Those Who Have Borne the Battle (49 page)

18
Susan Brewer,
Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq
, 192.

19
McMaster,
Dereliction of Duty
, 333–334.

20
For the most comprehensive study and presentation of this, see Mark Moyar,
Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965
.

21
A good summary of the real limits on fighting this war is Lewis,
American Culture of War
, 230–232.

22
Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway,
We Were Soldiers Once—and Young: Ia Drang, the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam
, 249.

23
Gregory Daddis,
No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War
, 89–92.

24
Caputo,
A Rumor of War
, xii, xiii.

25
Lewis,
American Culture of War
, 259.

26
Quoted in Daddis,
No Sure Victory
, 229.

27
Wren, “A Marine Comes Home from Vietnam,” 30–35. Intrigued by the account of the firefight and wishing to know more details, I spoke to author Chris Wren and contacted some of the officers of the Echo Company 2/3 association. They had served following this incident and were not able to pin it down. Thanks to good work on their database by representatives of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and finally by Dr. Charles Niemeyer, the chief of the Historical Division, USMC, I was able to learn that on July 14, 1965, Second Lieutenant James Earl Parmelee of Allegan, Michigan, and Sergeant Donald Ray Vinson of Russellville, Alabama, were killed near Da Nang at 2125 hours “as the result of an explosion from an uncertain origin.” In the back of the Vinson casualty card is the further note that on October 13, 1965, following an investigation, it was determined that the cause “was a 4.2 mortar round fired by Mortar Battery & that said round was an accidental short round which fell in the vicinity of ‘E' Co., 2nd Bn, 3rd Marines.” Dr. Niemeyer to author, e-mail, June 16, 2011.

28
Lewis observed, “The army fought one war and the Marines another.” Lewis,
American Culture of War
, 259. See also Ron Milam,
Not a Gentleman's War: An Inside View of Junior Officers in the Vietnam War
, 111; and Daddis,
No Sure Victory
, 93.

29
Brewer,
Why America Fights
, 181.

30
Peter Braestrup,
Battle Lines: Report of the Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on the Military and the Media
, 63.

31
Brewer,
Why America Fights
, 197.

32
Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 175.

33
William M. Hammond,
Reporting Vietnam: The Media and Military at War
, 291.

34
Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 178, 179.

35
Ibid., 179–180.

36
Ibid., 183.

37
Kindsvatter,
American Soldiers
, 139.

38
Brewer,
Why America Fights
, 194–195.

39
Bank, Stark, and Thorndike,
War and Taxes
, 130.

40
Ibid., 133.

41
Neil Sheehan, “Not a Dove, but No Longer a Hawk,” reprinted in Hammond's
Reporting Vietnam
, 186.

42
Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 190.

43
Daniel C. Hallin,
The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam
, 172–173.

44
William M. Hammond,
Public Affairs: The Military and the Media, 1968–1973
, 364.

45
Ibid., 365.

46
Cronkite, Kraft, and
Newsweek
quotes all in Herring,
America's Longest War
, 209, 218, 220.

47
Ibid., 209.

48
Webster and Russell reports in Hallin,
“Uncensored War,”
177.

49
Colin L. Powell,
My American Journey
, 132–133.

50
Kindsvatter,
American Soldiers
, 146.

51
Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 236.

52
D. Michael Shafer, “The Vietnam-Era Draft: Who Went, Who Didn't, and Why It Matters,” in
The Legacy: The Vietnam War in the American Imagination
, edited by Shafer, 57–79.

53
Christian G. Appy,
Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam
, 35.

54
Ibid., 33.

55
From NBC-TV documentary
Same Mud, Same Blood
, in Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 192.

56
Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 193.

57
Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler,
All That We Can Be: Black Leadership and Racial Integration the Army Way
, 33.

58
November 14, 1964, conversation transcript, in Lyndon B. Johnson and Michael Beschloss,
Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965
, 140–141.

59
Appy,
Working Class War
, 32–33.

60
Ibid., 26.

61
James Webb,
Fields of Fire
, 1.

62
Kriner and Shen,
Casualty Gap
, Chapter 2.

63
Shafer, “Vietnam-Era Draft,” in
Legacy
, edited by Shafer, 69.

64
Shafer, “The Vietnam Combat Experience,” in
Legacy
, edited by Shafer, 87–88.

65
Life
, June 27, 1969, 32.

66
Flynn,
The Draft, 1940–1973
, 228–229; Gerhardt,
Draft and Public Policy
, 291.

67
Gerhardt,
Draft and Public Policy
, 278.

68
Milam,
Not a Gentleman's War
, 141–143, table on 143.

69
Daddis,
No Sure Victory
, 123.

70
Shafer, “The Vietnam Combat Experience,” in
Legacy
, edited by Shafer, 87.

71
Tim O'Brien,
Going After Cacciato
, 270.

72
Milam,
Not a Gentleman's War
, 158–161; Kindsvatter,
American Soldiers
, 149.

73
Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 214–215.

74
Ibid., 221.

75
Ibid., 223.

76
Kendrick Oliver,
The My Lai Massacre in American History and Memory
, 108. Oliver's book is a comprehensive look at My Lai and its consequences. See Chapter 3, “Dispersing Culpability,” for an assessment of the ways in which the blame for
My Lai was shared—and diluted. See also Huebner,
Warrior Image
, 223–228, quote on 223.

77
Milam,
Not a Gentleman's War
, 133.

78
Deborah Nelson,
The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes
. See Appendix A for a summary of army investigations.

79
See Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss,
Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War
, describing their work and their findings.

80
Jeremy Kuzmarov,
The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs
, 17.

81
Ibid., 21.

82
Powell,
My American Journey
, 133.

83
In Charles R. Figley and Seymour Leventman,
Strangers at Home: Vietnam Veterans Since the War
, viii.

84
Jack McLean,
Loon: A Marine Story
, 209; Patrick Hagopian,
The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing
, 63, 70.

85
Hagopian,
Vietnam War in American Memory
, 60.

86
Oliver,
My Lai Massacre
, 162.

87
Lewis B. Puller Jr.,
Fortunate Son: The Autobiography of Lewis B. Puller, Jr.
, 258.

88
Hagopian,
Vietnam War in American Memory
, 69.

89
Ibid., 66.

90
Shafer, “The Vietnam Combat Experience,” in
Legacy
, edited by Shafer, 91.

91
Bob Greene,
Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam
, 157.

92
Jerry Lembcke,
The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam
.

93
Marlantes,
What It Is Like to Go to War
, 177–178.

94
Wilbur J. Scott,
Vietnam Veterans Since the War: The Politics of PTSD, Agent Orange, and the National Memorial
, Chapters 2 and 3.

95
Herbert Hendin and Ann Pollinger Haas,
Wounds of War: The Psychological Aftermath of Combat in Vietnam
, 6.

96
Jennifer Price, “Findings from the National Vietnam Veterans' Readjustment Study.”

97
Scott,
Vietnam Veterans Since the War,
85.

98
Bernard Weinraub, “Now, Vietnam Veterans Demand Their Rights,”
New York Times
, May 27, 1979.

99
Anna Quindlen, “A Vietnam Veteran Stills Audience with a Rebuke,”
New York Times
, May 30, 1979.

100
Joel Swerdlow, “To Heal a Nation,” 562.

101
Hagopian,
Vietnam War in American Memory
, 105.

102
Scott,
Vietnam Veterans Since the War
, 158; Hagopian,
Vietnam War in American Memory
, 102, 108.

103
Hagopian,
Vietnam War in American Memory
, 142, 141.

104
Keith Beattie,
The Scar That Binds: American Culture and the Vietnam War
, 1.

105
A good discussion of the use of Vietnam as a lesson is Record,
Making War
. See also David Fromkin and James Chace, “What Are the Lessons of Vietnam?”

106
A recent and comprehensive scholarly survey of this issue is Michael Allen,
Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War
. See also Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb,
Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama
, esp. 194–197 and Chapter 8.

1
Tony Blair, “Blair's Address to a Joint Session of Congress,”
New York Times
, July 17, 2003.

2
Donald Rumsfeld,
Known and Unknown: A Memoir
, 711.

3
Winston Churchill,
My Early Life: A Roving Commission
, 232.

4
Gordon S. Wood,
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
, 22.

5
Robert D. McFadden, “A Day of Mourning,”
New York Times
, September 15, 2001.

6
Elaine Sciolino and Patrick E. Tyler, “Saddam Hussein,”
New York Times
, October 12, 2001.

7
Richard W. Stevenson, “Bush, Pleased by Progress, Tries to Lower Expectations,”
New York Times
, March 24, 2003.

8
Fromkin and Chace, “What Are the Lessons of Vietnam?,” 746.

9
Tierney,
How We Fight
, 244.

10
Louis Fisher,
Presidential War Power
, 189–190.

11
Ibid., 201.

12
Ibid., 228, 235.

13
January 16, 1991, statement,
New York Times
, January 17, 1991. See also Kalb and Kalb,
Haunting Legacy
, 6. They conclude, “That war still casts an unforgiving shadow over Oval Office deliberations. Unwanted, uninvited, but inescapable, Vietnam refuses to be forgotten,” 6.

14
Fisher,
Presidential War Power
, 194.

15
David Howell Petraeus, “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the post-Vietnam Era,” 263. See also Christopher M. Gacek,
The Logic of Force: The Dilemma of Limited War in American Foreign Policy
, 303–304.

16
John A. Nagl,
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
, 115.

17
Harry G. Summers Jr.,
On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War
, 88–89.

18
Carl H. Builder,
The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis
, 186.

19
Erik Riker-Coleman, “The Limits of Reform: Military Intellectuals and Professionalism in the U.S. Army, 1970–1975 .” This paper is based on the master's thesis “Reflection and Reform: Professionalism and Ethics in the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1968–1975.”

20
Lewis,
American Culture of War
, 308–309. Full transcript can be found at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/force/weinberger.html
.

21
Record,
Making War
, 136.

22
Brian McAllister Linn,
The Echo of Battle: The Army's Way of War
, 199.

23
David H. Petraeus, “Military Influence and the Post-Vietnam Use of Force,” 498.

24
Powell,
My American Journey
, 576.

25
Petraeus, “Military Influence,” 489.

26
Eliot Cohen wrote, “By the late 1960s, changing demography had fundamentally altered the conditions under which the old draft had operated. No longer, as in the 1950s, would virtually every young man serve in the military; rather, even during a war, barely half of them would.” Cohen,
Citizens and Soldiers
, 166.