DENTON (UNT), Texas --  A current Marine Corps captain who saw action in Fallujah last year and a military historian who recently became the inaugural holder of an endowed chair in the University of North Texas Department of History will be the featured speakers at UNT's annual Military History Seminar on Sept. 10 (Saturday).

The invitation-only seminar will focus on the U.S. war in Iraq. About 200 business and community leaders and military historians from the Dallas-Fort Worth area and across Texas are expected to attend.

Dr. Alfred F. Hurley, chancellor/president emeritus of UNT, began the seminar series in 1983, three years after arriving at UNT as a history faculty member and vice president for administrative affairs. Hurley served 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a brigadier general. During 19 of those years, he was on the faculty of the Air Force Academy. He was chair of the academy's Department of History for 14 years and chair of the academy's Humanities Division for three years. He began the academy's Symposium in Military History in 1967.

UNT's Military History Seminar is modeled on the symposium. Each seminar features a morning presentation and discussion with a well-recognized military historian. After lunch, a retired or current member of the military offers a perspective on the topic presented by the historian, followed by discussion with the audience.

Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, the inaugural holder of UNT's Major General Olinto Mark Barsanti Endowed Chair in Military History, will begin this year's Military History Seminar at 9:30 a.m. with his presentation, "The Iraq War: Causes, Conduct and the Weight of History."

Wawro joined the UNT Department of History faculty in August. The Barsanti Endowed Chair in Military History was established by UNT through the family of Barsanti and supporters of military history. Barsanti is best known for his combat duty in Vietnam as the Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division. The UNT Archives houses the Barsanti Collection, which provides a detailed account of Barsanti's military career.

Wawro, who will also direct the UNT Center for the Study of Military History, was previously a professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He has also taught at Oakland University in Rochester, Mich. The author of three books, he is currently writing a fourth book, titled "Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East, from the Balfour Declaration to the Bush Doctrine."

Wawro was selected as a resident historian for The History Channel in 2000 and has anchored or hosted four of the channel's programs -- "Hard Target," "History's Business," "hardcover History" and "History versus Hollywood."

Capt. M. Stanton Deland, assistant officer-in-charge of the Expeditionary Warfare Training Group Amphibious Raids Branch in Coronado, Calif., will be the second speaker for this year's Military History Seminar at 12:45 p.m. His topic will be "A Marine Veteran's Perspective on the War in Iraq."

As an officer in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, Deland was part of the initial assault on Baghdad during April and May 2003. He and the other members of his battalion conducted counterinsurgency operations in Iraq for five months, beginning in June 2004, before participating in the assault on Fallujah in November 2004.

A native of Washington, D.C., Deland is a 2000 graduate of Boston College. He began his Marine Corps training in October 2000 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant through Officer Candidate School.

The Military History Seminar will also include a book sale and signing.

Wawro will sign copies of his three books -- "The Franco-Prussian War," "Warfare and Society in Europe, 1792-1914" and "The Austro-Prussian War."

Ralph H. Nutter will sign copies of "With the Possum and The Eagle: The Memoir of a Navigator's War Over Germany and Japan," his account of his assignments with the Eighth Air Force, 305th Bomb Group during World War II. The book was recently published by the UNT Press.

Nutter acted as group navigator for Maj. Gen Curtis "The Eagle" LeMay in Europe before being transferred to B-29 Superfortress duty with the Twentieth Air Force in the Pacific, where he was picked by Brigadier Gen. Haywood "Possum" Hansell to be his command's staff navigator. Nutter, a retired California Superior Court judge, is one of the few living members of the 305th Bomb Group.

Drs. Peter B. Lane and Ronald E. Marcello, faculty members in the UNT Department of History, will sign copies of "Warriors and Scholars: A Modern War Reader," another UNT Press selection. The book, edited by Lane and Marcello with a foreword by Hurley, includes papers presented by historians and veterans at past Military History Seminars as book chapters. The book's seven sections focus on World War II in Europe, World War II in the Pacific, the early Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the late Cold War and terrorism.