Charles B. Burdick (1927-1998) grew up in San José, California where he attended Lincoln High School before enlisting in the United States Army during World War II. After serving in the Army, Burdick enrolled at San José State College in 1946. He graduated with a B.A. in History in 1949, and obtained his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1954. He joined SJSU's History Department in 1957, and became department chair in 1976. Throughout his teaching career, Professor Burdick worked diligently to create a program dedicated to military history. In addition, he donated several large private book collections on military history to the university library, significantly adding to the monographic holdings in this area. Professor Burdick also taught for many years at the Sixth United Army Intelligence School located at the Presidio in Monterey, California. Over the course of his distinguished career, Burdick published dozens of articles and book chapters, and wrote and edited over twenty books. His research and writing on the history of the German High Command in World War II remains an important part of the historiography of World War II. After an association with San José State University that spanned forty-five years, Professor Burdick retired in 1988. He died in 1998.