Greetings History Travel Enthusiasts!
August 21, 2014
Greetings, fellow History Travel enthusiasts! Welcome to our website and, more importantly, welcome to the adventure that is Essential History Expeditions!
This blog-site will incorporate many different themes over time and we hope you come back to it for ideas, inspiration and smiles. Some of the ideas we are thinking about include historical events of the week, travel to and visiting historic sites, among many others. In this premiere blog, I thought I might share a little about myself. As the expert historian and guide for Essential History Expeditions, I think it fair you know my background.
I am a 52 year old, retired US Army officer. I served on active duty for 28 years as an Airborne Ranger Infantryman, in units in both the US and Europe. I conducted real-world deployments with my infantry battalions in Central America and the Middle East. I also spent 14 of those 28 years teaching at the university level.
I taught for the US Military Academy at West Point, the University of Maryland’s University Campus and the University of Kansas. In my 11 years at West Point, I served as an Assistant Professor of History for five and then for six as the first Academy Professor and Director of the interdisciplinary Defense & Strategic Studies program.
From 2009-10, I served as the Command Historian for the main warfighting headquarters, Multi-National Corps-Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
In my years in the Army, I did some of my most important teaching on historic battlefields in America, Europe and the Middle East. I took groups of officers, college students and civilians on more than 120 tours (what we in the military call ‘staff rides’) of more than 40 battlefields from seven wars. In-depth lectures, participant role-playing, discussion and reflection led to greater comprehension and retention of material. Today, my wife and I still take civilian tour groups to battlefields and other historical sites.
My education background is focused on the liberal arts and I received a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master’s and a PhD in History from Florida State University. In the latter I was a member of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution and my research and writing focus is on the British navy and politics in the period of the American Revolution through the Napoleonic wars. I have published numerous articles and chapters, and was the general editor of a very well-received book on the Iraq War entitled Turning Victory Into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign.
I have been privileged with the good fortune to appear in a number of television documentaries over the years, for channels such as A&E, History, Discovery and PBS. I appeared as an expert historian in shows on Napoleon, the American Revolution and Civil War, West Point, World Wars One and Two and military history in general.
In my personal life, I live with my beautiful wife and partner in Boulder, Colorado, where we are very active in many outdoor sports and activities. I have a number of writing projects – turning my dissertation into a book, writing other non-fiction and fiction works and doing travel writing (we had three articles published earlier this year on our South Africa trip).
Well, friends, there you have it. That’s me. Please do not hesitate to contact me with questions or comments. As in all of life – this is a team sport.
Best wishes, Brian
