One Tough Little General

Stephan Miller of the Wall Street Journal wrote a wonderful remembrance Saturday of 5'4" Marine General Victor Krulak, who commanded 80,000 Marines in Vietnam. Krulak disagreed with General Westmoreland's big battle strategy, advocating instead a strategy of winning the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese people with localized military efforts, similar to what we have done in Iraq.

General Krulak, though, did not shy away from tough combat. Noticing the Japanese strategy in World War II of using snipers to climb trees and kill Americans in the jungles of the South Pacific, Krulak devised a plan to place razor blades in the hand holds of trees. Japanese snipers would climb about ten feet up the trees, then fall to the ground. While they were examining their hands, the Marines would shoot them.

General Krulak was rescued by JFK in the South Pacific. They later celebrated in the White House with a bottle of whiskey. Krulak was also the man who insisted that the allied forces develop the boxy crafts that ferried men and materiel from boats to beaches in World War II.

LBJ didn't like General Krulak. That is recommendation enough for me! Krulak died recently at the age of 95.