Combat Historian: Collecting and Writing Army Special-Operations History from Desert Storm to Afghanistan (1991-2002)

An insider history of Army special forces and a rare insight into the role of combat historian.

Richard Stewart was the chief historian of the US Army from 1998 to 2015. From 1990 to 1998, he was the command historian of US Army Special Operations Command. In this capacity, he deployed to cover special forces during Operation Desert Storm (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), Task Force Ranger (Somalia, "Black Hawk Down"), Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti), Operation Joint Endeavor/Guard (Bosnia), and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan).

This work is both a history of Army special operations and their missions during that era and a first-person account of experiencing conflict through the very specific lens of the combat historian.

Dr. Richard W. Stewart retired as chief historian of the US Army in October 2015 after 40 years of combined service both as a civilian, in the reserves, and on active duty. He received his PhD from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1986. His historical works include War in the Persian Gulf: Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, August 1990–March 1991, The United States Army in Somalia, 1992–1994, Operation Urgent Fury: The Invasion of Grenada, October 1983, and U.S. Army in Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001 to March 2002. He served as the general editor of the two-volume American Military History and was coauthor with Brig. Gen. (Ret.) John S. Brown of American Armed Forces and Battles in the Pacific:  World War II for the American Battle Monuments Commission. As an Army officer, Stewart deployed to the Persian Gulf for Desert Storm, Somalia in 1993, Bosnia in 1997, and Afghanistan in 2002, retiring as a colonel in June 2002. He lives in the Washington, DC, area.