Fragging: Why U.S. Soldiers Assaulted Their Officers in Vietnam

• Author: Fred L. Borch III
• Position: Regimental Historian and Archivist for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps
• Pages: 307-312

2011] BOOK REVIEWS 307

FRAGGING: WHY U.S. SOLDIERS ASSAULTED THEIR

OFFICERS IN VIETNAM1

REVIEWED BY FRED L. BORCH III*

This is an important book for judge advocates, because it is the first

in-depth and comprehensive study of the crime of “fragging” during the

Vietnam War. It also is important because it shatters the myth that the

killing or maiming of Army and Marine Corps officers and non-

commissioned officers (NCOs) with fragmentary grenades or other

weapons occurred mostly on the battlefield. Finally, the book is

important because it disproves the claim by Vietnam anti-war activists

and various academics that anti-war ideology and political antipathy to

the United States presence in Southeast Asia played a direct role in the

fragging of officers and NCOs.

As author George Lepre acknowledges at the outset, soldiers have

tried to “frag”—kill or harm—“unpopular comrades since the earliest

days of armed conflict.”2 It was during the war in Vietnam, however, that

such incidents became sufficiently prevalent to cause the Army and

Marine Corps to take institutional steps to stop it. Starting in 1970,

prominent U.S. news media sources like the New York Times and

Newsweek began reporting that “fraggings”—a slang word used in both

the Army and Marine Corps—were no longer isolated instances, but

instead “were averaging about twenty per month.”3 More importantly,

some journalists and anti-war activists suggested that these fraggings

were proof that the U.S. Armed Forces was disintegrating. Finally, when

respected politicians like Montana Senators Mike Mansfield and Lee

* Mr. Borch is the Regimental Historian and Archivist for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate

General’s Corps. He graduated from Davidson College (A.B., 1976); Univ. of North

Carolina (J.D., 1979), and University of Brussels, Belgium (LL.M, magna cum laude,

International and Comparative Law, 1980). Mr. Borch also has advanced degrees in

Military Law (LL.M., The Judge Advocate General's School, 1988), National Security

Studies (M.A., highest distinction, Naval War College, 2001), and History (M.A., Univ.

of Virginia, 2007).

Fred Borch is the author of a number of books and articles on legal and non-legal topics,

including Judge Advocates in Combat: Army Lawyers in Military Operations from

Vietnam to Haiti (2001), Judge Advocates in Vietnam: Army Lawyers in Southeast Asia

(2004), Geneva Conventions (2010) (with Gary D. Solis) and For Military Merit:

Recipients of the Purple Heart (2010).

1 GEORGE LEPRE, WHY U.S. SOLDIERS ASSAULTED THEIR OFFICERS IN VIETNAM (2011).

2 Id. at 1.

3 Id. at 48.