The Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History, 2009

The annual meeting for the Society for Military History at Middle Tennessee State University this past weekend was enjoyable and successful. My paper, “The National Guard as Community, 1903-2008”, was well received.

The other two presenters on the panel, Shawn Fisher (University of Memphis) and Eric Jarvis (King’s University College) were extremely interesting and it was an honor to be on a panel with two such excellent scholars.

I was especially impressed by the panel chairperson, Professor Jeff Roberts (Tennessee Technology University) whose comments were insightful and helpful. Thank you, Jeff!

The conference was also a splendid opportunity to meet old friends (Peter Kindsvatter, Allen Millett, Steve Bourque, and especially Jim Williams) as well as to make new contacts.

I especially enjoyed visiting the Indiana University Press (IUP) booth and Bob Sloan, the Press’s Editorial Director. I have many fond memories from when I was an Acquisitions Editor at IUP. It was a delight to see their military history list remains strong and that several of the books I brought to the Press are still in print. The continuing tradition of successful scholarly publishing is a product of my friend , former colleague, and now director, Janet Rabinowitch’s leadership.

The Society for Military History Program Committee and the many volunteers from the Society and Middle Tennessee State University deserve a well-earned round of applause for their tireless efforts to make this conference a success.

While presenting a paper as I did is an enjoyable opportunity to share my research, more importantly it was a chance to “test” the direction of my research and its tentative conclusions amongst other scholars. I thank all who made excellent comments and observations about my paper and research and appreciate their encouragement.

Now to press on with the book!

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