-
15. Rising Star
- University of Washington Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
15 RiSing Slar C HARLOTTESVILLE GIVES WAY TO GUM SPRING and Sandy Hook, back on the Interstate once again. I am on the way to Fort Monroe, this Army headquarters which is in the process of publishing an official book detailing S. L. A. Marshall's influence on the Army. I am thinking about my grandfather and our split as I speed across the lush Virginia countryside. Rereading those Cavalier Daily's had reawakened buried memories , as had visits with Harbaugh and professors John Coleman and John Graham. "I damn well remember those 1960s," Graham had told me over lunch. "I remember walking up the Lawn and seeing students who liked me and wouldn't meet my eyes because of the politics of those times. That hurt, that hurt damn bad." My time back in Charlottesville has confirmed what a crucible my college years had been and how so much of what I did-the courses I studied , the professors I admired, the friends I treasured-all seemed to be leading me on a collision course with my grandfather. Maybe if there had not been a war on the clash could have been avoided, but the war awaited soon after college, with hard choices to be faced. Urban sprawl now scars the landscape as I near Newport News and Norfolk, the local hero recalled by the Patrick Henry International Airport and the Patrick Henry Shopping Mall. I soon drive across a bridge spanning a moat, then pass through the massive stone walls of Fort Monroe, this historic old fort guarding the harbor of Hampton Roads, in continuous use since 1823. I park near the quarters that once housed aU.S. Army lieutenant named Robert E. 168 RISING STAR 169 Lee. 1 walk into the office of the command historian for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), which is deep within the fort's walls, a cool place perhaps better suited for a wine cellar. 1 am greeted by Susan Canedy, a thirty-five-year-old Army historian , one of six assigned to TRADOC headquarters. 1 have corresponded with Canedy and talked on the phone; we meet now for the first time. She is a tall woman with frizzy, shoulder-length hair, and a pretty face. The product of an Army family, she has a doctorate in history from Texas A. & M. She also has a puckish wit. One of Cannedy's first tasks at TRADOC has been the editing of a book on Marshall written by Maj. F. D. G. Williams, a career Army officer now stationed in Germany; he had originally submitted this as his master's thesis at Rice University. Canedy has checked and rechecked Williams' work, tightened his writing, suggested some changes in what will become a 13B-page book distributed throughout the Army. Although Canedy was not familiar with Marshall at first, that changed during months of full-time work on the project. As she says, "I turned into a Marshall scholar real quick." Williams has done more thorough research into S. L. A. Marshall than any of Marshall's critics and his conclusion is highly favorable to what Marshall accomplished. Williams does discuss Marshall's personality flaws, but also dismisses much of the criticism of the man and his work. Examining the sometime complaint about Marshall's accuracy, Williams conducted a "spot check" of three Marshall books from different wars. He compared the texts with Marshall's notes on which the books were based. William's study of The River and the Gauntlet (Korea), Night Drop (WWII), and Ambush (Vietnam) found that Marshall did, on occasion, increase the number of men involved in an action or distances, but Williams concludes, "Most often, however , the story followed the notes exactly ... the changes were never significant in any way. "I Williams' favorable assessment of Marshall might give rise to suspicion that his book is the Army's response to the current controversy , the circling of wagons around an embattled Army legend. But Canedy assures me that is not the case. TRADOC had decided to publish Williams' book before the controversy broke and nothing revealed in the controversy caused the Army to reconsider publica- 170 RECONCILlAnON ROAD tion. So I should not be surprised when I ask Canedy for her assess' ment of the controversy. "I thought it was petty, not relevant to anything; the charges are not relevant charges," she emphasizes. "And it was poorly re, searched by historians or writers out to make a...