Author: Gregory R. Clark
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 624
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Book Description
Cu Chi, (body bag), Shit-hook (Chinook helicopter), dink (Vietnamese slang for a G.I.), slope (G.I. slang for a Vietnamese), hose (kill), boom-boom (what's done in a tapioca mill, or whorehouse), Mike-Juliet (marijuana), pogey bait, DO-28, C-2A, L Zed (Aussie for landing zone), rat-turds (oak leaf clusters), thousand yard stare, Samozaryadnyi karabin (Soviet rifle), guerre a outrance (French war to the end--the viewpoint of the North): these and the 10,000 others in this dictionary are the words of the Vietnam era. They were spoken by ground pounders in the boonies and by peaceniks on U.S. campuses, by hawks, doves, Victor Charlies and hoi chanhs, Chinese advisors and the Muong people of the Central Highlands. The period covered is primarily 1963-1975, but there are terms included from as early as 1945 and as late as 1987.
Author: Tom Dalzell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317661877
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
In 2014, the US marks the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the basis for the Johnson administration’s escalation of American military involvement in Southeast Asia and war against North Vietnam. Vietnam War Slang outlines the context behind the slang used by members of the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. Troops facing and inflicting death display a high degree of linguistic creativity. Vietnam was the last American war fought by an army with conscripts, and their involuntary participation in the war added a dimension to the language. War has always been an incubator for slang; it is brutal, and brutality demands a vocabulary to describe what we don’t encounter in peacetime civilian life. Furthermore, such language serves to create an intense bond between comrades in the armed forces, helping them to support the heavy burdens of war. The troops in Vietnam faced the usual demands of war, as well as several that were unique to Vietnam – a murky political basis for the war, widespread corruption in the ruling government, untraditional guerilla warfare, an unpredictable civilian population in Vietnam, and a growing lack of popular support for the war back in the US. For all these reasons, the language of those who fought in Vietnam was a vivid reflection of life in wartime. Vietnam War Slang lays out the definitive record of the lexicon of Americans who fought in the Vietnam War. Assuming no prior knowledge, it presents around 2000 headwords, with each entry divided into sections giving parts of speech, definitions, glosses, the countries of origin, dates of earliest known citations, and citations. It will be an essential resource for Vietnam veterans and their families, students and readers of history, and anyone interested in the principles underpinning the development of slang.
Author: Gordon L. Rottman
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504061705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 215
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Book Description
A look at how combat, culture, and military tradition influenced soldiers’ language in Vietnam from the award-winning, USA Today–bestselling author. The slang, or unique vocabulary, of the soldiers and marines serving in Vietnam, was a mishmash of words and phrases whose origins reached back to the Korean War, World War II, and even earlier. Additionally, it was influenced by the United States’ rapidly changing protest culture, ideological and poetical doctrine, ethical and cultural conflicts, racialism, and drug culture. This “slanguage” was rendered even more complex by the Pidgin Vietnamese-English spoken by Americans and Vietnamese alike. But perhaps most importantly, it reflected the soldiers’ actual daily lives, played out in the jungles, swamps, and hills of Vietnam.
Author: John Podlaski
Publisher: John Podlaski
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
In 1970, John Kowalski was among the many young, inexperienced soldiers sent to Vietnam to participate in a contentious war. Referred to as “Cherries” by their veteran counterparts, these recruits were plunged into a horrific reality. The on-the-job training was rigorous, yet most of these youths were ill-prepared to handle the severe mental, emotional, and physical demands of combat. Experiencing enemy fire and observing death up close initiates a profound transformation that is irreversible. The author excels at storytelling. Readers affirm feeling immersed alongside the characters, partaking in their struggle for survival, experiencing the fear, awe, drama, and grief, observing acts of courage, and occasionally sharing in their humor. "Cherries" presents an unvarnished account, and upon completion, readers will gain a deeper appreciation for the trials these young men faced over a year. It's a narrative that grips the reader throughout.
Author: Francis J. West, Jr.
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781500143893
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 158
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Book Description
The origin of this publication lies in the continuing program at all levels of command to keep Marines informed of the ways of combat and civic action in Vietnam. Not limited in any way to set methods and means, this informational effort spreads across a wide variety of projects, all aimed at making the lessons learned in Vietnam available to the Marine who is fighting there and the Marine who is soon due to take his turn in combat. Recognizing a need to inform the men who are the key to the success of Marine Corps operations—the enlisted Marines and junior officers of combat and combat support units—the former Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, Major General William R. Collins, originated a project to provide a timely series of short, factual narratives of small unit action, stories which would have lessons learned as an integral part. Essential to General Collins' concept was the fact that the stories would have to be both highly readable and historically accurate. The basic requirement called for an author trained in the methodology of research, with recent active duty experience at the small unit level in the FMF, and a proven ability to write in e style that would ensure wide readership. This publication, then, is based upon first-hand, eyewitness accounting of the events described. It is documented by notes and taped interviews taken in the field and includes lessons learned from the mouths of the Marines who are currently fighting in Vietnam. It is published for the information of those men who are serving and who will serve in Vietnam, as well as for the use of other interested Americans, so that they may better understand the demands of the Vietnam conflict on the individual Marine.
Author: Nigel Cawthorne
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
ISBN: 1788284259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269
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Book Description
Vietnam was the first war America lost on the ground. In this fascinating account, historian Nigel Cawthorne traces the conflict from its inception to its traumatic end. He looks at the political events that led tot he war and examines its impact upon both the Americans and the Vietnamese, whose battle for the independence of their country was to leave lingering scars upon the American psyche. Vietnam: A War Lost and Won is an even-handed assessment of a conflict whose wounds would take a generation to heal.
Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199741050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country." McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.
Author: Wallace Terry
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0345311973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The national bestseller that tells the truth about the Vietnam War from the black soldiers’ perspective. An oral history unlike any other, Bloods features twenty black men who tell the story of how members of their race were sent off to Vietnam in disproportionate numbers, and of the special test of patriotism they faced. Told in voices no reader will soon forget, Bloods is a must-read for anyone who wants to put the Vietnam experience in historical, cultural, and political perspective. Praise for Bloods “Superb . . . a portrait not just of warfare and warriors but of beleaguered patriotism and pride. The violence recalled in Bloods is chilling. . . . On most of its pages hope prevails. Some of these men have witnessed the very worst that people can inflict on one another. . . . Their experience finally transcends race; their dramatic monologues bear witness to humanity.”—Time “[Wallace] Terry’s oral history captures the very essence of war, at both its best and worst. . . . [He] has done a great service for all Americans with Bloods. Future historians will find his case studies extremely useful, and they will be hard pressed to ignore the role of blacks, as too often has been the case in past wars.”—The Washington Post Book World “Terry set out to write an oral history of American blacks who fought for their country in Vietnam, but he did better than that. He wrote a compelling portrait of Americans in combat, and used his words so that the reader—black or white—knows the soldiers as men and Americans, their race overshadowed by the larger humanity Terry conveys. . . . This is not light reading, but it is literature with the ring of truth that shows the reader worlds through the eyes of others. You can’t ask much more from a book than that.”—Associated Press “Bloods is a major contribution to the literature of this war. For the first time a book has detailed the inequities blacks faced at home and on the battlefield. Their war stories involve not only Vietnam, but Harlem, Watts, Washington D.C. and small-town America.”—Atlanta Journal-Constitution “I wish Bloods were longer, and I hope it makes the start of a comprehensive oral and analytic history of blacks in Vietnam. . . . They see their experiences as Americans, and as blacks who live in, but are sometimes at odds with, America. The results are sometimes stirring, sometimes appalling, but this three-tiered perspective heightens and shadows every tale.”—The Village Voice “Terry was in Vietnam from 1967 through 1969. . . . In this book he has backtracked, Studs Terkel–like, and found twenty black veterans of the Vietnam War and let them spill their guts. And they do; oh, how they do. The language is raw, naked, a brick through a window on a still night. At the height of tension a sweet story, a soft story, drops into view. The veterans talk about fighting two wars: Vietnam and racism. They talk about fighting alongside the Ku Klux Klan.”—The Boston Globe
Author: Kyle Longley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317469305
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 351
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Book Description
This book provides a fresh approach to understanding the American combat soldier's experience in Vietnam. It integrates such topics as the political culture, the experiences of training, the actual Vietnam experience, and the 'homecoming', and offers a remarkable overview of the 870,000 'grunts' who bore the brunt of the fighting in the jungles and highlands of South Vietnam, and eventually Cambodia and Laos.The book addresses many of the stereotypes of the Vietnam combat veteran that have been perpertrated in popular culture, and also considers how Vietnam veterans have been commemorated through memorials and other means, and how the veterans remember each other. The coverage also includes women who served in or near the front lines as well as on the home front. The author draws on memoirs and oral histories including his personal interviews with veterans, but the book conveys a picture of the Vietnam combat soldier's experience far more powerful than what individual memoirs can provide.
Author: William Stilwagen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781735676302
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
If there ever was a time worthy of its own vernacular, it is the Vietnam Era. A generation split by peace and war spawned a library of lingo, slang, and fresh new words like no era before it.The warriors found that the torch had been passed to them by an assassinated president. It motivated them to bear any burden and to pay any price. The best of this generation did ask what they could do for their country. Nine million served in uniform; 2.8 million served in Vietnam. Over 58,000 gave all they had for the home they loved. Over 300,000 spilled their blood in Southeast Asia. No one came home unscathed. Everyone paid a price.They bore the burden of their generation. And they created a second language to augment what they brought with them.In this book, you will find over 2,500 terms, acronyms, jargon, slang expressions, and various lingo transported to you by Vietnam servicemen who showed remarkable insight into their own generational place in history. These are the words with which they communicated, especially at the enlisted level. They took the brunt of all the horror the war had to give.It is imperative for any serious historian, future descendant, or any interested person to grasp the speech variants of the day and thus put them into proper context for complete understanding. Heed the words of Francis George Steiner who declared, "When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world." You are likely to find the meaning here. Within these entries comes common lingo, from 1960's slang to the obscure vernacular that was so important in the daily struggles of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines in Vietnam. Included too, are military acronyms, terms, and some downright humorous gems of expressions. Many of the terms and idioms herein have found their way into today's linguistic norms. Open this book and enter their world.
