Tom Lasseter's reports from Iraq are frequently spiced with Vietnam references, and he really can't be accused of making this stuff up -- because he uses direct quotes from the soldiers themselves. From today's Inquirer:

"I don't think of this in terms of winning," said Col. Stephen Davis, who commands a task force of about 5,000 Marines in an area of 24,000 square miles in the western portion of Anbar.

Americans following the war from home are frustrated, he acknowledged.

"They want finality," Davis added. "They want a fight for the town and in the end the guy with the white hat wins."

That's unlikely in Anbar, Davis said. He expects the insurgency to last for years, hitting U.S. and Iraqi forces with quick ambushes, bombs and mines. Roadside bombs have hit vehicles Davis was riding in three times this year already.

"We understand counterinsurgency... . We paid for these lessons in blood in Vietnam," Davis said. "You'll get killed on a nice day when everything is quiet."

"If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for... . Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is."

Major Visconti is quoted again along with Marine Captain James Haunty in an accompanying piece titled "Inability to pin down foe severely stresses troops":

"I tell the guys not to lose their humanity over here, because it's easy to do," said Marine Capt. James Haunty, 27, of Columbus, Ohio. "I tell them not to turn into Col. Kurtz."

Haunty was referring to a character in the Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now, in which Kurtz has a mental breakdown and raises a private army to fight the war as he sees fit. That character was loosely based on one in Joseph Conrad's novella set in colonial Africa, Heart of Darkness.

Asked for an example of the kind of pressure that could cause Marines to crack, Haunty talked about the results of a car bomb: "I've picked up pieces of a friend, a Marine. I don't ever want to see that... again."

Sitting with his men at a morning meeting in the town of Hit, Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti said he had gotten a call the night before from a patrol requesting permission to shoot an Iraqi. The man, the patrol leader said, was out past curfew and appeared to be talking on a cell phone. Visconti intervened and told the patrol leader not to shoot.

Looking at his young lieutenants and sergeants, Visconti said, "If he's a bad guy, if he's running the [car bomb] factory, I'll put the gun in his mouth and kill him myself... but first let's get a... security check."

With a worried look, Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., continued: "There's killing bad guys and there's murdering civilians. Let's do the first and not the second. Murderers we're not, OK?"

(As I pointed out previously, Tom Lasseter's last piece seemed to be itching for that "love the smell of Napalm in the morning" quote.)

Still, as apocalyptic war quotes go, the above isn't bad:

I'll put the gun in his mouth and kill him myself.

Hey, the whole world is watching!

It might be, but what I want to know is why the whole world doesn't get to see the same Lasseter piece in its entirety. (At least, not if the whole world consists of Philadelphia.) The Yahoo version of the above story is except for the title, word for word the same, but the following additional paragraphs (in bold text) are added:

"It's a lot like it was in Vietnam, when the VC's (Viet Cong) would come out and pretend to be your friends," said Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Vidler, 23, of Syracuse, N.Y. "You're fighting an enemy on his home ground and you don't know who's who."

After a recent meeting with local tribal sheiks in Fallujah, Marine Lt. Col. Jim Haldeman walked to the back of the room and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

The gathering was supposed to be an exercise in civic empowerment but quickly degenerated into the Iraqis demanding that they get identification cards designating them as sheiks, which would bar local security forces from arresting them on the streets.

"All of these guys are f------ muj," Haldeman said, using the Arabic term for "holy warriors," mujahedeen, which American troops frequently use to describe the insurgents.

Haldeman took a deep drag from his cigarette.

"I've never been so nervous around a group of men," he said. Haldeman, 50, of West Kingston, R.I., later added that he was sure that a lot of the men in the crowd would have slit his throat if they'd had the opportunity.

Walking down an alley in Hit a few days earlier, stepping over pools of sewage, Lance Cpl. Greg Allen had watched the Marines around him. They were picking through garbage, tugging on wires and kicking boxes, looking for bombs and mines and hoping that if they found one it wouldn't go off.

Here's the heavily redacted Inquirer version:

Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Vidler, 23, of Syracuse, N.Y., said: "It's a lot like it was in Vietnam, when the VCs [Viet Cong] would come out and pretend to be your friends. You're fighting an enemy on his home ground, and you don't know who's who."

Walking down an alley in Hit recently, stepping over pools of sewage, Lance Cpl. Greg Allen watched the Marines around him. They were picking through garbage, tugging on wires and kicking boxes, looking for bombs and mines and hoping that if they found one it wouldn't go off.

Instead of referring to the enemy derisively as "terrorists" - as they used to - Marines and soldiers now give the insurgents a measure of respect by calling them "mujahideen," an Arabic term meaning "holy warrior" that became popular during the Afghan guerrilla campaign against the Soviet Union.

I can see why the "f---ing muj" reference was omitted from the other story.

I wonder what else is being omitted.

Certainly, nothing about Vietnam. Lasseter clinches both versions of his story with an artfully quoted rhetorical question drawn from another soldier:

"There's been reports of a .50 [caliber] sniper rifle out there. Maybe they called this in just to get us out here and take a shot. A .50-cal would go straight through our [body armor] plates," Coffey said, looking at the buildings across the river. "Why do I feel like I'm in a... Vietnam movie?"

MORE: Michael Yon, also on the ground with U.S. forces, calls terrorists "terrorists," and explains why.

MORE: Charles Johnson looks at this Lasseter story (which is the same as today's front page Inquirer Story), and the Vietnam meme, and characterizes Lasseter thusly:

the courageous “guerilla fighters” have a staunch ally in Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder

Thanks to LGF, once again I see that the Inky is redacting the Lasseter story (or else Lasseter is issuing different versions):

Here's the Wichita Eagle version:

"If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for... . Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is."

And here's the Inquirer again:

"If it were just killing people that would win this, it'd be easy," said Marine Maj. Nicholas Visconti, 35, of Brookfield, Conn., who served in southern Iraq in 2003. "But look at Vietnam. We killed millions, and they kept coming. It's a war of attrition. They're not trying to win. It's just like in Vietnam. They won a long, protracted fight that the American public did not have the stomach for. ... Killing people is not the answer; rebuilding the cities is."

Might it be worth asking Nicholas Visconti exactly what he meant?

MORE: Billmon at Whiskey Bar praises Lasseter for (among other things) avoiding "homoerotic envy":

Lasseter also doesn't paint the troops as the kind of heroic, larger-than-life action figures that make the fighting keyboarders drool with barely suppressed homoerotic envy. (Via James Wolcott.)

How is Lasseter avoiding an appeal to "homoerotic" elements? And who is writing these homoerotic war pieces? (Believe me, I know homoeroticism when I see it -- barely suppressed or not -- and I haven't seen it in war coverage anywhere.) If there's something homoerotic about combat, it's not spelled out just what that would be, either. (I'm barely able to suppress my suspicions that someone is projecting.)

All in all, homoeroticism avoidance seems like a very odd thing to praise Lasseter for.