2. The Flaws in the Official Histories:
As we turn again and again to assess the meaning of Vietnam and its role in
recent history, we find that the official view of the war, the one that could
provide the big picture, is a strikingly limited one. It is limited because the
experience in the field was not consistent with the accounts put together at the
headquarters planning level. It is now commonly accepted that our quantitative
accounts of the war body counts, weapons captured, villages
stabilized, and refugees resettled can
be highly misleading. Often the figures were outright misstatements. Often, our
leaders were telling us what they hoped was the case, what should have been, or
what could have been. In short, the war that we were told was happening was
often not the real war at all.
