The Vocabulary of the War

Or a brief idea of how we fought the war.

Air Cavalry

• Helicopter-borne infantry

• Helicopter gunship assault teams

Fire Base

• Temporary artillery encampment for fire support for forward ground operations .

LZ

• Landing Zone for air cavalry

Search and Destroy

• US policy for ground operations. Search out the enemy and destroy anything the enemy find useful.

Free Fire Zone

• US policy of declaring all persons in a certain area the enemy, thus allowing US troops to use their weaponry.

Air Strike

• Air support of ground troops

VC

• Vietcong, Charlie (lots of other racial slang terms used also) Lived in the south

Vietminh

• Supporters of Ho Chi Minh, usually lived in the North.

ARVN

• Army of the Republic of Vietnam

“we are supporting them, they are our friends.”

We had

• Air Cav• Fire power

They had

• The jungle• Tunnels • Booby traps• Nationalism