My father recently relayed a story of something he saw in Vietnam regarding the fragging of a superior officer. What is the history of this practice in wars such as WWI, WWII or more interesting instances you may be aware of in other wars?

by Bombingofdresden

This was an experience that very much left him scarred as a 19 year old in Vietnam. I'm aware this war apparently had a high incident of occurrence but is this something that's consistently happened through time?

tbarnes472

Can I ask what fragging is?

jookiework

In Viet Nam the individual rotation policy put officers in charge for about 6 months at a time (sauce) while their men were in country for 12 months. This, according to Gabriel and Savage led to

Not only did the rotation policy foreclose the possibility of developing a sense of unit integrity and responsibility, but it also ensured a continuing supply of low quality, inexperienced officers at the point of greatest stress in any army,

Couple this with the stress of asymmetric, jungle warfare on the draftees and you have a recipe for fragging LTs that didn't exist in WW2.

anacondatmz

Hey /u/Bombingofdresden - During WWII, on DDay... Paratroopers had landed behind enemy lines and were getting into varying sized gun battles as they fought their way to the coast. There's one story where Americans were shooting it out with some Germans. All of a sudden there was a lull in the fighting, a single shot rang out on the German side followed by laughter.

The polish soldiers looking to surrender had shot the German Sgt. who was forcing them to fight at gun point.