Vietnam War Wrong Made Right

Albeit a bit late for General Lavelle. A note from DoD rattling about in the email box…

Lavelle Posthumously Nominated to General

The Department of Defense announced today that retired Air Force Major General John D. Lavelle has been nominated posthumously by the President for advancement on the retired rolls to the rank of General. This follows an Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records decision and recommendations from the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force.

In April 1972, Lavelle was removed from command as a result of allegations that he ordered unauthorized bombing missions into North Vietnam, and that he authorized the falsification of reports to conceal the missions. Lavelle was retired in the grade of major general, two grades lower than the last grade he served on active duty. Lavelle died in 1979.

In 2007, newly released and declassified information resulted in evidence that Lavelle was authorized by President Richard Nixon to conduct the bombing missions. Further, the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records found no evidence Lavelle caused, either directly or indirectly, the falsification of records, or that he was even aware of their existence. Once he learned of the reports, Lavelle took action to ensure the practice was discontinued.

In light of the new information, a request was made to the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records for reinstatement to the grade of general, Lavelle’s last grade while on active duty.

The evidence presented clearly corrected the historical record and warranted a reassessment of Lavelle’s retired grade.

I remember this, vaguely. It was a topic of discussion amongst my father and his contemporaries at V Corps Headquarters in Frankfurt. One that at times was heated. The story is a complex one and the Wikipedia entry on General Lavelle is pretty decent, if arguably full of a lot of what amounts to plagiarism masquerading under the fig leaf of a citation.

So, why do I bring this up? The controversy revolved around Rules of Engagement and the political management of any war that is not an existential war. Existential war? Whazzat? For us, the Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, possibly WWI, and certainly WWII were wars where we firmly believed our national exsistence was at stake, and we fought them as such. The other wars we’ve fought have been wars of choice, in one form or another. You can argue WWI both ways, though I, in the end, would come down to a finding of it was a war of choice that most of the people fighting it thought was a war for existence – though the top political leadership in the US, President Wilson, probably saw it more as an opportunity to remake the US into a state more amenable to his preferred manner of governance. Yeah, weaselly fellow, that Wilson.

Mind you – that characterization oft-times only applies to one side in a conflict. Our Revolution and the War of 1812 were not existential wars for the British Empire. Both were, in fact, distractions to them from greater concerns – and were conducted accordingly, good thing for us. The Indian Wars were optional for us, existential for the native americans. The Korean War was existential for South and North Korea (though it was a war of choice for the North when they started it), but not for any of the other players. One of the problems inherent in that kind of war is exactly what we’ve seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both wars, as conducted, are wars of choice for us, but not for the people who live there – for them, it’s existential, which allows, encourages, perhaps even demands that they fight in ways we find bewilderingly brutal, while we tie our hands with political constraints. Just as we were pretty brutal fighting the Civil War and World War II, and the Revolution, especially in the southern colonies (That would be the first Revolution for you Lost Causers).

In the discussion of ROE in Afghanistan of late, there are parallels, ghosts, of Vietnam. I’m not making an Afghanistan=Vietnam argument – the premises for both conflicts are as different as their structural components are different. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t similarities in some of the political realities.

John Correl, in an article in Air Force Magazine that fuels a lot of the Wiki entry observed:

The rules on what pilots were allowed and not allowed to do were called Rules of Engagement. The rules were changed often and were not transmitted in a neat list. They consisted of a compilation of wires, messages, and directives.

“We have a saying we used in Vietnam, that we finally found out why there are two crew members in the F-4,” Lavelle said later. “One is to fly the airplane and one is to carry the briefcase full of the rules of engagement.”

Hey, OIF/OEF vets, does that sound familiar? If not – how about this? Or, is it like this, a very different view from the previous – at least in tone. No wonder the troops get a little confused and cynical regards to what’s been happening regarding ROE of late. Not a new feeling, as this extract Correl’s article in Air Force Magazine illustrates:

Lavelle said he got another cue to relax the rules of engagement from a conference in Honolulu in January 1972. He did not attend himself, but his vice commander, Maj. Gen. Winton W. Marshall, did. Lavelle said Marshall told him that Vogt, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the meeting, said that “field commanders were, in the opinion of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not nearly as aggressive as they should have been.” At the time, the JCS Chairman was Adm. Thomas H. Moorer.

In a written statement submitted to the Senate, Lavelle said that Marshall reported that Vogt “indicated” that “field commanders had not been flexible enough in the use of existing authorities” and that “JCS would not question our aiming points (targets) on protective reaction strikes.”

Heh. At least General McChrystal got to retire in grade.

And for a look at the current ROE and crappy reporting of the changes in same – see Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette.