Education
During his childhood, his parents, Don Williams Utley and Valeria Haney, moved him to northwestern Indiana, where he attended high school.
During his childhood, his parents, Don Williams Utley and Valeria Haney, moved him to northwestern Indiana, where he attended high school.
He is a former chief historian for the National Park Service. Much of his writing deals with the United States Army in the West, especially in its confrontations with the Indian tribes. He writes: the frontier army was a conventional military force trying to control, by conventional military methods, a people that did not behave like conventional enemies and, indeed, quite often were not enemies at all.
This is the most difficult of all military assignments, whether in Africa, Asia, or the American West.
The Western History Association annually gives out the Robert M. Utley Book Award for the best book published on the military history of the frontier and western North America. Utley was born on October 31, 1929 in Bauxite, Arkansas.
Later, he attended nearby Purdue University, receiving a Bachelor of Science in history. He then attended Indiana University for graduate school, receiving a Master of Arts in history in 1952.
Following his graduation, Utley served in the United States. Army, and then joined the National Park Service.