Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Long Life, Longer Regrets
Posted By Jerre Wroble on July 7, 2009, 1:06 AM
[image-1] He lived to be 93 and died in his sleep. Robert Strange McNamara, pictured right, the "efficiency expert" who infused the U.S. Department of Defense with private-sector sensibilities and became infamous among my generation for escalating the Vietnam War, enjoyed a long and comfortable life. He had time to study philosophy and business, marry, have children, work his way up to the top at Ford Motor Company, serve on two president's cabinets as Secretary of Defense, head up the World Bank, write his memoirs, reflect on his role in the Vietnam conflict, and finally admit the loss of life in Vietnam had been a terrible mistake in the award-winning documentary called The Fog of War, a film that depicted his 11 lessons.
Meanwhile, 58,000 members of the U.S. armed forces and several million Vietnamese, both military and civilian were not so lucky. Their lives were cut violently short.
Maybe one of the reasons he put off dying was having to face them all on the other side.
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