The Woeful Ignorance of American Educators

The major reason why American high school and college kids know nothing of history:

Their instructors know nothing of it either.

I am a service academy graduate and benefited from great instructors who understood the importance of historical knowledge to the profession of arms.

I am continually stunned as to how little my interlocutors know of history. Basic facts elude most; an ability to understand its sweeps and themes eludes virtually all. Were it not for the History Channel and videogames, I suspect the situation would be far worse.

Part of our difficulties in the War on Terror stem from the fact that Americans are ignorant of warfare in general, and the American way of war in particular. We are a nation of Alzheimer's patients, the past ever receding from us, unmourned.