ATTEMPTED MURDER, FORGIVEN SOLDIER

All of my pent-up emotions came to a head. In a cold killing rage, I went to my hootch and grabbed a grenade, walked back to the bunker the XO [executive officer] was in, pulled the pin on the grenade, threw it into the bunker, closed the bunker door, and started back to the hootch. As I was walking back, I heard the explosion of the grenade. Everyone came running, weapons in hand, helmets and flak jackets on, thinking the compound was under attack. It was, but not by the VC [Viet Cong]. …The supply sergeant ran over to tell me that the XO had been wounded and needed my help. I knew I was in trouble right then because I hadn’t gotten the job done. …I was taken to Nha Trang and put in the local jail. Some CID [Criminal Investigation Division] officers interviewed me, asking me why I tried to kill the executive officer. I was really tired of the bullshit, and I told them he was an asshole who deserved to die.”

—Alan G. Cornett, Gone Native: An NCO’s Story

, some U.S. troops killed or tried to kill their own officers and noncommissioned officers, usually through the use of a fragmentation grenade, which blasts sharp fragments throughout an area as it explodes. Drugs and alcohol, indiscipline, racism and poor leadership were all factors in these murders or attempted murders, called “fraggings” in the military slang of the day. The U.S. military’s official tally shows 788 fraggings between 1969 and 1972,