scored two boxes of old pottery materials for Claire today in Portland. A nice 75-year-old man was moving and needed them gone. A lot of the jars of chemicals (used for making glazes) were wrapped in newspapers from the 1990s. It was like opening a time capsule.

2024 - 10 - 07
Made Shakshuka tonight. It’s an all timer, but the kids had a bit of a hard time with the half-can of fire-roasted tomatoes I threw in for extra measure.

They were excited to have spotted a woodpecker in the yard today. A is hard at work on a “hideout” he’s building out of some old logs. He’s a proud builder, and deservedly so.

2024 - 10 - 05
Beautiful day. Claire and A spent a good amount of time this afternoon collecting rocks from the cow pasture. Joseph felled more dead cedar trees and Nellie mowed down patches of thistly weeds at the same time. A’s countenance always seems to glow when he’s working hard.

2024 - 10 - 04
COVID booster & flu vaccines with Claire this afternoon. She took the kids earlier this week and boy, was that a show. I was surprised to hear that little T took it far better than A did. He basically had to be pinned down to get his shots. That, of course, after hiding under the table and turning blue from shouting, “No, I won’t!”

2024 - 10 - 03
Came across a beautiful encapsulation of the historians’ craft today by Barbara Tuchman:

Corroborative detail is the great corrective. It is a disciplinarian. It forces the historian who uses and respects it to cleave to the truth Or as much as he can find out of the truth…I am a disciple of the ounce because I mistrust history in a gallon jug whose purveyors are more concerned with establishing the meaning and purpose of history than with what happened. Is it necessary to insist on a purpose? The lilies of the field, as I remember, were not required to have a demonstrable purpose. Why cannot history be studied and written and read for its own sake as the record of human behavior, the most fascinating subject of all?

While on the subject, today I stumbled on an enjoyable article on how Tuchman’s engaging writing captivated another budding historian, the great Margaret Macmillan.

2024 - 09 - 30
Met a fishing legend on the banks of the Kalama River last night, the renowned chair fisherman known as “Smokey.” He’s 84, feisty, and very funny. Told us all kinds of fishing yarns. We found out it was his birthday. He was so kind to give us all several flies he’d tied; he said they worked particularly well for steelhead and cutthroat trout. Even though the sun went down before we could do much fishing, chatting with him for a half hour was the best part of the day.

2024 - 08 - 12 Caught a glimpse of two summer steelhead at the mouth of the Hood River this evening while out exploring with some family members. Beautiful scenery in the gorge. That road up to Mt. Hood through the orchard-lined hills certainly ranks among the most stunning vistas in the PNW. Stopped off at a local fly shop for some advice. Very nice attendant told us the mouth of the Deschutes is where you want to be if you’re looking for summer steelhead.

2024 - 07 - 17
Made a seminal mistake today at lunch. Noticed an older gentleman in uniform with a Union Jack on his shoulder and asked, “So what part of England are you from?”

He responded animatedly in a thick accent, “I’m from Scotland, bub! You don’t want to go saying that to us!” We both laughed as I apologized profusely.

2024 - 07 - 16
Always exciting when that obscure fact you know about the Supreme War Council during World War I comes in handy during a seminar. Awesome discussions on coalition warfare, the global nature of the Second World War, German military doctrine, and the specifics of Fall Gelb, the invasion of France in 1940 during today’s four sessions.

Tonight marked the first summer rain we’ve had since our seminar began. Apparently, evening thunderstorms are the norm, not the exception, in this part of Virginia. It poured and poured for about an hour, with the street outside the hotel becoming a veritable river. My wife said it looked just like the set of “Singing in the Rain.”

2024 - 07 - 15
Awesome day with Jennifer Keene and Rob Citino discussing the origins of World War I, trench warfare, and the Schlieffen Plan.

We started the day with a discussion on the elastic concept of “wartime.” It’s good to remember that wars rarely have clear beginnings or endings—even wars like World War II, a “clear-cut” conflict we normally assign definite origins and end points—and that the United States has been engaged in far more conflicts over the course of its history than most realize.

2024 - 07 - 13
Returning from dinner while on the phone with Claire last night when a friend told me that ex-President Trump had been shot at in PA. Every election matters, but this is shaping up to be one of the most politically, socially, and culturally consequential in memory.

Spent most of the day on a staff ride touring the New Market battlefield. New Market was the site of the last Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War. The battle was significant for the participation of VMI’s corps of cadets, many of them no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, in General Breckenridge’s counterattack that forced the Union into (temporary) retreat. We had a great day being led by VMI’s ever-enthusiastic Colonel Gibson.

Hot and sunny out but not unbearable. Our van sustained significant damage on a door panel as our young cadet driver tried to navigate a narrow entrance into a farmer’s field. Gelato afterwards with Dr. Susannah Ural and a few others in our group. An excellent day, all things considered.

2024 - 07 - 12
That moment when you’re touring a military archive and see a box labeled “human tissue, hair.”

Turns out it was only the exhumed remains of a French immigrant/soldier who was born in 1789, lived through the Napoleonic Wars, migrated to Virginia, and died in 1864. Our tour guide held open the box and showed us. “Oh yeah, there’s brain matter and bones and teeth and all sorts of things in there,” Col. Gibson told us matter-of-factly.

Apparently he’d been buried in a steel coffin a bit too close to a new road, so they exhumed him and sent him to the forensic scientists at the Smithsonian to see what they could learn about his life until they can reinter the remains. Fun fact: The dining hall at VMI is named after him.

2024 - 07 - 08
First full day of the seminar in the books. “This is everything I wish I would have known before I got to graduate school,” I told my wife during one of the breaks.

2024 - 07 - 07
Long day of travel to Lexington, Virginia for the 2024 Society for Military History Summer Seminar at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI).

2024 - 06 - 28
“General [Walter Bedell] Smith commended the War Department historians for trying to get at the facts, and for trying to get interview material before lapse of too much time. He mentioned that in a course which he once took on military history, General Lew Wallace’s accounts of the battles of Fort Henry and Donalson were given as examples of how military history should not be written. Wallace wrote one account a month or so after the battle, another at the end of the Civil War, and finally after about sixteen years. With each retelling the operations became more perfect as the general reflected—so that in the end it became almost perfect—everything went as the general planned it.

“In war—said General Smith—it is not that way—things get pulled off but not according to plan. As, for example, General Montgomery—who was constantly claiming that things went off according to his plans. He always planned a frontal attack and it always bogged down, and after his flank attack or auxiliary attacks succeeded, but not in accordance with Montgomery’s plans. But as related afterwards by Montgomery, everything went off as he had planned it.”

Observations on the writing of military history (with a bonus jab on the way Monty retold his experiences) from Eisenhower’s wartime chief of staff, General Walter Bedell Smith.

Source: Interview conducted by Dr. Howard M. Smyth in the Ambassadorial Suite at the U.S. State Department, Room 197, May 13, 1947, OCMH Papers, Box 128, USAHEC, 15–16.

2024 - 06 - 27
Stumbled onto the story of a signals team sent into Tunisia in late November 1942 to facilitate communication between AFHQ and the U.S. Twelfth Air Force. 2nd Lieutenant Robert Philips, leading a group of twelve signalmen, was out repairing telephone lines on the roadways, minding their own business, when a pair of German Junker Ju-88’s appeared over the mountains and dove in to attack.

A hundred-pound bomb exploded next to Philips as he lunged for cover, tearing his right arm clean off. With three other soldiers wounded by the blast, Philips “jump[ed] into his truck and drive left-handed to a first-aid station six miles away to dispatch an ambulance for his injured men.” (The Signal Corps: The First Test, 380)

I was floored by Philips’ dedication. I also can’t imagine what it must have been like to be at the aid station when his truck came careening to a stop!

2024 - 06 - 22
Pike’s Place Market on a Saturday morning. There aren’t many things that can beat it—but oh, the crowds!

Took a nice drive into West Seattle with Claire. Brief stop at a nice mom & pop coffee shop, quick walk through a peaceful local park, and ended up on a ferry to Vashon Island where we spent the evening exploring. Himalayan food for dinner. Sunset on the Sound. Looked for shells, agates, and cool rocks for the kids next to the historic lighthouse. A wonderful ending to a great day.

2024 - 06 - 21
Got away for Claire’s birthday. Drove north via the “scenic route” (Auburn and Black Diamond). Gorgeous views of Ranier. Visited one of our favorite antique stores, got lunch. Spent the evening in and around beautiful Bellvue, WA.

2024 - 06 - 20
Not sure how he arrived at this statistic, but I was struck by this excerpt from a battlefield guidebook Dwight Eisenhower wrote in the 1920s:

For the 25 months from April, 1917 to May, 1919, the war cost the United States more than $1,000,000 per hour. At the time of the armistice the cost was about $2,000,000 per hour. Pay of officers and enlisted men took only about 13 percent of this amount. The remainder was for supplies, munitions, transportation, etc. The total expenditure of twenty-two billions was practically equal to the entire cost of running the United States Government from 1791 to 1914, inclusive.

Source: American Battle Monuments Commission, A Guide to the American Battle Fields In Europe, 270.

2024 - 06 - 10
“For the art of war is an art like painting, architecture, or pedagogy, and the entire cultural existence of peoples is determined to a high degree by their military organizations, which in turn are closely related to the technique of warfare, tactics, and strategy. All these things have mutual influences on one another.” (Hans Delbrück, Preface, The History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History, Vol. 4)

2024 - 06 - 06
Listened to President Biden’s speech in Normandy, France today. It’s the eightieth anniversary of D-Day. Took a minute to reflect on the sacrifices of the thousands who lost their lives on that day, the sacrifices of their families, their friends, and their communities. We owe them everything.

On another note, Biden offered a nice summary of the contemporary and historical importance of alliances, coalitions, and valuable partnerships.

2024 - 06 - 05
Got very interested in the HMS Tartar today after stumbling on a document I’d photographed a long time ago in the British National Archives. It was an observer report from British Army officer aboard the destroyer during Operation HUSKY. Did a little write-up this morning.

There were a couple of gems in the report: The crew of the Tartar watching Allied airborne transports buzz over their British convoy at “masthead height” on the night of D-1; the abundant confusion as British LCA’s attempted to line up behind the Tartar to be guided into their assault sector before dawn; rescuing survivors of a sinking hospital ship; a radio intercepted conversation between two German pilots, one who was purported to have said, “We can do no good here, this is a really big show.” Fantastic detail.

The observer concluded his report thus: “It was a combined operation in every sense of the word.”

2024 - 06 - 04
Huge push on an overdue project. Sat down at my desk this morning and didn’t get up for six hours. Not healthy, but it’s done now and I can focus on other things.

2024 - 06 - 03
There needs to be a movie made about this man, America’s oldest war veteran (106 when he died in 1992). What a life! Also, TIL a Gerontology Wiki exists. Ghibli nature sounds on repeat for instant relaxation; Masayoshi Takanaka’s Rainbow Paradise on repeat for the smiles.

2024 - 06 - 02
Read fiction for the first time in who knows how long. Very refreshing.

2024 - 06 - 01
One of those days I’ll always remember. Took off A’s training wheels today. Pushed him around on his bike. Even let go a couple of times. He’s well on his way.

A’s work ethic always impresses me; today he took it to another level. He spent about six hours outside in the yard all told, weeding, hacking away at weeds, and generally being very useful.

2024 - 05 - 31
Took a brief walk in the back pasture today. All three cows followed me in a single-file line on their side of the fence. I think they’re ready to move into the newly fenced pasture. Just need to install the final gate.

2024 - 05 - 30
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning)

2024 - 05 - 29
Spent one of those halcyon evenings helping my brother-in-law build a fence as the sun set over the back pasture. Lush, verdant grass draped in the shadows of tall, swaying trees. Three curious cows watching from afar. The ability to work and build new things. It’s good to pause and take a mental snapshot of moments like these.

2024 - 05 - 28
It’s the age of amazing breakfast conversations. My 4-yo son is learning new phrases all the time, too.

2024 - 05 - 27
Not sure I’ve ever had this experience before, nor will I ever have it again: This morning at the Grand Rapids airport (4 a.m., but still), we were the only people in security (took all of one minute to get through) and the only people in our entire terminal for the better part of an hour. Surreal.

Got to Detroit after some delays (weather). Had about twenty minutes to make connecting flight. Thought to myself, that’s no problem, we’re in the same terminal. It’s probably close. Got off the plane and saw our flight to Portland was at gate A9.

“What gate are we at,” I wondered. A70. Seven-zero.

Looking down the A terminal’s long corridor, you could almost see the curvature of the earth. I’ve never seen a longer straightaway in any airport. You could almost have landed a jumbo jet inside if you had to.

We started to leg it. A half mile and twenty gates later, I noticed a flash of red above me and realized there was an indoor express tram shuttling passengers from one end of the terminal to the other. Indoor. Express. Tram. If only we’d known. We missed it, and didn’t really know how to access it or how often it ran. By then we were in an all-out sprint.

We made it with a few minutes to spare. And then, wouldn’t you know it—we sat at the gate for another forty minutes waiting for other delayed passengers to arrive!

Travel adventures aside, it was a wonderful Memorial Day. A big salute to all of our men and women in uniform, especially those who gave the last full measure of devotion so we could enjoy the precious freedoms we hold dear.

2024 - 05 - 25
Well today was a treat. Visited two floating WWII museums on the shores of Lake Michigan. “He was like a kid in a candy store,” I overhead my father-in-law say on the phone. He was right!

2024 - 05 - 24
Today I learned that ants are not the strongest insect. Dung beetles are. They can lift a thousand times their body weight. “That’s like pulling four semi trucks at the same time,” I told my wide-eyed son. He was as flabbergasted as I.

2024 - 05 - 22
Half-day at the bus yard installing ribbons on some interesting-looking trollies. They’ll be used at a senior PGA tour event in Benton Harbor, MI this weekend.

2024 - 05 - 21
Morning dental appointment—A’s first, too. He did fantastic. Spent most of the day flying to Michigan to help Claire’s dad with a job. At the airport I realized how I always feel bad eating after going to the dentist. Feels like putting a tiny dent in your brand new car.

A guy on our second flight collapsed in the aisle and had to receive medical attention. Never had that happen before. I was very impressed by the professionalism and poise of our flight crew. Fortunately he was able to walk off the flight and seemed okay.

Claire is handling bedtime like a champ while I’m away. I guess A got pretty talkative tonight all of a sudden. He had so many questions and things to say, so she told him to save them all in his brain so she could hear them tomorrow. He replied that he has a garbage can right underneath his brain; if he falls asleep, his ideas fall into his garbage can and he doesn’t remember them when he wakes up.

2024 - 05 - 18
Spent the afternoon perusing antique stores and fishing with my family. Claire won our makeshift fishing derby by default, catching the only fish of the day; the rest of us didn’t get so much as a sniff on our nightcrawlers, spinners or spoons. We enjoyed seeing ospreys and eagles chirping, chasing each other, and nabbing the occasional fish in the water from the rowboat. Majestic stuff. We had an excellent time.

This evening, Claire and her family threw a memorable graduation party in the orchard. Great food, chocolate cake, a bonfire, wonderful conversation, happy memories. Grateful to be surrounded by so many amazing people on one of those halcyon days that will long live in the memory.

2024 - 05 - 17
My two-year-old daughter asked my wife and I the same question about forty times this evening. “Did you say, ‘Bloffin?’”

Bloffin? It took us another hour to realize she was saying “dolphin.” Love this age.

2024 - 05 - 16
Posted two fascinating anecdotes on interallied relations during the Allied campaign through Normandy from John S.D. Eisenhower’s (the son) 1974 memoir, Strictly Personal, here.

2024 - 05 - 15
Came across this phenomenal repository of BBC, CBS, NBC, and other radio broadcasts from WWII looking for a specific BBC address today. There are other collections I’ve seen before on Archive.org organized by year, 1942, for example. Very fun to listen to from time to time. It really takes you back.

Oh, and this song. This song will never get old.

2024 - 05 - 13
I came across DEVONthink last week. Wish I had known about it several years ago. Seems like a great option for consolidating searchable (OCR-ed) archival research. Better late than never.

2024 - 05 - 12
Had a fantastic mother’s day picnic in the orchard with Claire and the kids today. I made her favorite afternoon tea sandwiches, some cucumber, some ham. After awhile, I reached for another. “Ah,” I said. “Looks like they’re getting stale.”

“They’re not stale,” Claire replied nonchalantly. “I like to think of them as toasted.”

I love that.

2024 - 05 - 11
An unexpected surprise this morning. Went fishing again at the lake with Anders, my dad, and my brother-in-law. Took the boats out around 6:30 a.m. Got back in around 9:00. We rolled the boat back into the trailer when I remembered that I left the cooler for the caught fish into the covered bed of Joseph’s truck. “I’ll grab it,” he said. Soon I heard my name. “You’re not going to believe this.”

He was holding our white cat, Winchester! Apparently he stowed away in the bed of the truck while we were loading everything up this morning. The tonneau cover kept him hidden the entire time we were fishing. We were indeed fortunate to have found him; today was the hottest day of the year so far. On the drive back home, our cat sat in the back seat as if nothing was amiss.

This type of thing is par for the course with Winchester. He has acted more like a dog than a cat since we got him in 2017 (coming when you call his name, following you around everywhere outside ‘off-leash’, etc.). I will say that he certainly has a way of making life interesting!

2024 - 05 - 07
As part of my dissertation defense last week, my advisor asked me to summarize my “intellectual journey” thus far—essentially, “How did you get here?” As I reflected, it was interesting to see how life seems to build a momentum of its own, guiding you down paths you never could have predicted.

2024 - 05 - 06
Took rest of the afternoon off today and went to the lake with my brother-in-law. Enjoyed putting around on his hand-built boat. We caught eight trout, a record for both of us. Seeing bald eagles fishing alongside us was a major highlight, as were the two rainbows that vibrantly appeared during the gaps in the rain. Cooked up all eight in the evening—a memorable meal.