US Army chief was godfather of ‘shock and awe’
It must be said he went to his grave as self-righteously patriotic as when he commanded all US forces in Vietnam.
Although I voluntarily served a tour as a Marine Corps sergeant in Da Nang, Dong Ha and Quang Tri with the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions, and was down on the Batagnan peninsula south of Chu Lai with the Republic of Korea Marine Corps, I never saw the great man myself.
A West Point graduate, but unlike [its one-time superintendent] General Douglas MacArthur, he was not fond of Marines or of our earnest attempts at pacification of the countryside using medical teams and civic action projects.
He wanted “search and destroy” missions. He put his blessing on “free fire zones” and gave his imprimatur to “reconnaissance by fire”.
His over-reliance on B-52s, Agent Orange and the dreaded “Puff the Magic Dragon” AC-47 flying gun ship that could put a bullet into every square of a football pitch within three seconds contributed to 500,000 innocent peasants being killed as they tilled their fields.
As James Brown is the undisputed godfather of soul, so Westmoreland must duly be recognised as the “godfather of modern day shock and awe”.
Always ramrod stiff, immaculately groomed, in clean, starched combat kit with spit-shined boondockers, he bore little resemblance and even less sensibility to the plight of the 525,000 soldiers and Marines who wallowed in the fetid heat and dust far from his air-conditioned MACV (military assistance command, Vietnam) headquarters in Saigon.
So, goodbye “Westy”.
You must have taken some solace going to your grave in the knowledge that your legacy lives on. That your love of hi-tech killing machines and your stern silent indifference to collateral damage among civilian populations remains alive and well in both Iraq and Afghanistan today.
May you rest in the peaceful knowledge that you yourself have finally become a statistic in the grisly body counts you so espoused.
Bryan Kennedy
2 Beausite
Rushbrooke
Cobh
Co Cork
