Chain of Command Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Chain of Command - Essay Example In this case Lyndon Johnson, who was President of the United States when the most powerful country on the face of the earth went into what is called as the limited war ideology in Indo-China, his Secretary of National Defense Robert McNamara, General William Westmoreland, the man in charge of the US military operations in Vietnam in the 1960’s, the division and battalion commanders and the individual soldiers in full battle gears. Soldiery, from top to bottom, is guided by the laws of modern warfare specially those task to institute peace and freedom as the Military Review by Sargent (2005) noted, we simply cannot afford to collaterally alienate the people we are trying to influence, liberate, protect, or aid. Not everyone in the field can have the honor and pride of taking orders from the Commander-in-Chief in the form of a morale-boosting pep talk and encouragement. Under constant threat of dragging into the mayhem two of the biggest armies in the world, China and the USSR a nd the wounds of World War II and the Korean War still fresh from the minds of the American people, the United States went into employing the doctrine of limited war.