Did soldiers really frag officers in Vietnam?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

I was there from 2/69 til 2/70 with Golf company of the 7th Marines.

The only “fragging” I personally knew of obviously wasn’t meant to kill anyone. A pissed off loser threw a gas grenade into our platoon sergeants hootch. This also wasn’t a matter of competence. The sergeant in question was well into his second tour, was well liked, and knew his stuff.

The OP mentioned reunions. On the weekend of the 18th I will be in St. Louis where my company will be having its 12th reunion. I’ve made 11 of them, counting the one coming, and look forward to them all year. We generally have between 50 and 120 men show up.

The OP makes a good point, IMO, on the issue of comaradarie. By the time I got around to rotating home there were only a handfull of men in the company that I knew, and didn’t particullaryly care to know any of them. Which was pretty much the attitude of the old timers when I first got there.

22

That it happened should not be in question – but the limited amount of information available does not allow conclusions about the incidence in the front, only in the rear. There could have been more fragging in the front, or less fragging in the front, no way of knowing it.

I notice that in RoadRage’s anecdote the alleged frontline fragging casualty is (a) either incidental, or else *disguised as incidental *for plausible deniability: (“oh, we were just blowing up the officers’ latrine, but so what if one of them got hit”); and (b) it happens at CAMP, not while on patrol or under fire. In SandyHook’s account its objective apparently was mere harassment – again, at camp. Which indeed *would *be a better source of alibis – if you are at a frontline camp or firebase you can always say “some VC must have infiltrated the perimeter and nailed him, then slipped away, we probably have VC agents among our own local support people”.

A true “fog-of-war” alibi for a hit while on patrol or under fire would be harder as ISTM it requires either the collusion of everyone else around you, or that you break contact with the rest of the unit, make the hit, and rejoin afterward, (extremely risky situation if out on patrol, because who says you won’t stumble into Charlie himself while running your errand, or if you make some noise some other GI will fire upon you), or that you indeed keep your wits* so *together that during the firefight you remember to shoot the LT in the back (never mind grabbing an enemy weapon to do it) while trying to succesfully fight an engagement.

23

I don’t think you would necessarily need to acquire an enemy weapon to make a fragging look like a regular combat death. A friendly fire incident during battle creates plausible deniability just the same.

Of course, if a company commander got killed by friendly fire, and his replacement was also killed by friendly fire, I’d be pretty suspicious of the character and motives of the grunts in that particular company.

24

I knew a guy in college who was one of the most loathsome people I have known. He was a narcissistic, back stabbing shit. His father was killed by friendly fire in Viet Nam. I always suspected that if may have been a fragging if his Dad was anything like he was.

25

Oh, but yes, I did miss that: “friendly fire” WOULD be a more likely way to go about a line-of-fire fragging. Still you have to know what you’re doing and wait for the right moment – you don’t want the platoon sergeant and your squad leader to see you actually turn and aim for the LT. Though I have the feeling the more asshattish officers would favour “leading from behind” for that same reason, had they any sense.

It’s still hard to nail it down, since a high incidence of “friendly fire” at the line level can also get explained away by faulty training and incompetence leading to personnel don’t know better than to stay out of their own squad’s field of fire or at least keep their heads down if they have to cross it (so, an incompetent LT may get fragged, or may indeed have completely of his own obliviousness walked into the suppressing fire; same end result). In these cases, I suppose it would be much easier to get the rest of the unit to go along with “eh, he got what he deserved anyway” and not waste time investigating too hard.

26

And Platoon was loosly based on Oliver Stone’s experiences in 'Nam but I somehow doubt the sergeants in his platoon were running through the bush trying to kill each other.

I would think that even the most dedicated and competant officers rarely lead from the front. The platoon or company commander would likely lead from a position where he would be able to oversee his squads/platoons and call in necessary support without getting distracted and caught up in local events. Leading from the middle in a sense.
RoadRage’s story has a few of holes in it. “Later heard”? “No one seemed to care”? Lots of “assumptions” and third-party information. But that’s how rumors and urban legends start in the first place.

But the attitude seems consistant with what I would expect would lead to “fragging”. Stong sense of class differences and inequities. Feelings of apathy and disconnect. Add to that the stresses of an unpopular war that isn’t going well. It’s not hard to imagine some imbalanced individual with too much time on his hands deciding to vent his rage while in the relative safety of basecamp.

What I have trouble imagining is the same disgruntled loser, out in the bush with 40 guys, many of whom he barely knows, all of a sudden seizing on an opportunity to take out his officer with a few errant rounds. If the situation is so chaotic that you could get away with taking out your LT without being seen by your 5-10 squadmates, the first sergeant, the radio guy, the medic, whoever else normally travels with the lieutenant, and the rest of the platoon, I have to think you would be more worried about protecting your own ass from Charlie. Or at the very least, you would be worried about be caught since no matter how bad the officer is, the other soldiers have a vested interest not having a mentally imbalanced soldier who would kill his own side with them.

27

I was grunt in the 9th Division in the Mekong Delta 1968-69. I only saw one attempt at fragging and it involved a colonel, not a company grade officer (lieutenants and captains). It also involved rifle fire rather than a hand grenade.

Our field grade officers (majors, lieutenant colonels and full colonels) were so poor that they embarassed themselves before history. They didn’t LEAD men into battle, but rather tried to MANAGE them into battle.

We went through a succession of colonels as battalion commander. None made much of an impression on us grunts. We simply never saw them. Although I imagine each went home telling everyone how much we loved and respected him, and he had a pet-name like “Wild Bob.”

Whichever colonel was in command at a given time, he would fly 5,000 feet above us, safe and dry in his helicopter. He would radio down to us how worthless we were, how we should be travelling through the mud and jungle at some much higher speed, and how we were letting down the country. In the afternoon he’d fly back to the basecamp, have dinner in the officers’ mess, and sleep in his nice, comfortable bed.

I’m sure every grunt was thinking the same thing: “Why don’t you come down here and get your boots dirty. Then you’ll see how fast we can go. Why don’t you spend the night with us in the mud and mosquitos? Then you’ll see how fresh and rested we are in the morning.” But no colonel ever did and all were ignorant of the terrain.

I saw one field grade officer in the field only once. A lieutenant colonel landed in his helicopter late one afternoon. He humped with us for about 45 minutes, and then flew away again. These guys were simply absent - cowards. We could die, but that just didn’t fit into their career plans.

Now to the fragging incident: My squad was sent on a ambush patrol one evening. We were bedded down in our ponchos alongside a jungle trail. There was another squad about 200 meters away.

Someone in the other squad unscrewed the flash suppressor from his M16 and fired at the colonels chopper- reputedly an M16 minus a flash supressor sounded like an AK47 when fired at you, maybe so, who knows? The colonel then had the door-gunners spray down the entire area with M60 machinegun fire. It was a miracle no one was killed.

Later, through contacts with supply in the rear, the helicopter pilot let us know that he didn’t mind if we shot the colonel, but since he didn’t care to be shot himself, he would bank the chopper so that we could get a clear shot. Nothing ever came of that.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Peter

28

But these were CONVICTED fraggers: ones who were prosecuted successfully. There were probably many more incidents in the field or with no apparent motive, which could not have been prosecuted.

29

Tim O’Brien doesn’t write autobiographies. It’s fiction. He admitted as much when giving a reading I attended.

30

I have to say I see the “fragging in a firefight is hard” line of reasoning. After all, aren’t you pretty worked up trying to kill the real enemy than worrying about your own officer?

But… there are opportunities for when you’re somewhere on the front lines, but are still bored with time off. It sounds odd that 80% of incidents would occur in base camp. The ‘90% had a recent argument’ also sounds like an artifact of successful prosecution.

Do we have any insight on the circumstances of the court martials that resulted in acquital?

31

msmith537 msmith537 is offline
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Quote
RoadRage’s story has a few of holes in it. “Later heard”? “No one seemed to care”? Lots of “assumptions” and third-party information. But that’s how rumors and urban legends start in the first place.
Quote

Assumptions? I’m telling you no one cared.
Third-party information? So if I heard that a guy who was shot died that night… that’s third party information?

Sorry but I was not a war correspondent and it happened 44 years ago…
so I can’t tell you names and details.

And 'nam was not an urban legend…

32

The VietNam War was notorious for friendly fire bombing. Legend always was that this was American deserters suspected of going over to the VietNamese side. In the end, the VietNamese won, the dictators and gangsters went the way they did in Cuba and now there’s probably as many MacDonalds in Hanoi as in ‘Ho Chi Minh City’

33

While there were many stories, I only witnessed one while “In Country” how typical it was I can not say.
Generaly, they were cases of some A–hole lifer NCO, who got fragged for harassing an enlisted soldier. Though not necessarily to kill him, but to aquaint him with the fact that his attitude needed to be adjusted. If he got injured in the process, so be it.
I was given advance notice of the event only because my bunker was well within the area at risk. The NCO in question had entered a latrine (small two seater of wood and sheet metal) near my bunker. I left the area, a grenade was toss at the door to the latrine. The NCO was not seriously injured, if he had been He would have come to the only medic out there, me. He did not want me to check him out, he did not want to talk about it.
I have no idea if this effected a permanent change of attitude on his part. Nothing was said or done about it. I rather suspect that even the officers, felt he needed the experience. I am sure some sort of paper work was created regarding the incident. A new latrine was built, a lesson apparently learned and no questions were ask.
This happened about June of 1970, at a Fire Base near Phuc Vihn.
As far as I know, there were more stories than actual fraggings.

Bac-Si

34

Look, I understand that O’Brien is writing fiction. And I’d be curious to hear what he actually said about how his life experience became fiction. But this is not one of those questions where we’re going to come to any sort of definitive answer. I think it’s worth considering and weighing portrayals in fiction by those who were there, as well as accounts on this thread by Vietnam veterans, even if they don’t claim to have directly participated in a fragging, or seen one perpetrated, or been the victim of one. There’s nothing wrong with a process of reflective amalgamation, as long as no one claims it’s a definitive account of the phenomenon.

35

Again: I was there. I was a grunt.

Generally speaking we operated in formations of company-size (120-150 men) or battalion size (700-800 men). While we tried to be dispersed, a cluster of soldiers presented a tempting target, the soldier population of the area we were in at any given time was dense. We tried to maintain about 10 meters between men. That meant there was almost always someone - a potential witness - within sight.

We weren’t constantly in a firefight while in the field. Most of the time we were moving through the area trying to flush VC from cover - no firing, no explosions. A rifle shot or a grenade explosion would draw attention, lots of it.

When we were in a firefight, there was confusion and noise. However (there’s a Mark Twain quote that goes something like this), someone trying to kill you concentrates the mind wonderfully. No one would be thinking about bumping off an officer or lifer NCO, we were just too busy trying to stay alive.

So the field didn’t produce a lot of opportunities for fragging despite the intuitive supposition that it did.

Now, in the rear areas: Imagine hundreds of young men 19 to about 22 years old supplied with guns and bombs in profusion. There was a lot of horseplay that could get rough. And there were opportunities, no doubt, to stalk a victim.

An example of horseplay - the fusing mechanism can be unscrewed from the body of a hand grenade. Then pulling the pin and releasing the spoon will allow the blasting cap to detonate without exploding the grenade itself. This can be done in, say, a ditch or some other “safe” place. Screwing the grenade back together results in a dud grenade. Now, this can be used for lots of fun things, like throwing it into a crowded beerhall.

Another example - some guys I knew strung trip flares around all the showers while we were in the basecamp. There was a fun show when someone went to take a shower, the flares went off, and the MPs swarmed the area. Good times.

There was another incident in the basecamp when two guys got into a fight in a barracks in the middle of the night. One of them pulled the pin on a grenade but held onto the spoon. So, here we were, 30 or so of us with a nut-job holding an armed grenade. Somehow we got the two combatants separated and the pin back in the grenade.

So I find it very believable that someone blew up the shitter with an officer inside, as told by Roadrage. It fits completely with my experiences. This is the way things were. This is the way it happened.

Peter

36

Sorry you went. Glad you came home.

37

Hi Peter. This bit caught my attention because it seems so unlikely. I can understand that this is what you heard and I’m not disputing that.

OTOH, how many guys do you know who, or for that matter, have you ever even heard of who can make a shot like that? One (probably seated) target on an orbiting bird without anyone or anything else? BC and the pilot are not the only two guys on that aircraft. Banked or not, no one realistically makes a shot like that.

38

Oh, I doubt anyone could make that shot. As I said ‘nothing ever came of it.’ And, you’re right there would be other people on the chopper: the colonel, the pilot, the co-pilot, two door gunners and no doubt some HQ staff like radio operators. I was never on one of the command choppers, so I don’t know who would be on it.

The story, as I related is true. A former grunt was re-assigned to supply after being wounded by shrapnel several times. He was a friend of mine and kept in contact with us. He is the one who told us what the pilot said. I have no idea if the pilot thought the shot was possible. Very likely he meant it as a joke, and I always thought it was a pretty funny thing to say.

Another point you failed to make is that if someone did make the miracle shot and hit the colonel, it’s likely that the bullet would pass through his body and strike someone else in the helicopter - possibly the pilot himself. So, I’m sure the pilot didn’t want anyone shooting at his bird.

As far as I know, no one ever took another shot at the colonel’s helicopter.

Peter

39

I’m surprised nobody has brought up John Kerry and his “let’s go re-enact where we were in a firefight last week”.

Although from a Canadian perspective, it amazes me that an election ago a pair of draft-skipping dicks (sorry, only one was really a Dick) could successfully argue that they were morally superior to a guy who volunteered, went over there and got shot at. And twist the facts to make the member of the armed forces, being shot at, look bad. Either your politicians are super-slimy or your voters are super-stupid, or both. “You can fool some of the people all of the time…”

40

The biggest confusion for me after reading the column is why there would be so many murders committed using grenades, but no mention of officers simply being shot (seems easier). However, I came across this on wikipedia:

If this is correct then everything makes sense. Maybe I’m just dense, but I’ll post this in case others were suffering from the same confusion.