by James Buchanan

The heroic soldier and dissident writer Colonel David Hackworth has passed away at the age of 74. He fought bravely in the Korean and Vietnam wars receiving numerous awards for bravery. He retired from the army and proceeded to make one accurate prediction after another regarding military conflicts and stood up repeatedly to defend the interests of ordinary soldiers.

He was a harsh critic of inexperienced, ivory tower officers. One obituary reports “Over the next 26 years he spent fully seven in combat. He was put in for the Medal of Honor three times; the last application is currently under review at the Pentagon. He was twice awarded the Army’s second highest honor for valor, the Distinguished Service Cross, along with 10 Silver Stars and eight Bronze Stars. When asked about his many awards, he always said he was proudest of his eight Purple Hearts and his Combat Infantryman’s Badge. A reputation won on the battlefield made it impossible to dismiss him when he went on the attack later as a critic of careerism and incompetence in the military high command.”

Hackworth left the military in 1971 and predicted that the Vietnam War was not winnable. He even accurately predicted the year that Saigon would fall. In the 1990s Hackworth joined in the battle over Gulf War Syndrome. For the first four years after the Gulf War, the military would not even recognize the existence of this disease. The total number of people to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome has been estimated at 40,000 to over 100,000. Some soldiers contracted the disease from contaminated equipment without even going to the Persian Gulf. Thousands have died. President Bush (Senior) was eager to sweep these soldiers under the rug after they won the Gulf War for him.

Colonel Hackworth has written extensively on the latest Gulf War. His last article was a letter to a Marine general dated May 2nd, 2005 arguing that reservist soldiers in the Marines were having their promotions blocked unfairly. An archive of his articles cover topics ranging from thin-skinned Humvees to the problems caused by inept civilians rushing into an ill-advised war.

Perhaps the best tribute to Colonel Hackworth would be to quote him on the current quagmire: “most combat vets pick their fights carefully. They look at their scars, remember the madness and are always mindful of the fallout. That’s not the case in Washington, where the White House and the Pentagon are run by civilians who have never sweated it out on a battlefield. Never before in our country’s history has an administration charged with defending our nation been so lacking in hands-on combat experience and therefore so ignorant about the art and science of war. Now the increasingly flummoxed Bush team is stealing the page on Vietnamization from Nixon’s Exit Primer, coupled with the same deceitful tactics he used to get us out of the almost decade-long Vietnam quagmire: telling lies… The hard truth is that it takes a good 10 years to build an army from the ground up… Bush needs to set up a truth squad directly outside his Oval Office door quicksmart. Then, whenever the Pentagon plays fast and loose with the truth, the liars can be immediately rounded up and punished.” Assuming of course that Bush isn’t part of the deception campaign.