Gen. Westmoreland

[North Texan]

General William Westmoreland died at the age of 91, having served as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Vietnam was before my time, so I don't really know what to think about him. For those of you that were around at that time, especially those that served, what was your opinion on him as a commander?

[CalHunter]

A mixed opinion. On one hand, Westy loved his troops, supported the war and did preside over some excellent tactics being developed. Then I read his statements made in debates and wonder how he got promoted so far. It's hard to assess Westy on the Vietnam war because politicians overruled him on so many wartime decisions and essentially ran a war from the U.S. and not from the field. A corrupt South Vietnam government, individual bombing mission approvals, not being allowed to pursue enemy troops across a jungle border and many other decisions that hamstrung our troops kind of stacked the deck against Westy and our troops. And yet, inspite of all of the political obstacles placed in their way, our troops still won all of the battles. So many ignorant people actually believe the Tet New year offensive was a win for the NV when they lost huge #'s of troops and were decisively defeated militarily. They turned it into a huge political victory when our media, anti-war people and others decided to throw in the towel afterwards. Kind of unreal or even surreal. Anyway, I'm still not sure about Westy. Maybe some of the older vets could comment more knowledgeably.

[bawanajim]

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[logs]

Cal has stated a lot of things well about the General and the war.
Historians have done a great injustice to the Vets of that war, myself being one of them. The greatest contributing factor of our withdrawal from the war was political pressure fueled by the press and naive cowardly people who still do not understand our mission in that war and what occurred after we withdrew.
Gen. Westmoreland was indeed a great leader in a difficult time. The twisted reasonings, pressures, restriction and controlled of our military actions made matters all the worst.
I know one of the Generals bodyguards/aides, Al Campbell. I worked with him in law enforcement. He had the greatest respect for the man and when we talked about those times in the political framework he knew well how difficult it was to do the balancing act that Westmoreland needed to do.
He was a great man.

[hoghunter51]

I was in Nam when Westmoreland was "boss" If the higher ups would have let him run the show,well it would have gone down in history another way.

The thing that pissed me off the most was my home comming ,Told not to be in uniform ,I wore it anyway, people called me names and spit on me several times, not too many of them could spit with the size there lips got in short order,was arested for smacking some dude for spitting on me, Judge told the cop in court to stop wearing the flower in his butt. I walked out in UNIFORM.

Now I have a running battle with getting the things that were promised to me . Iam not looking for a hand out but only what I feel is owed to me.

Sorry but as you can see I still get upset with there crap. Westmoreland, I belive would have brought us to a very fast uncontested victory there.