following the dateline, the corporal wrote: "An element of this U.S. Marine force was ambushed last night by a Viet Cong force of unknown size six miles below the demilitarized zone ..."
When he had finished, the corporal took the proposed release to the Information Supervisor, a tough old master sergeant of not inconsiderable experience, who promptly launched a tirade against the writer.
"Damn it," screamed the Super, "Marines don't get ambushed! They are never, never caught unawares. Now take it back and rewrite it, but make sure you leave out the word 'ambush.' It just doesn't happen to Marines."
Crestfallen, but wiser for the encounter, the corporal returned to his typewriter to redo the story. After a few minutes, the old sarge inquired into the status of the story and, assured that "ambush" had been deleted from the material, told the corporal to go ahead and put it on stencil and have it run off. The corporal did.
It was not until the following morning, long after the finished release had been distributed to members of the press, that the sergeant picked up a copy of the story and began to read.
He was apoplectic before he finished the lead:
"An element of this U.S. Marine force was drygulched last night..."
* * *
DR. Charles Moskos, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology who prefers "Charlie" to "Doctor" and speaks the language of the GI with fluency and ease. He used to be one.
In 1965 he undertook a study of Army enlisted men that carried him around the world. When we met him in Vietnam he told us that of all the units he had visited, the language used by us, to put it gently, was the least genteel.
Browsing around the hootch, he picked up several books, asking who was reading this and who that (most of it was pretty heavy stuff).
"Why?" three of us asked simultaneously.
"Well, no reason, I guess. It's just that your literary tastes have absolutely no relationship to your vocabularies."
* * *
PETTY OFFICER Frank Rost was assigned to the staff of Task Force 77 in the Tonkin Gulf when he joined us in-country for a week of briefings and indoctrination. Like many Navymen, Frank had decided to fulfill his military obligation immediately upon graduation from college in order to pursue his chosen profession without interruption later on.
During a bull session one night we asked him why he hadn't applied for Officers Candidate School instead of remaining in the enlisted ranks for four years.
"Well, I thought about becoming an officer right off the bat," he told us, "and I plan to go to OCS sometime next year. But I'd rather work for a while first."
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