Gulf War 10th anniversary

By Jon R. Anderson
Stars and Stripes

Lt. Gen. James Riley has vivid memories of the Army after coming home for his tour in Vietnam.

After helping fend off North Vietnam’s surprise Tet Offensive, he remembers the sad state the service was in.

"It was a wounded Army. It was a discredited Army," says Riley, now commander of the Germany-based V Corps. "Our relationship with the American public was damaged and the Army went into bunker mode."

With America’s will to continue the war gone and the withdrawal of combat forces well under way, Riley says the early 1970s were a "low point for the Army."

Fast forward 20 years: Riley is preparing for battle before the ground war into Iraq began on Feb. 24, 1991.

A brigade commander under 1st Armored Division’s Maj. Gen. Ron Griffith, Riley couldn’t help but smile when Griffith promised the troops "this is not going to be another Vietnam. We are going to do it the right way this time."

"We all felt very good about that," says Riley, still smiling as he recalls the pre-combat pep talk from his field command headquarters during maneuvers in Grafenwöhr, Germany, recently.

It was Gen. Colin Powell — now secretary of State — who would come to codify what many of the Vietnam veterans were feeling. Demanding clear objectives, the use of overwhelming force, and a rock-solid "end state" that guarded against the old Vietnam quicksand of "mission creep," as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the general’s philosophy quickly became known as the Powell Doctrine.

An outspoken critic in the prosecution of the Kosovo campaign, Powell has made it clear that much of U.S. involvement after the Gulf War has not passed his litmus test.

Ironically, it was Powell’s predecessor at the State Department, Madeline Albright, who would signal her disapproval of the Powell Doctrine when she told him, "What good are all these fine troops you keep telling us about if we can’t use them?"

For Riley, part of a vanishing breed of soldier who has fought in both the Vietnam and Gulf wars, such debate is irrelevant.

"Some see the military as just something to fight the nation’s wars. Personally, I think of it as something more than that," says Riley, whose first assignment as a second lieutenant was to help quell race riots in Detroit before heading to Vietnam to face the Tet Offensive.

"On one end of the spectrum you have the Powell Doctrine, and the other end you have all these short-of-war missions we’ve been doing," says Riley. "But at the end of the argument, though, it really doesn’t matter because elected and appointed officials are there to determine what the military is to be used for."

With Powell now one of those appointed officials, under a new president who has promised a less adventuresome foreign policy, most analysts are predicting a swing in a more conservative direction.

Indeed, President George W. Bush was elected in part on a platform that promised to rebuild the military from what his father’s defense secretary and now his own vice president warned was beginning to suffer from the same problems in readiness, morale and retention that plagued the Army after Vietnam.

While most in the service say the problems of today don’t even compare to the hollow force left after Vietnam, leaders do admit there is plenty of cause for concern.

But the Army is not going into bunker mode this time. While a growing chorus of critics have complained the Army has been slow to adapt, the service is moving forward with a grand redesign that could change the entire face of the service, making it lighter and more mobile, able to get into hot spots quicker.

With Powell now leading the nation’s foreign policy, however, it will be interesting to see if the changes will be needed.

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