USM War and Society Graduate Student Gains Experience, Advances Research through Internship with Marine Corps History Division

Tue, 09/10/2019 - 03:15pm | By: David Tisdale

Taylor Lewis is happy to count himself among the few - the proud - who have earned and completed an internship with the United States Marine Corps (USMC) History Division.

Lewis, a master’s degree candidate in The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) History program’s Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, worked this past summer in Quantico Station, Virginia, assisting division historian Dr. Seth Givens on the Marine Corps' official history of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Most of Lewis’ research efforts during the internship centered on the city of Ramadi, organizing oral histories of soldiers who served there, and providing a written history of counterinsurgency in the city.

“We worked closely with the Marine archives to collect command chronologies of units deployed to Iraq,” said Lewis, a native of Edwardsburg, Michigan. “The work done this summer helped lay the foundation of what will become a major publication by the historians at Quantico.”

During the internship, Lewis was also able to conduct research for his master’s thesis, which focuses on the Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, with the USMC History division granting him access to newly declassified unit chronologies and interviews with Marines in the field.

Lewis’s USM faculty mentor is Dr. Andrew Wiest, founding director of the Dale Center.

“This internship was a great opportunity that allowed me to further explore my own interests in the recent past, and learn more about the historical process,” Lewis said.

The USM History program and Dale Center are housed in the College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Humanities. For information about the USM History program and its Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, visit https://www.usm.edu/dale-center-war-society/index.php.