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In 1971, Colonel David Hackworth was interviewed on ABC’s, “Issues and Answers.” During the interview, Hackworth, a career Army officer, stated in no uncertain terms that the Vietnam War was a disaster and unwinnable. Furthermore, he chastised his fellow Army officers for poor leadership and ineptness. Hackworth was a decorated combat veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, who had earned enough medals for a whole battalion. He was instantly ostracized by the defense establishment and forced to retire. Hackworth, who later went on to a distinguished career as a journalist was a polarizing figure who was hated by the...

GOD'S SPEED On May 4, 2005 Col. David Hackworth US Army Ret. lost his final battle to cancer in Mexico. He was 74-years-old. Hack, as he liked to be called, was a victim of Agents Orange and Blue, defoilants used during the Vietnam War. Hackworth spent 5 years in Vietnam and most of it in the field, "Bush" we called it a nickname for the jungle. As a result his exposure to these killer agents was high. Any veteran of the Vietnam War who spent a great deal of time in the field, including myself, is at risk of having...

Cliff Kincaid, editor of Accuracy in Media (AIM), commented that, "Rather's reference to Abu Ghraib, in the context of preparing the bogus attack on Bush, demonstrates that the agenda of Rather and CBS was not only to sabotage Bush's re-election campaign but to undermine the war in Iraq. They were looking for 'big' stories to hurt the U.S. at home and abroad. The Abu Ghraib story on CBS inflamed the Arab/Muslim world against the U.S., inevitably costing the lives of more American soldiers in Iraq at the hands of fanatical Muslim terrorists." AIM and Romerstein drew attention to another bombshell...

Inside the neo-con PentagonOfficer reveals how Bush appointees suppressed facts and twisted truth to drive America to war with Iraq . In July of last year, after just over 20 years of service, I retired as a lieutenant-colonel in the U.S. Air Force. My career started in 1978 with the smooth seduction of a full four-year ROTC scholarship. It ended with 10 months of duty in a strange new country, observing up close and personal a process of decision-making for war not sanctioned by the Constitution. ~snip~ The education I would receive there was intense, fascinating and frightening. While the...

Retired Army Col. David Hackworth, a decorated Vietnam veteran who spoke out against the war and later became a journalist and an advocate for military reform, died Wednesday in Mexico, where he was receiving treatment for bladder cancer, his wife said. He was 74. "He died in my arms yesterday morning," his wife, Eilhys England, said Thursday. Hackworth, a syndicated columnist for King Features, advocated a streamlined military and improved conditions for troops.

'ARMY REGULATIONS WERE WRONG' David Hackworth, a retired Army Colonel, has made a career out of badmouthing America’s military brass. According to Hackworth the generals and admirals are a bunch of bums. He routinely refers to them as "Perfumed Princes" in his syndicated news columns. I first met Hackworth during my third and final tour in Vietnam in 1970-71. Hackworth was a LTC (soon to be promoted to Col.) commanding the 44th Special Tactical Zone (STC) in IV Corps. I was a Major commanding a 70 man ranger unit assigned as advisors to the ARVN 42nd Ranger Group in the...

"Rathergate" Scandal Takes New Turn - Same CBS Source That Pronounced Phony Documents as "Genuine" Was Also Behind Abu Ghraib Prison Story on CBS In a bombshell in the CBS "Rathergate" panel report, it is revealed that Dan Rather personally assured CBS News President Andrew Heyward that the discredited Bush National Guard story was not only true but "very big." At the same time, Rather said it wasn't "as big as Abu Ghraib," the Iraqi prisoner abuse story used by CBS and other media to blacken the reputation and image of the United States around the world. What's more, it...

Report just issues, mapes finally fired

Retired Col. David H. Hackworth, still shooting from the sidelines at Soldiers for the Truth, says the recruiting numbers are far worse than anyone is hearing. Hack's talking to the recruiters first-hand and the problem, no surprise, is in all branches of the military -- Regular Army, Reserves and Guard. Recruiting is at half of expectations. They've lowered standards for recruits and have resulted to throwing LAN parties to garner interest from potential recruits. Hack says a draft is imminent, as there is no way to replace the estimated 50,000 KIA, WIA and non-battle casualties from Iraq that have been...

Donald Rumsfeld — who's known as a people-eating systems man — has a long history that shows he prefers technology to humans. Certainly as SecDef he's always gone for high-tech military gear rather than giving the boots on the ground max priority when it comes to the basics: armored vehicles and vests, sufficient ammo and all the other vital stuff that helps soldiers make it through the Valley of Death. His beloved shock-and-awe whiz-bang wonder weapons worked well enough initially in Afghanistan and Iraq, but as we saw on the tube last week, we're once again back to the age-old...

The Vietnam War rages on. Witness the barrages being fired by Viet vets on the right and the left: "George W. Bush is a draft-dodger"; "John F. Kerry isn't a war hero." Once again, that tragic war divides America – and this time around, it's vet pitted against vet. Sure, Bush dodged the draft, along with a reported 14 million other Americans with the savvy to work out that Vietnam was a no-win, sorry war. But although he had the luck and the connections to land a spot in the Air Guard, he did put his butt on the line...

As an American citizen, I’m ashamed of the atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq. As a former professional soldier, I’m appalled not only by what has happened in the prisons there, but also by our military leadership. From the very top of the Pentagon down to the 320th Military Police Battalion, the brass have spent months covering up obscene behavior while placing the sole blame on Joe and Jill Grunt. The damage to our country and our just war on terrorism is already devastating. And these war crimes not only diminish the sacrifices of our gallant soldiers in Iraq and...

The United States military has deployed five teams of 10 airborne snipers to defend Iraq's northern oil pipelines from acts of sabotage by forces loyal to ousted president Saddam Hussein. Sergeant Brian Stinson said final modifications were being made to Blackhawk UH-60 helicopters, before snipers from the elite Tiger Force could begin patrols along the crucial oil supply lines. "There is so much area to cover that it requires precision fire, we're on call for 24-hours a day and can be airborne within 30 minutes," he said. Protection of Iraq's northern pipelines, which stretch 500 kilometres to Turkey and almost...

Friday, April 23, 1999 Clark and Vietnam II By Col. David Hackworth © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com NATO's Wesley Clark is not the Iron Duke, nor is he Stormin' Norman. Unlike Wellington and Schwarzkopf, Clark's not a muddy boots soldier. He's a military politician, without the right stuff to produce victory over Serbia. Known by those who've served with him as the "Ultimate Perfumed Prince," he's far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets fly and soldiers die. An intellectual in warrior's gear. A saying attributed to General George Patton was that it...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Two US Air Force pilots were circling Baghdad in a B-1 bomber on April 7 when intelligence officers on the ground spotted Saddam Hussein in the Mansur neighborhood. It took 12 minutes for the pilots to punch the coordinates into their computer and unleash two satellite-guided bombs that destroyed a restaurant where Hussein was believed to be meeting with his top advisers.</p>

Save the Apache, Lose the Gold Plating By David H. HackworthAs our magnificent warriors return from Iraq, they will tell the folks who sweated them out at home what really went down during their bold march to Baghdad and will catch them up on all the inside skinny concerning the war's winners and losers.              At first glance, one of the big equipment losers is the U.S. Army's crown jewel, the Longbow Apache helicopter gunship (AH-64D model). Especially since a Longbow squadron got ventilated March 24 over the city of Karbala when 34 of these $24 million birds –...

Audie Murphy would be proud. He fought with the U.S. Army’s “Rock of the Marne” 3rd Infantry Division from Africa to Sicily to Italy, and during that hard slug across France to Czechoslovakia, where finally, along with millions of other folks, he celebrated V-E Day. By May 8, 1945, the mighty 3rd had chalked up more combat days on the front line – and sadly more casualties – than any other U.S. division during World War II. Along the way, Audie was awarded more medals than he had places to hang them. Now the Medal of Honor recipient's outfit has...

Since Vice President Dick Cheney said he saw the war in terms of “weeks rather than months,” I wish I could report that Tommy Franks’ grunts were beating Desert Storm's 100-hour-war record set by Stormin’ Norman's studs in 1991. But because Saddam got the message in 1991 that his army couldn't stand toe-to-toe with our military machine and walk away the winner, that's sadly not the case. Instead, Saddam’s sadists took a page from the post-World War I German Command, which came up with a smart new way of doing war business after waving the white flag and subsequently blitzkrieged...

Twenty-four U.S. airports in four weeks might be an easy gig for a rock-'n'-roll star, but for me, it was like being on a hot LZ. Last month, I started on the East Coast and zigzagged across this great land from the Big Apple to the Needle in Seattle and back promoting my new book, "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts." My previous book tours have always seemed a bit like infantry combat – at least in terms of the wild pace and no sleep – but prior to the World Trade Center catastrophe, you could pretty much count on coming back....