![]() ![]() One’s thinking about the war is often a function of one’s political views and biases rather than the factual information available. The debate over the war has made ordinary discourse about it very difficult. In fact, one can hardly discuss the war without becoming involved in some kind of controversy. ![]() The nature of American objectives in Vietnam has also been a subject for debate, as has the strategy used to obtain whatever objectives might have been in mind. A number of very basic questions are hotly debated, and students of the war disagree over its very nature, debating whether it was a revolutionary civil war or a conventional one. ![]() Most surprising, perhaps, is the fundamental nature of many of the current disagreements over the war. Unfortuately, even with all of the attention it has received, the war is no better understood in some of its aspects than the earlier conflict in the Philippines. In the spring of 1985, a decade after the fall of Saigon, the United States had what is certainly one of the most unusual phenomena in the history of warfare, a commemoration of defeat, and the resulting symposia and publications added to the growing list of material on the war. The amount of published material on the war in Vietnam is truly amazing, with scores of new books and articles being published every year. If the Philippine-American War that began in 1899 was one of America’s least studied wars, the war in Vietnam that took place over a half century later is surely one of its most studied ones. Second, authors should not ignore their mail, particularly when it involves a critique of their work. First, an argument such as that of Colonel Summers is only as good as the research upon which it is based. This selection would seem to highlight at least two lessons. Printed here is a revised version given as a lecture in the 1986 series at Obirin College. It forms the basis for the chapter that follows. Finally, upon reading an article of his in the June 1983 issue of Parameters, I decided that I could not remain quiet any longer.Ĭoncluding that someone had to make an attempt to rectify the errors that I found so blatant, I wrote an article of my own that was published in Parameters the following year. To this day I have often wondered if my reaction to his work might have been different had he responded.Īlthough I was convinced that on some very important points Summers’ analysis was wrong, I noticed with increasing frustration that not only were his views gaining in popularity, but they were also going virtually uncontested. Being particularly troubled by some of his interpretive comments in the article, I wrote him a long letter, which he never answered. Following the conference I proceeded to read both his book and an article he had just published in The New Republic. gave a paper entitled “The US Army Institutional Response to Viet Nam.” That was my first encounter with the Colonel and his work. In 1982 I moderated a session on the Vietnam War at a history symposium on “The Impact of Unsuccessful Military Campaigns on Military Institutions,” held at the U. ![]()
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