Fragging during Vietnam

Essay by reece1416College, UndergraduateB+, February 2008

download word file, 5 pages 5.0

The murder of American officers by their troops was an openly prodaimed goal in Vietnam. As one GI newspaper demanded, "Don't desert. Go to Vietnam, and kill your commanding officer." And they did. A new slang term arose to celebrate the execution of officers: fragging. The word came from the fragmentation grenade, which was the weapon of choice because the evidence was destroyed in the act. In every war, troops kill officers whose incompetence or recklessness threatens the lives of their men. But only in Vietnam did this become pervasive in combat situations and widespread in rear base camps. It was the most well-known aspect of the class struggle inside the army, directed not just at intolerable officers, but at "lifers" as a class. In the soldiers' revolt, it became accepted practice to paint political slogans on helmets. A popular helmet slogan summed up this mood: "Kill a non-com for Christ."

Fragging was the ransom the ground troops extracted for being used as live bait. No one knows how many officers were fragged, but after Tet it became epidemic. At least 800 to 1,000 fragging attempts using explosive devices were made. The army reported 126 fraggings in 1969, 271 in 1970 and 333 in 1971, when they stopped keeping count. But in that year, just in the American Division (of My Lai fame), one fragging per week took place. Some military estimates are that fraggings occurred at five times the official rate, while officers of the Judge Advocate General Corps believed that only 10 percent of fraggings were reported. These figures do not include officers who were shot in the back by their men and listed as wounded or killed in action. Most fraggings resulted in injuries, although "word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies...