William Childs Westmoreland, who died last Monday at the Bishop Gadsden retirement home, was a gracious and consummate gentleman of the old school. A retired army general, he served his country honorably and well in three wars. His name, however, will be associated always with only one of those wars -- Vietnam. In January 1988, General Westmoreland granted me a lengthy interview at his Charleston Tradd Street home. I was then doing research for my book "From the Rivers to the Sea," a history of the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. I probed for insights that only he, as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam during the critical period 1964-68 and later as the U.S. Army chief of staff (1968-72) could give. I've recently reviewed that interview and find that much of what he had to say then has implications for the war in Iraq today.

Westmoreland commanded in Vietnam a force that peaked at some 550,000 men, more than four times the number now serving in Iraq. Selective Service (the draft) kept the ranks filled, though a liberal deferment policy for those pursuing higher education (or seeking to avoid military service) meant that a disproportionate number of those inducted were, as Sen. Edward Kennedy famously put it, "the poor, the disadvantaged, and the black." It of course went far beyond that. In the later stages of the war, some 400,000 "Category 4" recruits were taken in, over the military's objection. They were those whose mental and/or moral attributes ordinarily would have rendered them ineligible for service. Westmoreland said that perhaps only two in ten were trainable; the rest created only problems. Drug use in his army became rampant. "Fragging" entered the language of Vietnam. At sea there were what in other times would have been declared mutinies.

Then, as now, America's armed forces were stretched to the breaking point. Vietnam was not the nation's only concern. The Soviet Union threatened stability in Europe. North Korea seized a United States naval vessel, USS Pueblo, on the high seas -- clearly an act of war that Washington chose largely to ignore. Castro remained an irritant in the Caribbean, a meddler in Central and South America. At home, opposition to the war and the civil rights movement merged and turned violent. America's inner cities burned. With the exception of a very few specialized units, U.S. reserve forces were not mobilized for Vietnam service. I asked the general why this was so. He said it was his belief that in the absence of a clear plan for victory, a timetable, that a reserve call-up would have been counter-productive. Barring a national emergency, he said, you cannot expect reservists to serve for an indefinite period in a war seemingly without end, a war not fully supported by the people at home.

And why did the Vietnam war become so unpopular? He blamed much of it on the media, and cited specifically reporting on the 1968 Tet offensive. In his 1976 book, "A Soldier Reports," he had written: "No one to my knowledge foresaw that, in terms of public opinion, press and television would transform what was undeniably a catastrophic military defeat for the enemy into a presumed debacle for Americans and South Vietnamese. ..." He considered those reporting the war, with but few exceptions, "second-raters" who spent much of their time drinking in Saigon bars, seldom writing about positive things that happened every day.

He was sharply critical of the "whiz kid" mentality so prevalent in the Pentagon civilian staff assembled by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. Micro-management of the war by Washington was one of the heaviest crosses he had to bear. (When I later interviewed Adm. Thomas Moorer, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs as the war unwound, I heard much the same criticism. The whiz kids, Moorer said, were arrogant, clearly "educated beyond their competence.")

I don't believe Gen. Westmoreland ever wrote or spoke much about the war our country is fighting today. The infirmities of age overtook him some time before his death.

I believe he would have been concerned, though, about the current state of his beloved army, how well it is being supported both materially and morally, how hard recruiters are having to work to meet quotas, how damaging the war has been to the Army Reserve and National Guard. I worry about these things, too.

On his June 30, 1972, retirement from the army, he said the following: "As I look back on my life, I thank God for the opportunity that was given to me to be a soldier. If given that opportunity again, I would with the same pride and even greater humility raise my hand and take once again the soldier's oath."

After leaving the army, he worked tirelessly on behalf of those who had shared with him service in America's longest and most unpopular war. He was a great and good man. He was a soldier.