10 Questions for General Hal Moore

Brian Sobel | September 21, 2007  | 3 comments  | Print  | E-mail

6. ACG : You and Galloway are writing another book. Can you tell our readers about it? 

GEN. MOORE: It’s going to be a series of chapters dealing with subjects such as my postwar talk with General Vo Nguyen Giap and the North Vietnamese commander who opposed me in the battle. Another chapter will be about going back to Vietnam with an ABC TV documentary team and spending a night on the battlefield. There also will be a chapter on General William Westmoreland and one on Rick Rescorla, who fought at the Ia Drang and later died at the World Trade Center attack on September 11. Another chapter will be about my wife, Julie, and one on my three-day visit to the Dien Bien Phu battlefield. 

January 1966. Moore (on the radio) leads his troops of the 3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. Image Credit: ART ZICH

7. ACG : What do you think of Vietnam today?  

GEN. MOORE: I’ve been back to Vietnam seven times since the war. From my perspective, I see a country that has come from misery to a booming economy. Much of this occurred because Americans were there, and hopefully our increased diplomatic relations with Vietnam will also provide more clarity about the fate of our MIAs.  

8. ACG : Do you believe the Vietnam War was a military “win” and a civilian “loss”? 

GEN. MOORE: I’ve never really thought much about that, and I never concluded that we had won a victory in Vietnam . Giap told me that they were determined to get us out, however long it took. He said, “We were prepared to fight you for 10, 20, or 30 years.” One has to understand they all had bitter memories of the French, and to the Vietnamese there was no difference between the French and the Americans. 

 
October 1965. Moore (left) and Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley at the 1st Cavalry base camp in Vietnam. Image Credit: COURTESY, HAL MOORE We Were Soldiers (Paramount Pictures, 2002). Image Credit: PARAMOUNT PICTURES

9. ACG : Do you see parallels between Vietnam and the war in Iraq?  

GEN. MOORE: In Vietnam, we were fighting a highly organized North Vietnamese army and a semi-organized Viet Cong element, which consisted of main force Viet Cong but also individual insurgents. As the war progressed, it assumed a different kind of personality. We were trying to create a democratic country in one that had no concept of democracy. We tried to build a South Vietnamese army in the image of the American Army, and the same with the Vietnamese air force, navy and coast guard. In the end, it didn’t matter because the enemy knew that all they had to do was outlast us.

In Iraq , we went in and ousted Saddam Hussein and expected the Iraqi people to throw us flowers and chocolates. There may have been some of that, but mostly it was hand grenades. We are repeating history, trying to create an Iraqi army in the image of the American Army and an Iraqi police force in the image of New York ’s police force. In Baghdad , in particular, we are trying to chase rabbits with a herd of elephants. I really don’t see how we can get the different Islamic elements to make peace with each other – the Sunnis and the Shiites have been separatists for centuries.

So yes, there are some parallels. Frankly, I hope that in the near future the American government will declare that we think the Iraqi army and police are capable of taking care of things themselves, and then we get the hell out. 

10. ACG : Can you boil down your leadership philosophy to a few words? 

GEN. MOORE: My leadership philosophy, which I employed in the military and also for years in the civilian sector, can be summarized as “power down.” I pushed the authority to make decisions down to company commanders and told them to push the power down to their squad leaders and the individual Soldiers in the ranks. I told my people, “If you feel you are qualified to make a decision or to take action, do it. Otherwise, move it up a notch for a decision.”

Brian Sobel conducted this interview for ARMCHAIR GENERAL.  

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