Lewis Sorley A Better War Summary

Even today, there is still a great deal of controversy considering the circumstances and the outcome of the Vietnam War. Professor Lewis Sorley sought to put an end to this altercation with the release of his book, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. In his writing, he discusses factors of the war from General William C Westmoreland’s command in 1964, to the major withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam in the early 70’s, to the bitter end in 1975, and shortly thereafter. His argument was that we did in fact win the war militarily. However, Sorley also believed that on domestic soil, the U.S. military had lost not only the war, but also the support of the very people it sought to protect
Westmoreland in April of 1968 (38). During the time before Abrams gained control, Westmoreland had really done a number on the war. He expended hundreds of thousands of troops, recklessly insinuating that in order to win the war, numbers would make the difference (25). He thought that winning the war had a simple solution. That being his ever-so-brilliant proposal to “out-guerilla the guerilla and out-ambush the ambush” (26). For a man who had been in Vietnam and witnessed all the chaos for multiple years, one might think that he would realize his tactics were ill-founded, and that he would check for error and change them to increase effectiveness. This man unfortunately and wholeheartedly believed that more of the same thing would be the best way of going about winning the war. The Tet Offensive was not even enough to open Westmoreland’s eyes. This event consisted of coordinated attacks against many vantage points in South Vietnam, including both military camps and cities. This catastrophe would go on to damage General Westmoreland’s reputation and, furthermore, the public opinion on the war back home (33). In the U.S., citizens were already skeptical of the war to begin with (15). The more damage that was done, the more their faith in the military would diminish. Unfortunately, there was plenty of damage in their eyes. Westmoreland’s expenditure of troops as well as the Tet Offensive was enough
Sorley quotes General Fred Weyand, who said “The tactics changed within fifteen minutes of Abrams taking command,” (38). Abrams saw the war as more of a logistics battle. It wasn’t about the body count anymore. It was about making sure that the enemy never saw any tactical advantage in his favor. It was about blocking progressions in movement for deliveries or otherwise, cutting off supplies, and preparing both the Vietnamese citizens and soldiers for anything that came their way so that they could finish the war on their own (228,42,16). These methods were much more effective than the ones used by Westmoreland. Abrams achieved several victories that eventually allowed for the withdrawal of troops, something that Westmoreland would have never achieved considering how many more troops he wanted to bring to Vietnam. It is clear that there was no real progress until Abrams took