Brian Shellum

Brian Shellum is a historian and author of African American military history. He retired in 2015 after serving eight years as a senior intelligence officer with the Department of Defense in the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. Prior to that, he served as a historian at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for 12 years. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1994 after serving as an armor officer and European foreign area specialist. His career highlights include assignments with tank units, a tour as an army attaché in Bonn, Germany, Gulf War service with the 2nd Brigade, First Armored Division, and work as a senior political-military analyst at DIA. He lived and studied for ten years in Germany and speaks fluent German. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, has a graduate degree from Campbell University, and studied at the University of Bonn. His military decorations include of the Bronze Star Medal and the Order of St. George.

He authored two books on Charles Young titled Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point, published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2006, and Black Officer in a Buffalo Soldier Regiment: The Military Career of Charles Young, published in 2010. He published a third book titled African American Officers in Liberia: A Pestiferous Rotation, 1910-1930 in 2019. In 2021, he published Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska about the experiences of Company L, Twenty-Fourth Infantry in Skagway, Alaska from 1899 to 1902 during the Klondike Gold Rush. His latest book, Buffalo Soldiers in California: Charles Young and the Ninth Cavalry, 1902-1904, was published in 2024.