WE’LL BE ADDING MORE VIDEOS AS WE GET THEM (The Management)
Video #1: Retired Colonel Watt G. Hill taught in DFH from 1965 to 1969. After he retired, he taught at Air Academy High School. In 2009, he sat for an interview as part of the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project, relating his World War II experiences flying the P-38 and the P-47 in the European Theatre of Operations, and his later tour flying the A-37 in Vietnam.
Video #2 & #3: Dr. Jeanne Heidler became DFH’s first civilian permanent faculty member and is now Professor Emerita from USAFA. She and her husband David have been prolific historians. Here is a video of their discussion of their book Washington’s Circle: The Creation of the President (2015), and here is a C-SPAN video of them discussing their book Henry Clay: The Essential American (2010). For more information, visit their website at www.djheidler.com.
Video #4: Brig Gen (retired) Al Hurley (1928-2013) served at DFH 1958-62 and as its Permanent Professor, 1966-80. After his retirement from the USAF, he became Chancellor of the University of North Texas System. In 1994 he was interviewed as part of an oral history project.
Video #5: Brig Gen (retired) Carl Reddel, former permanent professor and head of DFH, taught Russian and Eastern European Studies at DFH from 1982-1999. Upon his retirement he joined the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, and later he successfully led the Eisenhower Memorial Commission that dedicated the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC, in 2020. In 2013 he provided the Dole Lecture about Eisenhower and the memorial at the Robert Dole Institute of Politics.
Video #6: Retired Air Force officer Mark Clodfelter, who taught in DFH from 1983-1984 and again from 1987-1990, lectured on October 15, 2015, as a National War College professor about his book The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. In his book, Professor Clodfelter argues that strategic bombing in Vietnam not only harmed the U.S. war effort, but also helped more than harmed the North Vietnamese cause.
Video #7: Retired Air Vice Marshal Richard A. “Tony” Mason, who as a Wing Commander from the RAF Education Branch was the RAF Exchange Officer teaching in DFH from 1969 to 1971, discussed national security and the contribution of the Royal Air Force with a journalist in 2015.
Video #8: Dr Dik Daso, who taught at DFH 1992-1993, authored Architects of American Air Supremacy – Gen Hap Arnold and Dr. Theodore von Karman (1997). In 2016 he presented a lecture at the George C. Marshall Foundation titled “Marshall, Arnold and the Creation of American Airpower.”
Video #9: DFH instructor Captain Jeffrey Copeland taught a class in 2016 about the use of American Jazz musicians as State Department-sponsored “ambassadors” in Africa during the Cold War.
Video #10: On February 22, 2022, the Board of Directors of the USAFA Association of Graduates inducted Brig. Gen. (Ret) Philip D. Caine as an Honorary Member. Here’s the video of his induction. The video recap of General Caine’s career begins at 3:55, remarks by his daughter Virginia at 11:05, the presentation of the honorary membership at 21:00, and General Caine’s recollection of serving at USAFA at 23:55.
Video #11: At a 2008 GOP caucus meeting, Brigadier General Jon A. Reynolds recalled stories of when John McCain was a POW.
Video #12: After his tour in DFH from 1974 to 1979, Donald Bishop joined the U.S. Foreign Service. In 2006 the State Department detailed him to the Pentagon as the Foreign Policy Advisor (POLAD) to the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Later he would become the POLAD to the USAF Chief of Staff. He was invited to speak at the Memorial Day ceremonies in Westlake Village, California, in 2007.
Video #13 & #14: Brigadier General Mark K. Wells, USAF (Retired) served as a junior officer in DFH 1983-1986. After flying and NATO staff duties, he returned with a PhD from King’s College, London, and served 1993-2016. He was Permanent Professor and Head from February 2000 until his official retirement in February 2016. The first video, recorded by C-SPAN, is a History 371 Airpower class he gave in March 2015. The second C-SPAN video is an interview, conducted in September 2014, that relates to his research and award-winning book, Courage and Air Warfare: the Allied Aircrew Experience in the Second World War published in 1995.
Video #15 & #16: Alan Gropman served in DFH from 1970 to 1974. His book on the integration of African Americans in the armed forces was foundational. After his Academy tour, he had a spectacular career at the summit of professional military education. Youtube has two videos. In 1996 he spoke at a session on young Americans’ propensity to serve. His presentation runs from 31:50 to 1:01. And he spoke on General Benjamin O. Davis and the Tuskegee Airman in 2017.
Video #17: New World Vistas: Air and Space Power for the 21st Century (NWV by Air Force Television, 12/14/95)
On 10 November 1994, SECAF Dr. Sheila Widnall and CSAF Gen. Ronald Fogleman, challenged the USAF Scientific Advisory Board to look into the future of air, space and computational technology and create a broad, forward-looking study in one year’s time. Dr. Widnall’s challenge was powerful. “…this is not another Air Force internal requirement scrub to justify the Air Force science budget. Rather, it should be a truly independent futuristic view of how the exponential rate of technology change will shape the 21st Century Air Force. My goal for you is that you should publish New World Vistas in December 1995, on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Toward New Horizons.” General Hap Arnold had challenged Dr. Theodore von Kármán to look far into the future and create a report that could guide the air forces into a technologically advanced world. On 15 December 1995, Toward New Horizons was delivered to the Chief and the Secretary during holiday celebrations near Dr. Widnall’s office in the Pentagon, fulfilling the challenge. Today, the contents of that S&T report are largely forgotten, but they should not be. Contained within the volumes are forecasts for the evolution of hypersonic technology, unmanned weaponry and refueling possibilities, command and control consolidation, 3D command centers and much, much more. This film was created by orders from Dr. Widnall to celebrate the study back in 1995 and to introduce the USAF leadership and membership to the many futuristic concepts that were a part of the far-reaching, fifteen-volume SAB study. The Air Force Historical Foundation is proud to make it available to you for the first time in more than two decades.
Dik Daso, USAFA Class of ’81, DFH 1992 was one of the Executive Officers for the Scientific Advisory Board during this study and the process and experience of that work formed the foundation for his doctoral work at the University of South Carolina (PhD 1996)
Video # 18: Former DFHer Mark Clodfelter discusses his novel, Between Two Shades of Blue, and how writing it compared to writing history, with members of the Aspen Mastermind group on December 7, 2022. Former DFHer Rondall Rice serves as moderator of the session.
USAFA Department of History Alumni Association 