Tag: knowledge

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Education Reading Vietnam War

My Lai massacre 45th anniversary

Saturday marked the 45th anniversary of the My Lai massacre.  LIFE Magazine published online their original coverage of US soldiers murdering 350 old men, women and children in cold blood. This remains a truly horrific atrocity and deep scar on the US Army in Vietnam.

The surprise for many today was the ability of the military to kept this horrific event a secret for over a year.  Former Army photographer Ron Haeberle assigned to “Charlie” Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade sold photos he took with a non-US Army issued camera.  LIFE published the photos and the damage further changed the American view on the war in Vietnam.

Amazingly three US servicemen tried to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were initially denounced by several US Congressmen as traitors. They received hate mail and death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps. The three were later widely praised and decorated by the Army for heroic actions.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Eisenhower and the French war in Vietnam

Eisenhower and the French war in Vietnam outlined in the Pentagon Papers is proving to teach us some very interesting lessons. The Pentagon Papers now confirm actions under Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower that span 1945 – 1955. Even before the end of World War II France was demanding the Allied nations, namely the US and Britain to re-colonize Indo-China which they lost to the army of Japan.

Pentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers reaffirm the US under Eisenhower financed the French Indo-China war beginning in late 1946.

Truman and Eisenhower preferred to send tens of millions of dollars in military assistance to France. They both held a position that the US would not stand in the way of France’s re-colonization in South Vietnam, permitting the US to keep an arm’s length from a growing communist war supported by Soviet arms and Chinese military advisors. The cold war was indeed beginning to heat up Asia.

The surprise for me in reading the Eisenhower volumes is how a cold war against communism was shaping up in Thailand, rather than Vietnam. David Halberstam reminds us in his book “The Best and the Brightest” that it was Eisenhower’s advise to President-elect Kennedy that he would inherit a war requiring US troop involvement — in Laos, not in Vietnam. But well before Kennedy’s defeat of Nixon, back in 1954 the siege of Dien Bien Phu would change France and America for generations.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Pentagon Papers statistics and graphs of the war

The Pentagon Papers statistics and graphs of the war: Volume IV-c(10) “Statistical Survey of the War, North and South: 1965 – 1967” provides 23 pages of statistics and graphs on the war in the following areas:Volume IV-c(10)Clearly the splash of today’s information graphics are failed in comparison.   I wonder what Edward Tufte would say about these graphs.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Pentagon Papers Part IV-C6c

I feel that the opening pages of Volume III: 1965–1967 US Ground Strategy and Force Deployments is a telling example of why we lost Vietnam.  One cannot help notice that we were way off the mark regarding the enemy in this volume.

Pentagon PapersWe relied upon technology to fight when behind the scenes we knew the political structure of the South Vietnamese government would never succeed, their desertion rate was rising and constant turnover of leaders weakened their moral. Yet we continued to support the South because of the risk (at the time) attributed to the domino effect regarding communism in Asia and the Cold War relationship with the Soviet Union:

The friendly picture gives rise to optimism for increased successes in 1968. In 1967, our logistics base and force structure permitted us to assume a fully offensive posture…A greatly improved intelligence system frequently enabled us to concentrate our superior military assets in preempting enemy military initiatives leading us to decisive accomplishments in conventional engagements. Materiel and tactical innovations have been further developed and employed: Long range reconnaissance patrols, aerial reconnaissance sensors, new observation aircraft, air-mobile operations and the Mobile Riverine Force (MRF), to name a few.

The MRF has been significantly successful in depriving the enemy of freedom and initiative in the population and resources rich Delta areas. The helicopter has established itself as perhaps the single most important tool in our arsenal — and we will welcome more.

While the helicopter may have won the day in the Ia Drang Valley at LZ X-Ray bad command decisions to not to use helicopters led to an ambush for those remaining troops walking from LZ X-Ray to LZ Albany, about 4 kilometers to the north-northeast. I’m no longer convinced about the accuracy of the report are concerning Tet:

The enemy’s TET offensive, which began with the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on 31 January 1968, although it had been predicted, took the U.S. command and the U.S. public by surprise, and its strength, length, and intensity prolonged this shock.

Predicted? The Pentagon Paper’s acknowledge the Tet offensive had been predicted.

Really?

Its safe to assume IV-C6c will reveal more problems with Clark Clifford as the newly installed Secretary of Defense.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

2011 Book of the Year: Pentagon Papers

My 2011 Book of the Year: Pentagon Papers. I’m actually still reading the study known as  “United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense” or as history refers has always called it — The Pentagon Papers.

The study is a 47 volume, 7,000+ page report regarding the US involvement in Vietnam’s long civil war.  This is a long deeply engaging read of organizational failure at the highest levels of the military and government.  So many American lives were lost for a policy that was doomed from the beginning.  This book will painfully show that the brightest and smartest RAND analysts knew it, senior military and policy advisors knew it and so did the White House.

The study was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967.  And for “newly released” material (in 2011) it provides the most horrific, fascinating and astounding read of our policy and warfare strategy under a total of four Presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. However the war continued through both Johnson and Nixon administrations finally ending under President Gerald Ford in 1975.

The Vietnam War was the longest 20th century war in American history.  The study covers a 25-year military engagement in Vietnam while US political interests and efforts actually developed before the end of World War II and continued until the fall of Saigon in 1975.  Take a step back and realize it was a 30 year losing commitment.

Even today in 2012 its amazing to learn multiple volumes of this 1967 study remained classified for exactly 40 years until released (fully redacted) by the National Archives in June 2011.

As important as this study is for understanding our role in the world over a generation, it will regrettably open old wounds. We finally have full access to read the carelessness of our decision makers (both military and Presidential) that cost the lives of over 53,000 American soldiers.  How horrific would these numbers be viewed today?

So why isn’t this “book” listed with any 2011 best sellers?  It was sure greeted with much fanfare and press coverage the day the US National Archives released the study.

IMHO today’s twitter-focused society cannot read a 7,000+ page study. Sorry to be so blunt. American culture today — we are a nation of ‘skimmers’ due to the vast amounts of data available and our busy lifestyle, we simply do not have the time to read such lengthly books.  We only seek to quickly skim headlines in print, online and while mobile.

And regarding war, I’m afraid here (yet again) is where the lessons of history are lost.

40 years also makes another amazing difference — my ability to hold all 47 volumes on an iPad. As of January I’m just past page 3,500.