General William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War

11. Vietnam

11 Vietnam [We] felt the impress of his personality and his professional performance. . . . There I am, a lowly captain at that point and I would hear the name General DePuy. All the advisers were familiar with his name. —Lloyd Matthews, reflecting the view from the field in 1964 You asked me who is in power in Vietnam. The fact is, no one is in power, and this explains much of the trouble we are having. —DePuy, letter to his son from Saigon, 18 January 1965 From 1964 to 1969, Bill DePuy was totally immersed in the Vietnam War from three perspectives: theater operations, as J-3, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), 1964–1966; tactics, as the commander of the 1st Infantry Division, 1966–1967; and national strategy, as Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA), JCS, 1967–1969. His jobs in Saigon, in the field, and in Washington shaped his personal appreciation of events at various stages of the war. Moreover, events in Vietnam were often interpreted differently by American officials in Saigon and Washington. And during those years American popular opinion of the war went from ignorance to acceptance to rejection. DePuy was aware of changing opinion, privy to policy differences that arose between the official Americans in Vietnam and those in Washington, and keenly aware of political and military conditions in Vietnam. As General Westmoreland’s trusted operations officer, DePuy was intimately involved in recommendations from the field and policy decisions in Washington that changed the mission of American troops in Vietnam, from advising the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to directly engaging the enemy in combat. A composite picture of DePuy, then in his mid-forties, can be formed from four sources: his letters to his family; the observations of his briefing 1 General William e. DePuy officer, who had almost daily contact with him; the writings of a dubious but discerning American journalist; and DePuy’s own recollections of events some fifteen years after his Saigon days. DePuy’s letters to his family while he was J-3 provide unguarded insights into his personality and his first impressions of historic events. Between 2 May 1964, when he sent his first letter home from Saigon, and the end of that year, DePuy sent at least fifty-six letters to his family.1 Often he addressed Marj and the children by name within letters sent to one of them. Clearly they were intended to be shared by the family. The personal sections of the letters cited here are quoted sparingly; references to the course of the war are given in greater detail. Frequent references to money and budgeting in DePuy’s letters indicate that maintaining a house in the high-rent district of Washington , sending three children to private schools and camps, and fixing their teeth required strict financial management. In addition, DePuy had some social obligations in Saigon; he was, for example, required to provide cocktails to his staff section on New Years Day. After being a dinner guest at the homes of some of the senior officers who had wives and children in-country, he felt he should reciprocate by taking host and hostess out for dinner. But DePuy managed on less than $200 per month for his personal maintenance and obligations . This included gifts for members of his family back home, as well as cash awards to his children for good grades in school. Many of his letters were dialogs with each of his children. Despite the physical distance from them and the demands of his job fighting a war, he remained very much in the family. He was keenly aware, in detail, of the children’s school grades, moods, health, interests, and activities. He was attentive to the birth of Daphne’s mice, the furnishings in Joslin’s dollhouse, and Billy’s military insignia and stamp collections. References to Muffin, the family dog, figure prominently. It was clear that DePuy missed his family. And he was ever the teacher. His duty trips became geography or anthropology lessons in his letters home. He encouraged the children to write. He prodded Billy regarding schoolwork, told him to “RTP” (read the problem), and encouraged him to be analytical. Teaching his children was a joy and a responsibility not relinquished due to professional duties. He often sent his children little gifts, each carefully selected with Vietnam 1 the individual child’s tastes and...