Exercise 4: Tia Lyons

 

William Westmoreland

     William Westmoreland was born in 1964 in South Carolina. He was a highly decorated soldier 

 who fought in both the Korean War and World War II. In 1964 after the U.S. had destroyers attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson ordered for more U.S. involvement in Vietnam. William Westmoreland became the commander of the United States Military Assistance Command seeing over all troops in Vietnam soon after the attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. Westmoreland believed the U.S. needed a heavy military presence in Vietnam to cause heavy losses on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. He believed in the United States technology advantage and ordered many air strikes and heavy fire power attacks but he underestimated his enemies gorilla warfare tactics. When Westmoreland took command of U.S. troops the number of Americans in South Vietnam was 150,000 and in 1968 there were 500,000 and he was requesting for more but the President denied his request.

     Westmoreland endured a lot of criticism and blame for how the was turned out. Even after being named by Times Magazine "Man of the year" in 1965 many lost faith in him. After the Tet Offensive in 1968 many Americans were feeling that Westmoreland was not a good leader for the U.S. troops. A lot of Americans were loosing their support in the war. In June of 1968 shortly after the Tet Offensive Westmoreland was replaced but the controversy around his command is still alive today. 

Times Magazine, "Man of the Year"

William Westmoreland

 

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/1900s/p/westmoreland.htm

 

http://www.biography.com/people/william-westmoreland-9528510#vietnam