A Great Man Passes Away

During my participation in Navy ROTC at Georgia Tech back in the late 1970’s, I had the opportunity to personally meet a number of important military figures when they came to deliver speeches to our group of midshipmen. Georgia Tech alumni and former President Jimmy Carter, former Chief of naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and General William Westmoreland are the three that I remember most.

Admiral Zumwalt died in 2000 and communist-dictator-loving ex-president Jimmy Carter is still alive and kicking, but I was saddened to learn this morning that General Westmoreland passed away yesterday in a Charleston, South Carolina nursing home.

In death as in life, General Westmoreland is hounded by the media for his management of US Army forces during the Vietnam war.

The NY Times says:

“Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who commanded the United States forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, overseeing the vast troop buildup and the height of the fighting, died last night in a retirement home in Charleston, S.C., his son, James Ripley Westmoreland, announced. The general was 91.”

The Chicago Sun Times opens with this:

"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."

The Baltimore Sun agrees:

"Gen. William Westmoreland, the World War II hero who was later vilified for his leadership of the United States' failed war in Vietnam, died last night in Charleston, S.C. He was 91."


Notice anything uniquely consistent in all of the obituary articles?

Here's a hint...

The media continues to overshadow General Westmoreland’s decorated service in WWII and the Korean conflict in favor of blaming him for the "massive troop buildup" and the US's “loss in Vietnam.”

In my mind General Westmoreland couldn’t possibly be held responsible for “losing the Vietnam War” because the command of US Army ground forces was taken away from him in 1968—long before the war ended in 1972.

Today Bush is accused of not having enough troops in Iraq, but in 1968 Westmoreland had too many troops in Vietnam and it cost him his job.

Talk about a double standard...

And for your information, just in case you were born since 1972 and rely on school textbooks and newspapers to teach you history, the US didn’t lose the war in Vietnam, we were forced TO QUIT by the same leftist idiots and main stream media that today wants us to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and end our current war on terrorism.

If the US were forced to pull out of Iraq tomorrow, I suppose that in 20 or 30 years, upon his death, the news headlines would say General Norman H Schwarzkopf, Jr. was the leader of the US Army ground forces in the second war that the US lost (Iraq)—even though Schwarzkopf left the army in 1991.

All I have to say is: “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt…”