Barry McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3)
served as an adviser in the Vietnamese Airborne Division. He retired as
a four-star general.
I arrived in Vietnam in July 1966, and
for the next year I served as an adviser with the South Vietnamese
Airborne Division. It was the last year we thought we were winning. It
was the last year we could define what we thought winning would be. It
was a year of optimism, of surging American troop strength that largely
took over the war from the Vietnamese — and of wildly expanding American
casualty lists.
By the end of 1967,
there were 486,000 American troops in the battle. The number of
Americans killed in action that year roughly doubled from 1966. Amid all
of that, the sacrifice and valor and commitment of the South Vietnamese
Army largely disappeared from the American political and media
consciousness.
More @ The New York Times
(Can't believe they printed this)
I guess with all due respect to the general, after retiring as a 4 star, he could have come to a conclusion at the end of the article. Whether as an LT/CPT he knew, after years of command in some of the world's worst places, he could have formed or shared an opinion. I guess we don't rate his sharing his opinion with us outsiders. Respect for his service, but comtempt for his attitude.
ReplyDeleteshared an opinion.
DeleteShared an opinion for the feasibility of entering Vietnam or...?