1968 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ADVISE & DISSENT

As a regular Army officer, I was assigned to the war zone in Vietnam to advise the Army of Vietnam with my knowledge of the large projectile 155 mm artillery armament. I was to be a problem solver and assist them so that they could fight their war without the use of U.S forces, and win their trust and the hearts and minds of the civilian population so they could live free of fear and violence. I left the country disillusioned with the military and political leadership that was not dedicated to solving the peasants' concerns, but more interested in how they could get some of the money the U.S. was giving their country.

As a regular Army officer, I was assigned to the war zone in Vietnam to advise the Army of Vietnam with my knowledge of the large projectile 155 mm artillery armament. I was to be a problem solver and assist them so that they could fight their war without the use of U.S forces, and win their trust and the hearts and minds of the civilian population so they could live free of fear and violence. I left the country disillusioned with the military and political leadership that was not dedicated to solving the peasants' concerns, but more interested in how they could get some of the money the U.S. was giving their country

Thomas Casey graduated from West Point in 1963. He was assigned to a 155 mm artillery unit in Germany for three years then attended the advanced Artillery course at Forts Sill and Bliss before completing the Vietnamese language course at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. He arrived in Vietnam in 1967 and was assigned as the senior advisor to the Vietnamese Army !V Corps 155mm artillery support unit in Binh Thuy where he spent his year assisting the Army and the civilian population in their effort to win their own conflict with the insurgency on their own terms, not win their war for them. He left Vietnam at the end of 1968 for a final Army assignment as an assistant professor of ROTC at Stanford where he was promoted to major prior to leaving the service and going into the business world brokering commercial real estate. He retired in 1989 after serious injuries from an automobile accident.