Many students might agree that taking a class at 8 a.m. had better be worth the effort to even get out of bed.

Apparently, Dr. Jeremy Neely’s Military History (HST 315) is.

Neely, associate professor and undergraduate director in the Department of History, has been teaching HST 315 for nearly 10 years. He assumed responsibility for the class upon the retirement of Emeritus Professor William Piston.

Now, he teaches the class every semester, almost always at that dreaded early morning timeslot. Even so, the course regularly fills to capacity. Each semester, roughly 30 students decide that this 8 a.m. class is worth the effort.

American history with a global context

Chronologically, HST 315’s topics start with America’s colonial period and usually ends in the early 21st century, according to Neely.

“The course covers as much as I can squeeze into 15 weeks,” he said. “We cover a lot of ground, which unfortunately means that we don’t linger on any particular period for very long. Some events are more consequential than others, of course, so we do spend a bit more time on watershed events like the American Revolution and the Civil War.”

Even with the focus on American military history, the class still places that history within a global framework. American leaders have always been aware of the country’s position on the world stage, even during periods of isolationism, Neely noted. As an example, the Philippine-American conflict (1899-1902) was the topic during one class session.

“One of the recent turns in historiography is an effort to frame the American past within a wider global context,” Neely explained. “I’ve tried to help students see that you can’t understand the history of the United States without a sense of where it fits within the world around it.”

Looking at battles, but asking more

Neely structures the course around key themes to help students track the ways America has—or hasn’t—changed. Among those themes are big questions such as who serves, why they fight, and what America owes these individuals. Students consider how the answers to those questions reflect broader transformations in American society, Neely said.

Military engagements and how American troops experienced them remain a vital part of course content, Neely added. But he tells his students from day one that the class is not just “battle history.”

“Wars are an important historical subject, but I spend a lot of time on how the nation’s domestic politics, as well as its economy and culture, shape the where, when and how Americans have fought them,” Neely said.

Seeing, hearing and even smelling the past

Another key theme of the class is exploring how “ordinary Americans” experienced war. This semester, students are reading Mark Smith’s, “The Smell of Battle, The Taste of Siege.” Focusing on the five senses, the book uses sources created by Americans during and after the Civil War to describe how they experienced it.

“The book is an exercise in historical empathy and imagination,” Neely said. “It is asking readers to conjure the details of Americans’ lived experiences that we cannot fully know in the 21st century: the cacophony of Confederate artillery attacks, the visual confusion of a soldier’s first experience of combat, the odors that lingered over the Gettysburg battlefield.”

Evelyn Carter is a junior psychology and religious studies double major. She is taking Neely’s class as a requirement for her military science minor. For her, Smith’s “The Smell of Battle” has had the impact Neely hoped for.

“You must look through a different lens when analyzing history in the way we do,” Carter said. “[The Smith book] is a great example of how history is so much more than just facts. It takes actually understanding the environment, time period, social influences and senses experienced at the time of the event in order to even get a glimpse at what it may have been like.”

“Not unlike ourselves”

Sophomore Jackson Briggs, a secondary education history major, described “The Smell of Battle” as “fascinating and surprisingly relatable.”

“We tend to think of the people of the past as being very different, with them being simple and us advanced,” he said. “In reality, the men and women of hundreds of years ago are not unlike ourselves. They complained, they thought deeply, they wanted the same things we want.”

“[Studying history] is like opening up a diary and reading everything you did when you…were 10,” Carter agreed. “It may not be completely applicable to the present, but it shows you where we’ve been and what has influenced us to make us what we are now.”

Analyzing the past

To truly learn about and understand America’s military history, Neely expects students to do more than read source material and listen to a few lectures. They must analyze and write about what they are learning. In nearly every class, students spend 10 minutes writing about their most recent readings during Neely’s “Write Now” exercise.

“Our readings focus mostly on primary sources, the historical texts produced by men and women in the past,” Neely said. “Repeated practice and writing about these documents in every class will, I hope, sharpen students’ skills of historical analysis.”

“The resources and materials provided to us are one of the most captivating facets of the course,” Briggs agreed. “These sources show the past for what it really was—not neat and chronologically ordered, but chaotic and complex.”

Exercises like “Write Now” are designed to help students learn about historical causality and contingency as well as how historical and geographic contexts shape human behavior, Neely explained.

“I believe that developing a foundation of historical literacy is a vital part of becoming an engaged citizen,” Neely said. “In that way, I think classes like this serve a vital function in the university’s public affairs mission.”

Research and service options enhance learning experience

Also in line with Missouri State’s public affairs mission, HST 315 offers students an optional learning component. Students who coordinate with the Citizenship and Service Learning office can work with various community partners to gain hands-on skills working with military-related historical documents and artifacts.

HST 315 students who do not take this option can still apply the analytical skills they practice all semester in a final research paper. “The assignment asks them to choose from one of several collections of primary sources, each dealing with a key theme from the final third of the class,” Neely said. “[They] build an argument about what those texts reveal about the theme and period of U.S. history.”

How the past shapes the future

After she gets her army officer commission, Carter hopes to continue her education and become a marriage counselor.

“I feel like there is enough already tearing people apart and pitting them against one another.” she said. “I would like to be someone who can help heal and make people have those connections with each other again.”

Carter believes taking classes like military history improves her ability to embody professional and personal empathy, qualities she sees as vital to her own career success.

“Even if a certain group, like the confederates or the British, are labeled as enemies in our history, they were still people who had lives and families,” Carter explained. “They often suffered just as much as the side they fought with. Just because someone may have been the ‘bad guy’ doesn’t make their suffering any less meaningful.”

“While I am not justifying anything, such understanding and empathy will be required for my future career,” she continued. “I may not always agree with both sides as a possible future marriage counselor, but that doesn’t mean that I should let that bias play into my helping and influencing them.”

History both a passion and an imperative

Meanwhile, Briggs has known for quite a while that he wants to be a high school history teacher. He described a childhood shaped by “wonderful teachers who sparked and guided my love for learning about events of the past.”

“These role models showed me how to think, not just what to think,” he emphasized. “From them I learned to be a lifelong learner, something I will carry with me through the rest of my academic journey and into my future career. I will aspire to help my students find their own enthusiasm for history, beyond simply memorizing names and dates.”

Classes like military history will enhance his expertise as a historian and educator, Briggs said. “When classes [like military history] allow you to delve deeper than the surface, you can do more than just recite facts, you can truly grasp subject matter.”

Briggs is passionate about learning history, but he also feels a duty to do so.

“I find history not just interesting but imperative,” he said. “To make informed decisions I find myself looking to the past for guidance.”

Studying history to understand a complicated world

“When I quiz students at the start of the semester about their favorite topics, World War Two and the Cold War still garner the most votes,” Neely recounted. He believes their interest stems from both chronological proximity and the sense of national purpose associated with each conflict.

“Both of those events fall closer to the lived experiences of students’ loved ones than earlier historical eras,” he explained. “Both struggles also elicited, at least for a time, a kind of national unanimity and mission—defeating fascism and defending Western democracy against communism—that was more elusive in the latter stages of the Vietnam War and the more recent engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

For Briggs, studying history brings a richer perspective to both the past and the present.

“In a fast-paced world full of overstimulation and overexposure, exploring history allows me to take a step back into bygone times where the world was a little smaller and moved a little slower,” he said.

As a history major, Briggs’ belief that history courses are valuable is understandable. As a psychology and religious studies double major, though, Carter also believes students can enhance their career success with an additional history class or two.

“I believe that cultural competence could be greatly improved by having those extra classes,” Carter said. She noted how taking classes in East Asian history could expand her understanding of long-term different religious patterns throughout the region.

“Even a class on the history of Rome would help with making so many connections between the spread of Christians, the dying out of polytheism, and help make better sense of the later biblical texts,” she added.

Teaching is a privilege

The observations of Briggs and Carter are music to Neely’s ears.

“This class, like other history courses, equips students with the skills of careful analysis and clear communication that will serve them well no matter their career path,” Neely said.

“I cling to the hope that former students will someday draw upon details from class to help them win big on ‘Jeopardy!’,” he laughed. “My larger goal is that students will emerge as more confident writers and who are perhaps a bit more curious about the nation’s past and where they fit in it.”

Certainly, Neely enjoys exploring the topic of military history. But his favorite part of HST 315 is the students themselves.

“The world today can be a confusing, even maddening place, but every semester these students—bright, curious, hard-working—give me hope for the future,” he said. “Getting to spend the semester with them is a privilege, and often a lot of fun.”

Study History @ Mo State

 

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Photo credits: Lynn Lansdown