He starts with the decay of morale and discipline in the late stages of the Vietnam War, and the prolonged process of restoring them after it. The restructuring of the Army that placed crucial support functions in Reserve units, without the support of which the combat units or the regular Army would not be able to fight effectively, began just as the war was ending. The 1970s also saw a flowering within the military of thought about strategy, doctrine, and military history. There was a general trend to more serious and realistic training for combat. More disturbing has been the gap separating the military from civilian society in the decades after Vietnam.
Military men tend to see the defeat in Vietnam as having been caused by American civilians.
There was also a lingering suspicion of top civilian policymakers, fueled by a belief that top military leaders submitted too easily to disastrous presidential policies during the Vietnam War. Herring describes how General Colin Powell, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early 1990s, vigorously resisted presidential policies he considered unsound. Colin Powell has now become Secretary of State. The war of course had a far greater impact on Vietnam than on the United States. It needs to stress the past in this way because its exercise of power since 1975 has been marred by too much corruption and economic mismanagement.