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Originally Posted by tw
So you are claiming your dad is typical of all enlisted men? I don't think so. That would be why he was in HQ.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by tw
In Vietnam, the officer named Westmoreland did not have sufficient intelligence or curiosity to be commanding general material. Would the enlisted man even know? Things that every officer was supposed to know were not even provided to enlisted man. The enlisted man only knew the symptoms -
"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam
And it's five, six, seven, open up the Pearly Gates.
Well, there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopie we're all gonna die. "
They knew the top generals were wrong; were lying. The music said so. Any yet if we told enlisted men why, well, eyes would only glaze over. You tell me. How many enlisted men read Sze Tzu's 'Art of War' - and why not? Required reading for anyone in the military - with sufficient knowledge of the job.
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That sounds like a blanket indictment to me. You were painting every enlisted man with the same brush and depicting them all as being like the typical Vietnam era draftee. Senior NCO's hardly deserve to be subject to such blanket condemnation, nor do the draftees, for that matter.
My father didn't listen to the local rock station. He preferred Johnny Cash, but he still had grave misgivings about Westmoreland. I don't know if he ever read Sze Tzu, and its too late to ask him now. Was he atypical of a top ranking enlisted soldier (E-9)? I don't really think so, other than his knowledge of Latin, perhaps.