The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1366: The Significance of Khe Sanh - Part 1 - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

50 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas begins a series on the significance of the 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh.Radio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Buy Me a CoffeeThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas' WebsiteThomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

With election time approaching, political ads will be inserted into the episode, along with other ads that, frankly, I'm not going to like and you aren't going to like. So please ignore them, skip by them, whatever you have to do. I don't endorse any of the ads that are inserted, but it is another way for me to generate income. So I appreciate you guys putting up with them. If you don't want to deal with them, go to the Picanuena Show.com. can subscribe through Patreon. You can subscribe through Substack, which is my preferred one. Because with both of those, you get an RSS feed, only Patreon and only Substack give you an RSS feed. There's also a link to my website, Gumroad, and SubscribeStar, where you will get

the audio files that you can download and listen to or you can stream in most cases through those locations as well. So if you want to avoid the ads, consider supporting the show if not, just know none of these ads get any endorsement from me, skip by them, do what you need to do. I appreciate all of you. Head on over to Pekino Show.com. You can get the show early and ad free over there. If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Thomas is back and we're going to jump into some new material here that Thomas has really been itching to talk about. So I know this has a lot to do with your manuscript and you added it in because you thought that it was really important. So I'm just going to let you run with it as normal.

Yeah, that's affirmative. And just there's a couple of housekeeping things. I set up an X account, which I've been reluctant to do because I don't like X. I think it's garbage. But it seemed like it might be timely to promote the book, which is now, you know, I got a. I'm sending it off to Antelope Hill this week. I thought it might be, you know, well-placed to utilize social media to promote it and stuff. But I, people have been clamoring for me to set up a timeline, so I did it.

So, I mean, I engaged with it or I'm just going to nuke it. That's not me being cantankerous. It's just not worth it to me if people don't engage with it. You know, I mean, don't feel obligated if you don't want to fuck with Twitter either. But it would just be advised that people don't. don't utilize it. It's not worth it to me. So just keep that at mind. But yeah, I, one of the things that delayed the completion of the manuscript is I, you know, as a, as a political theory, um, writer whose primary concentration is the 20th century and the, um,

ideological conflict cycle they're in, you know, and treating these things in, galian terms. The Vietnam War is as grossly ill understood as World War II, in my opinion, in America at least. And obviously, outside of America, there's not the same emphasis on

the Vietnam War or many other things. But even people supposedly on the right of where revision is coded, they don't understand it in meaningful ways. And they don't understand what the stakes were

and they don't understand the significance of certain key engagements there. First and foremost is KSON. I'll get know what I mean by that in a minute. But there's also these myriad mythologies, some of which were deliberately curated by the Pentagon as a face-saving measure. Some of this bizarre sort of, there's a sort of like half-understood concept of Klauswitzian theory. where Americans treat warfare like it's a football season or something, and they're obsessed with the idea of who won and who lost, which really is incidental, man,

where the river meets the road in terms of military affairs in some ways. The point I make the people is that it goes out to saying that the Vermeck was superior man for man than their enemies, sometimes staggeringly so. At the end of the day, it didn't matter. Like the Vermach didn't actually win World War II because, the attrition rate was something staggering like 40 to 1 in the opening cell was a barbarosa. So this idea that, oh, America won all the battles in Vietnam. First of all, that's a lie.

That just didn't happen. Secondly, by what metric? You know, so America didn't actually lose the Vietnam War because at certain junctures, you know, U.S. forces out killed the NLF and the people's Army of Vietnam. Like, that's meaningless. You know, it's like saying that. it's like saying Mike Tyson didn't lose

the Buster Douglas in 1990 because according to copy box numbers Mike Tyson landed more power shots that means he won I mean if I'm going to selectively assign victory metric according to some arbitrary

aggregate of variables I can declare whatever I want in terms of an outcome but also I don't know why Americans are so invested in this. You know, it's like I don't, I mean, that's not the way you should look at warfare. Wars are won and lost for all kinds of reasons. And Vietnam's a perfect example of the fact that there are no resource wars, really. You know, war arrives like the seasons more often than

not, with some exceptions, but those tend to be the exceptions that demonstrate the rule. But Kaysan, I consider it the American Stalingrad. Like, obviously, Kaysan was a tactical victory. for America and its allies. But the significance of it and why it happened. You know, and Vietnam also, one of the reasons Vietnam is so important, Vietnam is where the Cold War went hot. Okay, that's when the Cold War resolved in force of arms. It didn't matter that Vietnam was the venue for that conflict.

If it had been Cuba, if it had been Nicaragua, if it had been Angola, if it had been the inter-German border, that would have been catastrophic and planetary terms. But it's also misguided for that reason when people say there were no vital interest in Vietnam. It didn't matter where the conflict went hot. It was an ideological struggle. You know, the reason I call it the American Stalingrad, specifically Kaysan, you know, Louis-Ferdinand-Selan said that Stalingrad was right and left Higalians met to settle their differences. for all time. Okay, Stalingrad didn't decide World War II, the Battle of Moscow did,

but in conceptual terms, Europe ceased to exist as a power political historical actor at Stalingrad, and it's also when the German Reich went down. Okay, and the symbolic significance of that changed everything. Okay, so, and there's another delicious irony about Kaysan. it was Westmoreland's decision and Westmoreland I think was an abject mediocrity if you're a friend of our family was General Neil Creighton was a fascinating

guy he was the curator he was responsible for the McCormick Trust and obviously I'm a huge Robert R. McCormick fan back when the Tribune was a patriotic newspaper which you know and a standard bear the America first movement but you know the the Cantini War Museum

out in Wheaton which is affiliated with the McCormick Trust. It's the first inventory division museum, and it's just incredible. And the McCormick mansion's on the premises, and it's almost like a Bondvillan's mansion or something. There's like secret corridors and elevators and things. It's awesome.

But General Creighton was a great guy in a dear friend of my dad's, and he was very, very cool to our families. When I was a kid, we'd go visit him and his wife at Cantini. And he served most of his career with armored calorie, black horse, the interderman border, but he spent a couple years in Vietnam as a company commander and, you know, he commanding tanks in Vietnam. And he was always, you know, he said one time, he's like, you know, it's, he's like, you know, it's horseshit that people act like, you know, there wasn't armor in Vietnam, but there was. But, you know, in any event, he, uh, one of his

quips was that Westmoreland had about, had about three stars too many. You know, and Westmoreland, in almost every other circumstance, had a completely wrongheaded view of the strategic and tactical situation. But he insisted that Kisan be defended at all costs. And his big fear, terror really, was that the North Vietnamese were trying to accomplish a Diemben-Fu moment. Like, interestingly, that movie We Were Soldiers, which is not a bad movie in some ways that's good. But, like, Hal Moore, played Mill Gibson at Iadrang, he's haunted by the spectra of Dienbent Fu. That wasn't really what was on people's mind that early in the war. You know, at KSan, it absolutely was, particularly the command element.

Westmoreland had the minority view on KSan. This gets a little bit complicated, okay? And I'll try and condense it while still making it intelligible and not redacting any critical. facts. Days before the TED Offensive is when Kaysan kicked off, okay, in January 68. Westmoreland's insistence was that the Tet Offensive was a distraction and something of a political coup. The main objective was Kaysan.

The conventional wisdom, which was basically everybody other than Westmoreland and his sympathizers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the precise opposite. was that the assault on K San was a feint in order to facilitate, you know, the Tet Offensive, whereby American forces in being could be diverted to KSan. I don't accept that. Westmoreland was right, but he was right for kind of the wrong reasons. Okay.

And you got to understand the deployment pattern that Westmoreland favored. In some ways, it was what's been, I mean, it's fairly accurate. accurately, a lot of military science types these days. They refer to Westmoreland's strategic paradigm as the two-war strategy, you know, fighting the NLF, the Viet Cong for the countryside, creating strategic hamlets, you know, moving populations to consolidate villages into defensible perimeters, you know, to isolate and then annihilate the Vied Kong while also

sustaining a fairly conventional defensive deployment pattern and anticipation of a conventional assault by the People's Army of Vietnam. And the People's Army is a real army. They were professionally trained. I think they were probably about the best the Communists had other than the National Folks Army. They were a crack force.

Up at I-Corps, which was within 30 kilometers or so of the 17th parallel in some places. Westmoreland had deployed the U.S. Marine Corps from east to west. Basically to establish, like looking at a map, that would be the main line of resistance in an event of a conventional assault, okay? and Kaysan was situated right there. But there's nothing really at KSan. And it was also located as it was.

There was a Montan Yard population there. That originally KSan had been a special forces fire base, the purpose of which was to integrate with the Montan Yards, who were very game fighters. And they were the indigenous native element that was very much oppressed. and but they were solidly anti-communist and you know they they were kind of like the apaches of the region they're fascinating people my good buddy in high school was a montan yard

who uh whose family was able to come here because uh his father he was like one of like 14 brothers and sisters he was the youngest so uh his father had sired him when he was you know like 55 years old and a bunch of his older brothers had like fought in the vietnam war like on the American side. You know, they were, and this dude, his name was James Bowie. He was a, he was like a champion wrestler, just an incredibly capable alpha kind of guy, you know. And a very tall guy with very dark skin, like not at all the way you think of Vietnamese. But in any event, Westmoreland, at least publicly, he suggested a pretty conventional,

a geos strategic purpose behind defending a Kaysan proximity to the ocean border and the path at Lao there was never

full operational integration between them and the Viet Cong but there was enough that a concern over a potential invasion from Laos overland could potentially cut iCorp in half and sabotage the ability to stage operations

at scale there. Also, Westmoreland claimed at least when challenged by these media figures as well as opponents in Washington, you know, in uniform and on the civilian side, that, well, you know, if Kaysan falls, that'll allow the enemy ingress to the eastern, coastal zones, you know, beyond. And that further compromises their ability to, you know, defend a potentially exposed flank. But the forces in being at Kaysan wouldn't have been adequate to act as a bulwark

against some general push from east to west. It was clear that what Westmoreland was doing was aiming to defend Kaysan itself. Okay. and this gets complicated too because I have the Vietnamese talk about it. You know, and Jop, as I think people know, follow my content. I think Jop is about the most unsung military genius of the 20th century. I put Ferdinand shorter in that category too, for very different reasons. but

Jaup wrote a book in the 80s called Tette 1968 understanding the surprise and he sort of dodged the issue but I think reading between the lines and the language barrier

is part of this also you know he said that when it being clear that America was staking Kisan as a prestige objective he said yeah we we incorporated that into our assault paradigm and into our tactical priorities within the broader

strategic picture conceptually. But he said that, you know, the greater focus was TET. You know, and he said it started as a diversion, but if we could cause many casualties and win a big victory, that would have been the priority. So, reading between the lines, I think he was being deliberately coy. but also he was saying that, you know, history sort of determined how it resolved. I want to be getting clear that Westmoreland was staking it. Well, then it became a prestige objective to us because that in turn would have carried, you know, the momentum of history in our favor.

you know um so there was a sort of complex minuet relating to perceptions on both sides of the of the conflict and you know trying to discern in a purely ideological war what the implications are going to be of uh you know an enemy victory with respect to the contested objective that's being contemplated and make no mistake. I don't want people to misunderstand when I say there are no resource wars. I'm not saying that tactical considerations and conventional military science doesn't apply. It absolutely does apply because if your logistical chain is broken, or if you can't reinforce common elements in the field,

or if you can't, you know, say control the skies under conditions of parity between combatants, obviously you can't sustain around operations. That goes without saying. But these sort of material criteria and, you know, material considerations that's not the cause of warfare, and that's not the ultimate objective. You know, and nor was that more on display than at KSan. You know, and like I said, this was,

even a dullard like westmoreland he he perceived that something of tremendous significance was was underway and within his stunted conceptual vocabulary he was trying to assign the correct variables to what his instincts were telling him i firmly believe that and to be clear too about the Tet Offensive You know, the Tet Offensive The The NLF, and it was almost exclusively a Viet Cong operation

The Viet Cong were basically wiped out after TEC They took something like 40,000 KIA Okay? Um It was kind of the final push of the guerrilla movement until the conflict paradigm shifted

to a very conventional fight. you know, and the objective became the conquest of the Republic of Vietnam by overland force of arms. But in contrast, the forces massed to take Kaysan to siege were exclusively professional North Vietnamese army. This was the people's army of Vietnam, you know, operationally that speaks to itself. and the NLF fought incredibly hard at a you know in the Tet Offensive with Hway being where they held out the longest you know and that way was famously immortalized and flamethe jacket um you know and that was very much a conventional fight but uh you know nothing um not nothing no no no objective was was held you know, in the week subsequent. I mean, in contrast to the Kaysan siege went on for months.

It was a 77-day siege. You know, if this was what Jop claimed it was, you know, some kind of secondary objective, the significance of which was owed to the, you know, the moment-to-moment fluidity of the battle space and the political situation. I mean, why did it continue for so long? And finally, and just kind of like setting the tone here, any discussion around this subject matter of nuclear weapons is histrionic and ignorant, sort of paralyzingly so in America, especially these days. There was a contingency plan for the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons at Kaysan if the Marines were imminently

going to be overrun. The contingency plan was codenamed, fractured job. So this was pointed to as evidence of Westmoreland being some sort of madman under of Jack D. Ripper or President Johnson, you know, having lost his mind. Look, tactical nuclear forces were stockpiled in tens of thousands. Okay. That's why the army had a nuclear capability. In the final phase of the Cold War, you know, the Pershing II deployment, which was a then cutting edge, the Pershing two was a then cutting edge theater ballistic nuclear missile. You know, and that that so shook up the Soviets that it led to, you know, them acceding to that drawdown of all.

all intermediate nuclear forces in Europe, but it was standing policy to utilize tactical nuclear weapons where appropriate. The purpose of nuclear forces isn't to stockpile them than never, ever use them. And the distinction between tactical and strategic forces and counterforce and counter-value targeting is meaningful. In conditions of parity, strategic parity, it can be very dangerous because the understanding is that escalation might not be controllable, but flexible response that's at the core of the doctrine. And despite people think, NATO's standing policy and the Soviets made much of this, you know, at every opportunity, NATO did not abide no first use.

They abided the opposite. standing doctrine was if NATO is being overrun by Warsaw Pact forces, we will deploy nuclear weapons. And we will assault those forces with nuclear weapons. And the Soviets pointed to that fact, that doctrinal commitment, as evidence of, you know, American war mongering and America's willingness to escalate catastrophically. This idea that America was, you know, that they could. the command element of America was insane for counterplating use of tactical nuclear forces at Kaysan. That was entirely appropriate.

You know, not just to protect the lives of the men defending it. You know, and because this wasn't a Vermeck situation, besieged at Stalingrad, and because America's not the Soviet army, we don't just tell thousands of Marines, fight to the last man and just, you know, die on orders. No. We say that we're going to give you whatever firepower we need so you can survive.

So there's that. But also, the status of the objective, if it was truly worth defending to the degree and in the terms enumerated, you better believe that you use everything at your disposal in order to realize victory conditions. And finally, no one can explain to me why it's okay to kill. people with with air fuel weapons or set them on fire it's it's not okay to it's not okay to annihilate um enemy infantry with with with nuclear weapons why that doesn't make any sense there's there's that some there's not some moral conundrum there if you're talking about counterforce um targeting you know obviously counter value targeting is a totally even thing but it's now we're

talking about here there's uh and there wasn't there wasn't any population center proximity to Ksson that would have been harmed by, you know, secondary fallout or would have been within the blast radius, you know, like nothing like that. So that's got to be said. And, you know, arguably, arguably, you know, I mean, I think strategic bombing is, is a gross moral evil anyway. I mean, that's not human rights handwring. I mean, I, I don't think anybody who's not profoundly morally deformed can rationalize that. But, the, you know, there, there should not be any ethical analysis that sort of punitive or otherwise applied to purely military use of tactical nuclear forces. But that is an interesting, it is an interesting counterfactual. And of course, Curtis LeMay, who I think is a fascinating figure for all kinds of reasons, you know, he was on the campaign trail as well as his running mate in 68.

It was in response to a question about Ksan that sound bite, which was then very much manipulated and creatively edited to make LeMay sound like some sort of madman. It was in response to a question about Kisan specifically when LeMay said basically what I just said, the American people need to get over this reflexive fear of nuclear weapons. and their deployment in military capacities when appropriate. So then that, you know, and while it's immediately going to damage control mode, because, you know, the way that that was interpreted and sort of creatively presented was that, you know, Lamean wants to wage a nuclear war in North Vietnam, which is not what he was saying. But moving on, there's a fascinating, I mean, I think it's fascinating. because it's very telling.

There's a photograph of Johnson in the White House Situation Room. And there's this elaborate topographical mock-up of the Kaysan Fire Base, with representative set pieces and North Vietnamese forces in Dying. And LVJ is hunched over it. and there's a um he's flanked by you know some

some of the joint chiefs of staff and I don't think McNamara is in the picture but you know the the national security team is on deck as well minus McNamara and uh you can tell how out of his element

LBJ is in contrast there's this there's a photograph uh And I think it's from the Battle of France, 9040, where it's Hitler looking over a map. Well, I think Yodel or Kytle is pointing something out to him. And the rest of OKW is kind of similarly hunched over.

You know, and you realize Hitler appears very much in his elements as warlord. You can tell he's sort of controlling the room, but also, you know, it, you realize that the critical moment of decision, even though, like, Hitler wasn't overlooking like a map of Stalingrad. The thing that naturally came to my mind when I saw the picture of, for the first time, of LBJ in the situation room, I can imagine Hitler in the midst of Stalingrad, as it became clear that. that Sixth Army is being surrounded, I can imagine him hunched over a similar type of radical model. But, you know, and people in the era and then subsequent, they take that photograph and saying, well, this is, this is, you know, an example of LBJ's obsessing micromanagement

of the conflict. It's like, that may be, but, I mean, that was characteristic of the executive in the era. It wasn't just Johnson. I think John's particularly ill. Johns was a terrible president that goes out saying, and he certainly had no capability as a commander in chief, but that there wasn't LVJ losing his mind or playing at Napoleon or something.

Like he, everybody discerned that the significance of Kisan, whether they could articulate exactly why is a different question, but the eyes of the world are on Kisan. and that's why I don't accept the majoritarian view as it was in the era or today you know it's not just because

I'll make self-effacing jokes like I quoted Ernst Ram a couple times you know he famously said like I always take the opposite view I think some people assign that to me that I like being a contrarian and I think there is that temptation for some

revisionists. I don't, that's not what I'm doing though. You know, um, and, uh, in other aspects of the Vietnam war, I, I think it, in, in terms of, you know, discreet tactical, um,

situations, I do essentially abide the majority view, okay? Like, I go into this with an open mind. But, um, you know, uh, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I think that the,

whatever, you choose to emphasize as regards the relevant variables, it can't be denied. I mean, the majority is wrong in this case. You know, and I think the primary obstacle to

even entertaining that possibility is what I said, that anything that it seems derivative of a continental perspective philosophically, you're a historicist perspective, is is simply done away with.

I can't remember. I think on our kind of philosophy series, we touched briefly on Klausowitz. Because I mean, Klausowitz's legacy is complicated. But he, you know, he was sort of the

he was sort of the German philosopher who stands out as abiding the rationalist perspective that we'd associate with you know, the analytic and particularly like the Anglophone tradition.

You know, and I think that that's why there's a sort of lack of conceptual vocabulary in common between these perspectives. But moving

on, I just wanted to say to something, just to clarify what I said at at the top of this conversation because I know it'll come up in the comments and there's one guy I know specifically who still have been named

who is going to take issue with this that never lost a single battle myth David Hackworth who was a great man I think you know he died a long time ago now at a young age comparatively I think he was in his 50s but he

his autobiography about face, it's heavier on military science than a lot of those kind of biographies of a public figure, but he singled out, interestingly, he talked about the Battle of Cotang, which we just covered, which obviously was not a Vietnam War engagement, but he said it's an example of, you know, when America loses battles, they're just kind of like

redacted or they're categorized as tactical stalemates or something other than defeat. But in less ambiguous terms, Doc Toe was absolutely

an American defeat. In 1967, the Battle of Hill 861, First Battalion, Ninth Marines, Bravo Company was wiped out. There was a handful of survivors who were pinned down for hours until they were finally rescued by chopper extraction. Contein, Operation Kingfisher. There was a matter of poor intelligence leading to a disaster. the operation was launched to destroy people's army of Vietnam elements based just south of the demilitarized zone.

So in other words, you know, near I-Corps, which was in relative proximity to Kaysan. The second battalion, fourth Marines, they took on what began as sort of a probing mission. And lo and behold, they encountered a regiment-sized North Vietnamese Army element. the 90th NBA and essentially got wiped out trying to break out of the enemy kill zone. They ended up having to leave 15 other dead comrades behind, you know, which the Marines, to their credit, are very reluctant to do unless, you know, it's a truly critical situation preceding the extraction, the Battle of Diet. you know once again the Marines got involved trying to dislodge an entrenched North Vietnamese element

the Battle of 2 July was another comedy size element the Marines got wiped out with survivors being forth to withdraw specifically the Battle of Hill 875 which you know during the siege of Doc Toe

I believe that was the worst defeat or a levied the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which had a very proud combat record in those days. They were reconstituted after decades for, I believe, you know, for the Iraq War. I have no idea what their combat record is like in recent years. But there's an old movie with Michael Dutnikov. Remember him? He was canon films We're kind of trying to make him

Yeah, he kind of looked like James Dean You know, but he was sort of an interesting guy Like, you know, he's an American Ninja stuff But Chuck Norris's brother, Aaron Norris was some kind of karate man, stuntman. He, Canon films gave him a couple of directing jobs,

one of which was platoon leader With Michael Dutikoff. And that's about the 173rd at Docteau if memory serves. You know, but I mean, that's just like off the top of my head and what I know about. You know, it's this idea, I mean, aside on the fact that, you know, like I said, it's a misguided. It's the parameters of that of the analysis are misguided anyway. But even where they not, it's just a lie.

You know, like, we never lost a battle. I mean, it's that also, I mean, how does that, if, if you can catastrophically lose a war while winning every battle. I mean, that suggests like a... I mean, where that true and not a logical fallacy, that suggests some sort of illiteracy at a decision-making level. But like I said, too, I don't understand why...

I don't... I don't understand why Americans have this kind of hang up. The... I mean, similarly, too. I take nothing away from Russian gumption and their ability to absorb catastrophic attrition. But really until the later Cold War, you know, the Soviet army had an incredible record of victory. You know, I mean, does that mean that their red armies like the greatest armed force that ever existed? You know, I mean, I don't, you know, like I said, one of the reasons it's really interesting, I think, the era when Germany was being.

briefly rehabilitated in the public mind deliberately. You know, that's, um, Yaki actually wrote a speech for MacArthur, or McCarthy, I mean, I'm sorry, brain fog. When McCarthy was addressing some German-American, uh, oriented pack, and the speech wasn't delivered, um, for whatever reason. But the point being, uh, trying to present, um, a perspective of the good German in the public mind in the 50s. You know, that's also when that James Mason movie

where he plays Rommel came out. And there's this kind of caricature-ish portrayal of Hitler. You know, contra Rommel, who's this upright, you know, moral soldier surrounded by, you know, the maniacal Hitler and this kind of Prussian martinettes. but uh the uh

what was it going with this um but no the the um that's also when a manstein's um memoirs are first published you know they marketed as under the title loss of victories but what that what in reality what that was was this

debriefing by the then war department and subsequently the Pentagon you know at like edited to make it readable and with um end notes and stuff to make it intelligible to, you know, an audience of military layman. But the Pentagon was studying the Vermeck and how to fight the Soviet Union, you know, because they were viewed as the most effective, the most effective infantry element

in living memory, you know, despite the fact that they lost the war. you know so i mean one so if your thing is if if your whole if what you're invested in is this idea of you know america being the winning football team by having the best armed forces or whatever i you shouldn't be hung up on the victory metric or the rubber meets the road in terms of you know quality of um fighting man and and military power they're in because oftentimes there's a a bizarre like an inverse relationship between factors. That's all. But forgive me if that was too tangential.

The, interestingly, too, like I, you know, like I said, I, Westmoreland's entire conceptual orientation was jettisoned, you know, when he was replaced by Creighton Abrams, who had served on his staff. Abrams was a really capable commander. You know, I think he's obviously been memorialized with the Abrams tank being named after him. But other than that, I don't think people really know who he was anymore even. You know, there's sort of an infamy attached to Westmoreland's name. I don't think other than, I don't think anyone other than people like our friend Paul Fahrenheit who, you know, spend a lot of time with military science and things, even.

really know of him, but he, his operational approach was very much in line with what was prioritized at K San, you know, and, um, I think. And, um, I speculate, although I, I don't know, because obviously I, I don't, I don't have his testimony in front of me. And I obviously, nobody knows what was being said between Abrams and Westmoreland behind closed doors. It was always being communicated by Abrams to the rest of Westmoreland staff. But, you know, the reorientation towards a one war strategy, colloquially speaking, where, you know, focus on local security and tailoring operations, to the needs of, you know, each objective and the population that was being slated for protection,

as well as, you know, acknowledging the realities of the culture on the ground. You know, there were instances when, just as an aside, the Strategic Hamlet program where people were uprooted and consolidated into these, you know, contrived population centers. There's instances of people crossing through minefields in order to visit the graves of their ancestors because, you know, they were revered as holy sites in Vietnamese Buddhism and things. You know, just even like little stuff like that,

which would, knowledge of which would constitute conceptual literacy and theater was totally absent. But, you know, this Abrams essentially abandoned the idea of attrition as a victory metric, you know, in the annihilating enemy main force units. And thus, you know, eliminating the communist's ability to wage effective operations at scale. You know, I mean, this is what Abrams were his brass tax, emphasis, but, you know, also, he made the point often that, you know, if the mission, if the objective is to break the will of the enemy in theater, you know, pointing to a spreadsheet about what a wonderful body count was yielded,

does nothing, you know, in turn, like wiping out a crack division of the North Vietnamese army, makes a statement and impacts perception in ways that speak for itself. And, you know, again, I don't think Abrams, and in some ways I think he wasn't great and very effective commander. But I don't think he had deep ideas about, you know, historical phenomena and how that impacts, you know, command decisionism. but, you know, I think he had far superior instincts to this than Westmoreland did. But again, I think, too, that the, I think the, I think the perception was shifting

even before Abrams took the reins of command. You know, and like I said, I, Westmoreland was right for the wrong reasons. And again, I strongly speculate a lot of this came from Abrams, although there's a paltry, amount of data at least put the paper what Abrams had to say about K-San. If somebody who's watching this or somebody who's active in the comments has something to weigh in

can weigh in with data on that point that being Abrams' view of Kaysan in the moment when operational plans are being laid, that would be a great blessing. if you bring that to our attention.

I've been looking for that. I mean, not just because I put a premium on direct testimony in a way that many people don't, but I also, I think it's material to the subject matter in ways that are independently significant. But that's what all I got for now. We can continue this if you want to and if the subs want to,

for another episode where we get into the brass tax of the forces and being on each side and how combat resolved. I mean, obviously, my primary emphasis isn't, you know, the, isn't really the brass tax set pieces of combat. I'm into, you know, the historical and political aspects of the subject matter. But if you guys have had enough case on, that's fine. Or if you want to continue, I'm having to continue. I'm still fighting a little bit of fatigue. So I'm not trying to be abrupt. But I also, I don't want to pivot into another aspect of the subject matter and then cut myself off in 10 minutes.

You know what I mean? Oh, I got you. I got you. All right. Yeah, let's definitely continue this. And I just want to remind people, best way to reach out to Thomas is on substack. It's real Thomas 777.com. Also his website, Thomas 777.com.

The T is a 7. And he has a new Twitter account for now. It's at underscore Thomas 777, the T is a 7. That's all the ways you can reach out to Thomas. Yeah, that's great. Then thank you so much, man. And I hope, like I said, I hope this isn't too esoteric or whatever for, you know, a matter of general interest. But I think it's important.

And like I said, I'm not just trying to show my work product. But it's an important aspect of the manuscript that I, it was sticking in my craw and like literally like waking me up in the middle of the night. Like it wasn't included. Like it bothered me. And, you know, I explicate further what I mean by that in the book, but I don't want to just, like, sit here and, like, you know, read from a script as I put the paper. Plus, having a conversation, like, excuse me, like this is different than the written word, you know. It just is. But, yeah, thank you so much, man.

It's always a pleasure and an honor. All right. We're recording a couple days. Thank you.