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Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam ReviewI grew up during the Vietnam War. I was seven years old when General William Westmoreland was sent to Vietnam by LBJ to take charge of things there. I was eleven when he lost his job and by then, had lost us the war. Vietnam was in the news the entire time, on TV, in the paper, in Time Magazine - as was Westmoreland's iconic chin. Being the son of military parents I'd early gotten the history bug and I was fascinated by what was taking place over in Southeast Asia, even if I didn't understand it well. As I grew older, and things over there grew worse, I began to wonder how we could possibly lose such a war (as I thought it was) against such a small country.
Lewis Sorely's "Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam" will tell you how. Sorely has the credentials for this book. He is himself a graduate of West Point. He served in Vietnam. He even served in the office of the Army Chief of Staff, General William C. Westmoreland, and taught at West Point. This isn't just a book by some journalist trying to get at the bottom of things. Sorely has been "at the bottom of things" and he has done the leg work over a period of years, talking to 175 people in his search for the events he here recounts.
Sorely makes a point of stating at the outset his premise: that we need to understand Westmoreland in order to understand what happened in Vietnam. And so he begins at the beginning, with Westmoreland's childhood and early experiences, his pre-war service in the field artillery at Fort Sill, then Hawaii, and finally with the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Bragg. He then follows the aggressive young officer through his WWII service in North Africa, Sicily, and Europe and important early connections he made with such important figures at General Maxwell, "who rose to far greater prominence," writes Sorely, "and became Westmoreland's principal mentor and patron."
After the war, Westmoreland shifted to Airborne duty and served under General James Gavin in the 82nd Airborne Division, first as regimental commander and then division chie of staff. Two years into the Korean War Westmoreland was made Commanding Officer of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team and was promoted to brigadier general. Apparently, this was Westmoreland's niche. Worely writes that Westermoreland "would describe command of the 187th as 'the most satisfying experience of my military service.'" It was apparently also the position for which he was most qualified. After the war, he served briefly in the Pentagon before being given divisional command - the 101st Airborne Division.
From reading Worely's book, you could (and should) walk away with the conviction that had Westmoreland remained a divisional commander he would be differently remembered today. But he was made Superintendent of West Point, a posting for which he was manifestly unqualified, before being selected by LBJ from a list of four officers to take command of U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. In the end, Maxwell Taylor, his old protege, got Westmoreland the job. One general tried to stop it. Brigadier General Amos "Joe" Jordan, who knew Westmoreland well and said it would be a "grave mistake" to appoint him. "He is spit and polish, two up and one back. This is a counterinsurgency war, and he would have no idea of how to deal with it."
And he didn't, but he got the job anyway.
Incredibly, nobody apparently had any idea how to deal with it. Worse, he met with General Douglas MacArthur, who gave some terrible advice that Westmoreland took to heart: treat the South Vietnamese officers you will be advising "as you did your cadets" (!) and "Do not overlook the possibility that in order to defeat the guerrilla you may have to resort to a scorched earth policy."
You can probably see where this is all going already. Westmoreland, writes Sorely, "Surprisingly, or perhaps not...did not meet with Lyndon Johnson before heading out to Vietnam."
I almost wept reading that. And you will likely feel like doing a lot of weeping as you read on. I won't try to recount Westmoreland's Vietnam service here. Suffice it to say that he comes out as a man entirely out of his depth, lacking imagination, unable to think outside the box - and remember, we're talking a counterinsurgency war here, not the Normandy beaches. You wonder how Westmoreland kept his job for so long as you read. And you begin to have your questions about how we could lose the war answered in ways you probably would not prefer.
Westmoreland seems by the end a sad and pathetic figure, but worse is the untold suffering caused in a war that was mismanaged from the very beginning. The blame falls squarely on General William C. Westmoreland. The American people were deceived; the Vietnamese people were betrayed, and both deserved better. But if Westmoreland was to blame, how much more to blame the U.S. government and military who perpetuated a system that allowed an utter incompetent to rise to high command and remain there long enough to lose a war.
"Westmoreland" is a sobering read, and a very good one. Highly recommended.
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