A childhood belief about wars

I was born in 1958 in the US. During the sixties the Vietnam War was on and it affected my life in that I had older cousins and guys from the neighborhood go there to fight. Growing up on the staple of World War II movies and shows, I was fascinated, like every other young boy, by the war. In the evenings we would watch the nightly news and hear stories about the Viet Cong guerrillas fighting the American troops.

My best friend, Frank, and I were scared silly at the thought of armed and organized gorillas swinging through the trees carrying rifles and grenades and launching coordinated attacks against US troops. When we discussed it, is was with a sense of awe and terror that the world contained such animals. Of course, we were very curious as to why we never saw any of them on the news. I think we must have chalked it up to them being up in the trees.

I can't remember how old I was when I finally learned the difference between guerrilla and gorilla, but for a few years at least, I was terrified of apes.