(NOTE: You might be interested to read a somewhat longer discussion of Powell, "Powell Media Mania" (1996), by Robert Parry and Norman Solomon. Not required, but informative).

Here are a few extracts from Gen. Colin Powell's memoir concerning his service in the Vietnam War as a Captain:

"I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male. If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. but an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen, Lieutenant Colonel Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong."

(Powell, My American Journey, p. 144)

And another one:

"Helicopters delivered fifty-five-gallon drums of a chemical herbicide to us, a forerunner of Agent Orange. From the drums, we filled two-and-a-half-gallon hand-pumped Hudson sprayers, which looked like fire extinguishers. Within minutes after we sprayed, the plants began to turn brown and wither." "Why were we torching houses and destroying crops? Ho Chi Minh had said the people were like the sea in which his guerrillas swam. Our problem was to distinguish friendly or at least neutral fish from the VC swimming alongside. We tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic or war, what differnt did it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death?"

Please write 300 words discussing these passages and the issues they raise, drawing upon what you have read in this class and your own thinking (of course). Email them to me and to your group.