War & Peace Quote by William Westmoreland

Westmoreland’s complaint isn’t just about medals or parades; it’s an attempt to renegotiate the moral ledger of a war that curdled in the American imagination. By centering “the men who served in uniform,” he narrows the aperture to the one constituency least responsible for strategy and most exposed to its costs. The sentence is built like a shield: whatever you think about Vietnam, don’t take it out on the soldier. That’s humane on its face, but also politically useful for a commander whose legacy is inseparable from the war’s failure.

“Credit” is the key tell. It sidesteps “victory,” “purpose,” or “justice” and replaces them with recognition, a softer currency that can be demanded even when outcomes are indefensible. The line quietly recasts protest and public skepticism as a kind of theft: the home front didn’t just disagree, it withheld something owed. That subtext matters because the post-Vietnam narrative wars were fought as fiercely as the real one, with blame constantly migrating downward.

Then comes the framing device: “a difficult war against an unorthodox enemy.” “Unorthodox” does double duty, acknowledging guerrilla tactics while implying that conventional American power was thwarted by illegitimate rules. It’s an early version of the “we fought with one hand tied behind our back” argument, a way to preserve institutional competence without fully owning strategic misreads.

In context, this is the language of salvage. Westmoreland is trying to separate the soldier’s honor from the war’s outcome, but also to launder command decisions through the fog of an enemy that supposedly refused to play fair. The rhetoric asks for sympathy while quietly pleading for absolution.