“Uncover the Secret Language of the Vietnam War: 15 Slang Terms That Defined a Generation”
Ever wondered how American soldiers in Vietnam managed to keep their spirits up amidst the chaos? Well, they did it with a unique form of communication—packed with slang and shorthand so distinctive it could easily pass for a dialect of its own! This lingo, often tinged with a dash of flippancy and dry wit, reveals much about their coping mechanisms in a time of distress. From terms that make you chuckle to those that evoke a deeper reflection on the impact of war, here are 15 memorable phrases used by these brave men, ranging from the playful *ball game* to the pragmatic *unbloused*. Curious to uncover the stories behind these terms? You’re in for a wild ride! For a deeper dive into this fascinating topic, LEARN MORE.
American soldiers in Vietnam communicated using so much slang and shorthand that it almost seems like its own English dialect. Their language, often both flippant and matter-of-fact, sheds light on how they coped with the horrors of war. Here are 15 memorable terms, from ball game to unbloused.
- Ball game
- Band-Aid
- Butter bar
- Dap
- Didi mau
- Funny papers
- Klick
- Lurp
- Monday pill
- Number ten thousand
- Peanut
- Shake and bake
- Turtle
- Two-stepper
- Unbloused
Ball game
Any military operation.
Band-Aid
A medic.
Butter bar
A second lieutenant, the lowest-ranking officer. The uniform insignia for second lieutenants is one gold bar, which looks like a stick of butter. Second lieutenants were also known as brown bars, since the bar on their camouflage uniform was sometimes brown.
Dap
The dap, now ubiquitous in Black American culture, originated with Black soldiers in Vietnam. “At a time when the Black Power movement was burgeoning, racial unrest was prominent in American cities, and draft reforms sent tens of thousands of young African Americans into combat, the dap became an important symbol of unity and survival in a racially turbulent atmosphere,” LaMont Hamilton wrote for the Smithsonian’s Folklife Magazine. “Scholars on the Vietnam War and Black Vietnam vets alike note that the dap derived from a pact Black soldiers took in order to convey their commitment to looking after one another.”
A dap could (and can) basically be any greeting that involved hands, but wasn’t a traditional handshake. It’s been suggested that the term dap is an acronym for dignity and pride, but it may have also arisen as a variant of tap and/or dab.
Didi mau
“Go away” or “go quickly,” borrowed from Vietnamese. Ði means “to go,” and a second đi in the same sentence implies a command. Mau means “quickly.” Americans pronounced it “dee-dee mou” (as in mouse) and sometimes used it as a phrasal verb. Naval officer Jim Davy recalled in Iron Butterfly, coauthored with Ralph Christopher, that members of the Viet Cong had once entered a bar while he was sleeping upstairs. “They stayed down there what seemed like forever, but was only an hour or so,” he wrote, “then they didi mau-ed, left.”
Funny papers
Maps, particularly topographic ones. According to Paul Dickson’s book War Slang: American Fighting Words & Phrases Since the Civil War, the term was inspired by the maps’ “comic book colors”—and they were sometimes just called “comics.” It’s also been suggested that the nickname alluded to soldiers’ lack of faith in the maps’ accuracy.
Klick
A kilometer.
Lurp
A member of a long-range reconnaissance patrol, or LRRP. These patrols were small groups of soldiers that trekked deep into enemy territory to gain intelligence and carry out guerrilla warfare. As veteran Gary P. Joyce put it, “They were adept at the art of ambush, the quiet kill, unseen movement and survival. They wafted through the jungle like a solitary breeze, briefly felt, quickly gone. They were the eyes and ears of a roaring, earth-splitting, technological typhoon of destruction—the killing machine that was the U.S. military in the Republic of Vietnam.”
Monday pill
A large, bright orange pill containing two anti-malarial medications—chloroquine and primaquine—that everyone took on Mondays. In a setting where all the days blended together, the Monday pill became a way for soldiers to keep track of time passing.
Number ten thousand
Number one meant “good”—the best a thing or situation could be. Number ten, by contrast, was the worst. But American soldiers also had a term for something exponentially worse than a number ten: number ten thousand (or number ten thou, for short).
Peanut
A soldier wounded in action. As Frederick Downs Jr. explained in his memoir The Killing Zone: My Life in the Vietnam War, “We tried to say nothing over the radio that could be understood by the enemy. Thus, we used code words for certain things. A ‘Kool-Aid’ was a dead soldier and a ‘peanut’ was a wounded soldier.”
Shake and bake
Shake ’N Bake, which General Foods debuted in 1965, is a seasoned breadcrumb coating that takes the hassle (and the frying) out of making dinner: You just shake whatever meat’s on the menu in a bag with the breadcrumbs and then bake it. Vietnam soldiers adopted the name for officers who had earned their rank right out of training courses—particularly sergeants, who are non-commissioned officers in charge of soldiers (as opposed to commissioned officers like lieutenants, majors, and generals, who are essentially upper management).
