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Obviously it depended on the time frame and who you asked, but a reasonable number were either race- or drug-related. Fragging became a recognized issue after mid-1968 or so, and accelerated after...

NCO burnout in Vietnam was focused heavily in the senior NCO ranks ("in the rear with the Sergeant Major, the beer, and the gear"). Remember that during this period most (if not all) of the Army's...

Vietnam is worthwhile in this context because it is noted for "burning up" an entire generation of NCOs. As far as memoirs go, it's hard to find good ones that deal exclusively with NCOs (in my...

Lewy is decent, but also relies heavily on a legalistic view of the war. He's also considered one of the "old" generation of commentators on the war, and thus thought suspect by newer authors.

If...

This is actually something of a "bone of contention" among historians at the moment. One of the more balanced treatments, even though it is older, is Palmer's The 25 Year War. Nagl's "Learning to Eat...

As does cherry-picking historical analysis to find one opinion that you happen to agree with.... Especially these days, when every two-bit joker with a blogspot account is suddenly considered an...

Texas Tech's collection is certainly first-rate. You can also find after-action reports and the like scattered throughout this collection.

Looks interesting. I haven't looked through all of them yet, but there have been the usual "excisions" in sections of the text. These range from single words to entire paragraphs.

True. The company-size ops tended to be very effective, although they did consume a great deal of airpower and SOG resources. It did show that it took eyes on the ground to evaluate targets,...

This shows quite clearly in Westmoreland's lukewarm reception of intelligence provided by SOG teams working the Trail in Laos and (later) Cambodia. The same goes for at least parts of his staff as...

Sure, but again I tend to think the discussion is another case of "either/or" thinking. Westmoreland was right to use 'search and destroy' to push main force units back from the population centers,...

Closing the ports that early wouldn't have made much difference, because the North wasn't engaged in a major conventional offensive (the rail routes from China were more significant during the early...

Already read the article. Once again it's a case of "either/or" thinking with no real attempt to find a good middle ground. Westmoreland was "right" in a sense, but he was also "wrong" in a sense. He...

Well...we will certainly have to agree to disagree here.

Sure, but I don't think there's as much to ponder as Moyar seems to think. Diem was a part of the equation, but the GVN was also sinking quickly with him. There is no reason to suspect, based on both...

If you stop to think about it from a classic subversion standpoint, it would make perfect sense for Pham to back the claims of the Diem regime. Why? Because then fewer people would look at what was...

I'd say any reasonable assessment of the GVN's progress under Diem was that it was losing ground, not gaining it. The Strategic Hamlets Diem set up that were composed of Catholic refugees from the...

Agreed! This is one thing I'm glad to say has not been a parallel of Vietnam in terms of institution response time (and response in general). The Army and Marines have learned MUCH faster than they...

You have to remember that this myth is also a two-way street. Members of the media and the anti-war movement also want people to believe that their impact was much more profound than it actually was....

We actually do agree here, although I think many of the strategies that might have worked were beyond our political grasp at the time. Given the mindset of the times, especially on the part of...

I agree to a degree, but also consider that political types will pull out anything they can find to make their "historical" points.

Vietnam is a hard one to consider because in the pure Maoist...

It's a shame that the author seemed so bitter about a new wave of revisionism reacting against the "reliable" products that came out in the 1960s...:wry:

Seriously, I always find it interesting...