Thinking Too Big: The United States Army and Air Force in Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam: a war so tragic that Americans choose to deal with it in the movie theaters almost exclusively through allegory. The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Platoon are parables that educate tangentially to the main issues of the conflict. The best allegory, however, is not even about Vietnam. Predator, nonetheless, has all the ingredients: the per fect military machine, the inscrutable hidden enemy, the false cause and internal dissension, the battles won and the war lost. Who, then, lost the war in Vietnam? The obvious answer is the Republic of South Vietnam. The more sophisticated reply would assert that it is too early to tell, but no one in the United States is claiming victory. Well, then, who is to blame for this dilemma in American policy and military performance? The blame for Vietnam is developing an historiography that may one day rival the causes of World War I. The first fashion was to blame American politicians who forced brave and competent soldiers to fight hogtied by an array of restrictions that confounded any reasonable chance for success. Another was to blame the media for inflaming public opinion with biased reporting and deliberate erosion of popu lar support for the war at home. A third would assert that the war was unwinnable but also unavoidable as a part of the great power predicament. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., in The Army and Vietnam (Bal timore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), and Earl H. Tilford, Jr., in Crosswinds: The Air Force's Setup in Vietnam (Col lege Station: Texas AM both retired recently