WE FINALLY GOT IT RIGHT

June 23, 2008 

As a Vietnam War veteran, I’m extremely pleased to see General David Petraeus and the troops on the verge of winning a counterinsurgency war that, in its own way, is every bit as difficult as the one we lost. For a while there, before the surge and a change in strategy, I was convinced we were making many of the same old mistakes. 

It’s still too early to declare mission accomplished in Iraq. There’s a lot left to do. And like after every other war where we’ve been successful, we’ll have a presence there for years to come. But I can’t help feeling that we finally got it right this time, and, for me at least, General Petraeus and the troops not only are winning the Iraq War, they are writing the epilogue to the Vietnam War. 

You see, I’m one of those crazy people who never accepted the argument that we couldn't win in Vietnam, that Vietnamese nationalism, South Vietnamese corruption, and the forces of history were stacked against us. I’ve avoided the argument because, until now, I had little evidence to prove otherwise.

We lost in Vietnam, just like we almost lost in Iraq, because we made mistakes, and because our strategy and tactics were flawed. By the time we figured it all out in Vietnam, it was too late. Whether or not we should have become involved in either war is irrelevant. We did, and whenever the US Armed Forces become engaged in any war there is only one acceptable outcome—victory.

The United States does a great job when it comes to winning conventional wars. Along with our allies we defeated the Nazis and the Japanese Imperial Army. We stopped the Chinese and the North Koreans in Korea. In the Gulf War, we rolled over Saddam’s army in Kuwait in 100 hours. In 2003, we took Baghdad with ease. Fighting a counterinsurgency in Vietnam, however, we found ourselves unprepared and ill- equipped to win.

Our mistakes in Vietnam were well catalogued, and, by the time the Gulf War came along, Vietnam War Veterans, like then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, had corrected them. The all-volunteer force; improved, realistic unit training; rotating units not individuals; and the use of overwhelming force are all the results of lessons learned in Vietnam.

We also learned not to micromanage the war from Washington, DC. President Lyndon Johnson picked bombing targets in Hanoi. President George H.W. Bush gave General Norman Schwarzkopf goals, objectives, and policy guidance and let him do his thing. 

After defeating the Iraqi army in 2003, however, when we found ourselves fighting another counterinsurgency, we ignored the biggest lesson of the Vietnam War. We used the same strategy that had led us to defeat.

When I arrived in South Vietnam in late December 1966 as an artillery forward observer with the 9th Infantry Division, General William Westmoreland’s strategy for defeating the Viet Cong was search and destroy—the same strategy US forces employed in Iraq between 2004 and 2006. Simply stated, the concept was to insert US ground forces into Viet Cong areas then, with the support of artillery and air strikes, close with and destroy them. By defeating the enemy on the battlefield, we would destroy his ability and will to fight.

In the process we destroyed towns and villages in Vietnam as we defeated the Viet Cong. When the battle was over we withdrew to the safety of our compounds to prepare for the next one. We left the South Vietnamese people undefended, and the Viet Cong simply returned to terrorize, control, and move among them, impressing young men into their ranks.

Throughout my tour of duty in 1967, 9th Division units, like those in its sister divisions and brigades, won battle after battle. On frequent occasions we defeated battalion and larger Viet Cong units in battles as fierce and brutal as any ever fought by American soldiers. Using the innovative Mobile Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta, operating from command and troop ships on armored gun boats and troop carriers, we gave the Viet Cong no quarter in wet season or dry.

When I departed Vietnam in late 1967, I wrote in my diary that we had made many mistakes; but I was convinced we had defeated the enemy and the war soon would be over. Then, of course, the Tet Offensive of January 1968 came along—a devastating military defeat for the communists, a devastating political defeat for us.

By the time General Creighton Abrams succeeded Westmorland in June 1968 and began to change US strategy in Vietnam from search and destroy to protecting the Vietnamese people in their villages and hamlets, the strategy General Petraeus has successfully executed in Iraq, the Vietnam War was lost. Opposition to the war was massive, US leaders had lost the confidence of the American people, and the cost in human lives had become too great.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but wars are won by superior forces with superior strategy. Had we employed General Abrams’ clear and hold strategy in 1965, the outcome would have been different. It would have denied the Viet Cong most of the South Vietnamese population and forced North Vietnam into a more conventional conflict where we had the edge. We might still have troops in South Vietnam today as we have in South Korea. Tens of thousands of South Vietnamese people who were killed after we left Vietnam would still be alive and part of a thriving democratic society.

I realize that Vietnam is not Iraq, and it is difficult now to know what would have actually happened had we used a different strategy. It’s a reach to expect that we could have adopted the correct counterinsurgency strategy at the outset never having fought a counterinsurgency war like that before despite the British example in Malaya (see yellow box on right). But General Petraeus has shown us the correct course in Iraq, and he's given us a glimpse of how, under the right circumstances, we could have won in Vietnam.

It’s not my intent here to re-fight the Vietnam War. God knows, I’ve done that often enough. We can’t change history. But I’ve spent some time over the years, as many Vietnam War veterans have, asking myself what purpose our sacrifices and those of the 58,000 men and women whose names appear on the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial served.  It’s difficult to stand in front of it, as I have, and look at all those names without asking that question. 

If General Petraeus and the brave men and women fighting in Iraq learned how to win from our mistakes, then our sacrifices contribute to that victory. Ultimately, what’s at stake in Iraq is every bit as important to US national security as stopping the spread of communism was, perhaps more important. Yes, I’m delighted to see us win in Iraq.