James A. Mowbray

To John Simkin: John, I just found your message about the need to re-register, but I am unsure how to navigate to the appropriate location to do so. Could you send me a message with fairly specific guidance, please and thank you. My apologies for the behavior of the right wing in this country. It will make the up coming election very interesting. I am going to be in the UK from 26 Aug to 7 Sep, in Scotland. Hence, I will be out of touch for a while. Please give me a chance to get back into the registry if I get cut out, as I hope to be more active after I return from your side of the pond. Keep up the good work as some of us over here do appreciate the Forum. Add my home e-mail address to my package if you are able to do that from your end, and I will look for messages there: drjamowbray@msn.com Thanks again, J. A. Mowbray Professor, Air War College Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 36112-6427 USA james.mowbray@maxwell.af.mil

James Mowbray I have been an historian for nearly thirty years; for the last twenty years I have been a professor at the USAF's Air War College where I specialize in aviation history and Air Force doctrine. I also teach at a couple of the local universities in the evening, which allows me to stay in touch with the real world of civilians.

The sense of frustration in Maggie Jarvis' remarks about history and the present are interesting. Alas, if she were only correct in the assertion that by studing the present we can do something about it as historians, we might all be happier. For all of us who may be unhappy with the positions of our governments all we can hope to do in the short run is change them at election time, or support them to keep them in power if we think they are correct in what they are doing. We shall see in the case of my country soon enough, when November rolls around. As for the quotes from Santayana and others in this history section I would add one that may too often not be understood. I see real evidence for this one every day! A USAF general being interviewed some years ago said to a friend of mine, the interviewer, "Hugh, when you think you see a conspiracy in the Pentagon, look instead for incompetence!" I do not think there was all that much conspiracy between MI5, MI6, FBI, DIA, CIA, G2, A2, and so forth. I think the general had it just about right! But also keep in mind that stock-piled weapons were not the threat any of them were really worried about, rather it was the persistence of the ability to bring online facilities, materials, and talents with which to make WMD on relatively short notice. Those we have found . . . whether on a scale sufficient to satisfy the public on Saddam's intention, or to satisfy my Congress and your Parliament on that score is perhaps a rather different issue. I think election time here and over your way will be most interesting indeed. James A. Mowbray, Professor of Strategy, Doctrine, and Airpower, Air War College, Maxwell AFB.

I suspect your focus is on what happened in the UK and Western Europe, but I can still remember things in the US that happened during the war. Moreover, it (the war) is my professional field of interest as an historian. If I can be of any assistance with answering inquiries I would be very happy to help. I have interviewed a great many people over the years who participated and lived to tell about it. For example, it is rare to have the chance to talk with a British officer who won his Victoria Cross posthumously!!! I did that when I lived in London many years ago. I knew Curt LeMay personnally and for some years, as well as Canadian soldiers who landed at Dieppe, and got off of the beach that day, and later fought in Normandy. Anyway, if you think I can be of any assistance I am here! Professor James A. Mowbray, Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama: james.mowbray@maxwell.af.mil

To all of you that have responded, your views are appreciated. Pauline, I will look into the e-mail address for the Legislature, which should be easy to find. I have some contacts in the political system. An e-mail campaign that has an international flavor may be something of an attention step for the inept and unfortunate in our legislature, but such an effort probably needs to go to the newspaper if it is to get pressure generated. I get that as well and post both. Eeyore, I mentioned those recent failures just in passing, and your details will be helpful for those not so close and familiar with Alabama's problems. I dare say that Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi are rather more enlightened than Alabama. Maggie, My new wife has asked me the same question, that is, why stay? The answer is in my position as a Professor at the Air War College, which places me in the military environment (my wife is a retired colonel) doing a job that is my first love. I cannot do this same job anywhere else. I worked to educate my children as much at home as in the public schools, which we supported as a family. I am inclined to go the letter to the editor route in the immediate future, and no I have not done so up to now because the crisis only became acute with the recent double defeat of a lottery and then the tax measures. The latter just a few weeks ago. John, you are right we are suffering, but Mercedes, Hyundai and their suppliers have recently come to Alabama and their presence may help reverse this problem in the near future. But we here must stimulate the lethargic, and I am looking for ideas. thanks to all of you . . . James (Jim) Mowbray, Professor of Strategy, Air War College

Adrian, I appreciate your reply. I have lived in Alabama for nearly 18 years. My problem as an educator who is not required to deal with the problems because I teach at the Air War College (USAF), in addition to some night school classes at Troy and Auburn Universities, is that I believe there ought to be a manner in which at least some of these problems might be addressed. As a British Historian I am more than familiar with the "pissing in the wind" syndrome, and I am probably talking about it here because I would be pissing in the wind if I made public comments in letters to the editor, or in some similar forum. However, more and more I am inclined to think about trying to find some method of organizing the few educated people in this town in order to try and help. Hence, I am looking for ideas, or some approach that might have worked elsewhere to attack bigotry entrenched in a malfunctioning educational system. I am not sure that there is any place quite like Alabama, albeit West Georgia strikes me as merely being East Alabama. You didn't teach at West Georgia State College (University?), did you? Anyway, I appreciate your view---but I hate like the very devil to have to agree that you are most probably correct in your assessment.

The state of Alabama, home of the first capital of the Confederacy (1861), has an enormous educational problem. In the US teachers graduate from Colleges of Education in which they are chiefly taught how to teach rather than the subject matter to be taught. Many of these colleges have been found to be substandard by competent national and state studies. On top of these first two problems lay down the fact that the state government has long been a good old boy political network in the legislature that is unwilling to address the competency problems and which allocates the state budget in an ear marked way that closes out flexibiltyand "fills the pork barrel." As a result, the schools lack adequate financing. When the present, and the previous, governor went to the electorate with first a lottery proposal and then a constitutional amendment to finance schools, the voters turned down both. The lottery died because the local religious folks decided to fix the problem by saying, with signs in their yards, "we pray for our schools!" The amendment died because voters said "we do not trust the politicians!" We have several adequate to solid universities, and like my two daughters, many of those who gradute leave the state. I have one in California and one outside of New Orleans. So exodus is another aspect of this. The lack of education in the population is a reflection of these problems, as are the high illegitimacy rate, number of single mothers, high poverty rates, deplorably poor tax base, and high STD rates. But the religious right are praying for everyone!

Jim Mowbray I am a professor of military history specializing in strategy and the employment of air power in war, and I have been teaching at the USAF Air War College for nearly twenty years. In the evenings I teach at two public (state) universities, Troy State University Montgomery and Auburn University Montgomery, both in the deep South, USA. This state (Alabama) is in a very deep educational crisis at all levels. I am interested in sharing and receiving the views of my colleagues, far and wide, about problems in education they are facing, and about approaches to problems that have worked elsewhere.