objective: containment was, or nationbuilding,nor winning hearts and minds.nAnd in the Army this meant thatnwarriors were no longer required, exceptnin limited roles. Officers werenmanagers, and soldiers were only requirednto go through the motions ofndoing their jobs.nThis wasn’t Hackworth’s way. Thenbattlefield taught him some quick andnbloody lessons, some of which werensurprising — “Tuy Hoa proved to menonce and for all that paratroopers wereninnately unfit for guerrilla warfare,neven Phase II (battalion-and regimentsize)nguerrilla warfare. So were Marines.n. . . Both Airborne and Marinesnwere determined, but they had nonpatience; they were long on guts andnshort on brains.” Some were not sonsurprising — “But the main thing Inlearned at Tuy Hoa was that there wasnsimply no point in taking any objectivenyou had no intention of holding, nonpoint in using men when firepowerncould do the job.”nNot only did Hackworth absorbnthese lessons, but he learned hownproperly to apply them. He learned, innhis own words, “how to out G thenG” — how to defeat the guerrilla at hisnown game. And he did it repeatedly.nWhen Hackworth took over the 4thnBattalion, 39th Infantry, he inherited anunit in “total disintegration.” Therenwere rumors that Hackworth would benragged. But he kicked ass, made thenbattalion secure its position (savingnlives in the process), and not onlynturned the battalion around, butnturned it into “Hardcore” Battalionnand used it to out G the G, in one .nbattle taking 113 enemy dead, withnonly four Hardcore casualties — all justnslightly wounded. “We’d used theirnbook of tricks to fight them on thenground and at the time that was to ournadvantage. The VG could not be destroyednby conventional tactics employednby the average US battalion innVietnam. Only guerrilla tactics aug-‘nmented by US firepower (and ourntremendous air mobility when required)ncould defeat the enemy at anlow cost in men and material.” Butnthough Hackworth used these tacticsnwith stunning success, they were nevernadopted by other units.nIn his last assignment — as a seniornadviser to the 44th Special TacticalnZone, near the Gambodian border, inn38/CHRONICLESn1971—demoralization set in. Nevernnoted for his tact, Hackworth became anbit more dangerously insubordinate.n•He set up a massage parlor cum brothelnfor the men (he claimed it cut down onncases of venereal disease), disobeyednorders, misled his commanding officers,nand generally operated as “a lawnunto himself” All that could be forgiven.nFor all his criticisms of the Army’snconduct of the war, for all the waves henmade, he was now a full colonel, onntrack to become a two- or three-starngeneral. But, frustrated and disgusted,nHackworth decided to go public, andngiven the opportunity to express hisncriticisms to the press, did so. It was thenend of his career.nIt is difficult to pass judgment onnHackworth and decide whether or notnhe did the right thing. It is hard tonquibble with his own assessment:nJudge Gooney was probablynright when he suggested that Incould have had a greater impactnon military reform andnpreparedness had I stayed in thenArmy rather than standingnoutside and criticizing. On thenother hand, fine warriors likenHank Emerson and Hal Moore,nwho did stay in and fought fromnthe inside, were both turfed outnas three-stars by the clerks at thentop when they still had plentynmore to offer—Emerson, forncriticizing the priorities of thenArmy’s procurement system,nand Moore, for taking issue withnhaving women in the combatnarms and in certain Engineernand Artillery jobs with highncombat vulnerability, as well asnfor opposing the Army’snlowering of recruitmentnstandards (IQ and education) tonmeet recruitment goals. Manynother talented warriors lost thenday in similar circumstances; nondoubt had I stayed in, a similarnfate would have been mine.nThough Hackworth was not both annofficer and a gentleman, and thoughnmany—though not all — of his currentnpolitical ideas are wrong or muddle-headed,nit would be a mistake tonminimize the loss to American armsnrepresented by men like him beingnforced out of the Army. GeneralnCreighton Abrams told Nick Proffitt ofnnnNewsweek, shortly after it had printednits interview with Hackworth, thatn”Golonel Hackworth is the best battalionncommander I ever saw in thenUnited States Army. We cannot affordnto lose men of his caliber. If it continues,nthe damage to the Army will benirreparable.” I think General Abrams isnright.nH.W. Crocker III is editor at RegnerynGateway Publishers in Washington,nDC.nObjectionnSustainednby Gregory J. SullivannLaw and Literature: AnMisunderstood Relationnby Richard PosnernCambridge: Harvard University Press;n389 pp., $25.00nThe interdisciplinary field of lawnand literature is burgeoning, andnvarious academics are making grandiosenclaims. “The field envisages,” saysnRichard Posner, “a general confrontationnor comparison, for purposes ofnmutual illumination, of two vast bodiesnof texts, and of the techniques fornanalyzing each body.” The pretensionsnof this fledgling movement, however,nindicate that it is in desperate need of anskeptic; it has found one in the eruditenJudge Posner, who serves on the USnGourt of Appeals for the Seventh Gircuit.nIn his Law and Literature: AnMisunderstood Relation, Posner succeedsnin delimiting the sphere of lawnand literature, castigating its more extravagantnproponents for “paying insufficientnheed to the profound differencesnbetween law and literature. Inntheir hands literary theory, or particularnworks of literature, are contorted tonmake literature seem relevant to law,nand law is contorted to make it seemncontinuous with literature.”nPosner begins with an examinationnof what seems to be one of the morensalient links between law and literaturen— namely, revenge. “Vengeance,” hennotes, “is either the earliest stage of lawnor an important part of the prehistorynof law.” In fact, Posner says that “mostn