Under date 4/16/05 in an article by Eliot Weinberger titled ?What I
Heard About Iraq,? in the ?Fellowship Magazine? of the Fellowship of
Reconciliation, appears the following one-line paragraph:

?I heard Colonel David Hackworth say: ?Hey diddle diddle, it's
straight up the middle!?"
	
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0416-20.htm
http://www.forusa.org/fellowship/default.html

I have searched Col.Hackworth?s web site, Soldiers for The Truth, with
its search engine and have found only one mention of this phrase.

?The people running this war must be the biggest fools since the ?hey
diddle diddle straight up the middle? crowd in Vietnam.?
 http://www.sftt.us/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?command=viewone&id=72&database=Hacks%20Target%20Feedback%202004%2edb

Can you find any reference to Col Hackworth?s having said this himself?

Is this phrase quoted somewhere in connection with Vietnam?

Dear chatnoirseul,

Colonel David H. Hackworth (ret.) has indeed used almost exactly that
expression in connection with U.S. military operations in Iraq. The
variant he used was: "high diddle diddle right up the middle".

On 22 March 2003, Col. Hackworth was a guest on "Larry King Live -
Strike on Iraq" on CNN, commenting on the military operations going on
at that time. According to the transcript of that broadcast, Col.
Hackworth said the following:

"KING: And, David Hackworth, anything happen today to change your view
of last night that this is about a 30-day thing?

COL. DAVID HACKWORTH, U.S. ARMY (RET): It's D plus four, fourth day
into the war. The 3rd Mech Division, U.S. Army's 3rd Mech is going
high diddle diddle right up the middle breaking all kinds of track
records.
I think the Marine Corps will soon break out of Basr and join them on
their flank and also race to Baghdad. The closer we get to Baghdad, I
think the stiffer the resistance will go, that is if leadership is
still in position, and the tougher the fight may go, especially if the
Republican Guard decides to slug it out. But for now it's going, you
couldn't ask for a better plan and it's being executed brilliantly."

The transcript also shows that Vietnam was mentioned six times during
that broadcast, but in no direct connection to Col. Hackworth's quote.

Here is the full original CNN transcript of "Larry King Live - Strike
on Iraq" from 22 March 2003:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/22/lkl.00.html


Hope this is what you were looking for!
Regards,
Scriptor




Search terms used:
Hackworth "diddle diddle"
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&newwindow=1&c2coff=1&q=Hackworth+%22diddle+diddle%22&btnG=Suche&meta=

---

Request for Answer Clarification by chatnoirseul-ga on 22 Apr 2005 21:47 PDT

Scriptor's answer was dead on and quick.  I hoped h/she would also
find if the "Hey diddle..." etc could be linked to the Vietnam period
as well, as suggested by the comment on the SFTT site noted in my
first question

Thanks

chatnoirseul/Sam

---

Clarification of Answer by scriptor-ga on 23 Apr 2005 04:24 PDT

Col. Hackworth did also use those words in direct connection with U.S.
military tactics in the Vietnam War. In an interview with the Naval
Institute's magazine "Proceedings", in December 2002, he said:

"In Vietnam, we paid such an incredible price for the business of
high-diddle-diddle, right-up-the-middle, when there was a smarter way
of doing it."

You can find the interview here, on Col. Hackworth's website:
http://hackworth.com/article12192002z.html

So as far as it concerns Col. Hackworth, that phrase is indeed linked
with the Vietnam War.

Regards,
Scriptor

Excellent!