Blogs by Terry P. Rizzuti
Who Writes Military History?
5/4/2009 7:21:41 AM
Personal opinion based on observation that military history is written by the survivors:
I think military history is initially written by the survivors, and among those survivors it's written by the majority that either hold a particular viewpoint or for personal reasons want to see that viewpoint promoted. For example, take the Vietnam War, the public's "sense" of what went on over there is primarlly shaped not by the combat vets who actually fought there but by politicians, media members and historians who didn't serve and by the non-combatants who did serve. And it's those who didn't serve that make up the majority of Congress, and it's the non-combatants that make up the majority of vets that served there and survived that war. And that same majority runs our major vet organizations which together with the non-serving politicians drive the public's understanding of the war in accordance with the political viewpoint they promote, which typically is a conservative republican viewpoint. And over time, military history is continually revisited and rewritten by historians until it only marginally points toward actual reality. But hey, I'm just a biased low-level combat vet guilty of seeing this issue from the other side of the spectrum.
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May 2009 Blogs
• Who Writes Military History? - Monday, May 04, 2009
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