Ace Of Spades Mc Patch

THE DEATH CARD. SGM Herb Friedman Ret. Note: Images from this article were used in Three Practical Lessons from the Science of Influence Operations Message.

To exploit enemy superstitions, psyops personnel must be certain that the

superstition or belief is real and powerful.

A psyops operator s desire to take advantage of manipulating enemy superstitions

surreptitiously must be balanced against the counterproductive effects of possible failure

and exposure of the attempt by the mass media. The U.S. image and the effectiveness of

future psyops might lose more than the commander might hope to gain by successful

execution of the plan.

In summary, enemy superstition manipulation should not be lightly employed by field

psyops personnel. Proposals to make appeals based on superstitions or otherwise manipulate

target audience beliefs will be forwarded in each case to JUSPAO and/or MACPD through the

respective channels of their originators. They will be carefully analyzed there in the

light of the considerations spelled out in this guidance. No psyops campaign in the area

of superstition manipulation will be undertaken without JUSPAO/MACPD approval.

Army officer William Shelton mentions the continued use of the ace of spades in Vietnam:

One of the things we also found out, the Vietnamese are very superstitious people

like most of the Orientals that I ve known and worked with. The Ace of Spades trick

was one that we used. In their society, much the same as in our own, an Ace of Spades in

fortune telling and Tarot and all of that indicates death, so if you threw an Ace of

Spades into one of their cache sites, somebody would see it and they would get very

superstitious and it played a big role in how well they would fight or not fight.

How did the various Ace of Spade cards get to Vietnam. As mentioned above, some

individuals wrote to playing card manufacturers and asked for them. Those manufacturers,

being patriotic, were more than happy to comply with the requests.

Much of the story can be found on various web sites devoted to poker, or even the web

site of the United States Playing Card Company. For instance, an early version of the

story says:

The Ace of Spades served a famous purpose in the war in Vietnam. In February1966,

two lieutenants of Company C, Second Battalion, 35th Regiment, 25th Infantry

Division, wrote The United States Playing Card Company and requested decks containing

nothing but the Bicycle Ace of Spades. The cards were useful in psychological

warfare.

Ace of Spades Deck

Courtesy of CW2 John D Sarviss

In a later comment the manufacturer tells the story in more depth:

The Death Card or Ace of Spades was considered bad luck by the Viet Cong. This is

the story that I got first-hand from one of the lieutenants who originated the idea. He

had read an article in the Stars Stripes indicating that the Vietnamese were a very

superstitious people and that the men were afraid of the Ace of Spades. The French

previously had occupied Indo-China, and in French fortune telling cards, the Spades

predicted death and suffering. It also seems that a statue of a woman foretold a bad

day and there was some belief that the Viet Cong even regarded lady liberty as a

goddess of death.

Anyways, this guy, along with three of his fellow-lieutenants were playing cards

with one of our Bicycle decks, which fortunately they liked to use, and they noticed that

the Bicycle Ace of Spades had a statue of a woman in the middle of it, so they figured

that this was a potentially good psychological operations weapon. So they contacted the

United States Playing Card Company and we sent them thousands of the requested decks

gratis to our troops in Vietnam. These decks were housed in plain white tuck cases,

inscribed Bicycle Secret Weapon: Ace of Spades.

The troops started using them, basically as calling cards. And then all their

friends wanted some. And eventually, the military asked us to produce a deck that had

fifty-two Bicycle Aces of Spades. The cards were deliberately scattered in the jungle and

in hostile villages during raids. The very sight the Bicycle Ace was said to

cause many Viet Cong to flee.

Members of the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division place death cards in

the mouths of dead Viet Cong during Operation Baker near Duc Pho and Mo Duc in 1967.

We have heard the story of the ace of spades from the President of the United States

Playing Card Company. Here is the same story from the point of view of the military unit

that originated the letter requesting the cards. It was written by Charles W. Brown

C/2/35 in 1966, published in The Cacti Times Magazine, entitled ACE HIGH -

This card was no Joker.

The Ace of Spades, a symbol of death to the Vietcong, was reported in

the New York Sunday News, July 10, 1966. In 1966 and 1967 that headline, and many like it,

was published in newspapers and magazines all across the country. Over the years many

organizations and individuals in the military have taken credit for initiating the use of

the Ace of Spades as a psychological warfare weapon. Many did use it, but only one unit

started it. Let me take you back to early 1966 to the beginning of the Ace of Spades

story.

In Jan. 1966 the Tropic Lightning s 3rd Brigade had established a base

camp on a hill just outside the town of Pleiku, South Vietnam. The story begins there in

the rear of Co. C, 2/35th s orderly room that served as a BOQ for four lieutenants

Davis, Zais, Brown, and Wissinger. Thinking back to that time, I remember that tent

looking very much like the swamp from the TV show M A S H. Naturally a card

table had its place in the center of the room.

While sitting around that table one of the platoon leaders called our attention to an

article in the Stars and Stripes about remarks made by Congressman Craig Hosmer of

California to the House of Representatives in Washington D. C. Those remarks, made on

Feb.7th, pertained to the superstitions of the Vietcong. The article stated that two of

their bad luck symbols were pictures of women and the ace of spades. Later that evening,

someone in the group noticed that the ace of spades from a deck of Bicycle

playing cards contained a picture of a woman that just happened to be a representation of

the Goddess of Freedom or Liberty on the dome of our nation s capital building. In

her right hand she held a sheathed sword; in her left hand an olive branch.

Before long the groundwork was laid for a plan to use the ace of spades as a calling

card when Charlie Company went into the field by leaving them at the entrances and exits

to villages we cleared of VC, posting them along trails, and leaving them on VC bodies. As

the plan began to take shape, the discussion turned to a way of obtaining large quantities

of cards since each deck we had contained only the one special ace. It was quickly pointed

out that we needed to keep our decks intact and couldn t afford to part

with that ace from every deck we owned. We had to have some complete decks for

poker, Tonk, or Hearts, which helped to pass the time. However, in the months that

followed, it was discovered that many decks contained only 51cards because someone had

lifted the ace and used it in the field.

Almost jokingly I volunteered to write a letter to the The U.S. Playing Card

Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio to request the aces we wanted. My theory was.

what s the harm in asking. The worst that they could say would be NO. In

the initial letter I asked for approximately 1,000 cards, not really expecting a reply,

and certainly not expecting to create the commotion that it did. Little did we know the

letter would find its way to the desk of the president of the company, Mr. Allison F.

Stanley. We had no way of knowing that Mr. Stanley had lost a son in WWII and that he

would be eager to supply as many aces as were needed. The same day that Mr. Stanley read

our letter 1,000 cards were pulled from the production line, packed, and shipped to us at

no cost.

Soon after our first shipment of cards arrived, we received a letter from John B.

Powers with J. Walter Thompson, Co., an advertising agency in New York City, asking for

permission to use the story stateside. Mr. Powers handled the public relations account for

the playing card company. So with our permission in hand, Mr. Powers relayed the story to

Bob Considine for his nationally syndicated newspaper column and he also made a press

release to United Press International. The playing card company then received so many

requests for cards even from mothers who wanted to send them to their sons they started

packaging them in special marked boxes containing 52 aces. They were always shipped

postage paid.

By this time, Lts. Zais and Wissinger had been reassigned to other units within country

and Lt. Davis and I were frequently sent on operations in different directions. Since days

or even weeks would go by without me seeing Lt. Davis, I continued to correspond with Mr.

Stanley, Mr. Powers, and the Congressman.

Soon the story would be carried in newspapers across the states. Reporters started

dropping in for interviews. Some just stopped by to take photos. A few even went to the

field with us hoping for live action shots. One reporter stayed in the field

with my 3rd platoon for six days. During that time, the reporter got everything he needed

but the action shots. It was not uncommon to have free-lance photographers and writers

hanging around the forward base camps looking for additional material. In the months that

followed, I received several letters from Congressman Hosmer, the U.S. Playing Card

Company, and J. Walter Thompson Co. I always tried to reply as soon as possible and give

them an update on our psychological warfare campaign.

Congressman Hosmer, who in Feb. 1966 had been criticized for suggesting that

psychological warfare be used in Vietnam, spoke to Congress again on June 14, and read the

correspondence he and Mr. Stanley had received from the Lieutenants of Company C. This

information can be found on pages 12497-12499 of that day s Congressional Record -

House Vol. 112, No. 97.

In a letter I received from Mr. Powers dated May 24, 1966, he stated that he was

presently trying to work out story ideas on your ace of spades use with Life, Look,

True, Newsweek, NBC-TV News Huntley-Brinkley Report, This Week, Argosy, True, Sunday

Group Editorial Service photo stories to 18 major metropolitan newspapers, including NY

News, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Once the story of the

Ace was reported and spread across America, I received many personal letters

from people I had never met who saw pictures or read stories about the ACE OF SPADES in

their local newspaper. All that most of these people knew was my name and our unit s

designation C/2/35, 25th Division and they just wanted us to know they believed in and

supported what we were doing. I have read those letters from time to time and still have a

good feeling about what we were trying to do.

One of my letters to Representative Hosmer was published in a book entitled Letters

From Vietnam. In that letter I wrote, I cannot give an account of the effectiveness

of our campaign. I will say that once we sweep through an area, leave our cards, and then

return some weeks later, there has been little or no V.C. activity there. You can arrive

at your own conclusions. Did it work. I m not sure. Did it help our morale. I

definitely think so. In our company and others throughout Vietnam, I think the cards did

something to encourage the men that were just trying to survive during a difficult time.

I am writing this account some thirty-five years after the fact so I may have left out

parts here and there. For some reason I kept most of the letters and mailed them home with

the newspaper articles, clippings, and other material people sent to me concerning our

psychological warfare action. I really don t know why I kept them and sent them home.

More than likely it was just my way of sharing with my wife what was going on in that

crazy mixed-up part of the world. She kept everything I sent and put it all together in a

scrapbook. It s from that scrapbook I was able to pull together the information for

this article. I hope you enjoyed my account of how using the Ace of Spades began.

Note: Recently I had the opportunity to donate several items from Vietnam to the

2/35th museum at Schofield Barracks. Among those items was one of the original

decks of 52 aces I received from Mr. Stanley in 1966. The CO of the Battalion sent me a

deck of 52 aces, also produced by the U.S. Playing Card Company, for the gulf war. I

don t know if the jinx worked in the Middle East, but it is nice to know

that the tradition lives on. CACTI FOREVER

There was apparently more than one letter written to the president of the playing card

company. Staff Sergeant Rick Hofmann, a former member of the 6th Psyop Battalion., HQ,

Saigon, told me:

I wrote to the Bicycle Company in 1967 asking about the cards. They said they were

donating the Aces of Spades to the military on a no-questions asked basis. The cards that

were sent were said to be slightly flawed misprints, which couldn t be put into

circulation. There was also some mention of a relative of one of the Bicycle Company

executives being a killed in action, hence the company s support of the troops and Death

Card operations. We understood the card to be a double whammy - the Ace of Spaces itself

was bad luck, reinforced by the standing goddess in the center of it.

An American who served in Vietnam in 1967-1968 tells what he thinks the ace of spades

represents:

The ace of spades is called the death card or the death-dealers card. It s use in

Vietnam meant approximately I understand that my job means killing the enemy. I am ready

to do so. Think of it as the opposite of the peace sign.

Another Vietnam vet said

The first one of these I ever saw was on the road from near the demilitarized zone

Dong Ha and Camp Eagle at Phu Bai in 1971. It was nailed to the forehead of a Viet Cong

tax collector.

Ken Smith says in a short story entitled Happy Birthday Grunt :

The quotation in the 2/35 Infantry was Got to get Dem Dinks, and

Don t Mean Nothin. Our Crest was Cacti Blue and our calling card was the Ace

of Spades. That was supposed to bring fear in them. I believe that I was more scared of

them though. I mean what tough guy wouldn t be scared when exchanging rounds that close.

If you weren t afraid of getting killed, you must have been on something.

One former member of A Company, 1/52, 198th Light Infantry Brigade told me:

I saw the death cards used once during my 1969-1970 tour of duty. We were

patrolling through an area that another sister company had worked. We found a few of the

death cards strategically placed on the bodies of some dead North Vietnamese Army troops.

I don t think it scared them at all. In fact, I believe their buddies thought we did it

and for about two weeks we had a running gun battle with the sons of bitches. I didn t

mind fighting them, but I just couldn t see any sense in stirring them up.

Katherine Keane was a Red Cross Donut Dolly in Viet Nam from 1967 to

1968. She was assigned to the Red Cross Recreation Center in Nha Trang. She told me that

many of the soldiers coming into the center appeared to have some form of PTSD. She

believed they were being treated locally in an Army medical center. One sat down next to

her and she expected a pleasant talk about home and what it was like to be in Vietnam.

Instead, he pulled out a handful of photographs to show her. She said:

Here he said. Look here. He pulled a stack of Polaroid

pictures out of his cargo pocket. He laid the pictures down in front of me one by one. The

first showed a dead Vietnamese with an Ace of Spades stuck in his mouth. I was completely

unprepared to see this. He continued laying them down, one next to another. The next

showed a group of dead Vietnamese with the Ace of Spades stuck in their mouths. The next

showed the Ace of Spades apparently stuck into the man s chest with some kind of

stick. The last showed the Ace of Spades nailed into a man s forehead. He seemed to

have the pictures in some sort of order of brutality. I couldn t believe what I was

seeing. He offered to let me pick and keep one picture but I declined. He seemed relieved.

I would have broken up his collection. Then he handed me a sewn patch depicting an Ace of

Spades that I did accept.

It was not even noon yet and I was a complete wreck. I went into the office and

found my partner Mary going through some donated books, and asked her if she had heard

that there were special psychologists in Nha Trang that worked with guys who were

disturbed. She said she knew there was a hospital, but didn t know anything about

special shrinks. See that guy out there. I pointed to the young man, who was

still sitting slumped at the table, looking at his pictures. He showed me pictures of

dead Vietnamese with the Ace of spades in them. Really. she said, quite

undisturbed. I ve heard all that Ace of Spades stuff before

I suspect that Katherine Keane was just dealing with regular soldiers back from the

field suffering from some degree of PTSD. However, she might have been correct in thinking

there was a psychiatric center nearby. A subordinate unit within the 8th Field Hospital at

Nha Trang was the 98th Medical Detachment. They operated the only inpatient psychiatric

facility in I and II Corps the two most northern tactical zones in Vietnam. Besides

dealing with mental health issues on an outpatient basis, they had a 12 bed in-patient

facility staffed by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and five social work specialists. They

could keep an in-patient for 30 days; at the end of that time they had to return the

patient to duty, reassign him in-country, or medically evacuate him back to the United

States for further treatment.

There are many types of the ace of spades death cards. It is important to note that

very few of those you see offered for sale are genuine. In fact, no death card should be

considered genuine unless the source is impeccable and there is an unimpeachable history

of it being personally brought back from Vietnam. Fakes and forgeries abound. I would

guess that 95 of those offered at auction are bogus.

7th PSYOP Battalion Death Card

This card coded 7-1040-69 was printed by the U.S. Army 7th PSYOP Battalion in 1969.

The skull on the front is a bit odd and perhaps more Asian than American. The back is all

text with a green Chieu Hoi symbol in the background. What I find most strange about this

item was that the official U.S. line on death cards was that they were useless and there

were even some attempts to ban the troops from using them. Yet, here an American PSYOP

unit actually produced one. I suspect an informal off-the-cuff request from some supported

combat unit that wanted them and the PSYOP Battalion prepared them just as a courtesy. The

text on the back is:

No place is safe for you. You have no place to hide. Your only option is to

return to the just nationalist cause by rallying in order to stay alive.

I had hoped to find out a little more about this card since I have the 7th PSYOP

Battalion Leaflet Catalog Da Nang for 1969. Unfortunately it is dated 1 July 1969

and the highest leaflet it mentions is 750. Assuming that about 125 leaflets were prepared

each month, the Death Card should have been printed about September of 1969.

Death Awaits

One soldier said in regard to the above card:

These were put on every dead Viet Cong to send Charlie a message that

US soldiers had been there. The top line reads: Death awaits Viet Cong cadres.

The second line reads: Return to the south Vietnamese side rather than being

killed.

These seem to be the most prevalent type of death cards, one might almost say the

standard death card. I have seen about three variations with slightly different

fronts but always the same message on the back.

In addition, the same skull inside the spade is depicted on a commemorative death

card distributed by Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Light Infantry

Brigade, at the Americal Division Reunion in Reno Nevada, June 2004. On one side is the

Americal unit insignia, the other side is the ace of spades with skull and crossbones

in the center spade.

I would have assumed that this card was privately made; perhaps ordered from an

American printer. Instead, it turns out that the card was produced by the United States

Army 6th PSYOP Battalion on the request of Special Forces. Captain Edward N. Voke, S2

Intelligence officer from 1966-1967 told me:

The only type of death card I saw was the one with the skull and crossbones

inside the spade on one side, and the crosshatched design and message on the other. The

first time was in 1966 when some Special Forces officers from IV Corps, working around

Father Hoa s area, came up to Saigon with a shopping list. They wanted a small run of

these leaflets; explained that the ace of spades meant  death to the Vietnamese; that

the cards were to be pinned to the clothing of dead Viet Cong, but, in actual practice,

were often left in the mouth. I only recall us printing them for Special Forces, usually

in the IV Corps area, but I did not usually get involved in what our printing plant did

for our companies or other units and agencies.

Warning: In December 2010, these cards were being reproduced and sold by a Florida

dealer in sets of 50. The dealer had sold 25 sets at the time I saw his offer so there are

already a minimum of 1250 fake death cards circulating. Do not buy a death card

unless it comes with a pedigree from a bona-fide veteran who personally brought it back.

The dealer comments:

This is an exact reproduction of the famous Ace of Spades Death Card

used during the Vietnam War by the United States Military Armed Forces. My reproductions

are as close to the originals as possible and by far surpasses any others offered. Printed

on Card Stock.

A Variant of the Standard Death Awaits Card

An Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968 found this variant of

the standard Death Awaits card. Note that although it seems identical at first

glance, the spades at the corner are boxed, and the text at the back is shorter in length

than in the more common versions.

Death Card Poster

I also have a large death card variant in my possession: 16 x

10.25-inches and printed on one side only; black print on white background; probably

designed to be posted on buildings and trees. It has the same ace of spades card with

skull and crossbones and below it are 4 lines of shaded verse. It is coded

244-298-67, so it was printed by our 244th PSYOP Company in I Corps in

1967.   

The poster message is:

The owls are calling for the souls of the Viet Cong

Those wandering souls without destination

Spreading countless horrors to the people

Those wandering souls died in nameless graves

RETURN to the National Government OR DIE

Death Awaits with scythe

This card is similar except that there is no central large ace of spades

and the skull is accompanied by a scythe.

Death Awaits with scythe variation

In this variation Death is now inside a large black spade and the Letter A

is now made up of bones. The message on the back is identical on all three cards.

CAP 1-3-9 Ace of Spade

In spring of 1970 the United States Marine Combined Action Platoon CAP 1-3-9

stationed in Binh Song about 14 kilometers east of Tra Bong received intelligence

indicating that they were about to be attacked by a large force of regular North

Vietnamese Army troops.

PSYOP was called in to help with the defense of the unit and they dropped a leaflet

depicting an ace of spades on the front with the text:

DIE. The same thing will happen again

The back of the leaflet is all text:

NVA from Hanoi, 116 died on September 12, 1969 in Ah Phong. NVA should never come

back here again because they will die.

The leaflet is coded 7-301-70.

The leaflet may have worked because there was no immediate attack. However, the 6th

Battalion of the 21st NVA Regiment did attack two CAP units to the east of 1-3-9 in April

and May, so there was definitely strong activity in the sector.

Another Marine card was a personalized type purchased at the Freedom Hill Military

Exchange PX near Da Nang Air Base by a former Marine Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol

member of the 1st Marine Reconnaissance Battalion.

Fighting Aces

This death card is from the 2nd Battalion of the 34th Armor Regiment the

Dreadnaughts, one of the two armor units in the 25th Infantry Division. The Division

arrived in Vietnam from Hawaii on 28 March 1966 and departed 8 December 1970. The

Battalion fought with the 25th from 1 August 1967 until reassigned to the 4th Infantry

Division at Ft. Carson on 15 December 1970.

One soldier remarked that he was issued a deck of cards upon entering the company. A

printed page described the origin of this card in some depth. It said in part:

On 1 March 1967, Charlie Company, 2/34 Armor was attacked by a North Vietnamese

Army unit estimated to be of Battalion sizePulling the dead NVA onto the road to get

an accurate body count, Captain Kimmerling told one of the men to throw an Ace of Spades

on one of the dead enemy. Captain Kimmerling explained that the Vietnamese were a

superstitious people, and to them the Ace of Spades was a symbol of death. From that point

on Charlie Company was known as the Fighting Aces because of their stubborn

defense against a determined enemy.

Scythe with blood

Another variation depicts the scythe with blood dripping from it. I

have mostly seen these as sewn patches, so it is possible that they were not prepared in

the form of death cards.

2nd Squadron of the 11th Armored Cavalry

Chieu Hoi

One card does not threaten death as much as it offers life. This card depicts the

symbol of the Chieu Hoi Open Arms organization and is a reminder to the Viet Cong that

they can live by simply rallying to the Government of South Vietnam.

Many other death cards exist. Whether they are genuine or not is anyone s guess. For

instance, one depicts a skull and bone fingers holding scythe with the text, 101 ABN

pathfinders and Hue Phu Bai.   The back has text that says, we

are searching for viet cong, give up or die.

Death from Above

Another card depicts a winged skull and the words Death From Above. This

card was printed by the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. There is a confirmed

report that this card was designed by Captain Mozey of C Company, 1st Battalion of the 8th

Cavalry Regiment The Jumping Mustangs during his Vietnam tour of 1965-1966. A

member of the unit told me that:

The calling card was placed on the chest or tucked, slightly, in the shirt

pocket.  But as I said before we did not use it except to say We were

here.  The actual Death From Above saying was a WWII phrase.

As of August 1966 the 1st 2nd of the 8th Jumping Mustangs were all

carrying a deck of Death From Above cards.

Specialist 4 Kevan Mynderup, a former member of Charlie Company, 1st

Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1968 adds:

I can confirm that the Death From Above card was designed by Captain

William B Mozey in either late 1965 or early 1966. When Bill took over the company the

nickname was changed to Death From Above and the unit members got a full deck

of the playing cards along with a Black Silk scarf with the Death From Above

and airborne Skull on it. The phrase was banned in the Battalion Area, so the guys said

DFA until the brass figured that out. It was an Article 15 offense to say

either. The company was broken up at least 2 times because of DFA and the

cards and scarves disappeared, but returned in 1968 when I was with the company. Only

Charlie 1/8th Cavalry was known as Death From Above at this time. The other

companies had their own nicknames as did all the companies in the 1st Air Cavalry

Division.

Brown and Bigelow Printers

Although Mozey has been credited with designing the cards, it appears that he had

them printed in the United States. One complete deck was found in an old foot locker and

the cards turn out to have been printed by: Brown Bigelow, St. Paul, Minn.,

U.S.A. Text on the actual deck adds the following information: The Business

builders, 55164, A Saxon Industrial Company.

Brown Bigelow of St Paul, Minnesota, was a leading producer of playing cards

in the U.S. from the late 1920s to the 1980s. Brown Bigelow manufactured playing

cards under several brand names, as well as novelty and advertising decks. There seems to

be no record of them producing Death Cards, so perhaps because of the political situation

in the United States the company chose to keep their participation in the production of

these cards quiet.

Former Specialist Fourth Class Vic Castle told me that when he arrived in Vietnam as

a member of the 1/8th Cavalry on 1 May 1967 they showed him the death cards and black silk

scarf and told him their use was prohibited. He says:

The clerk calls out my name. I get in Jeep for short ride to 1/8th Cavalry. There

is a large sign that says, 1/8th Cavalry: Airborne, Air Assault, Air Mobile.

Out walks this Sergeant who greets us. I tell him I think there has been a mistake. I

haven t had Jump training. He says, Don t worry about it; we don t give you a

damn parachute anyway. He assigns me to A Company. He shows me the Death card and the

Death From Above black scarf and tells me if I get caught with either it is an

Article 15.

He remembers that some unit members were court-martialed while using the cards. He

said:

I was told that the men were carving a Cavalry patch on a dead Viet Cong s chest

and stuck the playing card in his mouth. There was a soldier from an engineer outfit there

and he took some pictures. He sent them back to his father who apparently was not amused.

An investigation followed and then a trial of a First Lieutenant and a buck Sergeant. I

think the trial was held in St. Louis and both men were sent to Ft. Leavenworth.

It seems to me that the two men were tried for abusing the body of the dead Viet

Cong rather than the use of the death cards. Such charges have occurred in Iraq and

Afghanistan. It seems perfectly acceptable to shoot a terrorist a dozen times or hack him

to death with a bayonet, but abuse the body in any way afterwards and it is a criminal

act. How strange.

Curiously, the Death from Above death cards reappeared again 30 years

later when American troops were sent to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm.

Strike Recon

After years of looking at death cards I suspect that nobody ever made as many as the

101st Airborne. Here we show another, used by Strike Recon, First Battalion of the 502nd

Airborne Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. One side depicts the screaming eagle,

a combat infantry badge and airborne wings. The other side depicts a bright red heart and

the text:

Compliments of Strike Recon 1/502

We have a HOME where is your home.

There are skulls and crossed bones at the four sides, and the second message is in

both English and Vietnamese and probably is in regard to the North Vietnamese Army having

a home hundreds of miles north.

Have Gun will travel

It seems a lot of units liked the old slogan from the television show Paladin.

This card is again from the 101st Division, in this case, A Troop of the 2nd Squadron of

the 17th Cavalry. The front has the Screaming Eagle and the ace of spades. The

back depicts a parachute and a badge not too dissimilar from a Combat Infantry Badge. The

owner was told that these cards were ordered in blocks of 10,000.

B Troop

B Troop also had a Death card. The image on their website is rather small but we

want to show as many different cards as we can find so I have added it. B Troop of the 2nd

Squadron of the 17th Cavalry of the 101st Airborne Division has a card with a

B, cavalry sabers, the Combat Infantry Badge and Parachute wings with the

words:

Bush Gangsters, You Call, We Kill

Chinese Bandits

Sat Cong

There were other types of death cards that did not bear the ace of spades. For

instance, one card depicts a skull wearing a Vietnamese farmer s hat with cross-hairs over

the face and the words Sat Cong Kill Communists. I have seen this same

saying tattooed on the body of South Vietnamese commandos.

I saw you

Another card appears to be a SOG product. It depicts a rifleman taking aim at a Viet

Cong Guerrilla. The text in Vietnamese is I saw you but let you livenext time

you die. The back of the card depicts a crude skull and crossed bones. There are

numerous such fake cards sold on the Internet but this one would seem to be genuine. It is

depicted in John L. Plaster s SOG a Photo History of the Secret War,

Paladin Press, Boulder, CO, 2000. The author says about this particular image:

SOG calling card designed to be left by recon teams behind enemy lines.

Recon Team Death Card

The author also depicts a card with a skull and crossed bones and says:

Some recon teams inserted their own psychological warfare items such as

this card that was published untraceably in Thailand and left them on NVA bodies.

101st

An even cruder card depicts a winged skull with an open parachute behind. Text is all

Vietnamese, and at the bottom left is the crest of the 506th Infantry Airmobile and at the lower right the crest of the 101st Airborne Screaming

Eagles Division. The text on the card is not actually a sentence, but rather a

group of Vietnamese words. Some of the words are Quan Sat Observed, Viet Cong

Communists, Ban Chet Shoot to Kill, and Dau Hang Surrender. We can partially date

this card because some of the three battalions of the 506th Infantry were in Vietnam from

October 1967 to December 1971.

An Australian Death Leaflet

This is really not a death card in the true sense of the term, but it is very close.

The Australians fought in Vietnam alongside the South Vietnamese and the Americans. Among

their better known troops was the Special Air Service SAS. These were very well trained

soldiers, not unlike American Special Forces. They had the Australian 1st Psychological

Operations Unit print this leaflet coded ATF-091-71 and entitled Death Notice

on 26 February 1971. The leaflet depicts two skulls on the front and a vulture over a

skeleton on the back. The text on the front is:

Your camp has been discovered: You are no longer safe. Fill out the spaces on the

back of this notice and keep it with you. When we find your body we will use it to give

you a proper burial.

The Australians know that the Vietnamese believe that if they die and are buried in

an unmarked grave away from their home village their restless ghost will walk the Earth

forever. They are offering to return the body to give the ghost everlasting peace.

The back of the leaflet asks for the following information.

Full Name; Rank; Religion; Next of Kin; Date of Birth; Unit.

Notice that if the enemy soldier was captured and refused to talk, this leaflet when

filled out would give all the pertinent information any Intelligence S2 Section could

want. It serves three purposes. It demoralizes the soldier telling him that he is about to

die, it reminds him of eternal damnation if not given a proper burial, and it could be an

intelligence goldmine.

The Hustlers Strike Back

Because the idea of a death card is so popular and collectable, many hustlers have

produced their own fakes cards and leaflets and sell them regularly on various auction

sites. The above fake pretends to be a Viet Cong leaflet that depicts an ace of spade

death card and offers a reward for American soldiers. Of course, it never was within

10,000 miles of Vietnam and is a complete fabrication. Five of the above leaflets are

offered at auction for 7.99. If they were genuine Viet Cong products they would easily be

worth about 20 each. I normally give the text here but this leaflet is so bad that many

parts of it are almost impossible to translate. The leaflet does not have correct

Vietnamese tone marks. It is clearly written by someone who does not know Vietnamese. I

think that the author simply took some Vietnamese phrases, some of which he knew, or

guessed, the meaning of and some of which he had no idea what they meant, and threw them

together helter-skelter

Reward

Guerrilla Militia Forces Misspelled one word

No idea what the author means by his next line

Determined to Win

100,000 piasters

Reward for Accomplishment

Not unknown word American Imperialists

American Imperialist Pirates.

They are an Enemy with whom we cannot live under the same sky

Live under the same sky

Unit patches as Death Cards

The Black Lions

Some units that did not design death cards apparently used unit patches to mark the

Viet Cong they killed. Since the cards were probably 20 for a thousand and the patches

probably cost about a dollar each at the PX, this was an expensive way to mark the dead.

One member of the 2/28th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, sends a copy of his unit patch.

The patches were left on members of the 272nd and 273th North Vietnamese Army Regiments.

He pointed out that the subdued patches were free in the supply room and his platoon

sergeant liked to advertise.

Another soldier said that his unit did not use death cards but some misguided

individuals left unit patches sometimes on the dead. On one occasion he was ordered to

retrieve one because it was considered an embarrassment to his unit.

Death Cards vs. Calling Cards

We should take a moment to differentiate between death cards and calling cards. The

death card is easy to identify. It usually is black or features black vignettes, shows an

ace of spades, or makes some threat of death to the Viet Cong. In the words of one

ex-Cavalryman:

It was the Best of the Best that used the cards. The guys that wanted Charlie to be

really sure who it was that killed him. The whole idea was to scare the crap out of

Charlie.

Calling cards are quite different. The military has a long tradition of using calling

cards for social introductions. As a sergeant major assigned to a new unit one of my first

tasks was to visit the home of the commanding officer and leave a calling card in a silver

tray. It was understood that was the way one properly introduced himself.

Like all military traditions, there is even a prescribed military way in which the

card is used:

Calling cards are a courtesy you extend to your hosts. They are desired by most

military hosts and hostesses for a reference file of past friends and acquaintances in the

service. Proper custom dictates that you leave one card for each adult member of the

household, including guests, but never leave more than three of any one card. Cards should

be left in a tray near the door either upon arrival or departure. When making a call and

the person on whom you are calling is not home, leave the card with someone who is present

or slip it under the door. Calling cards were not used for a time, but the tradition of

using them is returning and they are being used more and more today.

Calling cards were also popular among warriors and combat units. They tended to

be long on exaggeration and braggadocio. It was the old Davy Crockett Killed him a

bar when he was only three syndrome. Tough guys talk tough. Many of the cards we

will show during the rest of this article are really calling cards. They mention death and

destruction, but in general they were not meant to be left on a body. However, if the body

count was high and you just happened to be standing therewell, a calling card might

become a death card.

So, enjoy the rest of the cards. They were produced by men and units who were proud of

their fighting ability and willing to tell the world about it. Let s just say that these

cards were multi-purpose.

Viet Cong Banknote Overprinted by Robin Hoods

Although ARVN forces made up the majority of troops involved in the Cambodian

incursion. American helicopters provided air transportation, liaison, medical evacuation,

and close fire support. One of the aviation units was the 173rd Assault Helicopter Company

AHC. The 173rd AHC was attached to the 11th Aviation Battalion Combat for the

Cambodian raid. The 173rd took part in 14 campaigns. It received 8 battle decorations

including the Valorous Unit Award, Meritorious Unit Commendation, the Republic of Vietnam

Cross of Gallantry with palm, and the Republic of Vietnam Civil Action Honor Medal. The

radio call sign of the 173rd AHC was Robin Hood.

Members of the helicopter company liberated some of the banknotes

confiscated during the raid and overprinted them as souvenirs with the text

Compliments of / 173rd AHC / The Robin Hoods. They might have been simply souvenirs

of the raid, or they might have been used in some cases as calling cards to be

placed on the bodies of dead Viet Cong. Whatever their use, they are the only known type

of calling card prepared on an enemy banknote during the Vietnam War.

Four more death cards are depicted in The Vietnam Photo Book, Mark Jury, Vintage

Books, NY, 1986. Jury was a specialist 5 SP5 sent to Vietnam in July 1969. As an army

photographer he was able to document much of the war. He illustrates a photograph of two

army medics carrying a Viet Cong guerrilla on a stretcher. The caption is:

Two orderlies carried the wounded VC off the medevac Medical evacuation

helicopter and disappeared inside the hospital. A few minutes later one of the

orderlies came out and handed me a calling card. You want a souvenir. he said.

This was stuck in the bandages. We get them all the time. He looked at the

dealers of death card and mused, Ummm, First of the Sixth. They ve been

kicking some ass.

Gunfighters Death Card

The card is depicted below the photograph. It depicts a skull and crossed bones within

an ace of spades. The text is:

A CO 1. 6th 198th L.I.B. - GUNFIGHTERS 1969-1970 - DEALERS OF DEATH.

LIB is a Light Infantry Brigade.

A Second Variation of the Gunfighters Death card

The text on this card is:

A CO 1. 6th 198th L.I.B. - GUNFIGHTERS - Swift Silent - 1969-1970 -

DEALERS OF DEATH.

WE SPECIALIZE IN VC EXTERMINATION, 24 HOUR SERVICE, SPECIAL MERCENARY RATES

The second card is all text:

Gunslingers

Those who kill for pleasure are sadists. Those who kill for money are

professionals. Those who kill for both are Gunslingers.

Although the nickname Gunslingers was fairly common, this card may have been used by

the 1st Battalion, 377th Field Artillery Regiment, activated in 1968 and assigned to the

101st Airborne Division.

Death On Call

The third card depicts a winged griffon holding the insignia of the 101st Airborne

Division in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other. The text is:

Love by nature - Live by luck - kill by profession - DEATH ON CALL - wire Griffin,

San Francisco, 96383 - C Btry, 4th Bn ARA, 77th Arty.

Once again we have a unit attached to the 101st Airborne Division. One battlefield

report states, Death on call Cobras from C Btry, 4th Bn ARA, 77th Arty in one of the

largest battlefield actions in recent months killed 60 North Vietnamese Army soldiers and

destroyed one mortar position, resulting in six secondary explosions, 20 miles west of

Quang Tri.

Front and back of Kingsmen Calling Card

The above card depicts an inverted ace of spades on the front with the word

Kingsmen in gold. The back is all text:

INTRODUCING THE KINGSMEN U.S. ARMY. Assault Helicopter Company.

SPECIALTIES: Combat assaults Day and Night, LRRP Ins. EXTR, Emergency Ammo

Resupply, Flairship Phyops sic, Emergency Medivacs, VC Extermination,

People Sniffer Defoliation. SIDE LINES: Worlds Greatest Pilot, International

Playboy, War Monger, Renowned Booze Hound, Social Lion, Ladies Man. PROVIDING: Death and

Destruction 24-Hrs. a day. If you care enough to send the very best, send KINGSMEN.

A second variation of this card is more specific with the unit being identified as

B Company 101st AHB, and the additional specialties: F.O.B. we do the

old Quang-Tri-trick, Flare ship, NOD, and

Insecticide,

Kingsmen Unit Crest

The Kingsmen were originally the 17th Assault Helicopter Company from Ft. Riley Kansas

and part of the First Aviation Brigade. They were attached to the 101st Airborne after the

Tet uprising in 1968. When the 101st became an Airmobile Division the company was infused

into the Division and redesignated B Company, 101st Aviation Brigade. The unit insignia on

the tail boom was a white diamond, this diamond was the border of their uniform patch with

a black spade centered in the diamond. During the Vietnam War they performed

numerous missions; some of their helicopters equipped with loudspeakers for

propaganda messages, the delivery of thousands of aerial leaflets, special operations

missions into Laos as well as Lam Son 719 and Nighhawk missions deny the

enemy freedom of movement at night by the use of starlite scopes and automatic weapons in

their operational area.

Mustang

Other calling cards abound. It seems that they fascinated fixed-wing and helicopter

pilots. One such card depicts a black chess knight and the text:

Have GunWill Travel Mustang 22 Wire Mustang A. P. O. 96227.

This card is reminiscent of the one carried by the western television hero Paladin,

whose card depicted a white chess knight and the words, Have Gun - Will travel -Wire

Paladin San Francisco.

Spooky

Spooky was the call sign of the AC-47 gunship. In modern warfare the gunship would

be a C-130 with the call sign Spectre. During the Vietnam War the 4th Special

Operations Squadron used the above calling card, offering in part:

Spooky AC-47 Dragonship

RVN s 1 Fly By Night Outfit

We Defend: Outposts Hamlets Special Forces Camps

Ambush Patrols and any other TIC

Our 7.62 Devastates: Monkeys, Sampans, Ground markers, Campfires,

Water Buffalo

Call A Flight, Da Nang 2425, 3005 Daily 1800-0600

When you hurt enough to want the very best

This card was used by A Flight in Da Nang. B Flight in

Pleiku, C Flight in Nha Trang, D Flight in Bien Hoa, and

E Flight in Binh Thuy had their own calling cards.

Cobra Card

Jennifer Gabrys depicts what she calls a Vietnam kill card in Airdrop, Book Works, London 2004. The card is

plain text in Vietnamese and English:

COBRA

VINHLONG AIR FIELD

If you see this attack helicopter - COBRA STRIKES

Death will come to you - DEATH TO THE VIET CONG

The above card was used by the Cobra Platoon of the 114th Aviation Company,

from 1965 to 1968. The cobras often covered the scout helicopters in the area of

operation orbiting around them until the scouts radioed that they were taking fire. The

cobras then attacked with mini-guns and rockets.

Black Cats

The 282th Aviation Company Assault Helicopter supported the 1st and 2nd ARVN

Divisions. They flew out of the Marble Mountain Air Facility, Da Nang, Republic of

Vietnam.

240th Attack Helicopter Squadron

This calling card from the K. A. Watson of the 240th Attack Helicopter Squadron

depicts a mad dog on the front armed with rockets. The back guarantees:

Extermination Unlimited

This card was in the possession of a former Airborne Ranger First Lieutenant Philip

W. Knauth, 1st platoon, Alpha Company, 1st/27th Wolfhounds, 25th Infantry Division. He

told me:

Watson was the gunship pilot of what I think we called a pink team. The action

was west of Xuan Loc in March of 1971. A pink team was a little bird to get down low and a

cobra to stand off and render unto the enemy that day s ration of 2.75 inch folding fin

rockets or flechette rounds and 40mm.

It was quite an afternoon for me. I was working the artillery and the gunship at

the same time, while SGT Allen handled the firefight. The arty was keeping the enemy from

fading into the bush. They first tried their usual hugging tactic, but SGT Allen s patrol

was able to throw them back.

I got the cobra pilot to come well inside danger close, because we needed it. We

were able to get some cover in the 20-year-old French fighting holes SGT Allen s patrol

had stumbled upon about the same time they ran into a platoon or so of NVA. When firing

flechettes, there s a puff of red smoke as the round leaves the launcher to warn folks on

the ground of the nailing they are about to receive, like it or not. There was an awful

lot of noise: 105s, M60s, 2.75 mm rockets, AK47s, bloopers, M16s, hand grenades, and

finally the flechettes had the final word.

Widow Makers

Another calling card depicts the symbol of the 101st Airborne Division at the upper

left, the Strike emblem of the division s 1st Brigade at the upper right,

crossed M-16 rifles at the lower left and the symbol of the Widow Makers of

the 3rd Battalion of the brigade at the lower right. The back of the cards was blank, but

eventually most of the individual companies had their own versions printed with their

information on the back. Text in the center in Vietnamese and English is:

This is the result of the Viet Cong.

The people who turn their wives into widows.

COMPLIMENTS OF THE STRIKE FORCE WIDOW MAKERS

Dale Joritz of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade of the 502nd Regiment told me that he

got to Vietnam in June 1965 and the cards were in use at that time.

The 2d Brigade deployed to the Republic of Vietnam December 1967. They participated in

twelve campaigns over the next five years. The President of Vietnam decorated the colors

of the Brigade three times, twice with the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and once with

the Republic of Vietnam Civic Action Honor Medal. The Brigade returned to Fort Campbell in

April 1972.

There was a rumor during the war that some members of the 1st Brigade maneuver

battalion of the 101st Airborne Division carried tomahawks hanging from their

belts which were used to cleave a narrow trench in the skull of the dead enemy so that an

Ace of Spades with the words compliments of the widow makers could be placed

in the cleavage and the bodies left for their Viet Cong comrades to find. According to the

story, the rumor led to a Congressional investigation regarding the use of the tomahawks,

but there was no evidence of them ever being used. Sgt. Mike Yancey of the 2nd Battalion,

1st Brigade, September 1967-1968 heard the story and had this to say:

We were the ones that were called the hatchet Battalion of Vietnam. 

One of many myths about us is that we used the hatchets to create insertion points in

dead bodies for death cards. Not True. Why make an opening when there are already plenty.

We usually just put them on the bodies so they could be easily found. The press

somehow got hold of the wrong idea that we were desecrating bodies with our hatchets. The

next thing you know, some magazine came out with a huge article about The Hatchet

Battalion of Vietnam. Orders came down for all the hatchets to be turned in, and for the

most part they were. A few however, made it home to the states. These were not war

tomahawks; they were very much like the old Boy Scout hatchet.

Joritz had little to say about the death cards. He did mention the hatchets. He told

me:

It was Lieutenant Colonel Hank Emerson who purchased a number of connex contingency

employment exercise a large Army metal container for shipping goods overseas

loads of hatchets for use by the guys in the field. That was in late 1965. Emerson s

call sign was Gunfighter, but inside the battalion he was also known as

Hatchet Hank. In the early summer of 1968 our commander, General Barsanti,

brought the whole 2nd Battalion back to Camp Eagle. He threatened anyone who was caught

with one of the hatchets with a Court Martial.

I heard that North Vietnam put a bounty of the 101st Airborne Division.

Allegedly, it was 500 Dong for any part of a Chicken Man or the patch from his

fatigue jacket. Needless to say, our death card, and how it was used and placed, was part

of how we reacted towards them.

Winged Assault Stacked Deck Battalion

This card was handed to a 1st Cavalry soldier carried into battle by air assault

helicopters of Charlie Company, 229th Aviation Battalion in 1967. Some air assault

soldiers did as many as 100 or more helicopter assaults during their tour of duty in

Crew members of the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters of Marine

Medium Helicopter Squadron  364

hand out Calling Cards in I Corps during supply mission and troop lifts in December 1967.

Rangers lead the way

When I was in the Sergeants Major Academy, I had a classmate who was a Ranger. As to be

expected, he was a can do guy and he was always cheerful though he told us of

having volunteered to test a new parachute that only partially opened and crushed about a

foot of his leg bone. He bragged that he saw himself on film and he had bounced almost a

dozen times. When we got to that portion of the lesson where we learned the duties of the

general staff, G-1 through G-4, and the paperwork needed to call for a hundred heavy

vehicles to move our soldiers to the front, his first comment was, We don t

need no stinking trucks. Rangers walk to the battle. That guy was either nuts or

inspirational, and I dedicate this little section of the story to him.

75th Ranger Regiment - 1988 Death Card

Robert McKercher Jr. was a member of a Long Range Reconnaissance Company during the

Vietnam War. As the war neared end, he and other LRRPS were encouraged to join the

newly-reactivate Ranger Battalions. He eventually was assigned to the 2nd Battalion of the

75th Ranger Regiment in 1974.

Based on previous tradition, a Calling Card was printed and carried by

members of the Second Battalion.

Specialist 4th Class Dave Rosini served in the 2nd Ranger Battalion from 1985 to 1989

as an M-60 machine-gunner. He was in Charlie Company, 2/75 and in 1987 he designed, and

had those death cards printed in Tacoma Washington. He also painted the design as a mural

on the Bravo Company barracks. Dave was a graduate of the Art Institute of Houston. He

sold the cards three for a dollar or 50 cents each to the members of the battalion while

they were waiting in the mess hall line at our dining facility. He had five hundred cards

printed.

Dave told me about the project:

When I made the death card you have on your site, I basically Xeroxed an ace of

spades and enlarged it. I was working with about an 8 x 10 copy of the ace of spades. I

then copied pictures of different badges right out of army manuals and drew pictures of

everything else I needed. I then arranged all the photos and used rubber cement to stick

them to the paper. The grim reaper in the center of the spade was inspired from the Ryder

Tarot Deck Death card. I traced it out then drew the horses back end to

complete it. Then when I had everything the way I wanted, I reduced it down to the playing

card size. I then took the finished cards to a printer in Tacoma.

When I made the death card, we were wearing the World War II style 2nd Battalion

Ranger Scroll. The Ranger Regiment adopted that type of scroll about 1984. Before that the

2 existing Ranger Battalions 1st 2nd wore what we called the Old

Scrolls like the one pictured on my death card above the eagle. These Old Scrolls

were worn during the invasion of Grenada in 1983. The Old Scrolls were highly prized and

were/are proudly worn by Ranger Battalion Grenada veterans as a combat patch. So I used

the Old 2nd Battalion Scroll for my card because we all liked it more.

New High Altitude Low Opening HALO wings were scheduled to be authorized in

1987 or 1988, but we had not seen them. My platoon sergeant showed me some wings in his

possession and told me they were the new wings. I drew them and placed them on the death

card. Later, I found out that the ones he showed me were from a South American country I

can t remember which one and he thought it was funny that he had tricked me. No one in

battalion seemed to care.

When I got to the 2nd Ranger Battalion, we had a few Vietnam Vets and ex-LRRPS

that were NCOs. They told us that in the Buddhist religion if you place a symbol or marker

on a dead body they won t touch it. So, many American soldiers wore playing cards on their

helmets so if they were killed the enemy would leave their bodies alone. Later the

soldiers would place death cards upon the bodies of enemies they killed to scare them, and

let them know who was responsible.

McKercher says that when the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel A.J. Baker saw

them he ordered that they were not to be carried or used by any members, on pain of

court-martial and expulsion from the unit. As a result, the cards were never used in

combat. Rosini never heard of the ban, but the Ranger s tours may not have

overlapped. Rosini s Battalion Commanders were Lieutenant Colonel Ellis and John J.

Maher III.

The front of the card depicts an American eagle and symbols of Nationalist China and

the United States. Airborne wings are above the eagle and the date OCT -

17 is at the left and right. The motto on the scroll is SUA SPONTE On its

own motion referring to the Rangers ability to accomplish tasks with little to no

prompting.

The back of the card has more symbolism; a Pathfinder Badge, A Scuba Diver s

Badge, a Combat Infantryman s Badge, and jump wings with combat star. Around the ace

of spades are a number of battles that the Rangers took part in going back to WWII.

Ranger 1986

This was Dave Rosini s first attempt at a death card. You can see growth from his

first to third card in 1988. The image here is similar to the old 101st Airborne Division

skull and wings, and the back is all text. On interesting artistic aspect is the Ranger

tab that has broken through the barbed wire.

Death from Above - 1987

Dave Rosini also created a card in 1987. This card was printed on the front only and

featured the death card from the Rider Tarot Deck. The original card pictured the rider

and the front part of the horse. Dave added the back of the horse and the text:

RANGER 2ND BN RANGER AIRBORNE 75TH INF

The Tarot Card Death

Here is the actual tarot card that Dave used as inspiration. Notice that there is no

back end on the horse. Later on, Dave painted the same scene in full color on the wall of

the Bravo Company barracks. The Death card also appears in the 2nd Ranger Battalion

Yearbook on 1987-1988.

Creeping Death

After our initial discussions Dave told me that he had talked to other Rangers and some

of them still had their old death cards. The first we show is a classic card with the Ace

of Spades on a yellow card on one side, and on the back:

Creeping Death Ranger 1st Ranger Bn

Rangers Lead the Way

This card is very similar to some of the 101st Airborne Division cards that we have

seen. It is only printed on the Front and depicts a skull, crossed knives and wings. Some

of the text is:

RANGERS LEAD THE WAY

Co. C 1st Bn. 75th Ranger Regiment

Hard Rock Charlie

Bad Muthers

Another card from the 2nd Rangers is from the Bad Muthers. Dave said that

Alpha Company was the only company that had names for their platoons. He remembers that

some were The Bad Muthers, The Earth Pigs, and The Black

Sheep. The companies had nick-names too. Headquarters and headquarters Company was

The Hog, A Company was the Alpha Bots, B Company was the

Bravo-trons, and Charlie Company was Cass Company, Cass short for

Casual.. The M-60 gunners were generally referred to as Maggots.

I particularly like the slogan at the end that refers to the Vietnam War habit of burning

houses to force the people into Strategic Villages where they could not trade with and

feed the Viet Cong. It is:

If we can t win their hearts and minds we ll burn their

fucking hootch.

The Greatest Happiness

This 2nd Battalion card simply shows the Ranger tab on the front. The back has the 1226

quote from Genghis Khan made famous in Conan the Barbarian when it was paraphrased

and made shorter and more concise. The full quote is seen on the card:

The Greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemy, to chase him before you, to see

his cities reduced to ashes, to rob him of his wealth and see those dear to him bathed in

tears, to clasp to your bosom his wives and daughters.

Will kill, Maim

This card is more in the form of a calling card. It doesn t mention a name or unit but

is a general introduction to the Ranger creed and their fighting abilities.

Greetings

This 2nd Battalion card goes back to the Ranger operations in Grenada. The text is in

English so it was clearly aimed at the black government troops and not the Cubans on the

island. I don t know if the card ever actually reached Grenada but was prepared for

that operation. Copies of the card were later found in the Ranger Headquarters.

ENEMY PSYWAR

Here is propaganda used on the Rangers, something a bit different. Although not a Death

Card, this card was issued to members of the American Army Rangers during a war game as

part of their psychological warfare training. The card depicts Death standing

behind an American soldier. He is handing leaflets to the soldier that are entitled

Enemy PSYOP, safe conduct and surrender. The text on

the front explains enemy PSYWAR and consists of five themes that the enemy might use to

destroy morale. The back is all text and defines PSYOP, lists dos and

Don ts and the symptoms of a PSYOP casualty, a soldier who has been influenced by

enemy propaganda and no longer had the will to fight.  Dave told me:

The Rangers went to Georgia in 1988 to stage for Panama. We were not deployed at

that time. The Battalion did go as part of the invasion force in 1989. My unit had just

been to Panama in 1988 and we had gone to the Ft. Sherman Jungle Operations Training

Center and received Jungle Expert School training. I missed the Panama Invasion by 1

month. I had gotten married and transferred out of the Rangers and went to the 9th

Infantry Division at Ft. Lewis, Washington.

What I found even more interesting was the propaganda campaign that came with the card.

Ranger Dave Rosini told me:

They employed loud speakers for days that played the sound of a crying baby. It was

really annoying. We heard it as we sat in our 16 x 32-feet long GP medium tents around

Hunter Army Airfield on Ft. Stewart, Georgia in 1989. Then one day as the crying was being

broadcast there was a loud gunshot and the baby stopped crying. It was really weird.

This ends our Ranger sectionat least until we hear from other Rangers.

Another death card story that is probably apocryphal concerns the use of

a conditioned Pavlovian response to frighten the Viet Cong out of a specific area.

According to this story, when the military wanted to clear an area of enemy troops they

would air drop death cards. Allegedly after the cards were dropped the Air Force would

bomb the location. The Viet Cong began to associate the finding of the death card with

bombing and destruction. Eventually, when the death cards were dropped over an area and

the Viet Cong would vacate the area in the anticipation of the impending bombing. Friendly

troops could then enter and occupy the area without firing a shot. I don t believe

this story for a moment, but several Vietnam veterans have repeated it and it is obvious

that they believe it.

LRRP Card

The LRRPs were Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols. These were very tough fellows who

went deep into enemy territory to identify units and select targets. One calling card from

such a unit says:

Anywhere - Anytime LRRP Long Range Recon Patrol Have Teams

Will Travel Call Trp D AIR 1st Squadron - 4th Cav. 1st Infantry

Card on helmet

This is a standard Bicycle ace of spades produced by the company and shipped to the

troops about to take part in the Persian Gulf War. It looks exactly like a standard

playing card, except at the lower center they have printed the words Desert

Shield. Desert Shield was the name of the operation during the defensive phase of

the war when the Coalition was building up its forces in Saudi Arabia. The operation was

changed to Desert Storm when the Coalition went on the offensive.

It seems that The U.S. Playing Card Company sent boxes of death cards to Saudi Arabia

too. In 2001 an unopened deck of all Ace of Spades was offered at auction. The caption

beneath the photograph of the cards is:

The box has an ace of spades stamp at the top holding it closed. The word

BICYCLE appears around the top of the box in red. The front of the box has a

picture of the ace of spade and the text Bicycle 808 The U.S. Playing Card Co.

CINCINNATI, U.S.A. DESERT SHIELD. The back of the box is all text,

Secret Weapon BICYCLE Aces of Spades by The U.S. Playing Card Co.

Cincinnati, U.S.A.

This card depicts a skull inside the center black spade on the front and the words

DEATH BY DOGS. The back depicts an eagle carrying a skull with a shredded

turban and the text, OPERATION DESERT STORM 1991 - January 16, 1991 - Delta Company,

3-502 Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, Air Assault - LET THE THUNDER

ROAR.

A former member of the company told me that the cards had been privately made in

Louisville, Kentucky. He said:

This card depicts a helicopter inside the central black spade on the front and the

words ALPHA AVENGERS. The back depicts an eagle over an air assault badge. and

the text, OPERATION DESERT SHIELD - Alpha Company, 6-101st Avn. Rgt., 101st Airborne

Division, Air Assault - THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.

This card depicts the symbol of the 101st Airborne Division, the figure of Death

holding a scythe marked C, and the words WHEN DIPLOMACY FAILS. The

back is all text, some highlighted by red, Compliments of HARDCORE CHARLIE, 3rd BN

502 INFANTRY, When you care enough to send the very best. AIR ASSAULT.

We cannot identify the unit but would like to learn more and perhaps see the actual

card.

Calling cards were also used during Operation Iraqi freedom. This photograph,

featured in Army, August 2006, depicts an American soldier handing out personal

calling cards while on patrol. The cards are signed by the soldier and also have an

anonymous tip line telephone number. These allows any Iraqi to either phone in information

on improvised explosives, or actually come to the base and ask for the American who gave

him the card.

There have been just a few reports of death or calling cards used during Operation

Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The closest we have seen is a

small souvenir calling card self-produced by some members of the Blackhawks of

Company B of the 4th Battalion of the 31st Infantry Regiment. Since death

cards are banned by higher command, these cards are never placed on bodies. They are

carried by the soldiers and handed out to friends and colleagues the same way that

officers might hand out challenge coins. They display pride in the unit and are lasting

souvenirs oftime spent in battle. The front

of the card depicts an Indian brave over the ace of spades. The back of the card show an

Indian warrior and the words Blackhawks - Truth, Honor, and scalps f

border 2 ree of charge.

SSG Jerry F. Eagle Jr., 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marines Combat Engineers, sends a

calling card used by his unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The card depicts a

spiked-helmeted skull with A / III Company A, 3rd Platoon, and the word

Munitor, Sapper, the old military term for engineers which indicates a

specialist in fortifications and skilled at laying and detecting mines. The title got a

bad reputation in Vietnam where Viet Cong sappers would infiltrate US installations and

attack them with explosives. However, Sappers have always been considered among the most

dedicated and dangerous specialists of the military commander. Text at the bottom of the

card is, The cure for insurgency is the massacre.  

Here is a card that could be placed in Vietnam or Iraq. Before U.S. Navy Chief

Warrant Officer 3 Waylon Carlson became a helicopter pilot he was a door gunner and rescue

swimmer in Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 HSC-84 The Red Wolves. In 2008,

he attended the reunion of the Vietnam War HAL-3 Seawolves in Nashville,

Tennessee. HAL-3 was established on 1 April 1967 in Vietnam as the only Helicopter Attack

Squadron in the Navy. During this reunion, Waylon sat at a table with members of the old

Vietnam unit including Mike Worthington, a three-time Purple Heart recipient. Both men had

been door gunners. HAL-3 had eventually become HSC-84, so in theory both men flew the same

position in the same unit. After some time together, Mike Worthington gave Waylon Carlson

the Ace of Spades he had carried in Vietnam. Notice that the card is signed

Freak, Worthington s call sign. Waylon later carried the card in his

flight vest flying the MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter on 97 Special Operations combat

missions from Baghdad and Balad, Iraq.

Perhaps the most famous calling card in modern times was used by the United States

Army Rangers as they attacked a target deep behind the lines in Afghanistan in an

operation meant to show the Taliban that the Americans could attack when and where they

wanted. At 1845 Zulu Time on 19 October, 199

elite American Rangers and four PSYOP soldiers night-assaulted Objective Rhino on

Vengeance Drop Zone. This was a remote Desert Landing Strip approximately 105 miles

Southwest of Kandahar. This was the first Ranger combat drop since Operation Just Cause in

Panama. Kandahar was the home of the Taliban spiritual leader, Mullah Omar. The raid was a

warning that America could strike when and where it chose, even at the center of the

Taliban spiritual strength. The American troops carried leaflets featuring a photograph of

New York City firemen raising the American flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center,

with the text Freedom Endures in English on one side and Pashto on the other.

The mission is explored in greater detail in the book Weapon of Choice - ARSOF in Afghanistan, Combat Studies Institute

Press, Fort Leavenworth, KS 2003. It tells of Tactical PSYOP Detachment TPD 940,

B Company of the 9th Psychological Operations Battalion training and rehearsing with the

Rangers for five days prior to the operation against the objective they called

Rhino. Four of the Psywarriors jumped from MC-130 Combat Talon aircraft into

combat with the Rangers. Some of the text is:

Although the Central Command never released an image of the leaflet it did appear on

a Discovery Channel TV documentary entitled Commando Solo Afghan Skies. The

leaflet was attached to a soldier s rucksack and was identified as a Calling

Card in the documentary.

The calling card is also mentioned in the 2005 book One Bullet Away

the Making of a Marine Officer, by Nathaniel Fick, Houghton Mifflin Co.,

Boston, MA. Weeks after the attack on Rhino, Second Lieutenant Fick walked up

a small hill and noticed something stuck on a desert bush. It was about the size of a

thank you card and depicted the three firemen raising the flag at the World

Trade center and the words, Freedom Endures in both English and Pashto. Later,

as his platoon left the site on foot he passed a destroyed Afghan truck and left the

calling card on the truck as a warning to the Taliban.

Pilot Warrant Officer 4 Roger M. Gordon flew Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan in

support of the 2nd Battalion The Rock of the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, 173rd

Airborne Infantry Brigade Sky Soldiers from March 2005 to March 2006. He was attached to

the Task Force based out of Kandahar Airbase. He often flew in support of Able

Company, Battle Company, and Chosen Company of the 2nd Battalion located at

Qalat Forward Operating Base. He recalls using the above Death Cards in Afghanistan.

The cards show the insignia of the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade on one side, and on the

other side either an ace of spades with Death from above, or a joker with,

Sorry we missed you, but don t worry, we will be back..  He told

This Death Card dated 2004 depicts the comic book character Lady Death which

was drawn by a Scott Lewis. She holds a dead Taliban member in her right hand and a

smoking rifle in her left hand. She stands in a field of opium poppies. The text is:

This card does not give enough information to identify the unit. However, it has all

the trappings of a military death card. Artist Scott Lewis recalls that the person

requesting the cards had an email address that mentioned the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne

Division, so we assume the card was for that unit. In July, 2013, artist Scott Lewis wrote

to me and added:

I also spoke to the trooper who prepared the cards in Afghanistan. He was previously in

the 82nd Airborne Division and the 1st Special Forces Group and served in both Afghanistan

and Iraq. He sent a long message which I have edited:

The finder of this card was told by a U.S. Afghan veteran that it was used by the

Counter Narcotics Police-Afghanistan CNPA. He said these cards were used by western

Counter Narcotics Units going after Narco-Terrorists.

As I said earlier, the death cards used in Vietnam served no military purpose and

were more for the morale of the American troops than to terrify the enemy. The vast

majority offered for sale are fakes or reprints. I would advise the reader to be very

careful about purchasing any card offered unless the individual can show a chain of

evidence all the way back to Vietnam. The cards of Desert Storm were not death cards

in the true sense of the term, but were rather motivational calling cards used by the

troops to show pride in unit. Playing cards have always been used by the military for

training purposes. They exist with data and illustrations of everything from friendly and

enemy tanks and aircraft, survival skills, mine identification and Russian terminology to

name just a few. In the most recent war in Iraq they were even used to identify wanted

members of the former government. On that note I end this portion of the article with

the most notorious ace of spades of all, the famous Saddam Hussein card.

Addendum

Cultural Smart card for Iraq

We have mentioned Death Cards and Calling Cards and before we end this article we

should mention the latest military use of cards, the Themes and messages Cards

and the Smart Card. We have seen them used in both Iraq and Afghanistan and

they are usually very professional, full-color coated cards that can be carried by the

soldier and give him information, on religion, culture, customs and other important

subjects.

The Commander s Handbook for Strategic Communication and Communication

Strategy, Version 3.0, US Joint Forces Command Joint Warfighting Center, 24 June 2010

says:

As an augmentation to training, cards can be a useful way to provide each soldier

and United States Government member a handy reference to study and use as needed. Two very

successful examples, used by the US Southern Command and the US Central Command are

Themes and Messages Cards, and Cultural Smart Cards.

Units issue each soldier a card with key themes and messages to carry with them at

all times. This approach is designed to synchronize words and activities all the way down

to the individual level. This card helps soldiers and participants consistently

communicate the desired message and guides their actions during unanticipated

circumstances.

Another tool that facilitates understanding and interaction is the Cultural Smart

Card, issued to each soldier in Iraq. These cards serve as a quick-guide to cultural

understanding. They contain key religious facts five pillars of Islam, key dates, and

associated behaviors, customary dress male and female and gestures, major ethnic and

cultural groups, cultural customs, and history.

The Japanese Ace of Hearts Leaflet

Before we leave the subject of a playing card ace being used to bear a message

during wartime, we should mention that it is not only the ace of spades that has been used

for PSYOP purposes. Here is a rare WWII Japanese leaflet that uses the ace of hearts to

spread its propaganda message to American troops trapped on the Philippine Islands during

the early days of the war. The original message is full of spelling and grammatical

errors. We have edited it to make it more readable.

You have reached the Philippines at long last. We can well imagine the big-shots

who planned the Philippine operations bottoms-upping comfortably back at home. But have

you front-line soldiers ever stopped to think about the enormous losses America has

suffered so far. The amount of material already consumed if used otherwise, might have

turned some South American countries into first class nations. How about human lives. Your

comrades have been killed in as great a number as the cattle butchered at the Chicago

stockyard. The number of maimed and disabled men, or of those driven insane, exceeds by

far the total capacity of all hospitals in the U.S., and yet this stupendous sacrifice of

men and material has not put an end to this war. Even a greater exhaustion is just

beginning as the war rages on a far greater scale than here-to-fore. This you know better

than anybody else because you are standing at the head of a long procession of final

victims. But why are you marching to the southwestern Pacific. Because it is the will of

your country. Then, why must you obey the will of your country.. Because you, and all your

fellow-countrymen as well, share in the benefit of your country. But can those people who

decide the will of the country he never under any delusion. Sometimes they are, it is

true. BECAUSE, AS IT HAPPENS TO BE TRUE HERE, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ONE LEADER ALONE, WHEN

OBESSED BY DELUSIONS, TO SEND MILLIONS OF INNOCENT MEN INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.

The 1st Special Service Force Death Card

Author s note: Although this article is mostly about the use of the Ace of

Spades for a death card, what may be the earliest death cards on record are those left on

the bodies of dead German soldiers in Italy during WWII by the joint American-Canadian 1st

Special Service Force. This commando unit was trained at Fort Harrison in the United

States. Their patch was a red spearhead with the words USA written

horizontally and CANADA written vertically. The unit was deployed to Italy in

1943 and immediately earned a reputation for being able to take impenetrable objectives

when no one else could. In one operation they wiped out a strategic enemy defensive

position that sat high atop a mountain surrounded by steep cliffs. Previously, American

and British forces had been unable to take the same target.

During the battle around Anzio the unit became known as The Devil s

Brigade. Allegedly, the diary of a dead German soldier had the comment: Die schwarzen Teufel the black devils are all

around us every time we come into the line. The brigade s members smeared their

faces with black boot polish for their nighttime covert operations. During the Anzio

campaign, the brigade fought for 99 days without relief. It was there that they first used

their trademark death cards. The brigade members carried cards depicting the unit patch

and a slogan written in German: Das dicke Ende kommt noch The worst is yet

to come. They were allegedly left on dead German soldiers or on destroyed vehicles

or fortifications.

Death Playing Cards package made to look like a pack of Cigarettes

Curiously, after years of trying to bar the use of the so-called death

cards, the United States Army is now using them for educational purposes. Mickey

Weedon of Life or Death Playing Cards, San Luis Obispo, CA, told me:

Death Cigarette Playing Cards have 14 different cigarette characters

with 52 different reasons to not smoke. Death on Drugs Playing Cards has 14

different drug characters such as King Heroin, Queen Cocaine, Jack Crack, Ace Alcohol,

Joker Smoker, and so on. The Military has become my biggest customer. The Military loves

the whole Death look of these decks and the troops keep and use the decks

unlike other tobacco and drug education materials they just toss in the trash. People keep

and use playing cards, brochures end up in the trash. A 55 card deck has 3 times the

printable surface as a brochure. I am currently working with the head of the Army s Drug

Demand Reduction world wide unit. The Death on Drugs deck will have the Army

logo on it.

The cards can be seen in more detail at

In November of 2010, I was

contacted by Military Senior Instructor Farhana Qazi who wondered if he could use some of

the images from this article for a new class he was teaching. He is a member of the

Afghanistan/Pakistan AFPAK Regional Cultural Training Team, and had created a

presentation called House of Cards for the AFPAK region. He needed images to

convey to the students that this use of playing cards to educate is not new concept and

has historical roots. He said of the cards: 

I have copied some of the

images from your website, namely the Ace of Spades images to help the students visualize

the effect of these playing cards. We have created a set of cards that we call Faces

of the Region, which, unlike the death cards, is an effort to capture the

real people of Pakistan and Afghanistan. We use the model and framework of the

playing cards but have a different purpose and teaching objective.

GTA 30-1-23 BE A WINNER February 1977 

The use of the ace of spades

for training purposes seems to be quite old. Checking through some old files recently I

found my ancient Soldiers Guide to Combat Intelligence and four of the cards

depicted the ace of spades and lessons on Challenge and Password, Communications Security

Tips, Noise and Light Discipline and Cover and Concealment.

Non-Military use of the Ace of Spades as a Motivator

The Ace of Spades is still used today by some organizations as a motivator. Matthew

W. Carlson wrote to me in April 2012 and told me that he knew the military history of the

Ace of Spades from his brother who was a helicopter door-gunner and thought that it would

be a terrific motivator for his fire team. He is now a Driver-Operator Hazmat

Specialist for the Oshtemo Fire Department in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He started a tradition

of presenting an Ace of Spades to selected fire fighters to remind them that death can

happen at any time, to prepare for it, and fight against it. He told me:

Each card bears the motto, Get ready--stay ready. The card is taped

inside the fire helmet as a reminder of our purpose, to save lives and protect

property. For every fire death we have, the card gets a single mark--like a tally

score. Every mark increases the sense of purpose. For guys with no marks yet, it s a

reminder that their time is coming. It s a powerful reminder of purpose and calling every

time we don the helmet.

As always, the author hopes that this article will open a healthy discussion.

Readers who have brought home death or calling cards and would like them added to this

article are encouraged to send a scan along with a description of their use to the author at sgmbert hotmail.com.

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