Compiled by Prof. G. William
Koon, English Department
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glossary, click here.)
Page 1
• Mount Sebastian College in New
Jersey: the fictional school attended by Martha, the girl loved by
First Lt. Jimmy Cross. She writes him chatty, dispassionate letters
about poetry and her professors, never mentioning the war. She is a
virgin, often see in white. She may be an unattainable ideal for Cross,
a woman he can never really love. The biblical references—Martha, Cross
and Sebastian—support this ideal image. Cross's love is like the war
itself—impossible. He is fighting for a girl he can't have in a war he
can't win. But maybe he needs the ideal to keep him going. (See the top
of p. 17.) The story "Love," with its ironic title, sees the two of
them together again briefly. We learn that Martha will become a
Lutheran missionary (p.28).
Page 2
• Virginia Woolf (1882-1941):
major British novelist, essayist, and critic. One of the leaders in the
literary movement of modernism.
• P-38 can openers: small,
collapsible GI field can opener.
• Military Payment Certificates:
used in place of U.S. currency. Covered all the usual denominations of
U.S. currency and coins. Often abbreviated MPC.
• C-rations: combat rations.
Individual meals issued to troops where no hot food or kitchen
facilities were available.
• R&R: rest and relaxation. A
GI's vacation from the war. U.S. soldiers in Vietnam were eligible for
one 7-day R&R.
• SOP: Standard Operating
Procedure. Set of instructions, produced by a grouping or unit, which
explained exactly how various duties and tasks should be carried out.
Page 3
• RTO: Radio Telephone Operator.
Soldier in the field who carried and/or maintained radio equipment. One
of the prime targets of snipers or gunners.
• legs or grunts: terms for
enlisted men. Somewhat demoralizing in that they see people in terms of
parts or actions. On page 6, another term, KIA (Killed In Action), is
similar as it suggests not really a person but an event. These
references, where parts represent wholes, seem to be consistent with
the title; men are known by "the things they carried." To the military
establishment, they are known by their equipment; meanwhile, they carry
personal items to hang on to some kind of meaningful, personal identity.
Page 4
• Bonnie and Clyde: 1967 film
about the notorious bank robbers, starring Warren Beatty and Faye
Dunaway.
Page 5
• PRC-25 radio: standard field
radio, man transported. Had 920 FM channels and weighed 23 pounds.
• M-60: standard infantry machine
gun used during the 1960's and early 70's.
• PFCs: Private First Class. A
soldier ranking above a private and below a corporal or Specialist
Fourth Class in the U.S. Army
• Spec 4s: Specialist Fourth
Class. An Army rank immediately above Private First Class. Most
enlisted men who had completed their individual training and had been
on duty for a few months were Spec-4s. Probably the most common rank in
the Vietnam-era Army.
Page 6
• LSA oil: lubricant extensively
used in the M-16 rifle to keep the bolt from jamming.
Page 7
• M-14s: standard U.S. infantry
rifle from 1959-66, when it began to be replaced by the M-16.
• CAR 15s: commando rifle with a
shorter barrel than the M-16 and a short, expendable metal stock.
• Swedish Ks: Swedish-made
submachine gun used by U.S. Special Forces and Navy SEALS in Vietnam.
• AK-47s: Soviet-designed 7.62mm
assault weapon.
• Chi-Coms: Chinese Communists.
Common reference to military equipment made in China.
• RPGs: Soviet designed hand-held
anti tank rocket.
• Simonov carbines:
Soviet-designed rifle with an approximately 22-24 inch barrel.
• Uzis: Israeli-designed 9mm
submachine gun.
• 66mm LAWs: man-carried Light
Antitank Weapons, shoulder-fired, single shot and short ranged.
• C-4 plastic explosives:
Composition 4 explosives. Soft, gritty plastic explosive used by the
military.
• Claymore antipersonnel mine:
American-designed device that fires a quantity of ball-bearings in a
specific direction. Can be initiated electronically or by means of a
trip-wire.
• M-18 colored smoke grenades:
generated red, green, yellow or purple smoke. Used for signaling and to
provide cover or screening for troops.
• CS or tear gas grenades: type
of tear agent. Normally used by riot police for crowd control.
Page 9
• bug juice: military-used insect
repellent.
• AOs: Area of Operation. Area
where a unit is assigned to reduce the chance of friendly fire.
• Toe poppers: small
pressure-detonated mine with the power to blow off a hand or part of a
foot, used for booby traps.
• Bouncing betties: cone-shaped
mine buried in ground. When triggered it bounced 3 feet in the air,
then exploded, causing extensive shrapnel damage to the lower body.
• Starlight scope: type of image
intensifier.
Page 10
• Chu Lai: major U.S. base
constructed on the coast of South Vietnam in Quang Tin Province.
Page 13
• Paladin: western hero, a
gunslinger, of the T.V. show "Have Gun, Will Travel." The several
references to cowboy heroes, all of them wholesome and heroic, contrast
with the realistic portrayal of the combat solders of the book.
Page 14
• USO: United Services
Organization. Private, nonprofit organization formed to support members
of the U.S. Armed Forces. Provided social clubs and facilities for
overseas military personnel.
• Sterno: fuel used for a small
portable gas stove.
• Joss sticks: incense.
• grease pencils: black and green
grease used to camouflage the hands and face during military operations.
• The Stars and Stripes: a
patriotic military newspaper.
• Psy Ops leaflets: designed to
lower the enemies' morale (psychological operations).
• Mermite cans: large vacuum
sealed, insulated food containers used for transporting hot food to the
field.
• PRC-77 scrambler radio: field
radio with a scrambler/descrambler attached. Used to make radio calls
over a secure net.
• code of conduct: the rules of
war. Ironic since the rules don't seem to apply here.
Page 16
• entrenching tool: military
shovel.
Page 20
• greased, offed, lit up, zapped:
impersonal terms for being killed.
Page 22
• Sin Loi!: Vietnamese for "sorry
about that."
Page 31
• GI: Government Issue, another
impersonal term for the men.
Page 33
• Poppa-san: GI slang for an old
Vietnamese man or head of a family.
• Batangan Peninsula: peninsula
centered southeast of Chu Lai along the coast of Quang Ngai Province, I
Corps.
• dink: Vietnamese nickname for
U.S. soldiers. Adopted by GIs to refer to all Vietnamese, friend or foe.
Page 35
• AWOL: Absent Without Leave.
Away from a military unit without permission.
• Danang: port city in Quang Ngai
Province, I Corps, on the mouth of the Ca De Song River.
Page 37
• My Khe: beach located about 15
km from the town of Quang Ngai.
Page 39
• The Lone Ranger: another cowboy
hero who is always honorable, always victorious.
Page 40
• Macalester College: private
undergraduate liberal arts college located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Tim
O'Brien graduated from here in 1968 before his tour of duty in Vietnam.
• USS Maddox: U.S. Navy destroyer
attacked by North Vietnamese gunboats on August 2, 1964. After another
attack two days later, the U.S. retaliated with the bombing of the
North Vietnamese port city of Vinh, the first bombing of that country
by the U.S.
• Gulf of Tonkin: off the coast
of North Vietnam. The Maddox was patrolling here in international
waters when attacked.
• Ho Chi Minh: ruled North
Vietnam from 1954 until his death in 1969. His goal was to unite all of
Indo-China under the Communist Party.
• Geneva Accords: Vietnamese
peace agreement that ended the first Indo-China War between France and
the Viet Minh in July 1954.
• SEATO: Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization. Conceived by the U.S. and formed in 1954 to fight the
spread of communism among its member nations.
Page 41
• Gene McCarthy: Democratic
presidential candidate in the 1968 election, defeated by Richard Nixon.
• Phi Beta Kappa: American honor
society for college students.
Page 42
• LBJ: Lyndon Baines Johnson.
President, 1963-69.
• Westmoreland: General William
C. Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam,
June 1964-July 1968. Later, became President of the Citadel.
Page 43
• graduate school deferments:
potential draftees could receive an exemption from fighting in Vietnam
if they were in college or graduate school.
Page 44
• CO status: conscientious
objector.
Page 45
• Bao Dai: last emperor of
Vietnam (1925-46 and 1949-55). Ruled Vietnam before its division into
North and South Vietnam. Exiled to Paris.
Page 58
• Jane Fonda: actress who in 1972
made a pro-North Vietnamese propaganda trip to Hanoi.
• Barbarella: Fonda was
remembered by many GIs for her nude scenes in this film.
Page 59
• My Khe: see note for p. 37.
Page 62
• LZ Gator: Landing Zone. The
particular landing zones were all named for animals.
Page 65
• wheelchair bound: a completely
debilitating wound.
Page 68
• cooze: bitch.
Page 71
• Quang Ngai: capital of Quang
Ngai Province in South Vietnam.
Page 72
• LP: Listening Post. Acted as
early warning to the rest of the unit for enemy advance or attack.
Page 73
• Radio Hanoi: North Vietnamese
radio programs that targeted U.S. troops in South Vietnam.
Page 74
• Haiphong Boys Choir: Haiphong
was North Vietnam's major port city. "Haiphong Boys Choir" was a
phrase, probably invented by Sanders, to describe the chanting voices
the soldiers in the field started to hear after weeks of fighting.
• F-4s: American-designed
multirole fighter aircraft, suitable for use from aircraft carriers,
aka the Phantom.
• Willie Peter: white phosphorus.
Long burning material used in bombs, rockets, etc.
• HE: high explosive.
• Brigadoon: 1954 musical/fantasy
starring Gene Kelly, set in the Scottish highlands. Scotland has much
of the same type of mountain fog described in this story.
Page 87
• Chu Lai: see note for p. 10.
Page 89
• Song Tra Bong: Song Tra is the
Batangan Peninsula. (See note for p.33.)
Page 90
• Culottes: women's baggy
calf-length pants.
Page 91
• Danang: see note for p.35.
• NCO: Non Commissioned Officer,
typically a sergeant.
• E-6: staff sergeant. Normally
led a platoon or platoon-sized unit of 22-40 men.
• Darvon: commonly prescribed
pain medication in the Army.
• RFs, PFs, ARVN: South
Vietnamese territorial forces, defensive in nature, usually lacking
training and poorly equipped.
• ruff-and-puffs: another name
for RF/PFs.
Page 93
• EM club: club for enlisted men.
Page 94
• C-130: American designed
transport aircraft, aka the Hercules.
Page 115
• MP: military policeman.
• CID: Criminal Investigations
Division. Military organization that investigated crimes. During the
Vietnam War, it focused much energy on controlling drugs and smuggling.
Generally disliked by all GIs worldwide.
Page 121
• Friar Tuck: a genial priest in
the Robin Hood stories.
Page 124
• The Man I Killed: a play on the
Thomas Hardy poem, "The Man He Killed," an ironic statement about
killing people we might befriend in circumstances other than those of
war.
Page 125
• My Khe: see note for p. 37.
• Quang Ngai Province: see note
for p. 71.
• Trung sisters: two Vietnamese
sisters who led the first national uprising against the Chinese, who
had conquered them, in the year 40 A.D. The Trungs gathered an army of
80,000 people to help drive the Chinese from their lands.
• Tran Hung Dao ( 1213-1300): In
1284, Kublai Khan lead a 500,000-man Chinese army into Vietnam.
Guerrillas organized by Tran Hung Dao virtually destroyed the invasion
force.
• Le Loi: Vietnamese general and
emperor who won back independence for Vietnam from China in 1428,
founded the Later Le Dynasty, and became the most honored Vietnamese
hero of the medieval period.
• Tot Dong: location of Le Loi's
final victory against the Chinese.
Page 141
• Silver Star: U.S.'s third
highest award for valor, awarded by the president for bravery in combat.
Page 157
• Chu Lai: see note for p. 10.
Page 177
• Karl Marx (1818-1883): German
founder of communism who wrote The Communist Manifesto.
Page 182
• Hanoi: capital, from 1976, of
Vietnam ; capital, 1954–76, of North Vietnam ; and former capital of
French Indochina.
• Saigon: capital of South
Vietnam from 1954-1976, when it was renamed Ho Chi Minh City and is now
the capital of Vietnam.
• Cu Chi: home of the U.S. 25 th
Infantry Division in Vietnam.
Page 189
• Tri Binh: village in the Chu
Lai area.
• Gene Autry: still another
cowboy hero, a righteous winner.
Page 192
• Harmon Killebrew: American
baseball hero who played for the Minnesota Twins in the 1960's.
Page 202
• Charlie Cong: nickname for Viet
Cong soldiers.
Page 207
• Audie Murphy: WWII hero who
later became a movie star.
• Cisco Kid: another valiant
cowboy hero.
Page 209
• Mary Hopkin: British singer,
popular in the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Page 217
• Hitchcock/The Birds: a 1963
Hitchcock thriller starring Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren. Vicious birds
attack an isolated California community.
Page 220
• NoDoz: an inexpensive
stay-awake medicine.
Page 232
• The Man Who Never Was: a 1956
British film starring Clifton Webb; a WWII spy story.
Page 240
• Mama-san: GI name for an aged
or mature Vietnamese woman.
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glossary, click here.)