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  • In Memoriam:Dr. Larry I. Bland (1940-2007)
  • Bruce Vandervort

This issue of The Journal of Military History is dedicated to the memory of Larry Bland, who served for 19 years as its Managing Editor. Larry died of heart failure in Lexington, Virginia, on 27 November 2007. He was 67 years old. He is survived by his wife, Joellen, and two sons, Neil and Ryan.

Larry will be remembered in years to come as the world's foremost expert on the life and career of General George C. Marshall, one of the great architects of Allied victory in the Second World War and father of the Marshall Plan, which helped bring Europe out of the ruins of that war. Larry was the editor, along with Sharon Ritenour Stevens, of The Papers of George Catlett Marshall. He also edited a volume of George C. Marshall Interviews and Reminiscences and George C. Marshall's Mediation Mission to China. Larry was a much sought-after speaker on the Marshall legacy, both in the USA and abroad. Barely a month before his death, he gave the keynote address at the dedication of the George C. Marshall Conference Center at the State Department in Washington. At its 2007 Conference, the Society for Military History presented the Victor Gondos Memorial Service Award to Larry in recognition of his long, distinguished, and outstanding service to the Society and to the historical profession.

At The Journal of Military History, where his departure has left an enormous void, we will remember him as one of the founders of the Journal in its current incarnation. He, along with Dr. Henry Bausum and Captain Blair Turner, was responsible for bringing the JMH to Lexington in 1988. The design of the Journal you are holding in your hands was his work. Larry had been employed at the George C. Marshall Library and Museum in Lexington since 1977 and it was thanks to him that the Marshall Foundation agreed to provide support for the Journal, including office space for its editorial and production functions. Over the years, in spite of the many other demands made upon his time, Larry gave unstinting service as the production manager of the Journal. It was Larry who typeset the Journal, saw to the accuracy of its content, and put it to bed. We relied upon him for so much.

But Larry Bland was also my good friend. We first met in 1969, when we were both graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in what is now a long-ago and very different time. Our paths diverged afterward and we only met up again, exactly twenty years later, when I joined the History Department at the Virginia Military Institute. Larry was already Managing Editor of the Journal and he and Blair Turner persuaded me to join the staff as Book Review Editor. The rest, as they say, is history. Larry and I have walked down a long road together, the last miles of it in almost day-to-day contact. He was too young to die and I shall miss him terribly.

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