The only possible response is the aggressive deployment of U.S. troops” (Danzer). I noticed a gentlemen in a suit in the first class group waiting to board. It is therefore puzzling that one of the criticisms of Gen. William Westmoreland is that he did not attend enough military schools. He decided to conduct of a war of attrition, using search and destroy tactics, in which the measure of merit was body count. General Westmoreland had complete freedom of action in deciding how to prosecute the war within South Vietnam. Gen. Westmoreland was unimpressed by their ally’s inability to … Although the book wants to point blame to Westmoreland as the single word answer to the US failure in Vietnam, it would be awfully hard to point blame when in running a government, many people are to blame surely. He returned to commanding the paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division in 1958 and after a few years as superintendent of West Point in the early 1960s he became commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps in … General William C. Westmoreland and British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig are in a category by themselves in the annals of military history. I once was waiting to board a US Air flight to Harrisburg Pennsylvania on a business trip. Westmoreland became the superintendent of West Point in 1960 and, by 1964, was a three-star general commanding American troops in Vietnam. This is a compound question, as an attorney would say. Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, by Lewis Sorley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Westmoreland, although he looks typecasted to be a American General, did not do what a general should do - win the war. Holy mackerel. Following promotion to brigadier general at the end of 1953 Westmoreland was attached to the Pentagon for 5 years, becoming in 1956 the youngest major general in the US army at the age of 42. While he is honored by many in Russia one must not forget that so is stalin as currently russia is in a deep state of political propaganda. What zhukov did can hardly be called strategy. He alone did not stop the Germans. General Westmoreland had said, “[The ARVN] cannot stand up to this pressure without substantial U.S. combat support on the ground.