Spearhead of Logistics is a narrative branch history of the U.S. Army's Transportation Corps, first published in 1994 for transportation personnel and reprinted in 2001 for the larger Army community. The Quartermaster Department coordinated transportation support for the Army until World War I revealed the need for a dedicated corps of specialists. The newly established Transportation Corps, however, lasted for only a few years. Its significant utility for coordinating military transportation became again transparent during World War II, and it was resurrected in mid-1942 to meet the unparalleled logistical demands of fighting in distant theaters. Finally becoming a permanent branch in 1950, the Transportation Corps continued to demonstrate its capability of rapidly supporting U.S. Army operations in global theaters over the next fifty years. With useful lessons of high-quality support that validate the necessity of adequate transportation in a viable national defense posture, it is an important resource for those now involved in military transportation and movement for ongoing expeditionary operations. This text should be useful to both officers and noncommissioned officers who can take examples from the past and apply the successful principles to future operations, thus ensuring a continuing legacy of Transportation excellence within Army operations. Additionally, military science students and military historians may be interested in this volume.

In this book US Army Transportation Corps Historian, Richard E. Killblane, utitlizes the expertise of professionals with lived experience of synchronizing military transportation from end to end to uniquely explore how military transportation logistics have evolved during the last half of the 20th Century and beyond towards greater efficiency.

Spearhead of Logistics is a narrative branch history of the U.S. Army's Transportation Corps, first published in 1994 for transportation personnel and reprinted in 2001 for the larger Army community. The Quartermaster Department coordinated transportation support for the Army until World War I revealed the need for a dedicated corps of specialists. The newly established Transportation Corps, however, lasted for only a few years. Its significant utility for coordinating military transportation became again transparent during World War II, and it was resurrected in mid-1942 to meet the unparalleled logistical demands of fighting in distant theaters. Finally becoming a permanent branch in 1950, the Transportation Corps continued to demonstrate its capability of rapidly supporting U.S. Army operations in global theaters over the next fifty years. With useful lessons of high-quality support that validate the necessity of adequate transportation in a viable national defense posture, it is an important resource for those now involved in military transportation and movement for ongoing expeditionary operations.

At a time when the U.S.-Mexican border was still not clearly defined and when the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and land hunger impelled the Anglo presence ever deeper and more intrusively into South Texas, Juan Nepomucino Cortina cut a violent swath across the region in a conflict that came to be known as The Cortina War. Did this border caudillo fight to defend the rights, honor, and legal claims of the Mexicans of South Texas, as he claimed? Or was his a quest for personal vengeance against the newcomers who had married into his family, threatened his mother’s land holdings, and insulted his honor? Historian Jerry Thompson mines the archival record and considers it in light of recent revisionist history of the region. As a result, he produces not only a carefully nuanced work on Cortina—the most comprehensive to date for this pivotal borderlands figure—but also a balanced interpretation of the violence that racked South Texas from the 1840s through the 1860s. Cortina’s influence in the region made him a force to be reckoned with during the American Civil War. He influenced Mexican politics from the 1840s to the 1870s and fought in the Mexican Army for more than forty-five years. His daring cross-border cattle raids, carried out for more than two decades, made his exploits the stuff of sensational journalism in the newspapers of New York, Boston, and other American cities. By the time of his imprisonment in 1877, Cortina and his followers had so roiled South Texas that Anglo reprisals were being taken against Mexicans and Tejanos throughout the region, ironically worsening the racism that had infuriated Cortina in the beginning. The effects of this troubled period continue to resonate in Anglo-Mexican and Anglo-Tejano relations, down to this very day. Students of regional and borderlands history will find this premier biography to be a rich source of new perspectives. Its transnational focus and balanced approach will reward scholarly and general readers alike.

Product Description: This illustrated book highlights the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' history from the battle of Bunker Hill to the war on terrorism; an introduction to aspects and events in engineer history. The Corps has a wealth of visual information--drawings, artwork, photographs, maps, plans, models--and this book contains a montage of historical images from the Revolutionary War to the present, in addition to many newly written articles. This new history also features an extensive index to aid in finding a specific subject, and researchers and interested individuals can be sure that they will find a solid historical perspective.