9 Things the Viet Cong Did in Vietnam That the US Army Never Taught Its Grunts

Sandals cut from American truck tires, kitchens that made no smoke, bicycles that carried the war down the trail, a city dug under an American division, and a rule the Americans learned at Ia Drang: grab them by the belt. The Army taught its grunts a lot before Vietnam. Almost none of it was about the man they were going to fight, and the grunts learned him one trail at a time. Sources: - Tom Mangold and John Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi (Random House, 1985) - Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once... and Young (Random House, 1992) - Gordon L. Rottman, Viet Cong and NVA Tunnels and Fortifications of the Vietnam War (Osprey, 2006) - Accounts from Army and Marine veterans of the Vietnam War