Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam

This book argues that Westmoreland occupied a crucial command in the critical years of the American war in Vietnam that was, in fact, beyond his abilities or understanding. In part it offers an indictment of the post-war culture of the US Army, showing that Westmoreland’s energy, effective self-promotion, and capacity to ‘work the system’ led to a command in Vietnam that needed more than unbounded ambition and energy to create success. Sorley sees one of Westmoreland’s basic failings as his avoiding attendance at any of the US Army’s major military education institutions; he was, as a result, an uneducated soldier: ‘doing it by the book, even though he hadn’t read the book or studied at any of the Army’s great schools’.