Military History (Read 451 times)

As a semi-Military History student, I read numbers of books dealing with Military History, Fiction and Non-Fiction.

One of my favourite authors is Jeff Shaara.

He has written books on the Civil War, Revolutionary War, War with Mexico, World Wars One and Two, and is working on Korea.

His books are Historical Fiction, but well-researched and as accurate as he can make them.

His father, Michael Shaara, wrote Killer Angels, a Historical Novel about the Battle of Gettysburg.

I have also read a number of Military Biographies, and Auto-Biographies.

I don't limit myself to American Military History, but also read other histories.

At Boise State, for instance, I wrote two thesis on the Schmalkaldic Wars of the 16th Century in Germany.

One of the things I tend to do, while reading, is to look up various people from those histories.

It is quite interesting to read in Wikipedia, and other sources, short biographies of well-known and lesser-known participants in various wars and battles.

One thing I also try to do is compare then to now.

Not easy, when you are dealing with vastly different attitudes, weapons, technologies and even ideologies.

Recently I have been reading Jeff Shaara's story about the Battle of Shilo.

In looking at the pictures in the Wiki articles, I see a striking difference in how the Military looked in the 1860, compared to the way they look now.

Most every general, and most other officers, had beards, or sideburns, or flowing mustaches, and very long hair.

Some of the beards were quite long.

By the Spanish American War, most had begun to cut their hair.

When all of us were in, from the 50s to recently, we would not have been allowed to dress like they did, or have the hair and beards they did.

I'm not really going anyplace with this, just thought it was interesting and wanted to let you know.

Besides, we spend so much time on serious subjects, like MOW staying in  a room with a Jacuzzi, that we need to lighten up sometimes.

Jim Too