Friendly fire, ugh! That war was a fustercluck on so many levels.
Ashes scattered at sea...nice touch!
Boy are you right Libertas. Both LBJ and McNamara sitting in DC running the war. With McNamara having experience as a 'bean' counter with Ford Motors and a LCDR. Navy (commission gift IMO) going on one B26 mission in WWII as an observer, they thought they were pro's at running a war. Before anything could be done, it had to be approved by them. As far as pro's, shoot, LBJ couldn't even run to the toilet without help IMO. Oh well I'll get of the soap box.
Yeah. And poor Melvin Laird, a bright guy and product of small colleges (WI Stevens Point & Carlton) who served as an Ensign on a destroyer late in WWII and collected a Purple Heart should have known better, but by then Nixon's promise of "peace with honor" and Kissinger's legendary ego boxed in our options between bad and much much worse...and his Vietnamization plan was the best of what was left to choose from, and it may have worked had not the South been so corrupted and rife with Commie agents. IMO Nixon should have told Kissinger to go on a world tour and stay the fukc away from me while I turn Laird and the Joint Chiefs loose to come up with a plan to crush these bastards wherever they may be even if it means setting the whole nation on fire...but that would have been a real man's response.
At least he was successful in ending the draft, the volunteer force is always superior to a coerced force.