Guerrilla fighters are really gorillas

When I was young and use to hear on the news about the guerrillas shooting people in the street I would think how did they escape from the zoo and where did they get the guns.

Karen from Maryland

When I was growing up as a kid (I'm 44 now), I always believed that we were fighting apes in Vietnam. It sounds stupid now, but at the age of six, I was always amazed that an enemy had figured out how to train "guerillas" to fight humans. According to Walter Cronkite, they were doing a pretty good job, too. My folks always wondered why I was never in any hurry to go to the zoo. If they could train apes, could the lions be far behind?

Doug M

When I was four years old there was a great deal in the news about Cuba and about guerilla warfare and guerilla troops and guerilla tactics. To my backwoods, mountain-bred (Ouachita Mountains, on the Arkansas/Oklahoma state line) ears, this sounded like gorilla warfare, gorilla troops, etc. I listened, silently wondering for months how they were able to train the apes to use machine guns and machetes. Imagine my dismay when I finally asked my mother how the training was accomplished and the difference in gorilla and guerilla was explained to me.

It was years before I got over the embarrassment felt when my assumption came to light, (truthfully, it still niggles at me more than a bit.)

To end on a lighter note... although I am now 46 and cognizant of the difference in a guerilla and a gorilla, I still picture the ape when I hear the fighter described.

Tena C.

I used to believe when I was younger that it was ridiculous to bring gorillas to other continents to fight human wars for them, because I thought guerrilla warfare involved African gorillas. I was also worried it would make gorillas go extinct.

Ash

When I listened to the news and the announcer talked about gorilla warfare in Africa, I pictured hairy gorillas with guns fighting. I wondered where they got the guns and who taught them to shoot.

Anon

When I was about 3 or 4, I heard on the news about American soldiers fighting 'gorillas' in Vietnam. I couldn't imagine what we were fighting about nor how it was taking place. Did they have guns or just throw bananas and sticks? How many of them were there?

Anon

I grew up during Vietnam; when I listened to the news reports about "armed guerillas" I thought there were literally armed GORILLAS running around the forest with M16s. I couldn't imagine what in the world they were fighting about. I also thought that the black paint that football and baseball players put under their eyes were actual black eyes, and that it must be an awfully rough game if EVERYBODY had black eyes. Finally, I was grown before I realized that a fiddle and a violin are the same thing (and I grew up in Nashville, TN!)

Anon

I thought guerilla warfare was "gorilla warfare" in which they trained special army gorillas to fight using camoflage techniques to keep from being seen. Each country had its own army gorillas and when people wanted to be sneaky and not be in a real war, they would send out the secret gorilla troops to hide in the forests and shoot each other.

Whoever had the most gorillas left at the end of the battle won.

Lyssa

When I used to hear on the news about soldiers fighting in wars against guerillas, I pictured hoards of 'Planet of the Apes'-style Gorrilas beating their chests and pumelling soldiers who had run out of ammo, dreading the day these huge monkeys might get over to England and pummel me

Mat

I also believed that guerrilla warfare was against real gorillas during the Vietnam war! This was also the time that the Planet of the Apes movies came out which just reinforced that belief!

Andre de Graaf

When the news reporter was referring to the Guerilla's who were waging war in the jungle all through my childhood, I used to watch the television closely waiting to catch a glimpse. I had this idea that it was a bit Planet of the Apes in that part of the world.

The news only ever showed footage of people though and I guess I just assumed they were the army out hunting the Guerilla's.

Leonie

When I learned about the American Revolutionary War, I came upon the French and Americans using Gurilla Warfare. Until I learned about it, I wondered why the French and Americans employed Gorillas into combat. :D

Someone

When I was about six I heard the phrase Guerilla Warfare on the news, for a while, I believed that we should not have given guerillas guns, as they were already fighting to takeover the world like on the TV series Planet of the Apes, which I used to watch. Needless to say, my mother put me straight after a few months of believing this.

Anon

Me too,I'm from Africa and until I actually understood what "guerilla warfare" was,I was terrified to go out in the forest for fear of gorillas falling on me like I hear on TV and radio.

epimeno01

I thought “guerrilla tactics” meant fighting like a gorilla— beating your chest and that sort of thing.

Kai

I kept hearing about roving bands of Guerillas in the Central American jungles carrying guns and killing people. I confused this with animal Gorillas so I was terrified of these animals at the zoo for a long time and would ask zoo keepers if they took their guns away before they were captured

philip coe

When I was young (in the 1970s) there seemed to be a lot of talk on the News about 'guerilla warfare' (you can see what's coming next ...) I use to be flabbergasted that these Gorillas were clever enough to run around with machine guns and capture people - though I could never quite understand what their 'cause' was...

Someone Daft

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.

Bob Natarelli

I used to believe that when the term guerilla warfare was mentioned, it was apes, monkeys, and gorillas fighting it out! They'd be out there, with rifles, guns etc. I thought it so odd....

Ellen

The song goes Video killed the radio star, before we had TV the spoken word was magic.
And in a childs mind anything was possible.
After the war the radio was the magic box in the corner, among the best to open the imagination was a program called " Saturday night Theatre ".
In one play based on the war they spoke of the"Guerrlla" attacks.
It was quite some time after it was explained to me that they were not infact "Gorrila's"...

Peter