Westmoreland's tragedy was also America's

Since 07-21-05

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Subject: Editorial: A soldier's sad tale

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/13270431p-14112818c.html

Editorial: A soldier's sad tale
Westmoreland's tragedy was also America's

Sacramento Bee
Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday,
July 21, 2005

Gen. William Westmoreland was just one of many Americans disillusioned by this country's tragic experience in Vietnam, but he may have been the most embittered. As commander of U.S. forces there from 1964 to 1968, his strategy of victory through attrition was thwarted time and again, as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops refused to fight the kind of conventional war that he and other U.S. officers understood.

And back home, he was vilified by anti-war protesters, as if the war was of his making. Some even called him a war criminal. That was cruel, and wrong. He was a career military officer, a West Point graduate and veteran of World War II and Korea, who, as Vietnam War historian Stanley Karnow wrote, "didn't understand that there wasn't a breaking point" when the enemy, after suffering countless casualties, would give up.

Instead, despite winning many battles, America gave up.

Soon after the Tet offensive against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in early 1968, President Lyndon Johnson brought "Westy" home to be Army chief of staff. Nominally, it was a promotion.

In reality, it was a decision to get a controversial symbol out of the spotlight. Johnson declined to seek re-election, Congress barred sending more combat troops to Vietnam, and the United States and North Vietnam concluded a peace treaty that, once U.S. aid to South Vietnam was cut, ensured Hanoi's victory. Disillusioned, Westmoreland retired in 1972.

He insisted steadfastly that the war could have been won had he been given more troops - the number peaked at more than 500,000 in 1967 - and had critical reporting by U.S. news media not sapped morale at home and given aid and comfort to the enemy. Many Americans agreed, but ultimately most, including the military, came to see Vietnam as a huge mistake. Westmoreland never accepted that.

And when CBS aired a TV documentary in 1982 charging that the general had deceived the public by understating the number of enemy troops and suppressing other facts, he sued for libel. In an out-of-court settlement Westmoreland got no money, and a CBS statement saluting his loyalty and patriotism did not admit error.

Apart from a fruitless run for governor of his native South Carolina, Westmoreland lived quietly and confined most public appearances to veterans' gatherings, always insisting that what went wrong in Vietnam "was not the military's fault. "In a way he was right. He had the misfortune to be given a task that, however great the effort, probably no commander could have fulfilled.

That failure haunted him for the rest of his life, which ended this week at age 91. Those who condemned the military in Vietnam picked the wrong target. In our society, generals carry out the orders of civilians, who live in Washington. It's a fact worth bearing in mind these days.
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YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)