Military Museum Presents First-Ever Heritage Award to Battles of Saratoga Author

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Historian Colonel (Ret.) Kevin J. Weddle, Ph.D. was presented with the first-ever Preserving Our Military Heritage Award from the Friends of the New York State Military Museum on Wednesday night. Weddle is the author of the award-winning tome “The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution.”

“The thing that’s so wonderful about this award and that really, really touches me is it’s from a military family,” Weddle said. “This is from my family, my fellow soldiers, fellow Marines, this is my team. It’s been that way since I was 18 years old. I’ve been either in or out of uniform serving the Army for all that time. So having an award like this come from my family is the thing that means the most to me.”

Weddle received the prize at the Military Museum in Saratoga Springs in front of a small group of colleagues and admirers.

Weddle’s book, “The Compleat Victory,” was deemed “the definitive account of the Saratoga campaign” by New Books Network. It won several awards, including the Gilder Lehrman Military History Prize and Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award. The book is a strategic history of the entire Saratoga campaign and was published by Oxford University Press as part of its Pivotal Moments in American History series.

Weddle is a 1979 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he later taught Military History. He was Professor of Military Theory and Strategy at The United States Army War College in Pennsylvania for 16 years. He’s now a Distinguished Fellow at the college. He served for more than 28 years in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer officer before retiring as a colonel. He is a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom. He holds a master’s degree in history and civil engineering from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.