 |
|
Title: A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam
ISBN: 0156013096
Author:
Lewis Sorley
Publicate Date: 2007-04-28
Publish: 2007-04-28
List Price: $16.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
 |
|
|
|
|
Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.41
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $7.99
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.88
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Customer Review: |
|
1: Poor, repetitive 'history'
Better titled "The Creighton Abrams Hagiography Project", this book makes it's only worthwhile points in the first chapters -- 'clear and hold' is a good idea and that good intelligence information is something to aim at. Other than that, this piece of garbage jumps around from topic to topic, and has the added annoyance of reams of italicized words to give emphasis to Abrams' incessant, profane bloviating. I am second to none in my appreciation of Abrams' abilities and accomplishments, but calling this a 'history' is like calling a Big Mac haute cuisine.
|
2: Read ;this book... the White House did before deciding the new Afghanistan policy
This is a book that should have been written in the seventies... then at least the persons responcible for the the debical that was the Vietnam surrender could have paid for their poor and self driven choices... I only wish I had know about all of the background when I first entered the US Army in 1968...
|
3: Interesting new facts, but incomplete and slanted
Opinions are so deeply divided on the Vietnam War, and there is so much misinformation routinely repeated by both "hawks" and "doves" that every new book on the subject needs critical examination and cross-checking. Lewis Sorely's "A Better War" provides some new interesting facts about the military situation in Vietnam late in the war, and recounts many stories from the point of view of Creighton Abrams, who was William Westmoreland's successor as commander of U.S. forces starting in 1968. But the book advocates for the idea that Abrams turned the war around to the point that the U.S. was winning, and would have won if we had not withdrawn when we did. Sorely presents the facts slanted unrealistically towards that point of view, and ignores a large amount of contrary evidence. If you are interested in the Vietnam war, and are studying all the pertinent literature, "A Better War" is worth reading along with the rest, and presents a worthwhile point of view from one of the major participants who has been neglected up until now. But if this is the only book you read on Vietnam, you will be left with the distorted impression that the U.S. could have and should have achieved victory in the form of an independent, sustainable, non-communist South Vietnam, if the politicians and anti-war movement would have left the military alone to do its job a little while longer.
"A Better War" starts with the Tet offensive and complains that most Vietnam War literature ends there, assuming the war was lost at that point. Then this book commits the opposite offense, assuming that you can understand the Vietnam War starting with the Tet offensive and proceeding to the end of the war. The situation in modern Indochina did not start in 1968, but in 1858 with Napoleon's colonization. Four years of well-executed military effort may seem like a reasonable time to win a war, but not against the backdrop of over 100 years of colonial exploitation, botched diplomacy, and previous military mismanagement. There are plenty of arguments, unexamined by this book, about why Abrams' efforts were too little too late and the "victory" that Sorely claims didn't stick. On the positive side, this book does help dispel some of the mythology of the anti-war movement- that most of our soldiers were brutal baby-killers and our generals were incompetent. I wasn't aware that the U.S military had changed in 1968 from Westmoreland's disastrous attrition strategy to Abrams' more reasonable and seemingly effective strategy of "clear and hold" of rural villages and hamlets. "A Better War" is worth reading for those facts, but I wish Sorely had presented his material in a more objective way. Don't read this without also reading "The Pentagon Papers" and Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly."
|
4: The Politics of the Vietnam War
Sorley confirms with full documentation my conviction that Nixon and Congress failed to keep the promises made to our allies and gave victory to our enemies.
|
5: Debunking Many Vietnam Myths
This book brings to light some interesting thoughts about the Vietnam War including:
- How wrong General Westmoreland's focus on kills and large scale engagements were
- How General Abrams' focus on securing the countryside "won" the war
- "The U.S.A. position in South Vietnam was stronger at the end of 1972 than at any previous point in the war"
- How the U.S.A. "lost" the war by Congress not continuing to fund South Vietnam requests for air support and materiel
- The effectiveness of B-52 bombing, harbor mining and the tactical air and sea support that the U.S.A. provided the South Vietnamese armed forces
- The relative safety in Saigon and the countryside of Vietnam by 1971 - "1,221 servicemen killed in Vietnam and 1,647 killed violently in New York City" - 1,823 according to [...]
- The rejection of the Viet Cong by the South Vietnamese people
- The Paris Peace Treaty not making the North Vietnamese leave South Vietnam - "the most murderous truce this century"
- 70% of U.S.A. forces were volunteers
|
|
|
|
|
