MLC Quarterly Webinar
March 6, 2023 at 6 pm Eastern Time
Clio in Combat: The Role of the Military Historian
Speaker: Dr. Michael E. Lynch
Webinar recording: https://www.pathlms.com/sla/courses/40708/video_presentations/254744
“What do you actually DO, Doc?” That's a valid question often posed to military historians by friends, colleagues … and sometimes their supervisors. Why does the military need historians? What do they do? The tasks of a military historian can be many and varied, and they include going into combat zones. In this presentation, Dr. Michael Lynch will describe the role of historians in combat with some examples from previous conflicts as well as his own experiences doing historical data collection in Iraq.
Dr. Michael E. Lynch is Research Associate Professor of the Institutional Army at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His research specialties include the Arctic; Futures; Security Cooperation; Humanitarian, Medical, and Sustainment Operations. He deployed to Iraq in 2017 to collect historical data during Operation Inherent Resolve, and currently serves on the US Army War College Ukraine Study team. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Temple University, a Graduate Certificate in Public History from Shippensburg University, a Master of Arts in History from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from East Tennessee State University. Dr. Lynch is also a retired U.S. Army officer.
His book, Edward M. Almond and the US Army: From the 92nd Infantry Division to X Corps (University Press of Kentucky, 2019), was awarded the 2019 Distinguished Writing Award for Biography from the Army Historical Foundation. Dr. Lynch also contributed chapters to Drawdown: The Liberty Dilemma ed. Jason Warren (NYU Press, 2016) and Black History of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, 1860-1936 ed. Steven Burg (Shippensburg, PA: Shippensburg University Press, 2005). He has authored 16, co-authored 3, and supervised 19 special analytical studies for senior Army leadership. His current projects include an edited volume of conference papers focusing on the Arctic; two monographs on the relevant history and a study of the security assistance during the first of the war in Ukraine; and chapter on the Inchon Landing for a book on amphibious operations.