A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam Read Online Free PDF Page B

Vietnam in May 1967 to pull together into a single, cohesive organization the fragmented pacification programs of the military and the various civilian agencies. Komer had created the organization and had done his best to pacify Vietnam. He had a terrierlike personality. He had dashed into the task with spirited confidence and abrasive vigor. He had taken joy in violating bureaucratic decorum and had been pleased with the nickname that friends and enemies alike had applied to him—”the Blowtorch.” Vann had given Komer his most valuable advice on how to build the organization and had been his most accomplished subordinate at translating plans into action.
    The Vietnamese Communists had spoiled Komer’s career in government with their Tet 1968 Offensive. Prior to the offensive he had mistakenly believed that the United States was winning the war, had told the president so, and had publicly predicted that victory was assured and imminent. After Tet he had been something of an embarrassment to the Johnson administration, and he had left Saigon toward the end of 1968. He had continued to coach from Washington, however, making occasional trips to Vietnam and writing upbeat reports which said that Vann and his comrades in the hard core still committed there might just be able to pull it off, might just succeed in keeping South Vietnam going long enough to exhaust the Communists and persuade them to give up.This morning the 300 persons assembled at the funeral heard the reedy, tough-guy voice of the old Komer carry through the chapel as he stood over the coffin and praised Vann.
    He spoke of “the courage, the spirit, the exuberant energy, the earthy vitality, the sheer gutsiness of the John Vann we knew.” He praised Vann in the same unstinting fashion in which the old Komer had given himself to the war.
    “To us who worked with him, learned from him, and were inspired by him, he was that scrawny, cocky little red-necked guy with a rural Virginia twang—always on the run like a human dynamo, sleeping only four hours a night, almost blowing a fuse at least twice a day, knowing more than any of us about what was really going on, and always telling us so. And any of us with his head screwed on right invariably listened.
    “That’s the John Vann we remember. He was proud to be a controversial character, a role he played to the hilt.
    “I’ve never known a more unsparingly critical and uncompromisingly honest man. He called them as he saw them—in defeat as well as victory. For this, and for his long experience, he was more respected by the press than any other official. And he told it straight to everyone—not just to them [the press] or his own people, but to presidents, cabinet officers, ambassadors and generals—letting the chips fall where they may. After one such episode I was told, and not in jest, to fire John Vann. I replied that I wouldn’t, and couldn’t; that in fact, if I could only find three more John Vanns we could shorten the war by half.”
    Mary Jane, who had not heard anything the chaplain had said, found herself listening to Komer. His voice and words restored her composure. The meaning of what he said was less important to her than the pleasure of hearing John praised by a man who spoke in the same bold way he had.
    “If John had few illusions,” Komer said, “he also had no torturing doubts about why he was in Vietnam—to help defend the right of the South Vietnamese people, whom he loved, to live in freedom. He probably knew more Vietnamese and worked more closely with them, sharing their trials as well as their joys, than any other American. He was more at home in the hamlets, where he so often spent the night, than in the offices of Saigon.
    “In uniform or out, he was a born leader of men. Personally fearless, he never asked anyone to do what he wouldn’t do himself. To him the role of a leader was to lead, regardless of the risk. He was the epitome of the ‘can do’ guy. And I’ve