Frag (military)
Encyclopedia : F : FR : FRA : Frag (military)
Frag is a term from the Vietnam War, most commonly meaning to assassinate an unpopular member of one's own fighting unit by dropping a fragmentation grenade into the victim's tent at night. A hand grenade was used because it would not leave any fingerprints, and because a ballistics test could not be done (as it could to match a bullet with a firearm). A fragging victim could also be killed by intentional friendly fire during combat. In either case, the death would be blamed on the enemy, and, due to the dead man's unpopularity, no one would contradict the cover story. The intended victim of a fragging was sometimes given warnings, of which the first might be a grenade pin on the sheet of the victim, and later on, a tear gas grenade.
Fragging most often involved the killing of an unpopular, harsh, or inept commanding officer or a senior noncommissioned officer. If a C.O. was incompetent, fragging the officer was an extreme means to the end of self preservation for the men serving under him. Fragging might also occur if a commander freely took on dangerous or suicidal missions, especially if he was deemed to be seeking glory for himself. The nightmarish vision of fragging served as a warning to junior officers to avoid earning the ire of their enlisted men through recklessness, cowardice, or lack of leadership.
During the Vietnam War, fragging was surprisingly common. At least 600 American officers were murdered by their own troops in documented cases, and as many as 1,400 other officers' deaths could not be explainedHedges, Chris. As many as 25% of all officer casualties during the war were due to fragging.
During the Iraq War, there have been two instances of fragging: the murders of Captain Phillip Esposito and Lt. Louis Allen by Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez and the murder of two officers in Kuwait by Hasan Akbar.
See also
External links
- ["Fragging" and "Combat Refusals" in Vietnam] - provides year by year estimates of fragging incidents.
- [Sir, No Sir!] - Documentary Film About GI Resistance During Vietnam
References
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.