Glossary

• AFVN:  Armed Forces, Việt Nam.  There really was an AFVN radio station (remember Adrian Cronauer?); if you were lucky enough to have access to a TV, you could watch AFVN Television, which broadcast, among other things, Star Trek Original Series episodes two or three times per day.  However, Jeeps did not come equipped with AM radios
• Aó daì:  Traditional Vietnamese dress, consisting of silk trousers and a blouse-like top with long tails.  The tails have been getting shorter; originally, they swept the ground.  During the war, most women wore them at about ankle length or slightly below.  The Communust regime from 1975 until just a few years ago discouraged wearing them.  Now that aó daìs are allowed and again becoming popular, the tails fall between mid-calf and the ankle.  In the North, it is pronounced “ow zai,” in the South, “ow yai” 
• ARVN:  Army of the Republic of Việt Nam.  The “good” guys, the ones we were helping to fight off the Commie Menace
• Ba Mười Ba:  “33,” brand of Vietnamese beer 
• Base camp:  Large, semi-permanent military base, such as Củ Chi or Long Binh.  Long Binh was a small city of 50,000 or 60,000, while Củ Chi was home to perhaps 20,000 GIs
• Beaucoup, often written “bookoo” or “boocoo”:  French loan word, meaning big, large, much, etc.
• Bến Bạch Đằng:  Bạch Đằng Quay, down by the Sông Sàigòn.  Today, its name is Đại Lộ Tôn Đức Thắng, Tôn Đức Thắng Avenue
• Biên Hóa:  Part of Sàigòn
• Boom-boom:  Heterosexual intercourse
• Bouncing Betty:  Anti-personnel mine that, when activated, jumped up to waist level before exploding
• Bunker:  Sand-bagged room or building where all members of a Detachment could hide in case of artillery or rocket/mortar attack.  Sometimes underground, usually protected with sandbags
• C-Rations, Cs:  canned meals meant for emergencies or consumption in the bush.  Often better than what you could get in mess halls
• Cam Ranh Bay:  North of Sàigòn, one of three main entry points for troops via airline (The others were both near Sàigòn, Tân Sơn Nhất and  Biên Hóa
• Career soldier:  enlisted, staying in the military for 20 or 30 years to get the pension, but not assholes like the lifers.  Sgt. Hutch, in the Andi Holmes stories, is a career soldier
• Charlie:  see VC
• Cheongsam:  high-collared, short-sleeved traditional Chinese dress, with slits up one or both sides; comes in several varieties, from floor-sweeping to just below the knee
• CO:  Commanding Officer
• Củ Chi:  US military base camp, home of the infamous tunnels.  About 35 kilometres Northwest of Sàigòn.  Home base for the 25th Infantry Division, a.k.a., “Tropic Lightning.”
• Deserters:  Men who deserted and stayed incountry.  The rumor is that they were rounded up and shot when the Communists took over
• Deuce-and-a-half:  2-1/2 ton truck 
• Dinky-dau:  Crazy
• DMZ:  De-Militarized Zone.  In Korea, this is the 38th Parallel (latitude), but in Việt Nam it was the 17th that separated North from South Việt Nam.  Củ Chi is almost exactly 11° N (110° 30′ E), Sàigòn at 10° 45′ N latitude (110° 45′ E)
• Donut Dollie:  American Red Cross volunteers, always women, who brought “a touch of home to a combat zone.”  The official name for them was “Supplemental Recreational Activities Overseas,” or SRAO
• Duffle, duffle bag:  The term comes from the name of the Flemish town Duffel, near Antwerp, which manufactured a heavy, rough cloth, made into a huge bag, that could take being dragged around without damage.  In the service, all you were allowed to take with you was one duffle bag, at least for ranks lower than E5
• E1, E2 ... E9:  Enlisted ranks, E1 being the lowest, E9 the highest
• EM club:  Enlisted Men's bar; same as service club
• Field-strip:  Strip off the lit end and the remaining tobacco from a finished, or near-finished, cigarette, and put the remaining filter in a convenient pocket for later disposal.  This had nothing to do with ecology and everything to do with control of the troops by officers and higher-ranking enlisted men
• Firebase:  A hole in the ground, a great big artillery gun, and some sandbags; no shelter from the sun or rain, unless you were lucky enough to have tents.  There were no real defenses if Charlie decided to overrun the place.  365 days in the stare of the snake
• First Sergeant:  Highest enlisted man in company or battalion, at least an E-8.  A.k.a. top kick, or just Top.  Often having more real power than the CO or XO, good ones also knew more about running the company/battalion.  Bad ones were known to destroy the units
• FNG:  Fuckin’ New Guy
• Freedom Bird:  the plane that took you back to the world from incountry.  The language we used presented Việt Nam as hell or prison and anywhere else as heaven.  Most GI slang was dehumanizing, distancing or separationist in one way or another
• Gecko:  insect-eating lizard which frequented hooches and most other non-airconditioned buildings 
• GI:  Government Issue; a soldier.  Dating from at least WWII, and probably earlier
• Ginny:  Virginia Kirsch, a Donut Dollie, was murdered on August 16, 1970.  See  http://www.war-stories.com/donut-dollie-diary-ii-slook-1970.htm
• Gook:  racist term applied to all Vietnamese, whether VC or ARVN
• Grunt: an Infantry soldier; origin of the term, “grunt work”
• Hooch, hootch:  barracks, divided into rooms.  Lots of screening to allow airflow 
• HQ:  Headquarters
• Hue; woman's name, pronounced “hwey” to rhyme with “whey”
• Huey:  the archetypal helicopter from the Việt Nam war, the Bell UH-1
• Ilikai East:  Service club in Củ Chi, named after a famous Hawaiian restaurant and night club
• Incountry:  in Việt Nam
• Klick:  Military slang for kilometre
• LBJ:  Long Binh Jail.  A sprawling prison compound in Long Binh (near Sàigòn) where the conditions were rumored to be somewhat less aesthetic than Andersonville.  Long Binh Jail: An Oral History of Vietnam's Notorious Us Military Prison by Cecil Barr Currey is available at Amazon.
• Lifer:  upper enlisted ranks; distinct from career soldiers.  One common definition:  “Lifers are like flies.  They eat shit and bother people”
• Long Binh:   Called “Plantation” early in the war, this was the largest US military base in South Việt Nam 
• Long Lines Rangers:  The 369th handled communication between base camps.  Telephone lines were bundled up and combined into a microwave signal and sent to the next base camp in line.  These microwave shots were called “Long Lines” and those who worked on them referred to themselves ironically as “Rangers”
• M79:  handheld grenade launcher that looks like a short shotgun with a single fat barrel; the grenades look like chicken eggs
• MACV:  Military Assistance Command, Việt Nam.  Military office in charge of the war
• Mai: woman's name, pronounced “My”
• Mama-san, Papa-san, Baby-san:  Vietnamese who worked in the hooches, doing laundry, ironing, boot polishing, yardwork and so on.  Baby-san didn’t mean an actual baby, simply the youngest of the mama-sans.  The women were also called hooch girls.  As in the segregationist South of the US, these pseudo-family terms were ways to soften the impact of the racial divide for the dominant white culture.  They also allowed GIs to avoid learning individual names.  Since we were all taught to suspect Vietnamese nationals of the worst intentions at all times, little tricks like these allowed us to dehumanize the enemy, even when she was doing our laundry and polishing our boots.  In theory, we had no friends in Việt Nam; in practice, the war could not have continued without the wife-like labor of the Vietnamese civilians on the US base camps
• Mekong:  The best-known river in Southeast Asia.  In Vietnamese, it is named the Sông Cửu Long, “Nine Dragon River.”
• Military rank and pay grades:  http://www.military-quotes.com/military-rank.htm is probably the best overview on the net.  SP4 was about the lowest rank one could have in Việt Nam without having run afoul of the UCMJ
• MP:  Military Police
• MPC:  Military Pay Certificates.  Monopoly money-like substitute issued by Armed Services in Việt Nam in an effort to cut down the black market traffic in US dollars.  The only effect was to drive up the value of greenbacks.  On the black market, you could reasonably expect to get five to ten times the face value of a greenback in MPC.  You could get even more if you took it in Vietnamese money—piasters and dong—which did little good on a military base, except to pay the Mama-sans, but was useful for paying for goods and services—everything from lawn chairs and Jeep painting to drugs and prostitutes—from the Vietnamese.
• Người đàn bà đồng tính luyến ái:  Lesbian.  “Người đàn bà” is female person; “đồng tính” is of the same sex; “luyến ái” is love.  Người đàn ông đồng tính luyến ái:  Gay
• Nhà Thờ Đức Bà:  Cathedral in downtown Sàigòn.  Nhà Thờ is church or cathedral and Đức Bà is roughly equivalent to “Notre Dame”
• Núi Bà Đen:  Mrs. Black’s Mountain, or Black Virgin Mountain.  Mountain near Tây Ninh, which can be seen from Củ Chi 
• Number one:  the best
• Number ten:  the worst
• PFC:  Private First Class (E3)
• PX, BX:  Post Exchange, Base Exchange.  Military-run monopoly stores.  In 1970, cigarettes were $2 per carton at the PX, when they were going for $4.50 to $5.50 in the world 
• Quận:  District.  So, “Quận Củ Chi” is “Củ Chi District,” which includes many small villages and hamlets—none named Củ Chi, although the US Army designated the nearest village to the base camp as “Củ Chi Village.” 
• Quốc Lộ, Tỉnh Lộ (Q. Lộ, T. Lộ):  Highways.  Quốc Lộ (Q. Lộ) is a national or interprovincial highway, such as Highway 1.  Tỉnh Lộ (T. Lộ) is intraprovincial, communal or other type of road, such as Highway 8A 
• Ration cards:  Light blue (generally; some were salmon) folded cards that got punched; you were allowed 6 bottles of hard liquor, 4 cases of beer and 6 cartons of cigarettes per month.  There was a thriving black market in ration cards.  GIs who died provided some ration cards to the system, but many more were sold because they were of no use to owners who didn’t drink or smoke
• REMF:  Rear Echelon Mother Fucker.  Support personnel not engaged in actual fighting
• Round-eye:  non-Asian woman.  Never applied to men.
• RVN:  Republic of Việt Nam
• Sàigòn Tea:  non-alcoholic drink designed to look like whiskey
• Short:  A tour incountry was 365 or 366 days.  You started counting down the day you arrived incountry, but not until you were at least half-way through with your tour could you speak of how short you were without getting razzed unmercifully
• Signal REMF:  REMF in the Signal Corps
• Sông Sàigòn:  Sàigòn River 
• SP4-8:  Enlisted ranks E4-E8, but “Specialist”.  Most REMFs were “Specialists,”or “Spec,” pronounced “speck,” instead of hard-stripers.  Hard stripes were reserved for those in positions of command
• Tân Sơn Nhất:  Airport/Airbase near Sàigòn
• Tết:  Tết Nguyễn Đán, Việt Nam’s major annual holiday, the lunar new year
• Tự Do Street:  A mile-long street in downtown Sàigòn stretching from the Catholic cathedral  to the Sông Sàigòn.  Called Rue Catinat under the French regime, Tự Do Street (American soldiers pronounced it as “two-dough” instead of the correct “two-yo” or “two-zo”) was the most famous red-light district in the world during the war.  After the fall of Sàigòn in 1975, it was renamed Dong Khoi street 
• UCMJ:  Uniform Code of Military Justice
• VC:  Viêt Cong.  The “bad” guys.  A.k.a Victor Charlie, Charlie
• Vietnamese names:  Names of Vietnamese in the story are presented in the order used in Việt Nam:  family name, middle name if any, given name.  Formally, people are referred to by title and given name.  You would call Rosie Greer “Mr. Rosie” instead of “Mr. Greer”
• WAC:  Women’s Army Corps.  No longer a separate branch, but integrated completely into the Army in 1978.  See http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wac/index.htm
• White Mice:  ARVN Military Police, so called because of their shiny white helmets
• World:  The US; everything that was good and peaceful and not full of military bullshit.  Also called “The land of the big PX”
• XO:  Executive Officer
• Year of the metal dog:  Like many Asian lunar calendars, the Vietnamese track years in a cycle of 12 animals and 10 types; the combination, a sixty-year round, is called “can chì.”  Tết 1970 to Tết 1971 was Canh Tuất, the Year of the Metal Dog.  A Vietnamese lunar calendar calculator by Hồ Ngọc Đức can be found at:  http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~duc/amlich/vncal_en.html

The Vietnamese terms used in Down by the Sông Sàigòn were mangled by the publisher and I had to strip off the diacritics and tone markers.  Here they are, with translations, in order of appearance within the story.

See viet-tones.html for more information on Vietnamese tones, vowels and consonants

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