HMGS is very pleased to again welcome Weider History Group (WHG) – www.historynet.com – publishers of the interactive history magazine Armchair General (ACG) – www.armchairgeneral.com – and ten other historical magazines, as a participant in HISTORICON.

WHG is sponsoring eight of the speakers for this year’s War College: Frank Chadwick, Paul Davis, Col. (Ret.) David Glantz, Dana Lombardy, Peter Mancini, Col. (Ret.) Jerry Morelock PhD, Gerald Swick, and Jay Wertz.

They will present fifteen (15) talks with fresh insights on topics from the American Civil War and World War II to espionage and modern Russia and Afghanistan. See Events (PEL) link at left for full details after May 14th.

Frank Chadwick: Founded Game Designers' Workshop in 1972, and was inducted into the Origins Hall of Fame in 1984. Chadwick has more than sixty published games to his credit, including Command Decision miniatures rules, and his Desert Shield Factbook (1991) reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list. He is the current events blogger for the Great History Website. Mr. Chadwick is being sponsored by the Weider History Group and will be presenting the following two seminars: The Physiology of Combat (Thurs. 4:30 PM), and Afghan Update (Fri. 9 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for full details. He will also be available for ‘Meet & Greet’ and book signings at the Weider History Group booth (see the Weider History Group booth at the convention for details).

Paul Davis: Paul has been a student of crime and espionage since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17 in 1970, and served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. He performed security work as a young sailor and later as a U.S. Defense Department civilian employee. He retired from the Defense Department in 2007 after 37 years of combined military-civilian service.

As a writer he covers crime, espionage, terrorism and the military for newspapers, magazines and Internet publications. He is a contributing editor to Counterterrorism, the Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International (www.iacsp.com/publications.php) and he is a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer (www.philly.com/inquirer). He also writes an online column called “Paul Davis On Crime & Security” (www.businessknowhow.com/security). His web page can be read at http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/site/

Mr. Davis will be presenting the following espionage-related seminar: The U.S. Navy Cold War Traitors and Spies (Thurs. 1 PM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details. He will also be available for ‘Meet & Greet’ at the Weider History Group booth (see the Weider History Group booth at the convention for details).

Col. (Ret.) David M. Glantz – Guest of Honor: Served for over 30 years in various field artillery, intelligence, teaching and research assignments in Europe and Vietnam; taught at the U.S. Military Academy, Combat Studies Institute, and the U.S. Army War College; founded and directed the U.S. Army’s Foreign (Soviet) Military Studies Office, and established and currently edits The Journal of Slavic Military Studies. Has written or co-authored 60+ books and self-published studies and atlases, as well as hundreds of articles on Soviet military strategy, intelligence, and deception and the history of the Red (Soviet) Army, Soviet (Russian) military history and WWII.

Col. Glantz will be presenting the following series of four WWII Eastern Front seminars: Soviet Operations in Hungary, Oct-Dec 1944 (Thurs. 12 PM); The Soviet Vistula Oder Offensive Operation, Jan-Feb 1945 (Fri. 11 AM); The Soviet East Prussian Offensive Operation, Jan-Feb 1945 (Sat. 12 PM); Soviet Operations in Hungary, Jan-Mar 1945 (Sun. 10:30 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details. He will also be available for ‘Meet & Greet’ and book signings at the Weider History Group booth (see the Weider History Group booth at the convention for details).

Dana Lombardy: Associate Editor for Armchair General online. Best known for his multiple award-winning Streets of Stalingrad board wargame (three separate editions since first released in 1979), and for his nearly twenty television appearances, including multiple episodes of The History Channel’s “Tales of the Gun” series. Lombardy has contributed as an editor, cartographer, graphic artist and designer on many books, games and magazines, and was Publisher of Napoleon Journal from 1996-2000.

Mr. Lombardy will be co-presenting (with John Hill) the following two seminars at this year’s convention: Was Day 1 at Gettysburg An Avoidable Union Disaster? – A Debate (Fri. 8 AM) and What Ifs of the American Civil War (Sat. 8 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for full details after May 15th.

Peter Mancini: Has spent over 20 years engineering software systems; for the past four years he has been involved with the Intelligence and Security Command of the U.S. Army. His work includes working on fast, highly scalable associative networks, fast, noise-resistant entity extraction, relational search and navigation, entity resolution and host of other technologies currently deployed in the intelligence community. He has taken a special interest in building tools for identifying and locating high value targets such as terrorists, IED factories, cell headquarters as well as countering asymmetric warfare.

Mr. Mancini will be presenting the following seminar: Intelligence Lessons From Iwo Jima (Thurs. 11 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details.

Col. (Ret.) Jerry Morelock, PhD: A 1969 West Point graduate, Col. Morelock spent 36 years in uniform. He is a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War whose assignments included command and staff positions in the U.S., Germany and Korea. His last (of two) Pentagon assignment was Chief of Russia Branch, Joint Chiefs of Staff, coordinating U.S. policy regarding Russia and the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union.

Col. Morelock’s final active duty tour was Director of the Combat Studies Institute – the history department of the Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC), Ft. Leavenworth, KS. In addition to being department head of this outstanding group of two-dozen, world-class military historians, Col. Morelock regularly taught graduate-level history courses, served as a member of the Secretary of the Army’s Military History Advisory Board and was Editor-in-Chief of CGSC Press.

Upon retirement, Dr. Morelock became Executive Director of the Winston Churchill Memorial & Library at Westminster College in Fulton, MO, the site of Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech. Dr. Morelock, a Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society, received his PhD from the University of Kansas and is a prize-winning military historian whose numerous publications include the books, Generals of the Ardennes: American Leadership in the Battle of the Bulge and Great Land Battles From the Civil War to the Gulf War. A Westminster College adjunct professor (history and political science), Dr. Morelock since 2004 has been Editor in Chief of Armchair General magazine, a Chicago Tribune selection as one of its “50 Best” magazines in the world.

Dr. Morelock will be presenting the following four seminars – Armchair General Magazine: An Insider’s View (Fri. 10 AM); Darkest of Times: Omar Bradley’s Battle of th Bulge (Sat. 3 PM); The Bear is Back! – Russia’s New Cold War (Sun. 12 PM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details. He will also be available for ‘Meet & Greet’ and book signings at the Weider History Group booth (see the Weider History Group booth at the convention for details).

Gerald D. Swick: Senior Web editor for Weider History Group sites www.ArmchairGeneral.com, www.GreatHistory.com and www.HistoryNet.com, and is an award-winning freelance writer. As ACG’s Web editor, he frequently edits game and book reviews. His own reviews have appeared in Fantasy Gamer, Fire & Movement, Game News and elsewhere. In a special presentation for HISTORICON, he shares insights into what makes an effective review – and authored Historic Photos of West Virginia (Turner Publishing, 2010) Mr. Swick will be presenting a seminar on Writing Book and Game Reviews: The Good, the Bad, and the Necessary (Fri. 6:30 PM); s ee Events (PEL) link at left for full details after May 14th.

Jay Wertz: Is the author of three books – The Native American Experience, The Civil War Experience 1861-1865, and co-author of Smithsonian’s Great Battles and Battlefields of the Civil War with prominent historian Edwin C. Bearss. He is currently working on a new World War II book series for the Weider History Group. He has also been a columnist for Civil War Times Illustrated, America’s Civil War, Historynet.com, GreatHistory.com and a feature writer for Aviation History. He is the producer-director-writer of the award-winning 13-part documentary series Smithsonian’s Great Battles of the Civil War for The Learning Channel and Time-Life Video. He started his 34-year film and TV career in Hollywood working for a USAF audio-visual contractor. He later directed a feature film, The Last Reunion, a thriller involving World War II veterans. He lives in Phillips Ranch, California.

Mr. Wertz will be presenting the following three seminars: The Battle for Luzon, Dec. 1942 – May 1942 (Thurs. 2 PM); Stalingrad: The Daily Grind (Fri. 12 PM); Anecdotal Stories From D-Day to Berlin (Sat. 9 AM); see Events (PEL) link at left for complete details. He will also be available for ‘Meet & Greet’ and book signings at the Weider History Group booth (see the Weider History Group booth at the convention for details).