Air Strike: When we called in fixed-wing F-4 Phantom jets to redevelop an area.
AK-47: The main weapon of the Viet Cong (VC) and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).
Arc Light: A B-52 bombing mission. Everyone near the Ho Chi Minh Trail gets a free 35-foot wide hole in their backyard for a swimming pool.
ARTY: Artillery. We flew into some on my first mission run by the ARVN without III MAF Headquarters approval.
ARVN: The Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. Coward dogs.
AWOL: Absent Without Leave. This happened to PFC Punchy the Monkey.
BAR: Browning Automatic Rifle. .30-caliber with a 20-round magazine and bipods. A very heavy but extremely accurate weapon. Usually too heavy for the average ARVN soldier to carry, so they shit-canned it or threw it away. A prized weapon for your local VC neighbors.
Beaucoup: French for “much” or “many.” “Beaucoup dinky dow”: very crazy.
Bird Dog: A small Piper Cub observation plane. Flown by some of the bravest young men I ever had the privilege to meet.
Black Pajamas: Typical black outfit that all the ’Nam natives wore, especially the Viet Cong guerrillas. Also called PJs.
Blood Trail: Blood drops left by wounded enemy. Grunts usually followed a blood trail and would find a dead zip.
Body Bags: Plastic zippered bags for fallen warriors. The Marines usually did not have any. You got wrapped up in your poncho.
Boondocks: The jungle beyond your base, where the grunts carried out their operations.
Boot: Slang for a Marine in Parris Island.
Bush: See “Boondocks.”
Buy the Farm: To croak in combat. To get killed.
C-130: A very dependable cargo plane used to carry men, vehicles and supplies.
C-Rations: Combat field rations. Identified B-1, B-2, B-3 and B-4. The worst was B-4, ham and lima beans. When you opened a can with your P-38 can opener, the smell knocked you down. Even the gooks wouldn’t eat the cans of B-4 we threw to them.
Car-15: Carbine version of the M-16 rifle. From about 1956 to 1967, Marines saw these mostly in the movies. Except for a few grunt outfits, Marines still used M-14s.
Charlie: GI slang for Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army soldiers. Also called Victor Charlies, gooks, slant eyes, zips, dinks, slope heads, and zipper heads.
Cherry: New guy in your outfit, also known as a FNG, Fucking New Guy.
Cherry San: A virgin who usually got a free tune up if Mama San believed his story.
ChiCom: Chinese Communist-supplied weapons such as the AK-47 and SKS carbines.
Chinook: CH-47 troop transportation chopper, armed with .50-caliber machine guns manned by the gunner on one side and the crew chief on the other side.
CIDG: Civilian Irregular Defense Group. We gave them surplus M-1 rifles and M-1 carbines to defend their villages. Since the VC and the CIDG lived in the same village complex, the CIDG dropped their weapons and ran, or joined up with their VC neighbors when the shit hit the fan.
Chopper Pad: A big H marked on the top of a hill or landing zone where choppers landed with supplies.
Chow Hall: Same as mess hall.
Clacker or Clicker: Used to manually set off a Claymore mine.
Claymore Mine: A mine shaped like a truck brake lining pad filled with hundreds of 00 buck-shot, with small legs with points to stick in the ground, and set off by a trip wire or a clicker from your bunker. Used by the Army and Marines to kill zips before they attacked your bunker. Awesome firepower!
CO: Commanding Officer.
Cockadau: GI slang for VC word “to kill.” The Marines would yell, “Cockadau VCs!”
Concertina Wire: Barbed wire that is rolled out along the ground to stop the enemy. Usually combined with a minefield.
Contact: When you run into the enemy.
CP: Command Post.
CS: Tear gas pumped into VC tunnels.
Dee-Dee: Vietnamese for “beat feet and run.”
Det Cord: Detonation Cord. Used to detonate a C-4 charge or blow up a land mine.
DI: Drill Instructor. Your personal God for twelve weeks of hell in Parris Island.
Dink: GI slang for the enemy. See “Charlie.”
DMZ: Demilitarized Zone. The very top of I-Corps.
Double Canopy: Jungle or forest with two layers of overhead vegetation.
Deuce-and-a-Half: A two-and-a-half-ton heavy truck used to carry Marines and supplies.
Dust: To kill with a machine gun. Slang term used by helicopter gunners and crew chiefs. When you hit a zip with 1/2 of a belt of M-60 7.62 NATO rounds, dust came out of their black pajamas.
E-1: A Private, a nobody boot.
E-2: Private First Class. One stripe on sleeve.
E-3: Lance Corporal. One stripe with crossed bee-bee guns. Your buddy who just became God and got promoted to boss you around.
E-4: Corporal. Two stripes. You are now a non-commissioned officer. People have to call you Corporal, plus your family name.
E-5: Sergeant. Three stripes. A born leader. You have finally reached a supervisory position where you can yell at your Corporals to do a job.
E-6: Staff Sergeant. Three stripes with a bottom stripe that you signed for another four years to get. Thus, the first hash mark on your uniform.
E-7: Gunny Sergeant. Three stripes with two bottom strips. Usually have eight to fourteen years in the Corps. A person who cannot be bullshitted.
E-8: First Sergeant, or Top Sergeant. Runs the outfit. You never want to cross your First Sergeant, the top man who hands out the shit details.
E-9: Sergeant Major. Usually has 20 years in and is in charge of all enlisted personnel on a base. The closest thing to God you will ever see on Earth.
EM Club: Enlisted men’s club or bar. Sergeants E-5 had their own club also called “slop chute” by Lifers.
FAC: Forward Air Controller. Air Force spotter plane that coordinates air strikes and artillery for ground units.
Firefight: When a Marine grunt outfit gets into a shoot-out with the gooks.
Flak Jacket: A vest worn to protect your chest from shrapnel. Will not stop a bullet.
FNG: Fucking New Guy.
FO: Forward Observer. A pilot attached to a grunt outfit to coordinate close air support.
Frags: Slang for M-26 fragmentation grenades.
Friendly Fire: When your own troops shoot at you by mistake. Friendly fire kills you just as dead as unfriendly fire.
G-2: Division Intelligence section. In the Air Wing, all the squadron S-2 sections reported their daily intelligence to Wing G-2 at III MAF Headquarters in Da Nang.
Gook: Slang for VC and NVA. See “Dink.” All I heard in twelve weeks of boot camp at Parris Island was, “We have to kill gooks.”
Gung Ho: From Chinese, meaning “to work together.” Also, a ball-breaking Marine who will get himself or you killed before your time. An overzealous First Lieutenant in a grunt outfit.
Gunship: An armed UH-IE attack helicopter. The only way to fly.
Grease: To kill. A slang term used by the grunts.
Grease Gun: .45-caliber submachine gun issued only to E-6 and above in the Air Wing.
Green Beret: A member of the US Army Special Forces. The best warriors the US ever had.
Grunts: Slang for Marine foot soldier. MOS-0311/Infantry. H&I: Harassment and Interdiction artillery fire to keep the gooks on the move.
HE: High Explosive. We usually used these in our 2.75 rocket pods.
Head: Slang for toilet or shithouse.
Ho Chi Minh Trail: An endless network of roads and trails running from North Vietnam down the border through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam. The average Marine had no idea this trail had trucks and thousands of NVA on it. We all thought it was a small jungle trail with gooks riding bicycles down it with a couple mortar rounds on their back.
Hootch: Slang for barracks or living quarters.
Horn: Radio or telephone handset.
Hot LZ: A landing zone under enemy
fire. Usually the Marines are pinned down and gunships are called in to neutralize the enemy fire.
HQ: Headquarters. III MAF Headquarters located at Da Nang Air Base.
Huey: The Bell Helicopter Company UH series. No better or more dependable helicopter was ever built. It saved my life and brought me home for two years straight.
Hump: To carry all your shit up and down the countryside. A grunt term.
I-Corps: The top part of South Vietnam nearest the DMZ. Also called Marineland. II, III and IV Corps followed beneath it, IV-Corps being southernmost.
Incoming: When the enemy shoots mortar rounds into your area.
Indian Country: An area controlled by the VC/NVA. A free kill zone. You are allowed to shoot anything that moves.
Jarhead: Slang word used by the Navy to describe a US Marine with a Marine haircut on the sides.
K-bar: A great Marine Corps survival knife. Sharp as shit for cutting zips’ throats. An excellent throwing knife with a blood-grip handle.
Khmer: Cambodian. They look a little better fed than your standard 327 VC. Thus we wasted more machine gun rounds on them.
Khmer Rouge: Cambodian Communists who wore a checkered scarf around their neck. Some real bad asses, worse than VC and NVA put together. When we crossed the border into Cambodia we always wasted a complete 100-round belt to send these devils to hell.
KIA: Killed In Action.
Kid Carson Scouts: Enemy soldiers who came over to our side and worked with our grunt units.
Klick: One kilometer. Sometimes spelled Click.
LBJ: President Lyndon Baines Johnson. We were all LBJ’s hired guns.
Lifer: A Marine E-7 Gunny Sergeant with over 15 years in the Marines. They are extremely hard to bullshit. How do you find a Lifer in the jungle? Make a noise that sounds like a benefit!
LP: Listening Post. An outpost beyond your wire and minefield. Manned by one or two very brave Marines with the purpose of detecting approaching enemy before they attack your position.
LST: Landing Ship Tank. A long, ocean-going, flat-bottomed ship that carries trucks, tanks, cargo, men, and everything else you need for a good war. The front doors open and you simply drive out. I went to ’Nam from Okinawa on LST-1122.
LZ: Landing Zone. A cleared-out area where a helicopter can land. Marine engineers used chain saws to clear out tops of mountains. Sometimes Seabees brought in a bulldozer, but it depended on the size of the outpost.
M-14: The hard-hitting standard issue weapon of the Marines from 1965 to 1967 in Vietnam. A man hit by a 7.62 round sank like a broken balloon.
M-16: A fast-shooting, smaller caliber 5.56 semi-/full automatic rifle that everyone used after 1967. When you hit a gook with this smaller round, he really didn’t know he was dead for about a minute, then he dropped like a bad habit. The smaller bullets reached supersonic speed and tore the enemy into soup sandwiches.
M-60: A 7.62-caliber light machine gun modeled after the German MG-42 from World War II. If you keep it clean, it never will let you down.
M-79: A single-shot 40mm grenade launcher. A good grenadier could get a zip at 300 yards out. The Marine grunts were experts with this weapon.
MAC-V: Military Assistance and Command Vietnam. They ran the war from Saigon.
Main Force: A full-time Viet Cong unit out to kill Marines, as opposed to local village Viet Cong individuals.
Marine Force Recon: The baddest Marines of all, who did long-range reconnaissance. We always got into great shoot-outs rescuing Recon units.
Med-Evac: Medical Evacuation Helicopters. Usually a CH-34 flown by extremely brave pilots who took a lot of fire coming and going from hot LZs.
MIA: Missing In Action.
Montagnard: The tribal hill people of Vietnam who ate all our pet dogs from Marble Mountain. The Green Berets taught them how to wear Fruit of the Loom underwear and how to shoot an M-16 rifle. To the Marines at Marble Mountain they were dog-eating savages and heathen devils headed for hell. They did a good job for the Green Berets. They were excellent fighters, but just had terrible eating habits.
MOS: Military Occupation Skill. Every Marine out of boot camp is a 0311 grunt. Then you go to a school and get a secondary MOS. 0331 Machine Gunner was my secondary MOS when I was a Huey gunner.
MP: Military Police. Usually muscle-beach idiots who spend too much time in the gym. Never to be found when the shooting starts. Too busy guarding whorehouses trying to catch Marine customers. A total waste of time in a war zone.
MPC: Military Payment Certificates. Paper money issued to US military personnel in ’Nam. Similar in appearance to Monopoly money. Mustang: An enlisted man who wins a commission. Usually well liked by the enlisted men and hated by the officer set, they were treated poorly by Second and First Lieutenants. The backbone of the Marine Corps.
NCO: Non-Commissioned Officer. E-4 Corporal and above.
Number One: The best. As in: “Marine, you number one!”
Number Ten: The worst. As in: “Marine, you number ten. You die!”
Nungs: Vietnamese troops of Chinese extraction hired by the US Special Forces. The best and finest fighting men in Vietnam. Paid in gold by the CIA for each VC/NVA ear turned in.
Nuoc Mam: A stinking fish sauce that smelled like five dead cats. Marines never would even taste it, but Army guys in Saigon liked it.
NVA: North Vietnamese Army. They were fully equipped, wore uniforms and had plenty of ammo. They fought to the end and didn’t run like local VC. When you wiped out a tree line of NVAs you felt proud because it was an even fight. Hot lead was flying both ways.
O-I Bird Dog: The brave Army guys who flew Piper Cubs looking for the VC/NVAs at tree top level. Often shot down and executed on the spot.
OP: Observation Post. An outpost on top of a hill or knoll used to observe enemy activity. The most famous was the “Rock Pile” in northern I-Corps.
P-38: Not a 9mm German automatic pistol, but a manual can opener, usually worn around your neck with your dog tags.
PFC: One rank above a Private, one stripe.
Piasters: South Vietnamese money.
Pith Helmet: A light tropical helmet worn by NVA soldiers.
Pogue: A person in the rear with the gear, as in “office pogue.”
Point Man: The Marine who goes first in a patrol. The 5th Marines had an American Indian point man, who walked right up to two NVA soldiers having a late lunch and shot them pointblank dead.
PRC-10: Prick ten. A standard Marine Corps issue radio.
Puff the Magic Dragon: AC-47 or AC-119 aircraft armed with mini-guns that rained fire on VC/NVAs trying to overrun a US position.
Punji Stakes: Sharpened bamboo stakes with shit smeared on them. Designed to go through your foot.
Purple Heart: An award for getting wounded in combat.
PX: Post Exchange. Da Nang had a huge one where everyone went.
R&R: Rest and Relaxation. A five-day holiday for combat personnel. Reaction Force: A special unit that saved downed helicopters and their crews.
RPD: A Soviet-bloc light machine gun.
RPG: A Soviet-supplied, front-loaded, anti-tank rocket launcher used by the gooks against bunkers, armor, grunts and helicopters. The zip I cut in half was about ready to blow up a LZ with one.
Sack: A Marine Corps term for bed, rack or bunk.
Saddle Up: Prepare to move out on patrol with one round locked and loaded.
Salt: A Marine who has been in the Corps for a long time, or in combat and has the thousand-mile stare.
Sappers: VC or NVA who crawled through your defenses and barbed wire to detonate an explosive charge.
Satchel Charge: Explosive charge usually carried in a canvas bag across the chest and activated by a pull cord. A favorite weapon of a sapper.
Scumbag: A Marine Corps term for a Private who does nothing but complain, moan and groan. A loser you can’t depend upon. Riff-raff waste.
SEALs: People we only read about in magazines. They were supposed to be the best, but they
never seemed to help out the Marines in I-Corps. When we got shot down in Laos, I asked Major Moose to call the SEALS to come save us. His reply was, “We are the SEALs here to save ourselves. Keep them 60-belts coming.”
Search and Destroy: When Marines go out looking for VC and NVA and kill them.
Sergeant: See “E-5.” The real people that get the job done!
Sergeant Major: See “E-9.” The most respected man in the enlisted ranks. He actually runs the base.
Short Round: An artillery round that explodes short of its target, often hitting our own men. A grunt’s worst enemy.
Short Timer: A Marine whose 12-month tour of Vietnam is almost up.
Single Canopy: Jungle of forest with a single layer of overhead tree foliage.
Six: Destination radio call sign for your Commanding Officer, such as Klondike-Six.
SKS Carbine: 7.62 x 39mm 10-shot semi-automatic Communist bloc rifle. Very accurate, and responsible for hundreds of Marine KIAs. A seven-year old kid can use it as well as an 80-year-old. Simple, easy to operate, and deadly.
Sky Pilot: Chaplain.
Slick: A Huey helicopter used to transport troops, armed with an M-60 on each side.
Slop Chute: A place that serves booze.
Smoke Grenade: Comes in different colors: red for taking enemy fire, green to mark a Med-Evac landing zone, yellow to mark a helipad in the middle of the boondocks, and white to hide your troop, flanking a machine gun.
Snake: A Cobra helicopter gunship flown by two officers with no gunner or crew chief.
Socked In: Monsoon rain and fog making it almost impossible to re-supply or Med-Evac the wounded out.
Spider Hole: A camouflaged one-man fighting hole invented by the Japanese and used extremely well by the VCs and NVAs.
Spooky: The Army name for our AC-47 or AC-119 Puff the Magic Dragon aircraft with Gatling guns that rained thousands of deadly rounds on our black pajama night visitors.
Spotter Round: An artillery smoke or white phosphorous round fired to mark an enemy position. The Marines had 106mm recoilless rifles that had a .50-caliber spotter-round gun on top of the 106.
S/Sgt.: See E-6. You had to sign on the dotted line for another four years to get this rank.
Staging Area: Where Marines loaded onto CH-34 and CH-46 troop transport choppers.
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