Air Force Reviewing Petition to Restore Rank of Vietnam-Era General

This upset us quite a bit. He did the only responsible thing possible under those conditions and was made to pay the price. This was civilian micro-managing of things that they did not understand.

http://inss.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/693816/violating-reality-the-lavelle-affair-nixon-and-the-parsing-of-the-truth/

This was a very interesting article. The url above will take you to the case study mentioned. This truly was a situation involving interpretation of civilian-military guidance "liberally interpret the rules of engagement and hit the enemy harder." There were also promises of support should things go sideways. I believe that the following quotes sum up the entire affair fairly succinctly:
“In the final analysis, the Lavelle affair stands as a test of American civil-military relations
in the modern era of limited war. Lavelle remembered that military leaders throughout the war
were reluctant to confront their civilian masters because such actions might be perceived as
challenging the principle of civilian control of the military. Indeed, Lavelle recalled that Ryan’s
primary concern after General Wilson’s investigation was the violation of that principle:

“When Ryan called me back and fired me, his total discussion for the first hour or two was the Air Force had followed civilian instructions, had done what they were told; they hadn’t liked the job; they didn’t want to fight the war; they weren’t willing to fight the war that way, didn’t want to fight it that way, but there was no instance on record of the Air Force not doing exactly what our civilian betters had told us to do, and I [Lavelle] was the first one that cast a doubt on that.221”
Pgs 60-61

Leave war to the soldiers, sailors n airmen, politics to the rest