Posted on 07/19/2005 4:18:02 AM PDT by DJ Taylor
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Retired Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded American troops in Vietnam - the nation's longest, most divisive conflict and the only war America lost - died Monday night. He was 91.
Westmoreland died of natural causes at Bishop Gadsden retirement home, where he had lived with his wife for several years, said his son, James Ripley Westmoreland.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
Wow, I had no idea he was still alive! Rest in peace, soldier.
A General not allowed to do his job.
We lost?
Rest in peace, General.
Yeah, that little aside burned my a$$ too. As I remember it, a Democrat controlled U.S. Congress betrayed and abandoned a valiant ally.
Any son of mine could do a lot worse than emulating that noble man General Westmoreland.
And no dog of mine could do much worse than emulating LBJ.
Yep. Two years after we left.
WE didn't try to win.
The US has never lost a war it tried to win.
May Westmoreland RIP and Johnson BIH!
But Gerald was the commander in chief. If it had been me I'd have nuked Hanoi. And the democrat congress could have kissed my a$$.
Shortly after getting up in the air, the General strolled to "the back of his bus" and visited with a couple of us. Being the only 'Marine' (actually a Navy Corpsman in Marine utilities) on his ride, he came over and asked me "how's it going - son". I told him it was really going well now that I was on my way home from my second tour. He asked if I was going to make a career out of the Navy and I said "probably not". When he asked why, I said "fate has had it's last chance in Vietnam to take my life and now I'm outta here for good."
He gave me kind of a stunned look and said; "Best to you, and I hope all you seek from now on - comes your way." He shook my hand, and moved back up to the front of his bus.
Did you mean to say five years and two months?
Good story. Thanks for sharing that.
I thought he didn't take charge of MACV until 1964.
Oh, right. June of 64.
I was thinking of the five years and two months he and many of us had to serve under LBJ.
exactly! This revision of history is sickening; we did not lose the war. In fact, when Nixon pulled us out in 72, the ARVN were more than capable of defending their country, asking only - and getting the word of our USofA to that effect - that we supply them with the necessary materiel and air support should the NVA come across the wire again. As usual, MSM-enabled (thanks, Cronkite - Lenin would be proud!) revisionist history extrapolates what was certainly a loss of political will on our part into a concrete defeat. And, as usual, such revisionists conveniently neglect to mention the facts that decry their self-appointed and arrogant painting of what really happened.
Comes the '75 offensive, in which Giap sends the equivalent of 10 armored divisions to attack the South, and our then-democrat controlled Congress reneged on our solemn pledge to support an ally.
Why so much hardware? Because Giap, fully expecting the overwhelming weight of American airpower to plug the gap between initial commitment and the time when supplies would have started arriving to replenish the ARVN, calculated this force to be strong enough to withstand the expected heavy losses from such an air campaign. That we didn't do as expected was a boon for him, led directly to the fall of South Vietnam, and forever marks any democrat associated with this decision with the proverbial fleur-d'lis.
This stain on our honor is tragically one we all must bear - and the only way to best ensure that we never, ever falter again is to keep the kerry/clinton/reid/kennedy's of the nation from ever being in a position of power again!
May all the traitors of our nation and of freedom rot in Hell; may our allies the South Vietnamese forgive us for not being strong enough to defeat our own fifth column, and may all who seek freedom and look to the United States not lose hope in our example... we are taking back our country a bit at a time!
CGVet58
I liked this quote from the article regarding his lawsuit over CBS' report that he had deceived then President Johnson about the war:
At the time, Westmoreland said the question "is not about whether the war in Vietnam was right or wrong, but whether in our land a television network can rob an honorable man of his reputation."
That is exactly what CBS tried to do...and it obviously didn't learn its lesson.
The miltary war was not a loss, but the DemocRAT politicians betrayed and abandoned the South Vietnamese Government and People after we pulled out.
It was a RAT sellout, plain and simple.
As a man born during Vietnam, I'm learning more about it in this thread than what history told me. Thank you all for your service.
That is why FR exists...to perpetuate TRUTH in a world of revisionist historians!
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