John J. Pershing Commanded the AEF and I Didn't

Interesting piece:

It’s an old question: Does one have to have military experience to write and teach military history? Panelists at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting, all of them military veterans and academics, offered fresh perspectives on the matter here Thursday. And while their responses differed somewhat, a common thread emerged: strong evidence and scholarship and -- hopefully -- good writing should matter more than personal insight.

Yep.

I never served, which hasn't stopped be from writing hundreds of thousands of words about military history, war, armies and generals.

Right now I'm wrapping up an 80,000 + word history of John J. Pershing and the AEF in the First World War. Here I am, a hundred years later, issuing summary judgements about General Pershing's decisions. He made a lot of bad ones. I write that having never marched in mud or carried a rifle, much less fired one.

And I don't hesitate for a second.

I know everything about that war and the AEF and Pershing didn't. How could he? Did he have access to the hundreds of memoirs of the AEF? Or the after action reports? Or the simple perspective that comes with time?

One of the aspects of the A-bomb debate, and its only a debate for a pathetic few, is the explanations offered by the revisionists. But the Japanese were willing to surrender! But they just wanted to keep the emperor! Yes, all this is true, but in 1945, Harry Truman didn't know that.

This phenomenon is as annoying as the fallacy of the pre-determined outcome. Yes, yes, had the runner advanced to third he could have scored on the batter's deep drive to left....