Overview

This book on the Vietnam War is unique and critically timely. The author commanded a large armored cavalry task force in Vietnam and, having lost wonderful young men, needed to answer the question: What was this decades-long war about--really about? The answer is that it was about independence and unification. Vietnamese had struggled for 2,000 years to throw off the foreign yoke, and, since the end of World War II it was also about unification of the three parts of their country into one Vietnam. Independence and unification--they would not give up the idea, no matter what the sacrifice, no matter how long the struggle. Military historian Lieutenant General Dave R. Palmer said, Haponski has examined the war exhaustively for half a century, at every level from his first-hand experience to post-doctoral research. The result is an absorbing blend ranging from the deeply personal to the academically professional. He has created a multi-dimensional narrative, at once alive and lucid. The highest-ranking officer in the French Army, a soldier who commanded and fought in Vietnam 20 years before the author, General of the Army Jean Delaunay said, This is a magnificent work! Against a background of 2,000 years of Vietnamese struggle for independence, Haponski probes the causes of French, American, and Vietnamese foundering and the ultimate success of the North Vietnamese. The book is timely in that from the rice roots of the Vietnamese experience, readers will reach a better understanding of not just the war that so engulfed America and the world a half-century ago, but why in today's global war on terrorism our civilian and military leaders need to be well grounded in the basics of the tragic waste that was Vietnam.

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9781499622232

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Bill Haponski is a 1956 graduate of West Point, commissioned in the armor branch. A parachutist, aerial observer, and expert in all individual and crew weapons in armor and cavalry, he served in a tank battalion in Europe during the Cold War. In the mid-1960s he earned his master's degree from Cornell University and, at the university's request, continued on to receive a 1967 doctorate in English Language and Literature while concurrently teaching full time at West Point. Arriving in Vietnam in 1968 he first was the senior staff officer in 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, then in 1969 commander of the task force 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division. The battalion (plus)-size task force was engaged in everything from pacification to contacts with small enemy units to fierce day and night battles against battalions and a regiment. Down in the jungle, night and day, he directed the battles in close combat along with his men. After Vietnam he returned to West Point to head a division of English studies, then became Professor of Military Studies first at University of Vermont, then at Fordham University. After retiring from the Army he joined Utica College of Syracuse University as Executive Vice President and Dean of the College. Prior to An Idea, and Bullets, he had two books published on higher education, and two on the war in Vietnam. Recently he published a children's book and, loving that experience, is writing another. Haponski lives in Florida with Sandra, his wife of 60 years, a retired school teacher and adjunct college professor. His daughter and son-in-law, Maura and Steve Cornell, accompanied him on one of his return trips to Vietnam in which he visited the scenes of his large and smaller battles, all of which resulted in some of his men killed. On his second trip he was able to find the four little girls of 1968-69 he loved, all now mothers and grandmothers. They adopted him as father, grandfather, and great grandfather, so now he is patriarch of a large Vietnamese clan, called upon via email for all kinds of counseling--marriage, family relationships, education of the children--you name it! Life is good!

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