Wyoming Guard's legacy soon to be in print

Photo By Maj. Thomas Blackburn | Mark Hufstetler will complete a manuscript that will be incorporated into a 200-page history book on the Wyoming National Guard. His previous work has included technical manuals and other research projects, but this is his first involving the Wyoming National Guard. (Courtesy Photo)  

CHEYENNE, WY, UNITED STATES

04.06.2016

Story by Maj. Thomas Blackburn 

Joint Force Headquarters - Wyoming National Guard

The Wyoming National Guard’s history spans two centuries and produced countless stories shared from generations around the state.
Guard members were mobilized to fight in the Spanish-American War, in the trenches of World War I, and the fields of Europe in World War II. The state’s artillery lineage was chiseled into the U.S. military’s chronicles with the actions of Wyoming Guardsmen in Korea. Later, deployments to the recent conflicts during the Global War on Terror and domestic operations like MAFFS continue the Wyoming Guard’s legacy.
But where to find that history? Currently there isn’t a book that combines the experience and events of the Wyoming National Guard into a one-stop resource.
That’s changing soon.
By the end of this year research will be complete for a book detailing the Wyoming National Guard’s history from 1870 to present. It will be available to current and prior service guardsmen.
“There has been discussions about a book for some time,” said Wyoming Veterans Commission director Larry Barttelbort. “Now we have a great author in place, a great review team, and the funds to support the research. It’s going to be something the Wyoming Guardsmen will be proud to have to show their families.”
Funds are only available for the research and completion of the manuscript. A timeline for publishing has not be approved yet.
The writer contracted to complete the project is Mark Hufstetler, a historian from Montana with an expansive background in the Old West and experience in Wyoming’s culture. He will be responsible for conducting interviews with veterans and current Wyoming Guard members to learn about the organization, as well as do research into earlier time periods. Unfamiliar with the Wyoming Guard’s history prior to the project, in four months he has already taken in a wealth of information that will help tell the story.
“I’m finding the personal stories are very interesting and what will make this more interesting for people to read,” he said. “(Those stories) are more pronounced then other military projects. There is something about the guard, it’s a unit of the nation, state, and it has a spirit to it.”
Hufstetler’s father was a federal forest ranger, and for a time while he was a kid, his family lived in Kemmerer, Wyoming, while his father was assigned to a station nearby. There, his family’s interest in history led him to many weekend trips to Wyoming’s countryside.
“Every weekend as a kid, we’d head out to the middle of nowhere to go look for ghost towns,” he said. “That’s where it started. Exploring the West. The Old West is my favorite subject.”
Part of that Old-West history is the emergence of the Wyoming National Guard, starting with its founding in the 19th century and its importance to the state. Growing up in Kemmerer, Hufstetler witnessed what the National Guard meant to the small town and close-knit communities.
“There is a stronger sense of participation in the guard,” he said. “In a place like Wyoming and Montana, I don’t know the precise numbers, it’s a big part of people’s lives. In Kemmerer, folks would drive to armories, there was a strong presence in school football teams and there was a big guard presence. It gave (the people) a focus for their lives. Even as a kid I remember that. It added purpose to their lives.”
That sense of participation builds a personal kinship between the generations of guardsmen, a relationship that has revealed itself to Hufstetler
“Every interview I’ve done, the people have emphasized that the guard is a family,” he said. “I’ve gotten that more than any other project. It gives this organization its character.”
That closeness has interested Hufstetler, even before he signed to author the book. Before his research, he knew the bucking bronco, a symbol that connects Wyoming with its cowboy culture, began with the Wyoming Guard. He didn’t know much beyond that. One popular theme that stands out is the impact the guard has on its local community.
“I discovered this up in Montana, there is something about the history of a group in a state that doesn’t have many people, events take on importance to the state,” he said. “You send a few hundred people to Afghanistan in New York, no one cares. You send that many from Wyoming, and it impacts the community, it changes that. When you talk about that in a place like Wyoming, there is a special poignancy to it.”
Hufstetler’s work on the book is ongoing. Currently he is finishing up multiple interviews and has done hours of research at local libraries and newspapers across the state to pull up as much information on the guard’s years in the 1900s as possible. An outline has been approved by the Wyoming Veterans Commission’s council overseeing the project. Now Hufstetler will work to paint the guard’s history in 200-pages or less.
“In terms of difficult, it’s a huge story to write,” he said. “I have a year here and it would take someone a lifetime to fill in all the blanks. It’s a large and complex and important story. If I had a decade to write it, I would still have questions at the end.”
To ensure he provides each time period a proper review, Hufstetler will break down the long history into pieces, and focus on key historical moments. Using the approved outline, he will create chapters covering chunks of time and then break those into more narrow topics. He has already found some difficulty in putting everyone’s story into the book.
“You want to have a project that respects everyone’s opinion,” he said. “It’s going to be difficult with this project because we don’t have enough space for everything. It will have to be a summary, and I know folks will miss that personal experience.”
But, even though some of those stories may not make it into the book, Hufstetler feels honored to have talked to so many of Wyoming’s National Guard veterans and members.
“I’ve had the best conversations I’ve ever had,” he said. “There are great stories. There is an attachment to those stories and what it means to those individuals and to our society.”

• Date Taken: 04.06.2016
• Date Posted: 04.06.2016 13:12
• Story ID: 194541
• Location: CHEYENNE, WY, US