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Historian r?membered as a man who made 'history come alive'
BY BRETT MARTEL Associated Press Writer
Though too young to see combat in World War II, historian Stephen E. Ambrose made a career of offering a soldier's view of the conflict, from the sounds at Normandy to the chill at the Battle of
HISTORIAN-PAGE 9A
Historian
Dr.
Stephen Ambrose at his home in Bay St. Louis last year. See Dr.
Ambrose ?in his own words on page IB.
Echo staff photo by Bennie Shallbetter
?v'
THE SEA COAST ECHO
Historian -- Ambrose remembered
the Bulge.'
?His great gift was that he refused to allow people to think history was boring," said Douglas Brinkley, a former student and collaborator. "He was always grabbing people by their lapels and saying, 'Listen to this. Isn't this fascinating?"'
Only days after the release of his latest book and with another book nearing publication, Ambrose died Sunday after a six-month battle with lung cancer. He was 66.
For much of his career, Ambrose was a little-known history professor. He burst onto the best-sellers list less than a decade ago with his 1994 book "D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II."
Based in large part on interviews with veterans about their combat experiences, the book recounted the chaotic, bloody beach invasions of Normandy from the American soldier's perspective.
?He was saying, ?There's all this obsession with high command, but the real story is these citizen soldiers who still live in every town and hamlet in the United States,?? said Brinkley, who succeeded Ambrose as director of the University of New Orleans'	Eisenhower
Center.
With unadorned but lively prose, Ambrose continued to captivate readers as he churned out history books at an industrial pace, publishing more than 30, including a half-dozen more best sellers such as "Citizen Soldiers" and "The Wild Blue."
He ?combined high standards of scholarship with the capacity to make history come alive for a lay audience,? Pulitzer Prize-win-
ning historian Arthur Schlesinger said.
While best known for his World War II books and as the founder of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans, Ambrose wrote about numerous aspects of American history. Other books addressed former Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, the Transcontinental Railroad and the Lewis and Clark expeditions of the American West.
His last book, ?To America:	Personal
Reflections of an Historian,? which Ambrose called his love song to his country, is set for release Nov. 19. He didn't begin writing it until after his cancer diagnosis in April.
At the National D-Day Museum, which Ambrose founded, his portrait was placed near the entrance and a sign noted his death. Guests were invited to write messages to the Ambrose family on museum postcards.
?He had a knack in his writing for making you feel like he was sitting right there talking to you,? said Tom Gordon, a P-38 reconnaissance pilot in World War II, who was visiting from St. Louis.
Ambrose, who called himself a hero worshipper, said in a recent interview that his focus on World War II developed from working on his Eisenhower biography and his memory of soldiers returning home from World War II when he was 10 years old.
?I thought the returning veterans were giants who had saved the world from barbarism. I still think so,? he said.
For the most part, war veterans were eager to help Ambrose and entrusted
artifacts they saved from World War II to the D-Day Museum. The old soldiers seemed to relate well to the author, a plain-speaking man who got to the point and wasn't afraid to mix in a few curse words for emphasis.
By the time he became ill, Ambrose's snowballing success had grown into a dynamic family industry that ranged from top-dollar lectures to movie consulting and even historical tours run by one of his sons.
Ambrose's film work included consulting roles in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," and on the World War II documentary, "Price for Peace," also directed by Spielberg. Ambrose's best-selling book "Band of Brothers" was made into a cable miniseries.
Ambrose was born Jan.
10,	1936, a doctor's son from Whitewater, Wis.
He started in pre-medicine studies at	the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, but then he took a history class with professor William Hesseltine and quickly switched his major. He played guard and linebacker on the Badgers football team.
Ambrose got an undergraduate degree	at
Wisconsin in 1957 and returned to earn a Ph.D. in 1963.
He was for much of his career a ponytail-wearing liberal who once quit a teaching job at Kansas State University in protest over a campus visit from Richard Nixon during the bombings of Laos and Cambodia.
Ambrose spoke out against America's involvement in the Vietnam war, yet he focused his research
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on presidents and the military at a time when such topics were increasingly regarded as old fashioned and conservative.
In early 2002, Ambrose was accused of plagiarizing several passages in a handful of books. The passages lacked quotation marks, but were footnoted.
Ambrose apologized for careless editing but otherwise stood by his work.
"I always thought plagiarism meant using other people's words and ideas, pretending they were your own and profiting from it. I do not do that, have never done that and never will," he wrote in a newspaper editorial.
Hugh Ambrose, the author's son, said those wondering how they should honor his father should "take a moment to thank one of America's veterans."
In addition to his son, Stephen Ambrose is survived by his wife, Moira, brothers Harry and Bill, and children Andy, Barry, Grace and Stephenie.