Wood, C.E. (Clyde Edward Wood, Ed Wood)

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Wood, C.E. (Clyde Edward Wood, Ed Wood)

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Iowa, B.A., 1985; University of Nebraska, M.A., 1995, Ph.D., 2003.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Clarksburg, WV. Office—Glenville State College, Louis Bennett Hall, Rm. 231, 200 High St., Glenville, WV 26351. E-mail—Ed. [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, historian, and educator. Glenville State College, Glenville, WV, assistant professor of history; Peru State College, Peru, NE, adjunct professor; University of Nebraska, Lincoln, instructor; Concordia College, instructor. Presenter at academic conferences and meetings. Military service: Served in the U.S. Army, 1985-88; served in the U.S. Marines, 1989-93; Distinguished Military Graduate, Army ROTC, University of Iowa, 1983; honor graduate, Ordnance Office Basic Course, U.S. Army, 1986.

MEMBER:

Society of Military History.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Mud: A Military History, Potomac Books (Washington, DC), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Magill's Guide to Military History, edited by John Powell, Salem Press, 2001; and Land Warfare: An Encyclopedia, edited by Stanley L. Sandler, ABC-Clio, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

C.E. Wood is a writer, educator, and historian at Glenville State College in Glenville, West Virginia. Wood's educational track, from B.A. at the University of Iowa to M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska, focused on history. His academic specialties include the modern militaries of Europe, East Asia, and the United States. As an educator, he teaches a wide variety of classes in U.S., European, and world history, including World War I and II, world history before and since 1500, U.S. history before and since 1877, U.S. military history before and since 1817, and Western civilization before and since 1715. He presents courses on Victorian England, modern Japan, and modern Germany, as well as courses on European geography, world regional geography, and general military history. Wood also assists students with professional planning through his course in careers in history and political science.

Wood is a military veteran who served in both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marines. He is a Distinguished Honor Graduate of the Army ROTC program and the University of Iowa, and an honor graduate of the U.S. Army Officer Basic Course. While a soldier, he was a member of Company D, 55th Support Battalion in Neu Ulm, West Germany. As a marine, he served in Company B, 3d Light Armored Infantry Battalion at Bardera, Somalia. Wood was involved in combat action at the Emir's Ranch during the first Gulf War.

As a former member of the military, Wood is uniquely qualified to address the topic of his first book, Mud: A Military History. For soldiers and marines on the ground, the seemingly innocuous mixing of water and soil creates a ubiquitous enemy almost as despised as the ones with the guns, a constant presence that impedes travel, inflicts misery, immobilizes vehicles, jams weapons, and fills boots. In his book, Wood notes that for all its widespread presence and effects, mud receives very little attention within professional military journals and literature. In an effort to remedy this lack of attention to a natural environmental characteristic that can be either an ally or a cruel foe, Wood looks carefully at the role of mud in military contexts throughout history. He describes the different characteristics of mud and notes that all types of mud do not behave similarly. Some mud is thin and treacherously slick, while other mud is thick and viscous with the ability to suck down and mire soldier and vehicle alike.

Wood recounts stories of how mud has been a constant annoyance to ground troops, and illustrates his points with anecdotes from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq. He considers the tactical aspects of mud, and describes how it affords the defender in a conflict an advantage over the aggressor, who must traverse the substance in order to continue combat operations. At Waterloo, for example, mud proved to be advantageous to the defenders. In the early days of World War II, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, mud proved to be a dangerous hindrance to the advancing Germans. Wood's account covers topics such as the response of military engineers to the presence of mud; the tactical decisions made by commanders in view of the presence or absence of mud on the battlefield; the physical and psychological effect of mud on troops' health and morale; and the influence of mud on military undertakings in North America, Europe, and Asia. Wood also describes in detail the techniques and processes used by the modern military dealing with mud's effects in Iraq and elsewhere. "Wood's study will especially sensitize those readers involved with military affairs to mud's crucial importance," commented Gilbert Taylor in a Booklist review.