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Letter To The Mayor On Westmoreland

By Dave Curry

Dear Mayor Washington:

It has been my great honor to have been elected by the membership and serve as Secretary of the Mayor's Advisory Commission on the Chicago Vietnam Veterans "Welcome Home" Parade, and I assume it is that office that has brought me an invitation to attend your reception in "honor" of General William Westmoreland, Grand Marshal of the Parade. Please accept my respectful entreaty to be excused from attendance.

As a young counter-intelligence officer in training in 1970, I learned of the original under-estimates of National Liberation Front support and strength in Vietnam as "classified" information in a U.S. Army Intelligence School class. General Westmoreland's alleged ignorance of the same information was his contention in his unsuccessful suit against the TV show "60 Minutes". His legal action in that instance and his more recent accusation that a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo (the famous photo of the young Vietnamese running naked away from burning napalm) is a fake indicate the general's continued insensitivity to the pain and costs of the Vietnam War for the citizens of this country and the people of Southeast Asia. My own published research has repeatedly shown the inequity of service and of sacrifice for the poor and minorities of the U.S.

While I continue to honor you and your dedication to "honoring the warrior but not the war," I cannot desecrate my veneration for those who gave their lives and those who served to "honor" in any way this man selected by an unrepresentative segment of the Chicago Vietnam veteran population be grand marshal of the Parade.

Respectfully,
Dave Curry, PhD
Former Captain
U.S. Army Vietnam