As a Vietnam veteran I find Mr. Garlock’s self-serving columns a vain attempt to con non-Vietnam veterans and those with a limited knowledge of the war to believe that he alone knows what “really happened.”
Lacking relevant facts other than wild generalizations, he mockingly labels the Ken Burns TV series in an unsuccessful attempt to discredit 10 years of carefully researched facts, documents, and personal accounts of military and civilians who provide recollections Mr. Garlock does not or can not challenge.
Sadly, Mr. Garlock, misses the point of why the TV series is vital to our history and interests, as it presents how both U.S. military and civilian leaders (from JFK to Nixon) misled the American people into believing Vietnam was a needed war to contain communism. We now know that is how the Bush Administration lied to validate the 2003 Iraq invasion.
If one wants to get an undistorted history of the war, read historians, journalists, and combat veterans who were there for many, not just one year. These include Neil Sheehan, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his exhaustive book about the tragedy of Vietnam; David Halberstam (“Best and the Brightest”), H.R. McMaster (“Dereliction of Duty”) that outlines those lies.
And, combat veterans on the ground like Philip Caputo, “Rumor of War.” If nothing else these writers employ grammar and syntax correctly.
The worst part of Mr. Garlock’s articles is that many will read and think his grammatically challenged columns accurately summarize a 15-year war that claimed upwards of 4 million lives.
Toby Decker
RVN ’66-67
220th Aviation Company
toby@deckertraining.com
