Well, my article on the decline of military history as an academic field has at least one professor all atwitter. Mark Grimsley of Ohio State is so flustered by it that I’m having trouble keeping track of his attacks on the theme of the article, the quality of my reporting, and my personal integrity — but the main one seems to be this, followed by this, this, and this. I guess he really takes the whole “publish or perish” thing to heart.

He starts out by defending Ohio State’s devotion to military history, which is kind of strange because I single out OSU for praise in my article. Then he says I also should have highlighted a couple of other programs:

One name you don’t blat out is Duke University. Another is the University of North Carolina. I wonder why not? Could it be that Duke and UNC are too well known as bastions of liberalism? It’s kinda awkward for your thesis that Duke and UNC have jointly created — actually revived — one of the best military history programs in the country. In fact, since unlike you I like to be honest in my presentation, the Duke-UNC program is as good as ours at Ohio State and arguably even a little better.
But it gets no mention at all from you. I wonder why?

How clever of him to have uncovered my sinister conspiracy not to mention Duke or UNC! As it happens, I did quote UNC’s ROTC commander, who is also a professor of military science at the school. I suppose I could have written that Duke and UNC have great programs–a couple of my sources said as much. More often, however, I heard OSU, Texas A&M, and Kansas State mentioned, so those are the ones I cited in the piece (along with West Point, which is a special case). But these are highly subjective judgments and professors get jealous about such things, so I’ll say right now, on the record, that Duke and UNC have quality programs in military history. And they are among the exceptions that prove the rule that military history in the academy is on the ropes. Finally, Prof. Grimsley probably doesn’t realize that what really pained me was to say anything nice about OSU. I’m a graduate of the University of Michigan, for crying out loud!

From here, things only get sillier:

Let’s face it, pal. You don’t give — as my drill sergeants used to say — a lusty crap about academic military history. Yours are crocodile tears. You’d love to see us disappear, because it would make a nice talking point in the increasingly stupid culture wars.

I’d love to see military history disappear? Geez o’Pete! I may not know much about lusty craps, but I do know that my article defends military history as a discipline, wishes it were stronger in our colleges and universities, and celebrates its ongoing popular appeal. The idea for the piece was inspired some months ago in a conversation with a military historian. Its facts, anecdotes, and opinions relied heavily upon weeks of conversations with other military historians. I do wish I had talked to Prof. Grimsley–I would have welcomed his perspective–but his notion that military history’s place in the academy is just hunky-dory is definitely a minority view among his colleagues.

He also objects to my lead, in which I report that the University of Wisconsin hasn’t had a military historian on its faculty since Mac Coffman retired around the time of the first Bush administration–and despite Stephen Ambrose raising more than $1 million to endow a chair. In the meantime, what used to be one of the most popular courses on campus–a survey of U.S. military history–has essentially gone untaught. Prof. Grimsley reads this, and his instinct is to defend Wisconsin; I learn these facts, and I’m appalled. I hope my readers are as well.