Military Historian to Give Lecture as Part of UA’s Bankhead Series

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – An expert in U.S. military history and author of “For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America,” will give a talk at The University of Alabama on Thursday, March 16 at 4 p.m. in the Henry Jacobs Reading area on the second floor of Gorgas Library.

Dr. Pete Maslowski, a professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln for more than 30 years, will give the talk entitled “Firepower Negated: How the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong Survived America’s Awesome Arsenal.” His lecture is derived from his recent book, “Looking for a Hero: Staff Sergeant Joe Ronnie Hooper and the Vietnam War,” which he co-wrote with Don Winslow.

“It’s a paradox,” Maslowski said. “We had helicopters; they didn’t. We hade B-52 bombers, they didn’t. We had all this firepower that they didn’t have. I’m going to discuss how much of it was wasted, how much was counterproductive, and how the enemy avoided the firepower.”

In 1982, the Bankhead family established the Bankhead Endowment Fund to further the interests of historical research and scholarly activity within the history department in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences. In recent years, the family expanded the original commission to bring visiting lecturers to campus and to further promote the teaching and study of history.

The College of Arts and Sciences is the University’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state. Students from the college have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the “USA Today” Academic All American Team.