Looking closer: What’s inside CSU’s growing military history archive?

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Inside more than 100 hundred boxes now at the Columbus State University archive are what school experts call significant military history documents from the post-Vietnam War era.

But what, exactly, does that mean? After speaking with three folks who have given their military documents to the CSU archive, the picture becomes clearer.

“We know they have an important historical value,” said Scott Marsh, son of the late John “Jack” Marsh, the longest serving Secretary of the Army to-date.

For decades, the Marsh family had pondered about where to hand over the hundreds of military documents Scott’s father had collected over his career.

Having given the materials to CSU, Scott says a weight has been lifted.

“It’s a bit of a burden that you know that there’s value for research and historical purposes. I mean, that was the time period that the Army made significant changes,” Scott said, listing off a small portion of what happened during his father’s service.

The elder Marsh’s documents capture the Cold War era, as well as the integration of new tech like Humvees, Black Hawk helicopters, Kevlar helmets and Meals Ready to Eat (MREs).

There are also boxes upon boxes of speeches with handwritten notes, picture albums, cassette tapes and other memorabilia.

In addition to what was given by the Marsh family, CSU is also the new home to nearly 100 boxes of materials from retired Army social worker Jim Martin, now a faculty member at Bryn Mawr College.

According to Martin, his contributions contain decades-worth of first-person accounts by soldiers and other research studies about military substance abuse, domestic violence, “issues of morale [and] cohesion” and “issues that relate to how leadership can better meet the needs of its members and their families.”

The work covers pivotal eras, including the integration of women at West Point, and studies such as one done at Fort Benning, looking at the impact of the cohort program through soldier accounts.

Uniquely, historians and researchers can also find another first-person source in Patrick Donahoe, former Fort Benning commander and now CSU faculty member. Donahoe’s work from his time in the military is now also housed at the CSU archive.

“What is present in my papers is this really deep turn from our focus on counterinsurgency to our focus on large-scale combat operations,” Donahoe said. “That was being informed in real-time by campaigns around the world, whether those were in the middle east or those were in Ukraine.”

Though Donahoe said he is not a historically significant figure himself, he knows his documents capture key moments in Army history. Those include the integration of women into Ranger School, as well as restructuring in cavalry and reconnaissance as new technology, like drones, became viable resources for warfighting.

CSU’s Military History Chair Dr. David Kieran says these archival resources are invaluable for researchers and historians who will come to CSU in the future.

“What these papers document is the history of the people who made the Army run for the 20, 30 years following the Vietnam War,” Kieran said. “It’s not just the story of the military…It’s the story of the military and its place in American culture.”

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