AMERICANS

Hammer Time,

Most of my time in the Grunts we considered having wire in front of us to slow down the NVA a definite luxury. We usually just used claymores and frags.

Got curious and did some research I thought you would find of interest. The term “gook” most likely came out of the American experience in the Philippine War, 1899-1902.

The slang term evolved from an attempt by American Marines and Soldiers to mimic the various Filipino languages that they described as “dog languages.” Their first impression of the language was “goo-goo” or “gugu,” and evolved into “gook.”

Then Gook was quickly used to describe not only the language, but also the Filipinos themselves. After its origin in the Philippines, the term “gook” was transferred to any situation pitting Americans against any Asians. But, not the Japs as far as I can tell? (Not positive about that).

I found there were some nicknames for Americans by the Vietnamese, among them were “Mẽo” or “A Mẽo” from the name America, or ‘Merica. They sound like “Cat” in Vietnamese.

From these nicknames came the other: “Mèo Hoang” (Wild Cat). The “wild” may have come from the American distinctive Wildwest cowboy image, but it sounded more like “homeless” than “ferral”. Folklore says that they were invented by South Vietnam society at some point during the “American’ War.

Another term for Americas was “Mỹ Nguỵ”, which means American as well as anyone in the late Southern Vietnamese Government. Evidently Vietnamese tend to not invent nicknames like we do, but rather use the literal word, and give it emotional meaning. An example would be the word “Bắc kỳ”, which simply means the northern region of Vietnam. However, this word was used to mock the people from the north so hard that they really hate it when you say it. In the language itself, there is no ill intention in this word.

In my day in Nam I use to say to the FNGs… “Watch out or ‘Luke the Gook’ will get you if you don’t watch out.” And that he did.