Fragging: Why U.S. Soldiers Assaulted Their Officers in Vietnam (Modern Southeast Asia)

The author of this book is an academic military historian and is very good at finding detailed resources and records that can help shed light on ugly human behavior. The book then is a well-documented account of this ugliness, but necessarily skewed to emphasize the victims that were not smart enough to hide their tracks. The little known fragging phenomenon got very limited public press exposure, but was great concern to the military because it brought to the surface what they wanted to hide. The author admits that the Vietnam war was very unpopular, but his book was not written to explain why. The why is that the public got early wind of the fact that the gulf of Tonkin incident that was used to rationalize it was a false flag event, a military lie to embroil us for twenty years in a useless war that we lost in the end anyway. Until Nixon stopped the use of the draft to get 536,000 citizens to fight of which about ten percent died. Several million Southeast Asians were killed. The drafted citizens were a chaotic mix of street wise inner city types, Spock-savvy students, pacifists, Black Panthers, SDS activists, convicts, mentally ill misfits, addicts, a wide cross section. Using this legalized form of human trafficking they were poured into one pot and they wanted out and they carried automatic weapons and hand grenades and they discovered that if they started wiping out rude officers they probably wouldn’t get caught. The author case studies emphasize the reckless low-life fraction. At least 500 officers were fragged, maybe closer to twice that many, since reporting was very uneven. This was unique in U.S. military history, a slave revolt. The real reason for the war came out in a deathbed confession of CIA Director Robert Crowley detailed in Regicide. During its long withdrawal from South Vietnam, the U.S. military experienced a serious crisis in morale. Chronic indiscipline, illegal drug use, and racial militancy all contributed to trouble within the ranks. But most chilling of all was the advent of a new phenomenon: large numbers of young enlisted men turning their weapons on their superiors. The practice was known as fragging, a reference to the fragmentation hand grenades often used in these assaults. Between 1968 and 1973, dozens of Americans and Vietnamese were murdered in fragging incidents, but only a handful of their killers were ever brought to justice. Drawing upon more than 500 cases from official records in addition to interviews with both perpetrators and victims, George Lepre examines these episodes in close detail. A comparative analysis of fragging in American units and the Australian army in Vietnam is also included. In the first in-depth study of this vexing trend, Lepre drills down to the core of the soldiers mindset, bringing to light a little understood aspect of military experience. Cover Flap Also in the Series FRAGGING Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Vietnam and the Demoralization of the U. S. Armed Forces 2. The Fragging Phenomenon 3. Motives for Madness 4. The Military’s Response 5. Fragging in the U.S. and Australian Forces: A Comparative Analysis 6. The Legacy Conclusion Glossary of Terms, Abbreviations, and Acronyms Notes Works Consulted "Examines the over 500 instances of 'fragging'--the use of fragmentation hand grenades by enlisted men to murder their own officers--that occurred during the Vietnam War. Uses archival evidence and veterans' testimonies to offer the issue's first comprehensive treatment"--Provided by publisher.