The "Great Insider" Speaks....

In today's column, Bill Safire writes:

Another useful bit of information is the origin of "spider hole," a phrase used by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to describe the dugout hiding place in which the fugitive Saddam was cowering.

This is Army lingo from the Vietnam era. The Vietcong guerrillas dug "Cu Chi tunnels" often connected to what the G.I.'s called "spider holes" — space dug deep enough for the placement of a clay pot large enough to hold a crouching man, covered by a wooden plank and concealed with leaves. When an American patrol passed, the Vietcong would spring out, shooting. But the hole had its dangers; if the pot broke or cracked, the guerrilla could be attacked by poisonous spiders or snakes. Hence, "spider hole."

This is an interesting anedote, but it doesn't quite accord with my understanding. Granted, Safire was around and writing speeches for Spiro Agnew during the war years, whereas I was mostly... not born yet. But nonetheless... Let's take a look at Vietnam "Military Jargon":

Spider Hole - A descriptive and realistic expression for a soldier's foxhole.

And let's take a look at how an actual veteran uses the term:

The second most threatening area on the drop zone was the impact point, the point from which we controlled the drops, and the ideal arrival point for each drop. We had to rapidly dig out and crawl into a spider hole from which to work relatively protected from the Vietnamese who were shooting at us constantly -- snipers, mortars, artillery, rockets. We were proud of the speed with which we could dig these little holes out of that clay with our military-issue entrenching tools.

Beyond that, the "Cu Chi tunnels" were not, as Safire seemingly suggests, short tunnels connected to foxholes. They were an intricate series of tunnels, bunkers, kitchens, store rooms, dormitories, and traps, built on three underground levels starting during the resistance against the French. There were about seventy-five miles of interconnecting tunnels, which were dug into the clay earth of the region as opposed to being lined, in Safire's fanciful interpretation, with clay pottery.

But, in rattling out his editorial, Bill was probably more concerned with letting us know that he had attended a party thrown by Donald Rumsfeld than with spending a few minutes on Google to confirm that he got is lingo right.... (In case you are wondering, Safire "stuffed" himself "on lamb chops and potato pancakes".)

Comments