Col. David H. Hackworth
Book People, Saturday, Oct. 12
Col. David H. Hackworth (U.S. Army, Ret.) may be the most compelling speaker
in the nation today on U.S. military affairs. There are certainly many from
America’s military community who would agree — and, if they’ll give him a
chance, many in the pacifist community might, as well.
Hackworth is a syndicated columnist (his articles occasionally appear in the
Austin American-Statesman) and the main military commentator for
Newsweek, and was in town to promote his new Hazardous Duty:
America’s Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports From the Front and Tells It the
Way It Is. He is a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, and
counts eight Purple Hearts among his many decorations. You may remember him
from earlier this year, when he investigated Adm. Jeremy Boorda on suspicion of
wearing medals for valor that he hadn’t earned. Rather than face Hackworth’s
questioning, Boorda committed suicide hours before their scheduled interview,
raising a firestorm of controversy at Newsweek.
Hackworth is so fascinating both for what he says and for the perspective from
which he says it — he is highly critical of the military on a range of issues,
ranging from its obscene funding (“We are spending about twice the amount of
money we need to spend on defense,” he told Book People’s audience) to
misguided priorities (he listed Haiti, Kuwait, and Bosnia as conflicts in which
we had no business interfering). That sounds like rhetoric you might hear from
a devout pacifist like myself, but this is coming from a different perspective,
a man who has had bullets shot at him (and hit him), and a man who is truly a
soldier, one who clearly believes that there is a time to fight.
The most impressive thing about Hackworth was the concern he expressed for the
troops. He strongly believes that America’s top brass are more concerned with
covering their own asses and promoting their careers than in “keeping boys
alive,” as he repeatedly phrased it. His voiced noticeably cracked as he
recounted the story of a young soldier — the son of a friend — who was killed
in Somalia due to inept coordination of a rescue effort. The audience, who
obviously were mostly veterans, current soldiers, or military families, made
their appreciation of that perspective clear in their line of questioning,
expressing hurt and confusion about how they had lost loved ones and friends in
battle. “I tried to point out these follies while in uniform and got yelled
at,” Hackworth said, listing Gen. William Westmoreland, who orchestrated much
of the Vietnam War, as one of the chief yellers.
Hackworth is not someone with whom I am in unanimous agreement — in
discussing Vietnam, he repeatedly expressed disgust with our failure to win the
war. This, to me, overlooks the more important point that we shouldn’t have
been there at all — by our government’s own admission, most South Vietnamese
peasants favored communism, and we were propping up a government that would
have lost in a fair election (read your Noam Chomsky for more on this).
Likewise, he told the audience that we should have finished off Saddam Hussein,
despite his own contrary opinion that the Persian Gulf war shouldn’t have
happened — it would make more sense to harp about our lack of a national
energy policy, so that we can end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil for
good.
Nonetheless, Hackworth still says a lot of things that make sense, a rare
thing from a high-ranking U.S. Army officer. After his talk, I thanked him for
expressing many of the same opinions that pacifists have been screaming for
years. He replied, “Well, I do believe war is obsolete.” — Lee Nichols
This article appears in October 18 • 1996 and October 18 • 1996 (Cover).