FNG
by Mike Dankert
by Mike Dankert
Mike Dankert
FNG or "fucking new guy" was the derisive term for guys newly arrived in Vietnam. The older "Vets," the guys that had been there the longest, didn't have much use for an FNG and didn't "buddy up" with them. This was in part because it was thought an FNG screw-up could get them killed. Part of the aversion also was to avoid any personal contact. The old timers had seen friends die. That took an emotional toll and over time they no longer wanted to make that investment. To an old timer who is "short," close to the end of his tour, an FNG is just a guy to share the load carrying 200 rounds for the M-60, a claymore mine, trip flares, a Starlight Scope and a body to pull a shift on guard.
New guys weren't seen as having much value. It wasn't that they were inherently bad, it was that they hadn't been taught what was needed to survive. To have a chance at surviving in Vietnam you had to learn quickly. Training didn't guarantee survival, it just improved your chances. As one Drill Instructor put it, there's nothing you can do if a bullet has your name on it, it's the one marked "to whom it may concern" you want to avoid.
I'm sure all new guys had a pre-Vietnam training experience in their Advance Infantry Training. For me it was Peason Ridge at Fort Polk, Louisiana, a 1 week experience intended to simulate Vietnam. The temperature in Louisiana in February was in the 30's, not in the 90's like Vietnam. The "aggressors", GIs who posed as Viet Cong, used blanks in their M-16s. The booby traps that exploded were loud but otherwise harmless. We knew that in the live fire, low crawl exercise we had that the machine guns firing over our heads were set high enough so that if we stood up we wouldn't get shot. The explosions on the course were set off in concrete rings so there was no contact with us or chance of a shrapnel wound. On our practice assault with live fire we shot at targets, they didn't fire back. The one reality check we got was when we loaded into APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers) for a practice assault on a hill. We got to the hill, the APC ramp lowered and out we ran to attack what we thought was an imaginary enemy. What we met were GIs firing blanks at us. That surprise shocked us.
Here are some things a new guy had to learn in Vietnam.
No Fortunate Son - You can always tell an FNG. He's the guy that goes around to anyone that will listen, and mostly those that will not listen, to complain about being in Vietnam - the U.S. shouldn't be here because it's a civil war and not our problem, communists aren't going to invade San Diego, the domino theory isn't valid, and he in particular shouldn't be here because Vietnam didn't fit into his plans. He should be in college or he has a family or he's just too important to have been drafted. Like a puppy snipping at an old, bored dog. He tries to get someone to pay attention to him but they're not that interested.
Here's the deal - The discussion was over when we landed in Vietnam. We weren't sent here to debate the question. No piercing logic or cogent argument was going to get MAC-V (Military Assistance Command - Vietnam) to call us and say "pack the tents boys we're going home." Me and everyone that came after me were sent to Vietnam after President Nixon announced he was withdrawing troops. He wanted us there. We were sent there to serve for a year or until we got sent home wounded or killed. The task at hand was to make sure it's the former, not the latter. Staying alive is what Vietnam was all about. Doing what it takes to make it out. The sooner an FNG got that and started adapting, the sooner the "F" part of his title could be dropped and the Old Guys would accept him. Getting your head straight was the first and most important adjustment.
Heat - When I left Louisiana it was February and the temperatures were in the 30's. When I left Michigan in March it was about the same. When I got to Vietnam the temperatures were in the 80's and sometimes 90's. Big difference and big adjustment. The heat and humidity sapped my energy. With the heat came the need to stay hydrated. Stateside you could get by with something to drink at every meal. In Vietnam I started carrying 2 1-quart canteens and went to carrying 4. Think about all the water you use on a daily basis. In Vietnam you had to carry it. Three days worth - that was the time between resupply. Water to drink, brush teeth and occasionally wash with. Because we were in the field the water was never cold, never refreshing. It might be cool first thing in the morning but plastic canteens heated up as the day wore on so a drink was never thirst quenching. The taste wasn't much either. If we filled canteens from a stream we put iodine tablets in the canteen to "purify" it. Potable water from the rear wasn't much better. It was stored in huge rubber blivets and picked a rubber taste. That's why most guys added pre-sweetened Kool-Aid to their canteens. Although I was a new guy my reputation for toughness was enhanced because I put un-sweetened Kool-Aid in my canteen. It wasn't that I preferred the taste. My well-meaning girlfriend heard that guys in Vietnam liked Kool-Aid, she just never heard the part about needing it to be pre-sweetened. We lived in the field, there was no mess hall or nearby store to go to pick up sugar. I didn't want to hurt her feeling by throwing it away so I drank it plain.
Walking - Or as we called it "humping." In training we rode by truck or bus to each training site or firing range. The Army would have liked to make us march everywhere but there was so much to cover in training that it was more efficient and less time consuming to transport us. In Vietnam we lived in the field. Most days we woke after daylight, ate quickly and then started humping as soon as possible. It didn't pay to stay too long in one place because bad things could happen. The VC could mortar a fixed position or set booby traps on a trail we were likely to take. We walked all day until just before dark. We set up late for the same reason, to give the enemy less time to fix our position or plan an attack. Stateside training didn't prepare new guys for miles and miles of walking carrying a 40 lb pack in the hot sun all day.
C-Rations - Hot meals (real food) in the field were rare in the field during the first part of my tour. Life in the field meant eating C-rations each day, three times a day for as long as we were in the field, usually a couple of months at a time. C-rations, in Army speak Meal Combat Individual (MCIs) came in a small, light brown cardboard box about 1/2 half the size of a Kleenex box. The meal elements came in attractive dark brown cans. In each box was also a packet containing salt, instant coffee, cream substitute, matches, cigarettes, toilet paper, a plastic spoon and an ingenious device called a P-38 for opening the cans. The P-38 was about 1inch long that folded flat and had a pointed edge for inserting into cans. It opened the cans with an up and down hand motion as the can was rotated. You carried the spoon in its plastic wrapper and the P-38 in your pocket until the spoon started to turn brown and the P-38 rusted then switched them for a new set. C-rations had three components: an "entree" (using that term generously) or meat "unit," a cracker unit, and a fruit or cake unit.
A case of C-rations included 12 meals, only 4 of them were edible. Meat units had all the flavor you would expect of something called a "unit." The crackers of course were dry but each B-2 unit, as they were called, came with either peanut butter, jelly, or cheese spread - the consistency of Cheez Whiz. Beans and franks, boned chicken, spaghetti, and barbecue beef were good. The pork loaf, ham loaf, turkey loaf and beef loaf looked like Spam and all tasted about the same. I even tried sugar on them but couldn't keep them down. Literally. There was a ham and eggs unit and a ham and lima beans unit known as ham and motherfuckers because it was known to cause severe gastric distress for anyone eating it and for other unpleasantness for anyone else nearby.
When we could, we tried to heat up the meat units. The heat tablets given us didn't always provide enough heat to cook the units fully so we ate them lukewarm. That is unless we had C-4, the plastic explosive that was specifically not to be used for making fires. Sorry taxpayers, we used lots of it that way. There wasn't any mystery about what we were going to do with it when we ordered bars of it with our resupply. The guys in the rear knew were weren't using it blow things up.
The cheese and crackers were okay as is. Lots of guys didn't like the cracker units and just threw them away so I collected them and was able to make a reasonably satisfying breakfast meal crumbling the crackers and mixing them with peanut buttter and jelly. I had this each morning with a fruit unit and was ready for the day. I learned the cracker, peanut butter and jelly trick from my Dad.
The cake and fruit units were the real treat. There was pound cake and a cinnamon swirl cake whose name I have forgotten. The fruit units could be applesauce - most common, fruit cocktail - fairly common, and pears - rare. The applesauce was bland but mixing it with Kool-Aid could kick it up a notch. I liked fruit cocktail but we had a lot of it and it became to be treated with some disdain. Even today, 46 years later I have to be careful not to call it fruit-fucking cocktail. Pears were a special delight and I saved them to eat when I had time to savor them and enjoy the experience. I've told the story about saving them and eating them during the fire. Not exactly a special occasion but I was not going to die and leave them behind.
New guys were at a disadvantage because they didn't know which meals were good (again using that term loosely) and because they got to choose last, unless the squad leader made sure each person got to pick their first meal before all the good meals were taken.
Lukewarm water, lukewarm meals. Until a new guy got used to the Vietnam diet he suffered. Most like me, lost weight and had little energy. But over time I adapted and actually did quite well. Sometime later we received LRPs, dehydrated meals given to long range reconnaissance patrol soldiers, which we enjoyed and came to think of as a treat. Funny the things you place value on. Beef and rice, chili and the other meals were a change even though they could cause serious heartburn. Each came with a candy bar - chocolate and coconut was my favorite.
Walking Point - Walking point was dangerous. Not surprisingly Vets didn't want to do it and the job fell to new guys. There are two theories about walking point. The first, and this applies to pulling guard at night too, is that you're there as an early warning device. You're not expected to do anything other than take the first bullet or step on the booby trap. Your sacrifice puts everyone else on alert and they can engage or withdraw as is appropriate.
The other theory is that you can learn to spot an ambush or booby trap and the platoon can take action before anyone gets hurt. I was with guys who talked about how to walk point. Jack and Jerry talked about how they did it. I listened. You walk slow, deliberate. Your eyes are moving all the time looking straight ahead, then down and close, then side to side, back down again, and then side to side again. You repeat this over and over again. You're looking for something out of place like freshly dug dirt or a mound on the trail or along side of it, or a trip wire. Could be explosive booby traps or a punji pit. You listen as best you can. Use all your senses. Americans smell like sweet milk. Vietnamese eat a lot of fish, you find the cans along the trail all the time. They like it with nuoc mam, fermented fish juice. Some of walking point is instinct. If it doesn't feel right get off the trail. Nothing wrong with going around or over to feel safer. On occasion that's just what Jack did. He didn't care where the company was going. He made his own way.
I walked point some during the day, but mostly that job fell to Glyn. For some reason I got to do it at night. That takes away a lot of the searching with your eyes. Listening is the key. Day or night, you feel alone. Being a target, that's what you have to get used to.
Pulling Guard - The closest stateside experience to pulling guard is barracks fireguard duty. That's a one hour shift in a barracks to make sure there isn't a fire and to wake everyone if there is a fire. With 40 guys in a barracks, you might get fireguard once a week. Guys fall asleep and sometimes you don't pull fireguard at all. Once you're in the field in Vietnam you can forget about a good night's sleep. If we were lucky there were 4 guys to a position so we had at one two hour shift or two +1 hour shifts. If there was only 3 we had two 1 1/2 hour shifts. It's wasn't likely anyone could stay awake for 3 straight hours. Keep in mind guard comes after humping all day in the heat. It's hard not to be exhausted.
We usually stopped for the night late so there wasn't time to dig a foxhole. We tried to find some cover behind a wall, rock pile or brush but sometimes we were just sitting in the open. Unless there was a full moon it was tough to see anything. So guard was just sitting, trying to stay awake, and listening. The early warning theory applied. The worst time was during monsoon season. The rain was so steady you couldn't see, couldn't hear. I passed the time playing songs in my head.
New guys weren't seen as having much value. It wasn't that they were inherently bad, it was that they hadn't been taught what was needed to survive. To have a chance at surviving in Vietnam you had to learn quickly. Training didn't guarantee survival, it just improved your chances. As one Drill Instructor put it, there's nothing you can do if a bullet has your name on it, it's the one marked "to whom it may concern" you want to avoid.
I'm sure all new guys had a pre-Vietnam training experience in their Advance Infantry Training. For me it was Peason Ridge at Fort Polk, Louisiana, a 1 week experience intended to simulate Vietnam. The temperature in Louisiana in February was in the 30's, not in the 90's like Vietnam. The "aggressors", GIs who posed as Viet Cong, used blanks in their M-16s. The booby traps that exploded were loud but otherwise harmless. We knew that in the live fire, low crawl exercise we had that the machine guns firing over our heads were set high enough so that if we stood up we wouldn't get shot. The explosions on the course were set off in concrete rings so there was no contact with us or chance of a shrapnel wound. On our practice assault with live fire we shot at targets, they didn't fire back. The one reality check we got was when we loaded into APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers) for a practice assault on a hill. We got to the hill, the APC ramp lowered and out we ran to attack what we thought was an imaginary enemy. What we met were GIs firing blanks at us. That surprise shocked us.
Here are some things a new guy had to learn in Vietnam.
No Fortunate Son - You can always tell an FNG. He's the guy that goes around to anyone that will listen, and mostly those that will not listen, to complain about being in Vietnam - the U.S. shouldn't be here because it's a civil war and not our problem, communists aren't going to invade San Diego, the domino theory isn't valid, and he in particular shouldn't be here because Vietnam didn't fit into his plans. He should be in college or he has a family or he's just too important to have been drafted. Like a puppy snipping at an old, bored dog. He tries to get someone to pay attention to him but they're not that interested.
Here's the deal - The discussion was over when we landed in Vietnam. We weren't sent here to debate the question. No piercing logic or cogent argument was going to get MAC-V (Military Assistance Command - Vietnam) to call us and say "pack the tents boys we're going home." Me and everyone that came after me were sent to Vietnam after President Nixon announced he was withdrawing troops. He wanted us there. We were sent there to serve for a year or until we got sent home wounded or killed. The task at hand was to make sure it's the former, not the latter. Staying alive is what Vietnam was all about. Doing what it takes to make it out. The sooner an FNG got that and started adapting, the sooner the "F" part of his title could be dropped and the Old Guys would accept him. Getting your head straight was the first and most important adjustment.
Heat - When I left Louisiana it was February and the temperatures were in the 30's. When I left Michigan in March it was about the same. When I got to Vietnam the temperatures were in the 80's and sometimes 90's. Big difference and big adjustment. The heat and humidity sapped my energy. With the heat came the need to stay hydrated. Stateside you could get by with something to drink at every meal. In Vietnam I started carrying 2 1-quart canteens and went to carrying 4. Think about all the water you use on a daily basis. In Vietnam you had to carry it. Three days worth - that was the time between resupply. Water to drink, brush teeth and occasionally wash with. Because we were in the field the water was never cold, never refreshing. It might be cool first thing in the morning but plastic canteens heated up as the day wore on so a drink was never thirst quenching. The taste wasn't much either. If we filled canteens from a stream we put iodine tablets in the canteen to "purify" it. Potable water from the rear wasn't much better. It was stored in huge rubber blivets and picked a rubber taste. That's why most guys added pre-sweetened Kool-Aid to their canteens. Although I was a new guy my reputation for toughness was enhanced because I put un-sweetened Kool-Aid in my canteen. It wasn't that I preferred the taste. My well-meaning girlfriend heard that guys in Vietnam liked Kool-Aid, she just never heard the part about needing it to be pre-sweetened. We lived in the field, there was no mess hall or nearby store to go to pick up sugar. I didn't want to hurt her feeling by throwing it away so I drank it plain.
Walking - Or as we called it "humping." In training we rode by truck or bus to each training site or firing range. The Army would have liked to make us march everywhere but there was so much to cover in training that it was more efficient and less time consuming to transport us. In Vietnam we lived in the field. Most days we woke after daylight, ate quickly and then started humping as soon as possible. It didn't pay to stay too long in one place because bad things could happen. The VC could mortar a fixed position or set booby traps on a trail we were likely to take. We walked all day until just before dark. We set up late for the same reason, to give the enemy less time to fix our position or plan an attack. Stateside training didn't prepare new guys for miles and miles of walking carrying a 40 lb pack in the hot sun all day.
C-Rations - Hot meals (real food) in the field were rare in the field during the first part of my tour. Life in the field meant eating C-rations each day, three times a day for as long as we were in the field, usually a couple of months at a time. C-rations, in Army speak Meal Combat Individual (MCIs) came in a small, light brown cardboard box about 1/2 half the size of a Kleenex box. The meal elements came in attractive dark brown cans. In each box was also a packet containing salt, instant coffee, cream substitute, matches, cigarettes, toilet paper, a plastic spoon and an ingenious device called a P-38 for opening the cans. The P-38 was about 1inch long that folded flat and had a pointed edge for inserting into cans. It opened the cans with an up and down hand motion as the can was rotated. You carried the spoon in its plastic wrapper and the P-38 in your pocket until the spoon started to turn brown and the P-38 rusted then switched them for a new set. C-rations had three components: an "entree" (using that term generously) or meat "unit," a cracker unit, and a fruit or cake unit.
A case of C-rations included 12 meals, only 4 of them were edible. Meat units had all the flavor you would expect of something called a "unit." The crackers of course were dry but each B-2 unit, as they were called, came with either peanut butter, jelly, or cheese spread - the consistency of Cheez Whiz. Beans and franks, boned chicken, spaghetti, and barbecue beef were good. The pork loaf, ham loaf, turkey loaf and beef loaf looked like Spam and all tasted about the same. I even tried sugar on them but couldn't keep them down. Literally. There was a ham and eggs unit and a ham and lima beans unit known as ham and motherfuckers because it was known to cause severe gastric distress for anyone eating it and for other unpleasantness for anyone else nearby.
When we could, we tried to heat up the meat units. The heat tablets given us didn't always provide enough heat to cook the units fully so we ate them lukewarm. That is unless we had C-4, the plastic explosive that was specifically not to be used for making fires. Sorry taxpayers, we used lots of it that way. There wasn't any mystery about what we were going to do with it when we ordered bars of it with our resupply. The guys in the rear knew were weren't using it blow things up.
The cheese and crackers were okay as is. Lots of guys didn't like the cracker units and just threw them away so I collected them and was able to make a reasonably satisfying breakfast meal crumbling the crackers and mixing them with peanut buttter and jelly. I had this each morning with a fruit unit and was ready for the day. I learned the cracker, peanut butter and jelly trick from my Dad.
The cake and fruit units were the real treat. There was pound cake and a cinnamon swirl cake whose name I have forgotten. The fruit units could be applesauce - most common, fruit cocktail - fairly common, and pears - rare. The applesauce was bland but mixing it with Kool-Aid could kick it up a notch. I liked fruit cocktail but we had a lot of it and it became to be treated with some disdain. Even today, 46 years later I have to be careful not to call it fruit-fucking cocktail. Pears were a special delight and I saved them to eat when I had time to savor them and enjoy the experience. I've told the story about saving them and eating them during the fire. Not exactly a special occasion but I was not going to die and leave them behind.
New guys were at a disadvantage because they didn't know which meals were good (again using that term loosely) and because they got to choose last, unless the squad leader made sure each person got to pick their first meal before all the good meals were taken.
Lukewarm water, lukewarm meals. Until a new guy got used to the Vietnam diet he suffered. Most like me, lost weight and had little energy. But over time I adapted and actually did quite well. Sometime later we received LRPs, dehydrated meals given to long range reconnaissance patrol soldiers, which we enjoyed and came to think of as a treat. Funny the things you place value on. Beef and rice, chili and the other meals were a change even though they could cause serious heartburn. Each came with a candy bar - chocolate and coconut was my favorite.
Walking Point - Walking point was dangerous. Not surprisingly Vets didn't want to do it and the job fell to new guys. There are two theories about walking point. The first, and this applies to pulling guard at night too, is that you're there as an early warning device. You're not expected to do anything other than take the first bullet or step on the booby trap. Your sacrifice puts everyone else on alert and they can engage or withdraw as is appropriate.
The other theory is that you can learn to spot an ambush or booby trap and the platoon can take action before anyone gets hurt. I was with guys who talked about how to walk point. Jack and Jerry talked about how they did it. I listened. You walk slow, deliberate. Your eyes are moving all the time looking straight ahead, then down and close, then side to side, back down again, and then side to side again. You repeat this over and over again. You're looking for something out of place like freshly dug dirt or a mound on the trail or along side of it, or a trip wire. Could be explosive booby traps or a punji pit. You listen as best you can. Use all your senses. Americans smell like sweet milk. Vietnamese eat a lot of fish, you find the cans along the trail all the time. They like it with nuoc mam, fermented fish juice. Some of walking point is instinct. If it doesn't feel right get off the trail. Nothing wrong with going around or over to feel safer. On occasion that's just what Jack did. He didn't care where the company was going. He made his own way.
I walked point some during the day, but mostly that job fell to Glyn. For some reason I got to do it at night. That takes away a lot of the searching with your eyes. Listening is the key. Day or night, you feel alone. Being a target, that's what you have to get used to.
Pulling Guard - The closest stateside experience to pulling guard is barracks fireguard duty. That's a one hour shift in a barracks to make sure there isn't a fire and to wake everyone if there is a fire. With 40 guys in a barracks, you might get fireguard once a week. Guys fall asleep and sometimes you don't pull fireguard at all. Once you're in the field in Vietnam you can forget about a good night's sleep. If we were lucky there were 4 guys to a position so we had at one two hour shift or two +1 hour shifts. If there was only 3 we had two 1 1/2 hour shifts. It's wasn't likely anyone could stay awake for 3 straight hours. Keep in mind guard comes after humping all day in the heat. It's hard not to be exhausted.
We usually stopped for the night late so there wasn't time to dig a foxhole. We tried to find some cover behind a wall, rock pile or brush but sometimes we were just sitting in the open. Unless there was a full moon it was tough to see anything. So guard was just sitting, trying to stay awake, and listening. The early warning theory applied. The worst time was during monsoon season. The rain was so steady you couldn't see, couldn't hear. I passed the time playing songs in my head.