Vietnam FNG Syndrome New Recruits

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military followed an individual replacement policy and sent new soldiers one by one into existing units in Vietnam instead of rotating whole units in and out, a practice that troops later called FNG syndrome. Combat veterans in these units saw the newcomers as liabilities and often shunned, harassed, and humiliated them as "FNGs" or "fucking new guys." Army psychiatrists linked this routine mistreatment of replacements to a sharp rise in psychiatric casualties and removed many of these soldiers from the battlefield.

Previous Fact Next Fact