Exit Strategy, Nation Building, State Building or What?- II 1955-1975

As I have noted, much has been made of the terms “Nation Building” and “Exit Strategy” by the printed press and the visual media. I am not certain that either knows just exactly what these entail. This is a bit about Exit Strategy or lack thereof.

I want to apologize in advance for the truncated and chopped up history below, but I hope it will serve to make my point. We somehow have forgotten how to win a war.

When I went to the U. S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College 40 years ago (Class of 1969), “Nation Building” was not a topic that was discussed. But 40 years may have clouded my memory. Nevertheless, I suspect the general feeling was this was something the State Department or some other “They” did. Marines went ashore to take a foothold; i.e., in simplistic terms, a port and an airfield, necessary to allow follow-on forces (read this to mean Army and Air Force) to have a safe place to continue further operations.

The “Exit Strategy”—when the Army and Air Force were firmly ensconced, the Marines would back load and move out. But subtle changes were beginning to take place. Although the Marine Corps was still the amphibious force, they had begun to take on some of the characteristics of a land army during the Korean War. Instead of landing, securing a beachhead and making way for the Army to take over, the Marines came and stayed to the bitter end.

The “Exit Strategy” for Korea—The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade landed in Korea on August 2, 1950 to join with Army forces that have been there since July. The Marine Corps’ First Marine Division left in March 1955 when the Army moved units from Japan to Korea and took over Marine Corps positions! This division had 4,004 dead and 25,864 wounded. The First Marine Division returned to Camp Pendleton, California with little thought to returning to the Far East in just over a decade.

Believe it or not, Americans were in Vietnam in 1945. As a matter of fact, the first American killed in Vietnam was Lt. Col. A. Peter Dewey, head of American OSS mission. He was killed by Vietminh troops while driving a jeep to the airport. Reports later indicated that his death was due to a case of mistaken identity -- he had been mistaken for a Frenchman.

In 1950, we provided $15 million to the French and we also provided some military advisors. Six years later, the US Military Assistance Advisor Group (MAAG) assumes responsibility, from French, for training South Vietnamese forces. The following year, thirteen of these advisors were wounded in a bombing incident in Saigon. 1959 brought the deaths of Major Dale R. Buis and Master Sergeant Chester M. when guerillas struck at Bienhoa. By the end of 1963, there are 16,300 U.S. military advisors in Vietnam.

On August 2, 1964 three North Vietnamese PT boats allegedly fire torpedoes at the USS TURNER JOY and the USS MADDOX , which were located in the international waters of the Tonkin Gulf, some thirty miles off the coast of North Vietnam. The attack comes after six months of covert US and South Vietnamese naval operations. A second, even more highly disputed attack, is alleged to have taken place on August 4. It was learned later that these attacks did NOT happen. (Remember the WMD in Iraq?)

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is approved by Congress on August 7, 1964 and authorizes President Lyndon Johnson to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." The resolution passes unanimously in the House, and by a margin of 82-2 in the Senate. The Resolution allowed President Johnson to wage all out war against North Vietnam without ever securing a formal Declaration of War from Congress. (Doesn’t this look like what happened when President Bush was given similar authority the tragedy of September 11, 1991, to "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks.")

By the close of 1964, the U.S. had 23,000 military advisors on the ground. I don’t think Congress or anyone else had any idea that more than a decade would go by before we abandoned our war efforts in Vietnam.

In February 1965, General William Westmoreland, our military commander in Vietnam requests two battalions of Marines to protect the Danang airbase. The first American combat troops, 3,500 Marines of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed in Danang in March 1965. Just over four years later (April 1969) there are 543,400 American forces in Vietnam. At this same time, 33,641 Americans have been killed—more than we lost in the Korean War. We began to grow weary of the war and President Richard M. Nixon meets with South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu to inform him that American troop strengths are going to be drastically reduced. A month after meeting with Thieu, Nixon sends a secret letter to Ho Chi Minh seeking and end to the war. In August 1969 Henry Kissinger secretly meets representatives of the Hanoi government in Paris to begin serious negotiations on a peace settlement. Troop withdrawals are started and by the end of 1969 some 115,000 American troops have come home. The death toll has grown to 40,024. By June of 1970, the Senate repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, but the fighting continues.

Seven years later that last of the American combat troops are withdrawn, but there are more than 16,000 advisors still in-country. Although the Paris peace agreement is signed in January 1973, it takes two more years, 30 April 1975 before the last 10 Marines are finally evacuated. You remember the picture of the helicopter leaving from the roof of the embassy. So regardless of how you want to count it, 15 years or 30 years, we lost some 58,000 killed, 153,329 wounded and nearly 2,000 still missing in action. We dropped more bombs than in all of World War II and Korea combined. Their combined explosive power was perhaps 100 times as much as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children of those who served are still feeling the effects of the tens of thousand of gallons of Agent Orange we sprayed.

And our exit strategy—we tucked our tails between our collective legs, came home and licked our wounds.

Is this to be our fate in Afghanistan and Iraq? Will we be there 15 years or 30 year? We couldn’t win in Vietnam with 500,000 troops, how are we going to win in Afghanistan with 150,000? Or 200,000 or 300,000 or … What is our exit strategy?