James H. Willbanks
U.S Army Command and General Staff College
Dr. James H. Willbanks is Professor Emeritus of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He retired from CGSC in April 2018 after forty-nine years of combined federal service. For two years prior to retiring, Dr. Willbanks served as the General of the Army George C. Marshall Chair of Military History. Dr. Willbanks joined the CGSC faculty in 1992, when he retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel with twenty-three years’ service as an Infantry officer, including a tour as an infantry advisor with a South Vietnamese regiment during the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive. He also served in the 3rd Infantry, 7th Infantry, 9th Infantry, 1st Cavalry, and U.S. Southern Command. Prior to assuming the Marshall Chair, he served as Director of the CGSC Department of Military History for eleven years. Before that, he taught national security policy and counterinsurgency in the Department of Joint and Multinational Operations. Dr. Willbanks holds a B.A. in History from Texas A&M University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Kansas. He is an Honor Graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the inaugural class of the School for Advanced Military Studies. He is the author or editor of twenty-two books, including A Raid Too Far (Texas A&M Press, 2014), Abandoning Vietnam (University Press of Kansas, 2004), The Battle of An Loc (Indiana University Press, 2005), The Tet Offensive: A Concise History (Columbia University Press, 2006), and Vietnam War Almanac (Facts on file, 2009). Dr. Willbanks is a former two-term Trustee of the Society for Military History, is on the editorial board of the Modern War Studies series for University Press of Kansas, the Editorial Board of Vietnam magazine. and the History Advisory Committee of ABC-Clio Publishing. He and his work have been highlighted in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, US News & World Report, Wall Street Journal, Army Times, Stars and Stripes, the History Channel, CSPAN, PBS and several international history journals. He served as a consultant to Ken Burns and appeared on camera numerous times throughout the 10-part 18-hour documentary on the Vietnam War for PBS, which began airing in the Fall of 2017. Dr. Willbanks’ military awards and decorations include the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star with “V” and Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm and two Silver Stars. He and his wife Diana now reside in Georgetown, Texas.
Undergraduate Syllabi
The American Experience in Vietnam
This course was developed to provide students the opportunity to examine the American experience in the Vietnam War, to search for meanings in this experience, and to arrive at their own conclusions concerning the impact of the war upon the Army and the nation. Moreover, it challenges students to think critically about war and the use of military power to settle the differences between nations. In searching for the longer-term significance of the experience in Vietnam, it is useful to note certain broad circumstantial similarities between the American experience in Vietnam and the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. While this in no way suggests that the wars are identical, they do strongly hint that interventions by conventional forces in undeveloped military theaters are subject to a variety of influences that tend to neutralize enormous advantages in combat power. During this course, consider whether the American experience in Vietnam offers lessons learned or perspectives that have validity or applicability as we continue to address the combined challenges of transformation, the contemporary operational environment, and current and potential future scenarios that may involve the US Army.