About Face

"Still, to me it came second in importance to what I considered the most significant thing I did at the Pentagon, which was a study of U.S. friendly fire casualties in the war and my tour with Slam told me anything, it was that the U.S. Army was its own worst enemy in Vietnam."

"Some changes were implemented immediately and some took a little longer, our recommendation that the Colt .45 pistol be eliminated and replaced (having caused since WW I, more friendly casualties than enemy) probably took the longest, at some eighteen years."

"But the main problem of friendly fire casualties - unrealistic, over supervised training -was never resolved, and of the some 58,000 American who died in Vietnam, on the basis of our calculations, between 8,700 and 11,600 of them shouldn't have."

This was perhaps the most shocking thing I learned about the war. A study David Hackworth took part in showed between 15-20% of the casualties were caused by friendly fire

"...old blood-and-guts leadership was neither needed nor desired by an Army that now placed management and executive skills well above those essential to inspire men or turn around an army on the ropes, even in the middle of a war In 1967-68, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Patton, Gavin, Ridgeway, and Van Fleet wouldn't have stood a chance."

David Hackworth at the Pentagon:

"...judging by the unmarked 'due date' form on the front of each book, not one of these French after-action reports had ever been checked out. Neither had Modern Warfare, the insurgency treatise of one of my renegade mentors, French colonel Roger Trinquier, available in English since 1964."

Pride goeth before a fall. And the Army certainly fell in Vietnam. We never learned.