Yes, Unfortunately, Sometimes Militaries Must “Destroy the Town to Save It”

[rangerrebew]

Yes, Unfortunately, Sometimes Militaries Must “Destroy the Town to Save It”

ML Cavanaugh | February 6, 2018

Fifty years ago this week, during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, a US Army major famously remarked to a journalist, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Pilloried for its callousness, one fellow officer who claimed to have been present even said it went “down in history as an example of some of the insanity that was Vietnam.”

Myself an Army major, I know how crazy it sounds to most people. And, yet, while I am on the record as strongly opposed to empty platitudes like “the purpose of the military is to kill people and break things” (the military’s purpose is to protect and defend), I also know this infamous quotation from fifty years ago reflects one of the harsh, paradoxical realities of war: sometimes, unfortunately, militaries must destroy in order to save.


https://mwi.usma.edu/yes-unfortunately-sometimes-militaries-must-destroy-town-save/