Why did American soldiers in Vietnam wear playing cards on their helmets
In American films about the Vietnam War, you can often see playing cards on the helmets of soldiers. Most often they were aces of spades, but there were also other suits. Usually they used ordinary cards from poker decks, but sometimes they were painted on metal with paint. What did this unusual decoration mean for American soldiers?
Everyone knows that there are no atheists in the trenches. You will not meet so many believers and just superstitious people anywhere as in the active combat zone. It was prejudice that forced Americans to decorate their helmets with poker cards and simply drawn suits.
Success in a card game largely depends on luck. This also applies to war, where even the most skilled and disciplined warrior is not immune from a stray bullet or projectile. Therefore, in the United States, playing cards have long been considered symbols of good luck and luck. I must say that the Vietnam War is not the first theater of military operations where card mascots were seen.
For the first time, cards began to be used for magical protection against death and injury back in the First World War. Card suits were applied not only to helmets, but also to planes, cars, ships, submarines and other military equipment.
At first, the Americans and the British, who were close to them in spirit," indulged " in this, but later the French and Germans adopted the fashion. Later, playing cards appeared on the sides of airplanes in the Second World War, often next to frivolous-looking women.
In theory, non-statutory fashion should have been suppressed, but in the US army they looked through their fingers at such things. The command believed that such talismans increase the military spirit, and this was already not bad. During the Vietnam campaign, which was not very successful for the Americans, the fighters were not very motivated, so the most unusual means were used. In military units, they even began to specially distribute card decks, including those with indecent images.
But there was another reason to use playing cards, or rather, the ace of spades. Someone came up with the idea that "Charlie" (Vietnamese partisans) are terrified of playing cards. Allegedly, gambling is repugnant to their communist ideology. Therefore, sometimes American pilots scattered thousands of aces of spades over the enemy's positions, which terribly surprised the Vietnamese.
The brave fighters from the jungle did not feel any fear of playing cards, so they could not understand the essence of card "bombing". The fact is that cards have never played a big role in Eastern culture, unlike European and American ones. It was in Europe that the classic suits appeared, which we can see on playing cards today.
Keywords: War | North america | Vietnam | Airplane | Poker | Soldiers | Battle | Card