Dinky Dau.

This is coolbert:

During the Vietnam War, the American military man had a lot of derogatory and unflattering nicknames for both the enemy and our South Vietnamese allies.

Such material has been included in a previous blog entry.

As previously mentioned, these derogatory terms were [origin of word in parenthesis]:

DINK [??].

MARVIN [ARmy of VIetNam].

NUGENT [Nguyen].

ZIP [zero importance person].

WHITE MICE [South Vietnamese National Police].

Well, today I am perusing a web site that has a glossary of terms used by the U.S. military in Vietnam, to include "slang" terms.

You DO have the usual list of suspects:

Dustoff - - Medical Evacuation [medevac] helicopter.

KIA - - Killed In Action.

NVA - - North Vietnamese Army.

I look up the various derogatory terms and find ONLY "white mice".

The only other term in the glossary that is similar to those in my list is "dink". Similar to the Vietnamese phrase, "dinky dau". Roughly meaning "you are crazy"!

Perhaps "dinky dau" is the source of the term "DINK"??!! I am not sure.

NO MARVIN, NUGENT, ZIP!!

Well, maybe the author of the glossary was too embarrassed to include such stuff!!??

Nonetheless, such terms DID exist and were used!!

My perception is that the average American soldier in Vietnam had a degree [perhaps a large degree??!!] of contempt for the Vietnamese people in general.

So many derogatory nicknames would seem to indicate this WAS SO!!

coolbert.