![]() ![]() I did not expect to find Max Boot’s book as impressive as I did. ![]() The individual lacking the simple insight to see a human being on a bicycle, morphed into a callous disregard for the numbers of civilian war casualties, whose deaths were not seen as important enough to alter American conduct in the war. From the numbers of civilians killed, to the blunt force use of American firepower, the macrocosm of the incident related above. In documented detail the author methodically explores the many ways American involvement in Vietnam took a misguided approach to the war. The Road Not Taken by Max Boot answers those questions. It showed in their inability to adjust their decision making during the Vietnam War. So how is it the powerful men in charge of making policy pursued practices that were counterproductive to the stated goals of helping the Vietnamese achieve a stable democracy? Blinded by their impressive backgrounds and accomplishments in life, leaders like Robert McNamara and William Westmoreland were not used to failing. ![]() I was fascinated by their culture from the beginning. How did I instinctively know this as a naive nineteen-year-old who had never before been out of his own country? I was not without ethnocentric notions of my own at that age, but they didn’t include seeing the Vietnamese as inferior. And also, of the dismissive and superior attitudes we exhibited towards the South Vietnamese who were our allies. The payback would be a cumulative resistance to our presence by the Vietnamese, the above incident a microcosm of the broader macrocosm of our actions in the way we waged war in Vietnam. I was enraged by the arrogance it took for my fellow soldier to act out whatever resentment he was feeling in the moment, and for knowing there would be little chance of any disciplinary action for his behavior. Dressed in a pair of slacks, white shirt and tie, the Vietnamese man was simply going about his life in his own country. The incident occurred before I’d treated my first casualty, experienced my first firefight, or been anywhere near a VC mortar or rocket landing in a compound. Such actions create enemies, resentment and ill will, the kind of ignorance that is not only wrong-headed, but contributed to the enmity of the Vietnamese towards the Americans thrust into their midst. As a nineteen-year-old kid, with only a high school education, I understood the implications of such a senseless, mean and stupid act. Early in December of 1968, new in-country, I witnessed an American soldier, unprovoked, push a middle-aged Vietnamese man off his bicycle. ![]()
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