Fragging of officers in Nam---a way a resistance for soldiers.

[rodeodance]

Very good article.


http://www.isreview.org/issues/40/vietnamIII.shtml
>
> Fraggings were occasionally called off. One lieutenant refused to obey an order to storm a hill during an operation in the Mekong Delta. "His first sergeant later told him that when his men heard him refuse that order, they removed a $350 bounty earlier placed on his head because they thought he was a 'hard-liner.'"63
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> The motive for most fraggings was not revenge, but to change battle conduct. For this reason, officers were usually warned prior to fraggings. First, a smoke grenade would be left near their beds. Those who did not respond would find a tear-gas grenade or a grenade pin on their bed as a gentle reminder. Finally, the lethal grenade was tossed into the bed of sleeping, inflexible officers. Officers understood the warnings and usually complied, becoming captive to the demands of their men. It was the most practical means of cracking army discipline. The units whose officers responded opted out of search-and-destroy missions.64
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> An Army judge who presided over fragging trials called fragging "the troops' way of controlling officers," and added that it was "deadly effective." He explained, "Captain Steinberg argues that once an officer is intimidated by even the threat of fragging he is useless to the military because he can no longer carry out orders essential to the functioning of the Army. Through intimidation by threats--verbal and written...virtually all officers and NCOs have to take into account the possibility of fragging before giving an order to the men under them." The fear of fragging affected officers and NCOs far beyond those who were actually involved in fragging incidents.65
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> Officers who survived fragging attempts could not tell which of their men had tried to murder them, or when the men might strike again. They lived in constant fear of future attempts at fragging by unknown soldiers. In Vietnam it was a truism that "everyone was the enemy": for the lifers, every enlisted man was the enemy. "In parts of Vietnam stirs more fear among officers and NCOs than does the war with 'Charlie.'"
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> Counter-fragging by retaliating officers contributed to a war within the war. While 80 percent of fraggings were of officers and NCOs, 20 percent were of enlisted men, as officers sought to kill potential troublemakers or those whom they suspected of planning to frag them. In this civil war within the army, the military police were used to reinstate order. In October 1971, military police air assaulted the Praline mountain signal site to protect an officer who had been the target of repeated fragging attempts. The base was occupied for a week before command was restored.66.........

[Virginia Dare]

1. Fragging is a natural result in any war..

one of the more infamous speculated examples in our history: Stonewall Jackson.

[bemildred]

2. How soon we forget, eh? nt

[Maq]

3. Iraq Afghanistan Fragging

I wonder how much fragging is going on in this war?

Occassionally you read of a trial or a charge but no further info. I suspect with the multiple redeployments that the number would be UP

[Maq]

4. what ever happened to this guy

Return Of 'Fragging' Echoes Earlier War
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Pacific News Service. posted March 25, 2003
Solo attack on fellow soldiers by Muslim African-American again raises troubling questions for the U.S. military on race.

The alleged grenade attack by U.S. Army Sgt. Asan Akbar on U.S. soldiers in Kuwait stirred disturbing memories of the murderous attacks by American soldiers on each other during the Vietnam War. There were a reported 209 "fragging incidents" during that conflict. The targets of the attacks were mostly junior field officers, and the men who killed their officers were in many cases African Americans.
SOURCE: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/15466/

[Karenina]

5. Kinda like how da gubmint

needs to be AFRAID of the populace. You know, that whole microcosm, macrocosm thang.