[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10] [Senate] [Pages 13772-13773] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]REMEMBERING BRIGADIER GENERAL DOUGLAS KINNARD Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to retired BG Douglas Kinnard, a former University of Vermont professor and retired general officer who passed away on July 29 of this year at the age of 91. Long before I came to know General Kinnard, he had built a reputation as a wise and thoughtful soldier. Respected for his leadership and integrity on and off the battlefield, he honorably served our country in three wars, including two tours in Vietnam, despite his misgivings about American strategy and involvement in the conflict. Having graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on D-day during World War II, Douglas Kinnard rose to the rank of brigadier general before retiring from the Army to pursue his doctor of philosophy at Princeton University. It is no surprise given his intellect and objectivity that when he went searching for his first faculty job, he found a home at the University of Vermont. Those who have worked with General Kinnard have praised him as an imposing figure that was ``always open and fair'' and an ``enjoyable colleague'' who taught his students about real patriotism from his own experience. I am grateful that the University of Vermont was able to benefit from the many gifts General Kinnard brought with him to his work in Burlington and throughout the country. Marcelle and I [[Page 13773]] send our condolences to his wife Wade and son Frederick. I will miss his steady counsel, which he provided me throughout my Senate career. The many soldiers, students, and colleagues who were fortunate to have known him throughout his long and industrious life will not soon forget his impact. The Burlington Free Press recently paid tribute to General Kinnard and his many contributions. I ask unanimous consent that a recent Free Press article entitled ``Remembering UVM prof., ex-Army general Douglas Kinnard'' be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From the Burlington Free Press, Aug. 7, 2013] The Two Accomplished Careers of Douglas Kinnard, 1921-2013 (By Tim Johnson) In 1977, midway through his faculty career at the University of Vermont, ex-Army man Douglas Kinnard was invited to appear on ``Good Morning America'' to talk about the Vietnam War with his former commanding officer, William Westmoreland. The appearance preceded the publication of Kinnard's book, ``The War Managers,'' which drew on a detailed survey Kinnard had sent to all the American generals in Vietnam in 1974, a year before U.S. forces finally withdrew. The survey revealed, among other things, that about 70 percent of the generals thought the war's objectives were unclear, and that more than half thought the war shouldn't have been fought with American troops. Mark Stoler, a UVM historian who knew Kinnard, recalls watching the show and thinking that Westmoreland looked uncomfortable while Kinnard remained unruffled. ``He just sat there, smiling,'' said Stoler, who recalled that Kinnard had ``an incredibly sharp mind'' and was eminently clear-headed about that controversial episode in American military history. Kinnard, who died of pneumonia last week in Pennsylvania at age 91, spent about a decade in UVM's Political Science Department during the 70s and 80s, in what for him was a second career following 26 years as an Army officer and service in three wars. He won the respect of his UVM peers partly because of his intellect: He did, after all, complete his Ph.D. work at Princeton in just three years, following his retirement in 1970 as a brigadier general. ``Very capable, very serious,'' said Garrison Nelson, professor of political science. ``A remarkably well-organized guy. A good teacher and a relatively high grader, as I recall. I have very fond memories of Doug.'' Kinnard was also prolific. His first book on President Eisenhower, an adaptation of his doctoral thesis, was also published in 1977. ``The Secretary of Defense'' also came out during his UVM tenure, in 1980, and he wrote about Vietnam again later in ``The Certain Trumpet: Maxwell Taylor and the American Experience in Vietnam.'' Among Kinnard's eight books were two memoirs, the first of which details his life's remarkably humble beginnings. ``Abandoned'' by a broken family at age 4 and placed in an orphanage in Paterson, N.J., he was moved into a boarding house after several months and raised by an extended Catholic family. ``He had to take care of himself,'' said his son, Frederick Kinnard, in a phone interview. ``He was an adult before age 5. He lived with an old Irish spinster above a saloon.'' Kinnard made his way through Paterson's St. Joseph Grammar School and Eastside High, became an Eagle Scout, and eventually won an appointment to West Point. He didn't aspire to be a soldier, he told an interviewer in 1977, but chose West Point partly because it was close to home. ``It was a good way to go to college,'' he said. ``I really wasn't thinking about a military career.'' The Army became his career, however, with a series of promotions. He graduated on June 6, 1944--D Day--and was dispatched to Europe where, as an artillery lieutenant and forward observer, he was awarded the Bronze Star for Heroic Achievement. During the Korean War, he served in an artillery unit, and later was assigned to the Pentagon and to NATO headquarters in France. Kinnard did two tours in Vietnam. The first, beginning in 1966, was as chief of operations analysis under Gen. Westmoreland. When he returned to the United States he was promoted to brigadier general, but he was having doubts about the war and mulling a career in academia. Of the war, he told an interviewer for the Princeton Independent in 2004: ``The more I dealt with [the war and U.S. strategy], the more skeptical I became, especially about the assumption underpinning [General] Westmoreland's and American strategy: that if we punished the enemy enough, he would negotiate an end favorable to us. I was convinced that we really did not understand the enemy or his motivations, or even his strategy. The premise that our punishment would bring us victory was to build a strategy on a house of cards.'' Kinnard wanted to retire but the Army refused and sent him to Vietnam again, in 1969, this time commanding artillerymen. The Independent interviewer asked him how he felt about being sent back to Vietnam, given his doubts about the war. ``You must understand that I had already applied for retirement, and that was turned down,'' he said. ``So when the decision was made that I would definitely go back, then I had to concern myself with my job and not worry about my personal feelings. As Commanding General of Force Artillery, I commanded eight thousand troops in sixty firebases from the Cambodian border to the South China Sea. I had to visit those people daily and get involved in the planning, so I had to toss my personal feelings--gone! Nothing can stand in the way of the welfare of your troops. Your job is to defeat the enemy; your job is to take care of your troops and keep your casualties down. And that's what I did.'' Later in that tour he served as chief of staff of the Second Field Force and aided in planning of the Cambodian incursion of 1970, which incited fierce protests in the United States. The U.S. bombing of Cambodia that had preceded that operation was unknown to him, he said, as it was to the American public. After he returned home he retired and headed to Princeton as a 48-year-old graduate student. He didn't conceal his military background but didn't advertise it either. When he started looking for a faculty job, he impressed his interviewers at the University of Vermont. ``He was an imposing presence,'' said Stoler, who shared with Kinnard a scholarly interest in military history. ``I remember Professor Kinnard as a very professional and enjoyable colleague,'' said Frank Bryan, who retired from UVM recently as a political science professor. ``Our areas of expertise were different, of course, but I can say he was a very good `department citizen'--always open and fair and collegial.'' Nancy Viens was Kinnard's secretary at UVM for two years. She typed ``The War Managers'' for him. In the beginning, she said, ``I was very intimidated about working for a 6-foot general from the Army. I'd signed (anti- war) protest petitions and all that.'' He surprised her, though, telling her, ``I'm not your average run-of-the-mill general.'' ``He turned out to be one of the nicest people I've ever known,'' she said, adding that he kept in touch with her for years after they both left UVM. Of the Vietnam War debates, she said, ``He had sympathy for both sides. He did his job as a general and then he got out.'' In the Independent interview, Kinnard was asked what he taught UVM students about the Vietnam War. ``I taught them that it was a war that should not have been fought,'' he said. ``It should not have gone past the advisory effort. I traced for them all the presidential decisions that were made, going from Truman all the way up through Nixon, and showed how each one led to another. But those decisions were made at political levels; the generals had no part in them.'' He acknowledged that patriotism could take many forms, and that the war opponents had done the country ``a great service.'' Following their joint appearance on ``Good Morning America,'' Kinnard told the Independent interviewer, Westmoreland gave him a ride to Laguardia Airport, and Kinnard gave Westmoreland a copy of his book. ``Well, God, he called me for a whole week, asking, `Who said this?' and `Who said that?''' Kinnard recalled. ``I said, I can't tell you that, General Westmoreland,' because I had promised the respondents anonymity. I went away to Maine for a week, and the book arrived in the mail with his notes written on damn near every page.'' After Kinnard left UVM, he continued lecturing and writing, holding positions at the University of Oklahoma, Naval War College, National Defense University and University of Richmond. In 1994, President Clinton appointed him to the American Battle Monuments Commission and he helped plan the World War II memorial on the National Mall. ``He wasn't a retiring type,'' Frederick Kinnard said. ``Doug Kinnard had the wonderful facility of being highly knowledgeable and impeccably honest,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in an email. ``I've relied on his good judgment for years. Marcelle and I were sorry to learn of his passing and send condolences to his family.'' Besides his son, Douglas Kinnard is survived by his wife, Wade Tyree Kinnard. He will be buried at West Point Aug. 15. ____________________