Wiest to Give 2025 Buford “Buff” Blount Lecture Feb. 27 at Hattiesburg Campus

Tue, 02/18/2025 - 11:38am | By: Dr. David Tisdale

Dr. Andrew Wiest, founding director of The University of Southern Mississippi’s (USM) Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, will give this year’s Gen. Buford “Buff” Blount Lecture when he presents on his upcoming book Dogwood: A National Guard Unit’s War in Iraq, 2005 on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. in the Gonzales Auditorium (room 108) of the Liberal Arts Building on the Hattiesburg campus. Admission is free and open to the public. 

A university distinguished professor of history, Dr. Wiest is the 2023-25 Blount Professor of Military History at Southern Miss, named for the university alum who led the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division into Baghdad in 2003. The Blount Professorship is awarded biennially to provide funding for the work of a School of Humanities history program faculty engaged in research toward publication of a major study in the field of war and society.  

At the end of their two-year term, the holder of the Blount Professorship presents a lecture or program based on their research. Dogwood traces the experience of the 150th Combat Engineers of the Mississippi National Guard in their 2005 tour of duty in Iraq, employing firsthand accounts from the men and women who served. 

Wiest said his lecture will examine how in the wake of the Vietnam War, many things changed about America and the way that it fights its wars, with one of the most important being what he describes as “a fundamental reshaping of the National Guard.” In spotlighting the Mississippi National Guard’s 150th Combat Engineers, he takes a “micro look” at the Guard–the victories, losses, and the results of one unit at war during one of the most consequential periods in the nation’s military history.

“The Guard had long been the fundamental basis of the American military experience, and that experience changed with the end of the draft and the shift in warfare to a smaller more technological force,” Wiest explained. “Much of that great military change in the wake of the Vietnam War has been heavily studied, but the impact of that change on the Guard has not.”

“So, the goal of Dogwood is to look at how that change happened within and impacted one unit within the Guard – the 150th Combat Engineers of the Mississippi National Guard,” added Wiest. 

Wiest expressed gratitude for the Blount Professorship funding to make Dogwood possible. “Without the Blount Professorship this book might not have been done at all, and at the very best would have taken more years to produce,” he further noted. 

“Writing a book like this one, like any book in the field of history, takes years,” Wiest said. “A few of those years are taken up by research, in my case centered around about 100 oral interviews. Then once all the prep work is done, you are left having to turn all that research into, in the case of this book, about 120,000 words. Writing that much is hugely immersive and is really kind of an art.”

School of Humanities Director Dr. Matthew Casey said that for anyone who knows about the university’s history program or the larger field of military history, “Andy Wiest is a familiar name with a stellar reputation for teaching and research excellence.”

“The Blount Professorship and accompanying lecture will provide members of the USM and Hattiesburg communities an opportunity to hear about Dr. Wiest’s ongoing National Guard research project,” Casey further noted about the upcoming lecture. “I expect the evening to be a perfect mix of local stories and their ties to the important geopolitical events that marked the turn of the 21st century." 

Cick here to learn more about Dr. Wiest and the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society.