#KUFieldWorks: Understanding the future of warfare by evaluating past conflicts

Editor’s note: Fieldwork provides invaluable insights about real-world environments and processes, expanding and reinforcing what researchers learn in classrooms, labs and collections. KU faculty, staff and students across a spectrum of disciplines take their inquiry directly to rivers, prairies, dig sites, glaciers, islands, archives and more. Through the #KUFieldWorks series, we'll join them on their adventures.

Q&A with Colin Baker, undergraduate student in history

Past military conflicts can help us understand the future of warfare and its effects on civilian populations. Colin Baker, an undergraduate student in the Department of History, received an Undergraduate Research Initiative stipend to travel to the National Archives & Records Administration in Washington, D.C. to review military records assessing the use of tanks during the Vietnam War. In May 2026, he successfully defended his honors thesis titled, “Wasted Potential: The Misuse of U.S. Army Tanks in Vietnam.”

What methods, approaches, experiments, etc. are you using?

My research focused on U.S. Army tanks in Vietnam, their military effectiveness at the operational level of war and the political consequences of their conduct. The operational level of war is the ability to fight several engagements in a single theater/campaign. Therefore, I wanted sources that could illuminate patterns among all U.S. Army tanks in Vietnam. I was able to uncover these patterns through studies conducted by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) that focused on the viability of armored vehicles in Vietnamese terrain, the threat of anti-tank mines and the potential for tactical and operational success with the introduction of the M551 Sheridan light tank in 1969.

I also sought the comprehensive and standardized reports created by U.S. Army units in Vietnam called “Operational Report, Lessons Learned.” These quarterly reports, and the after-action reports of major operations, allowed me to identify both change and lack of change over time in armored operations. These reports described losses, resource expenditures, every instance of combat, asset locations, and the recommendations and opinions of unit commanders. These reports were invaluable to my research as much of the information they provide is not mentioned in secondary writings and has remained buried in the archives. The patterns that I identified through these types of sources were crucial for my work as my subject covered a period of several years in a large area with diverse environments.

Why does your study matter to your field or for society?

I believe that the U.S. has, unfortunately, not fought its last war and that future conflicts will be met with tanks. Therefore, a harm-reduction approach is necessary. I believe that a more-efficient campaign will hasten the end of conflict and can lessen the collateral damage that was seen in Vietnam. Tanks provide overwhelming firepower, which is counterproductive toward winning the “hearts and minds” of a population in counterinsurgency warfare. The sounds of warfare, unintentional killings and destructive aftermath of tanks can ruin localities. Less destruction, through careful and considerate usage, means less deaths in a future conflict for all parties. My thesis outlines the failures of U.S. Army tanks in the Vietnam War in the hopes that the mistakes of that conflict are not repeated in the 21st century so a potential conflict in the future is less harmful for all.

What do you enjoy most about being in the field?

What I enjoy most about being in the field is that I get to feel history rather than just read it. A large amount of the work I have done in my undergrad career has been with digitized documents. While I still used such documents in my thesis, it was an exciting feeling to be holding documents that have not been handled in decades, items that contained information and stories that were waiting on someone to interpret them. As I’m perusing these documents, I also enjoyed the environment of the reading room at NARA. Never before had I been in the same room as dozens of researchers who are all committed to investigating their own historical questions. Being there evokes feelings of professionalism that aren’t typically present in a classroom. The research itself also presents strong and rewarding feelings of success when you come across a source that you recognize as valuable. The successful discovery of a valuable item motivates future discoveries that keep repeating until the archive closes.

What are some memorable (funny, scary, surprising, etc.) moments from the field?

I can recall two especially memorable moments regarding my time at NARA. First, the night before my first day, I was double-checking some notes that I had made on items I wanted to request. While I was in the catalog, I noticed something I had missed. I found that there was a study in the 1960s inquiring about the possibility of using nuclear mines in Vietnam, which sounded insane to me and left me shocked for a few seconds. A more wholesome moment that I remember was seeing fellow KU history researchers at NARA. Joon-Woong Chung was present for all three days that I was at NARA, and on my second day I saw Dr. Sheyda Jahanbani. I spoke to both (and worked next to Joon for a while), and it was great to build connections outside of the classroom and see familiar faces so far away from Kansas.

When is fieldwork frustrating, challenging or overwhelming?

Archival research is frustrating and challenging when requested items do not immediately appear to be useful. I like to use a gambling analogy to describe the process, sometimes you’re unlucky and on a losing streak. Going through a box and thinking “not much of this is useful” is demoralizing because time has been wasted sifting through documents that do not appear to be of use. The opposite feeling, joy from finding useful items, is what kept me going. I also think that my prior experience with the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at KU helped me to move efficiently through all the items I requested and prevented any feeling of being overwhelmed.

How does fieldwork complement the work you do elsewhere or plan to do in your future academic/professional career?

My future career is in the legal profession, where the fundamental skill of being able to conduct relevant research is especially important. Lawyers need to be able to navigate legal libraries and centuries of case law, identify relevant cases, and convert those cases into tools for an argument. That cycle of research is what I have gained experience through my field work. I navigated NARA’s catalog, found relevant historical documents, and converted the information from them into a strong argument that I then defended in-person. Both history and law deal with the past, and I feel as though this has sufficiently prepared me for future research.

First photo: University of Kansas researchers conduct fieldwork in prairies, rivers, streams and mountains. The #KUFieldWorks series follows researchers on their fieldwork adventures.

Second photo: Photo taken by Colin depicting a cart with several requested boxes with fellow KU researcher Joon-Woong Chung in the background.

Third photo: Photo taken by Colin of a 1968 study assessing the viability of the M551 Sheridan in Vietnam.

Fourth photo: Photo taken by Colin of an Army record depicting damage received by M551 Sheridan tanks from mines.