Montagnard

joker19

What does this mean??? Could it be the infamous mountain people....you just missed on the spelling!

pwillie

TThey used to climb into the Gorilla cage in Saigon,and have fun playing with them.

CapnMidnight

They where the native people of the centeral highlands, double tuff and honest. Good people.
W.D.

Rocky Raab

There's another thread on them here. http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=356377

70-101

Montagnard's also made some nice wrist bracelets out of brass that became very popular with GI's.

Sparty_76

Are thye the same a Hmong?

Rocky Raab

There were and still are many tribes living in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. None of them call themselves "montagnards" which was a catch-all slang term given them by the French - much as we called native Americans "Indians." Montagnard means "mountain people" which isn't even terribly descriptive, as the native people lived everywhere until they were pushed into the mountains and generally inland by invaders centuries ago.

I cannot recall the tribal name of the people I worked with in the Central Highlands near Ban Me Thuot. The Hmong were people of Laos.

Sting

I believe that they were depicted as those tribes-people at the end of the river in the movie "Apocalypse Now"

caballoloco

quote:Originally posted by Rocky Raab
There were and still are many tribes living in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. None of them call themselves "montagnards" which was a catch-all slang term given them by the French - much as we called native Americans "Indians." Montagnard means "mountain people" which isn't even terribly descriptive, as the native people lived everywhere until they were pushed into the mountains and generally inland by invaders centuries ago.

I cannot recall the tribal name of the people I worked with in the Central Highlands near Ban Me Thuot. The Hmong were people of Laos.

caballoloco

Your question about yards around Ban me Thout depends on where you were actually working. North towards Cheo Reo or Ban Bleck were Rhade, Those west of 155 East Field, Duc Lap area seemed to be Jarai. I know that 20 miles apart they didnot understand each ot her.No Bic....some yard,some french, some G I, and all was well. Good troops, best m79 shooter I ever saw was a Chou Hoi named Tuy. They learned quick, short learning curve in the nam though. Ever thing there bites.

CanTho

The montagnards have a website and they still make the bracelets for a donation.[url][/url]http://www.montagnards.org/store.cfm

Rocky Raab

Jarai it was! How wonderfully kind of you to remind me.

I wrote in my book that the chieftain we dealt with was the single most imposing man I have ever met. He absolutely radiated a sense of power. Five seconds in his presence and you felt that upsetting him was the last thing you ever wanted to do - because it just might BE the last thing you ever did. But the slightest compliment from him made you squirm and blush like a schoolgirl. Amazing man.

Unfortunately, he was probably among the first to be killed. The first tanks to roll into SVN from Cambodia came right through Ban Me Thuot (our operation predicted it based on reinforced bridges I helped find) and slaughtering the Montagnards always began with the chief and his family.