• Preserving the institutional memory of the Army.
• Writing the official history of the Army in peace and war.
• Providing historical support in decisionmaking.
• Providing military history instruction in the education and training of soldiers.
• Supporting leadership and professional development.
• Enhancing unit pride and esprit de corps.
• Supporting public and command information activities.

The following is an excerpt from The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide by Conal Furay and Michael J. Salevouris.

• History provides a source of personal and social identity.
• History helps us understand the problems of the present.
  The cliché is true that to understand the present one must study the past. History, of course, cannot provide clear answers to today’s problems (past and present events never exactly parallel each other), but a knowledge of relevant historical background is essential for a balanced and in-depth understanding of many current world situations.
• History-good history-is corrective for misleading analogies and “lessons” of the past.
  Many who believe the proposition that history is relevant to an understanding of the present often go too far in their claims. Nothing is easier to abuse than the historical analogy or parallel. Time and again politicians, journalists, and sloppy historians can be heard declaring that “history proves” this or “history shows” that. The fact is, the historical record is so rich and varied that one can always find examples that seem to support one position or another. (History in this sense is much like the Bible. If one reads selectively, Biblical passages can be found to support almost any notion under the sun.) Good history, on the other hand, can expose the inapplicability of many inaccurate, misleading analogies.
• History can help one develop tolerance and open-mindedness.
  The study of many different times and places can help us overcome cultural provincialism. As the French philosopher Descartes put it: “It is good to know something of the customs of different peoples in order to judge more sanely our own.”
• History helps us better understand all human behavior and all aspects of the human condition.
• History provides the basic background for many other disciplines.
  Here the assertion is that historical knowledge is extremely valuable for the pursuit of other disciplines-political science, sociology, etc. Further it is fair to argue, with Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff, that the social sciences “are in fact daughter disciplines [to history], for they arose, each of them out of historical investigation, having long formed part of avowed historical writing.”
• History can be entertainment.
  This may seem trivial, but it certainly must be counted as one of the central “uses” of history. Much written history is also good literature, and the stories historians recount are often far more engaging and entertaining than those we find in works of fiction.
• The study of history can teach many critical skills.
  That is, studying history helps sharpen the critical “thinking” and communication skills essential to success in school and in most professions.