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Selected Papers of General William E. DePuy (Paperback)
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Selected Papers of General William E. DePuy (Paperback)
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William E. DePuy was likely the most important figure in the
recovery of the United States Army from its collapse after the
defeat in Vietnam. That is a rather large claim, and it suggests a
precedence over a number of other distinguished officers, both his
contemporaries and successors. But it is a claim that can be
justified by the test of the "null hypothesis: " Could the Army
that conducted the Gulf War be imagined without the actions of
General DePuy and those he instructed and inspired? Clearly, it
could not. There are a few officers of the period about whom one
can make the same claim. To judge properly the accomplishments of
General DePuy and his talented subordinates at the US Army Training
and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), one must understand the sense of
crises and defeat that pervaded the Army in the 1970s. By 1973, the
United States had lost the war in Vietnam. Only the most optimistic
or naive observer held out hope that the Geneva Accords would
provide security for the Republic of South Vietnam. The US Army was
in a shambles, with discipline destroyed and the chain of command
almost nonexistent. The "All Volunteer Army" was borne on a wave of
permissiveness that compounded the problems of restoring
discipline. Moreover, the army was ten years behind its most likely
enemy in equipment development, and it had no warfighting doctrine
worthy of the same. With the able assistance of the commander of
the Armor Center, General Donn Starry, General DePuy wrenched the
Army from self-pity and recrimination about its defeat in Vietnam
into a bruising doctrinal debate that focused the Army's
intellectual energies on mechanized warfare against a first-class
opponent. Critics might argue correctly that that the result was
incomplete, but they out not to underestimate how far the Army had
to come just to begin the discussion. General DePuy also changed
the way Army battalions prepared for war. He made the US Army a
doctrinal force for the first time in history. Ably seconded by
General Paul Gorman, DePuy led the Army into the age of the Army
Training and Evaluation Program (ARTEP). The intellectual and
training initiatives were joined then, with a third concern of
General DePuy's TRADOC: the development of a set of equipment
requirements, with a concentration of effort on a limited number,
ultimately called the "Big Five." The result was the suite of
weapons that overmatched the Iraqis in Operation Desert Storm -
Apache attack helicopters, M1 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles,
Patriot air defense missiles, and Black Hawk assault helicopters.
General DePuy championed the recruitment of a high-quality
soldiery, an effort beyond his own significant responsibilities
but, even so, one he never ceased to support and forward.
General
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