The U S Army Combat Historian And Combat History Operations

Author : Kathryn Roe Coker,Jason Wetzel
Publisher : Casemate
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2023-09-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781636243306

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The U.S. Army Combat Historian and Combat History Operations by Kathryn Roe Coker,Jason Wetzel Pdf

How the US Army developed historical programs since World War I—sending combat historians into the fray to interview soldiers and collect documents for the benefit of history. In World War I, Major General Pershing proposed the idea of establishing a historical office within the AEF headquarters. The War Department reorganized the General Staff to include a Historical Branch. Evidence shows that soldiers acting as historians went "down range," albeit not into combat. By World War II, the situation had changed—whether S.L.A. Marshall's popping out of a billet in Sibret as a shells exploded on the road; Forrest Pogue's typing "on a little camp desk under an apple tree;" Chester Starr's terrain reconnaissance in the Mediterranean theater, or Ken Hechler's command of a four-man historical team interviewing soldiers at the Remagen Bridge and searching through secret documents—the World War II combat historians were there behind and on the front lines with a notebook in one hand and their carbine in the other hand, ever ready to collect battlefield information. Eight historical service detachments were deployed to Korea. The youngest commander, 1st Lieutenant Bevin Alexander, noted "We were on the front lines the whole time . . . We would interview the people afterwards and create a battle study…." After the Korean War, the duties of the combat historian further evolved as what became the Center of Military History published doctrine about military history detachments (MHDs). As America’s immersion in Vietnam escalated, there was concern regarding historical coverage. Chief of Military History Brigadier General Hal Pattison established a network of historical teams to collect information on the U.S Army in the war. A major development in the history program and in deploying MHDs came with the establishment of Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam (USARV) under General William C. Westmoreland’s command. In 1965, the history office was organized at Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam (USARV). MHDs were deployed across Vietnam, conducting combat after action interviews, and collecting documents. This study focuses on U.S. Army historical programs during combat operations from World War I to the Vietnam War with particular attention on the combat historians, those individuals deployed to a theater of war with the mission of documenting the actions of that theater for current and future historical use.

Author : Kathryn Roe Coker,Jason Wetzel
Publisher : Casemate
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2023-08-31
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1636243290

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The U. S. Army Combat Historian and Combat History Operations by Kathryn Roe Coker,Jason Wetzel Pdf

How the US Army developed historical programs since World War I--sending combat historians into the fray to interview soldiers and collect documents for the benefit of history. In World War I, Major General Pershing proposed the idea of establishing a historical office within the AEF headquarters. The War Department reorganized the General Staff to include a Historical Branch. Evidence shows that soldiers acting as historians went "down range," albeit not into combat. By World War II, the situation had changed--whether S.L.A. Marshall's popping out of a billet in Sibret as a shells exploded on the road; Forrest Pogue's typing "on a little camp desk under an apple tree;" Chester Starr's terrain reconnaissance in the Mediterranean theater, or Ken Hechler's command of a four-man historical team interviewing soldiers at the Remagen Bridge and searching through secret documents--the World War II combat historians were there behind and on the front lines with a notebook in one hand and their carbine in the other hand, ever ready to collect battlefield information. Eight historical service detachments were deployed to Korea. The youngest commander, 1st Lieutenant Bevin Alexander, noted "We were on the front lines the whole time . . . We would interview the people afterwards and create a battle study...." After the Korean War, the duties of the combat historian further evolved as what became the Center of Military History published doctrine about military history detachments (MHDs). As America's immersion in Vietnam escalated, there was concern regarding historical coverage. Chief of Military History Brigadier General Hal Pattison established a network of historical teams to collect information on the U.S Army in the war. A major development in the history program and in deploying MHDs came with the establishment of Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam (USARV) under General William C. Westmoreland's command. In 1965, the history office was organized at Headquarters, U.S. Army Vietnam (USARV). MHDs were deployed across Vietnam, conducting combat after action interviews, and collecting documents. This study focuses on U.S. Army historical programs during combat operations from World War I to the Vietnam War with particular attention on the combat historians, those individuals deployed to a theater of war with the mission of documenting the actions of that theater for current and future historical use.

Author : Department Army
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 106 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2012-10-15
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 148012043X

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Military History Operations (FM 1-20) by Department Army Pdf

Field Manual (FM) 1-20, "Military History Operations," is applicable to all Army military history offices, military history units, and military history operations of major tactical and support commands generally at corps level and below. FM 1-20 provides basic doctrine describing the roles, relationships, organizations, and responsibilities of Army component command historians, historians, unit historical officers, and military history detachment (MHD) members in the United States Army. It describes, but does not extensively cover, historians and historical offices of unit at echelons above corps and at the joint level. It is designed to provide historians, unit historical officers, commanders, and staffs the methods to preserve and document the history of the U.S. Army. It explains how the Army conducts military history operations during wartime, for both deployed forces in the combat theater and those units supporting the operations. The Army has responded to numerous contingencies or military operations or military operations other than war in recent years, and this FM provides doctrine on conducting military history operations during such contingencies. It also provides commanders doctrinal guidance on the employment of organic military history assets as well as separate military history units. The primary users of this manual are force commanders, military history professionals, soldiers assigned the additional duty of unit historical officer, and soldiers assigned to MHDs. The manual provides guidance derived from regulations and other sources and gives techniques for the execution of military history operations. It reflects lessons learned in past operations and theories tested at the combat training centers.

Author : Department of the Army
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 74 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2017-07-27
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1973920840

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Military History Operations by Department of the Army Pdf

"Military History Operations," (ATP 1-20 / FM 1-20) is applicable to all Army military history offices, military history units, and military history operations of major tactical and support commands generally at corps level and below. FM 1-20 provides basic doctrine describing the roles, relationships, organizations, and responsibilities of Army component command historians, historians, unit historical officers, and military history detachment (MHD) members in the United States Army. It describes, but does not extensively cover, historians and historical offices of units at echelons above corps and at the joint level. It is designed to provide historians, unit historical officers, commanders, and staffs the methods to preserve and document the history of the U.S. Army. It explains how the Army conducts military history operations during wartime, for both deployed forces in the combat theater and those units supporting the operation. The Army has responded to numerous contingencies or military operations other than war in recent years, and this FM provides doctrine on conducting military history operations during such contingencies. It also provides commanders doctrinal guidance on the employment of organic military history assets as well as separate military history units.

Author : John E. Jessup,Robert W. Coakley
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 528 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 1979
Category : Electronic government information
ISBN : UIUC:30112039487720

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A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History by John E. Jessup,Robert W. Coakley Pdf

This Guide to the Study and Use of Military History is designed to foster an appreciation of the value of military history and explain its uses and the resources available for its study. It is not a work to be read and lightly tossed aside, but one the career soldier should read again or use as a reference at those times during his career when necessity or leisure turns him to the contemplation of the military past.

Author : Forrest C. Pogue
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 444 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2006-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0813191602

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Pogue's War by Forrest C. Pogue Pdf

" With a foreword by Stephen Ambrose and a preface by Franklin D. Anderson Forrest Pogue (1912-1996) was undoubtedly one of the greatest World War II combat historians. Born and educated in Kentucky, he is perhaps best known for his definitive four-volume biography of General George C. Marshall. But, as Pogue's War makes clear, he was also a pioneer in the development of oral history in the twentieth century, as well as an impressive interviewer with an ability to relate to people at all levels, from the private in the trenches to the general carrying four stars. Pogue's War is drawn from Forrest Pogue's handwritten pocket notebooks, carried with him throughout the war, long regarded as unreadable because of his often atrocious handwriting. Pogue himself began expanding the diaries a few short years after the war, with the intent of eventual publication. At last this work is being published. Supplemented with carefully deciphered and transcribed selections from his diaries, the heart of the book is straight from the field. Much of the material has never before seen print. From D-Day to VE-Day, Pogue experienced and documented combat on the front lines, describing action on Omaha Beach, in the Huertgen Forest, and on other infamous fields of conflict. He not only graphically -- yet also often poetically­­ -- recounts the extreme circumstances of battle, but he also notes his fellow soldiers' innermost thoughts, feelings, opinions, and attitudes about the cruelty of war. As a trained historian, Pogue describes how he went about his work and how the Army's history program functioned in the European Theater of Operations. His entries from his time at the history headquarters in Paris show the city in the early days after the liberation in a unique light. Pogue's War has an immediacy that much official history lacks, and is a remarkable addition to any World War II bookshelf. Franklin D. Anderson, Forrest Pogue's nephew by marriage, is a longtime educator. He lives in Princeton, Kentucky.

Author : Eric Hammel
Publisher : Daniel Hammel
Page : 449 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2020-12-23
Category : History
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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The Forge by Eric Hammel Pdf

The Forge The Decline and Rebirth of the American Military November 12, 1918 to December 6, 1941 Eric Hammel Because the United States military undertook its first World War II offensive operations in the Pacific within only eight months of Pearl Harbor, most historians and readers of the war’s history depict and perceive the quick transition in 1942 from defensive war to offensive war as a miracle. In the miraculous narrative Americans have written for themselves, the peace-loving and ill-prepared sleeping giant, the United States, is suddenly struck by enemies who use her peace-loving ways against her, while a mere sprinkling of gallant, dedicated soldiers, sailors, and airmen fight overwhelming odds to barely hold the line against an unremitting backdrop of tearful defeats. Meanwhile, U.S. industry suddenly—instantly—becomes a magical “Arsenal of Democracy” that produces uncountable tanks and ships and guns, not to mention trained soldiers, sailors, and airmen in their legions, fleets, and air armadas that will smash the wiliest and most powerful enemies ever before confronted. The appearance of all that materiel, and all those battle-ready young men so soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, looks exactly like a miracle. There was no miracle. Celebrated military historian Eric Hammel’s cool appraisal of the facts reveals that America's stunning and overwhelming moral response to German and Japanese aggression in the mid- and late 1930s, a response that eventually brought a huge portion of the globe within its embrace, was far less a miracle than an inexorable force of nature. America was a sleeping giant. But the decision to turn the entire force and will of a hard-working, innovative nation to arming for war was not made in the wake of Pearl Harbor. By Pearl Harbor, an alliance of the American government, American industry, and the American military community was already close to complete preparedness. The real story of America’s preparations for World War II had begun in mid-November 1938. The Forge was previously published as How America Saved the World. ERIC HAMMEL is a critically acclaimed military historian and author of nearly forty narrative and pictorial histories, including Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War, Fire in the Streets: The Battle for Hue, and Six Days in June. He has also written many titles on U.S. military operations in World War II, such as Guadalcanal: Starvation Island, Guadalcanal: Decision at Sea, 76 Hours: The Invasion of Tarawa, and The Road to Big Week. Reviewed by Book News: “Hammel, a noted military historian and author, analyzes the military build-up in the United States just prior to World War II and notes how this strategy was “deliberate, orderly and integrated.” Written for history buffs and general readers, this volume characterizes the U.S. as a “sleeping giant” after the end of World War I as a new shift toward an expanded military-industrial complex was implemented, creating an “Arsenal of Democracy” that would ultimately decide the outcome of World War II. Appendices include a list of the armies, corps, regiments and divisions in the Army and Navy as well as a list of major naval and aircraft hardware.” Reviewed by Bookviews: [The Forge] by Eric Hammel tells how preparation for war was the reason that, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the nation was able to transition quickly to an offensive war. This excellent book tells why America was able to transform itself into what FDR called “the arsenal of democracy,” fielding armies in both the Asian and European theatres, while providing them with countless tanks and ships and guns. America may have been a sleeping giant when it came to the political events unfolding, but the decision to turn the entire force of American industry toward the task of winning World War II had been made long before the initial attack on the homeland. It had, in fact, begun in 1938 as the war clouds threatened. Those who criticize America’s current superpower status would do well to read this book and then wonder if preparing for war isn’t the best way to maintain the peace.” Reviewed by Tom Ricks on his blog, The Best Defense: Readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of military historian Eric Hammel. I’ve been reading his new book [The Forge], about the quiet fight at the end of the 1930s to prepare the U.S. military for World War II. This is not only an important story, but also a good read, with a strong grasp of significance: “By the end of November 1941, the British army in North Africa—on its only active front against European fascism—was utterly stalemated in a battle of attrition it was bound to eventually lose.” (The subsequent counterattack at el Alamein was undertaken, he notes, “with the aid of weapons and equipment made in America, not to mention American-manned combat aircraft.”) Reviewed by BookLoons: Perhaps not everyone will agree with the opinions set forth in [The Forge], but Eric Hammel provides some strong arguments that the country was far better prepared for the Second World War than most people believe. Those interested in U.S. history, especially military matters, will find this a captivating read and one that may alter a few misconceptions about U.S. preparedness between the world wars.

Author : Stephen Morillo
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 173 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2013-04-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780745676630

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What is Military History? by Stephen Morillo Pdf

This clear, readable introduction to the popular field of military history is now available in a refreshed and updated second edition. It shows that military history encompasses not just accounts of campaigns and battles but includes a wide range of perspectives on all aspects of past military organization and activity. In concise chapters it explains the fundamental features of the field, including: The history of military history, showing how it has developed from ancient times to the present; The key ideas and concepts that shape analysis of military activity; it argues that military history is as methodologically and philosophically sophisticated as any field of history; The current controversies about which military historians argue, and why they are important; A survey of who does military history, where it is taught and published, and how it is practiced; A look at where military history is headed in the future. The new edition of What is Military History? provides an up-to-date bibliography and cutting edge new case studies, including counterinsurgency, and as such continues to be ideal for classes in military history and in historiography generally, as well as for anyone interested in learning more about the dynamics of a rich and growing area of study.

Author : John E. Jessup,Robert W. Coakley,James Lawton Collins
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 524 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2000-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 089875058X

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A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History by John E. Jessup,Robert W. Coakley,James Lawton Collins Pdf

On 6 June 1944, as the allied forces began the invasion of Normandy, General George S. Patton, Jr., wrote to his son, then a cadet at the United States Military Academy, that "to be a successful soldier, you must know history." The number of similar pronouncements from noted military figures, including Napoleon, is almost endless and the basic refrain is the same - to understand the present and to prepare for the future the study of history is vital. This applies most particularly to those who lead men in battle. As Marshall Foch wrote, "no study is possible on the battlefield, one does simply what one can in order to apply what one knows." Despite vast changes in technology since World War II, the combat leader may still learn much from the study of past battles and campaigns. Weather, terrain, and intelligence of friendly and enemy dispositions, for instance, are as important today as in the days of Alexander, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; human reactions in combat remain relatively constant.Quite beyond vicarious experience of the battlefield, the study of military history affords and understanding of the interplay of forces that have shaped the present and provides the means of viewing current problems against the long perspective of how men have handled similar problems in the past. The immediate utility of knowledge of history is likely to vary with the situation in which the individual soldier finds himself. Certainly force planners could profit from a study of the varying approaches of General Pershing and General Marshall in the two world wars toward the size and composition of the Army, officers in charge of training from a reminder that the American soldier''s traditional outlook was not conducive to fighting a counterinsurgency war in Vietnam, and military leaders and policy makers alike from an appreciation of the long American tradition against drafting men for combat service in anything short of an all-out national war effort. Knowledge of military history cannot produce solutions to all problems, nor can it guarantee success in a military career. But it can provide a foundation for both problem solving and career achievement.This Guide to the Study and Use of Military History is designed to foster an appreciation of the value of military history and explain its uses and the resources available for its study. It is not a work to be read lightly tossed aside, but one the career soldier should read again or use as a reference at those times during his career when necessity or leisure turns him to the contemplation of the military past.The Guild consists of four parts. Part One is general in nature and deals with the nature of history s a discipline, military history as a branch of that discipline, the uses of military history, and suggested methods of reading and study.Part Two is a guide to the areas of study and the materials available for study in each. It consists of seven bibliographical essays - one on the great military historians and philosophers with whom all students of military history should have some acquaintance, two on world military history, three specifically on American military history, and a final essay on the merging of American and world military history since the end of World War II. Each of the period essays weaves its bibliographical information into the framework of a discussion of the main military developments of the era covered, introducing, where pertinent, varying historical interpretations of events and issues. Each contains at the end an alphabetical listing of all works mentioned.Part Three deals with U.S. Army historical programs and activities and how the Army uses or has used military history. This part informs the reader of the resources available within the Army for study and research in military history and some of the practical uses of history in staff work.Part Four similarly deals, albeit more briefly, with military history outside the Army - in other elements of the Department of Defense, in foreign military establishments, and in the academic world.Finally two appendices provide annotated listings of reference works and historical periodicals of greatest interest and utility to the student of military history.The longest part of the Guide, Part Two, contains the bibliographical essays, generally modeled on the bibliographical pamphlets published by the American Historical Association Center for Teachers. Like them, each individual essay, written by a specialist in the field, adopts a somewhat different approach. All of them, however, must list many works within a relatively short space to give the reader some understanding of the vast variety of historical literature available. Bibliographic essays seldom make light bedtime reading, and those in the Guide are no exception. But the editors do believe these essays can be read initially with interest and profit for a general appreciation of the whole field of military history, and then used later as a more detailed reference when the student develops an interest in a particular period or subject. Except in the essay on the great military historians, and philosophers, only works written in English or translated into English have been included. And there is relatively heavy emphasis on American military history as opposed to the broader field of world military history. The reason is simply the belief that books in the national language and on the national experience will be of greatest interest and utility to the American officer.

Author : John C. McManus
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 640 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2019-07-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780698192768

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Fire and Fortitude by John C. McManus Pdf

WINNER OF THE GILDER LEHRMAN PRIZE FOR MILITARY HISTORY An engrossing, epic history of the US Army in the Pacific War, from the acclaimed author of The Dead and Those About to Die “This eloquent and powerful narrative is military history written the way it should be.”—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian "Out here, mention is seldom seen of the achievements of the Army ground troops," wrote one officer in the fall of 1943, "whereas the Marines are blown up to the skies." Even today, the Marines are celebrated as the victors of the Pacific, a reflection of a well-deserved reputation for valor. Yet the majority of fighting and dying in the war against Japan was done not by Marines but by unsung Army soldiers. John C. McManus, one of our most highly acclaimed historians of World War II, takes readers from Pearl Harbor—a rude awakening for a military woefully unprepared for war—to Makin, a sliver of coral reef where the Army was tested against the increasingly desperate Japanese. In between were nearly two years of punishing combat as the Army transformed, at times unsteadily, from an undertrained garrison force into an unstoppable juggernaut, and America evolved from an inward-looking nation into a global superpower. At the pinnacle of this richly told story are the generals: Douglas MacArthur, a military autocrat driven by his dysfunctional lust for fame and power; Robert Eichelberger, perhaps the greatest commander in the theater yet consigned to obscurity by MacArthur's jealousy; "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell, a prickly soldier miscast in a diplomat's role; and Walter Krueger, a German-born officer who came to lead the largest American ground force in the Pacific. Enriching the narrative are the voices of men otherwise lost to history: the uncelebrated Army grunts who endured stifling temperatures, apocalyptic tropical storms, rampant malaria and other diseases, as well as a fanatical enemy bent on total destruction. This is an essential, ambitious book, the first of three volumes, a compellingly written and boldly revisionist account of a war that reshaped the American military and the globe and continues to resonate today. INCLUDES MAPS AND PHOTOS

Author : John E. Jessup
Publisher : Government Printing Office
Page : 528 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 1979
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0160873266

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A Guide to the Study and Use of Military History by John E. Jessup Pdf

Author : Edward J. Marolda
Publisher : US Naval Institute Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : HISTORY
ISBN : 1682471950

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Combat at Close Quarters by Edward J. Marolda Pdf

A heavily-illustrated coffee-table book on U.S. Naval operations in the Vietnam War.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 572 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : United States
ISBN : UOM:39015087420959

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American Military History, Volume II by Anonim Pdf

From the Publisher: This latest edition of an official U.S. Government military history classic provides an authoritative historical survey of the organization and accomplishments of the United States Army. This scholarly yet readable book is designed to inculcate an awareness of our nation's military past and to demonstrate that the study of military history is an essential ingredient in leadership development. It is also an essential addition to any personal military history library.

Author : Sean M Maloney
Publisher : Naval Institute Press
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2011-09-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781612513997

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Fighting for Afghanistan by Sean M Maloney Pdf

Fighting For Afghanistan is the third book in the Rogue Historian trilogy, taking Maloney’s story into the conflict in 2006, when the Taliban-led insurgency threatened to overwhelm the U.S.-led coalition in southern Afghanistan. This shift to near-conventional warfare, as opposed to the small-scale guerilla attacks and urban terrorism in Kandahar, caught everybody by surprise and forced a small, under-equipped Canadian battle group, supported by a Canadian-led multinational brigade consisting of American, British, Dutch, forces, into a desperate series of battles to protect the city and to prevent the collapse of British forces in neighboring Helmand province. The author arrived on the ground just as the situation spun out of control and he was able to capture, at all levels from infantry company to battle group to brigade headquarters, exactly what happened. This book explains the difficulties in balancing security and development, the challenges of operating in an austere, alien environment, and the human cost of counterinsurgency warfare in Afghanistan. Fighting For Afghanistan takes the reader through all of the moving parts and planning and then depicts how it played out on the field of battle. During the course of the action, the author became the first Canadian military historian to go into combat since the Korean War. The battles around Kandahar City in 2006 were the turning point in the Afghanistan war and this book is the first to explain events in detail from all three levels. This is the only account that shows the scope of the fighting in the south in this time period. Because of his close proximity to the action, the author was nearly killed on several occasions that summer during the fighting and he brings the intensity of this experience to his writing.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Military history
ISBN : UIUC:30112104455552

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Army History by Anonim Pdf