Reporting from Tây Ninh Combat Base

Flipside can now confirm that Jumpy, Flippy’s mischievous sidekick, was among the 10 Americans killed in the early morning hours of February 3^rd, 1968, in an ambush by Vietcong forces in Tây Ninh Province, South Vietnam.

The ambush was one of many since the beginning of the Tet holiday, which has seen the region be racked by a series of coordinated sabotage, ambush, and guerrilla attacks, including in the capital, Saigon. There, the mascot of Stanford University’s Flipside branch, Punchy, died defending the American embassy.

The offensive came on Tết Nguyên Đán, one of the most important holidays in Vietnamese culture, when most ARVN (South Vietnamese military) personnel would be on leave. The commander of U.S. forces in South Vietnam, General Westmoreland, called the attack “dastardly, bastardly, downright cowardly”. When asked about his neglect of intelligence reports that North Vietnam had recently funneled operatives and equipment through the Hồ Chí Minh Trail into the South, the General sighed and bemoaned, “I can’t be expected to do everything around here, I’m just a guy…literally just a little itty-bitty guy….”

Jumpy was a member of North Vietnam’s most recent deployment to their guerrilla allies in the South. President Johnson believed that Jumpy’s “scrappy” nature would improve the morale of other units and that he could “whip up a couple of claymores and a Tootsie-Roll into a nuke to beat back the Reds.” It sounded like something along those lines (the President’s inebriation made the phrase difficult to transcribe).

Although details are scarce, initial reports are that Jumpy died after stepping on a Vietcong booby trap. It impaled his foot and held him in place as a hidden machine gunner shot him 35 times. Jumpy’s body blocked many of his squadmates from the hail of lead.

The dignified return of Jumpy’s remains is expected in March at Travis AFB.