Guerrilla fighters are really gorillas

When I heard that gorillas were fighting in some other country I always imagined real gorillas and wondered why it was so difficult to stop them and why it was on the main news. Surely all animals fight from time to time.

Anon

When I was about 14, and I heard on the news that guerrillas were attacking villages, I said in front of a big group of family and friends, "Gorillas DO THAT?!". Needless to say, everyone laughed at me.

Anon

Okay I know I'm not the onlyone who thought this.Growing up in the early sixties during the Viet Nam War. Everytime I'd hear about guerilla warfare, I always pictured a mean Magill Gorilla or Gorillas swinging down from the trees and causing some sort of harmless cartoon hijinx.

oneno

I was 10-12 years old in the mid-1960's during the Vietnam War and could not for the life of me figure out why the Viet Cong gorillas (guerillas) would shoot at American soldiers.

Mary

When they used to say on the news that there was guerilla warfare I used to think that gorillas were very clever in Africa, to have guns and all that ... !

Kathy

When I heard over the radio about Guerrilla Warfare in other countries. I believed gorillas were attacking people in their villages!

Kevin

when I was little whilst watching the news with my parents I often used to get really confused when 'guerrilla warfare' was ever mentioned as I couldn't understand a) why gorillas were so angry, and b) where they got guns from. therefore, I used to think these wars always went on in jungles with these big king-kongesq gorillas beating up humans.

kito

In the late sixties and early seventies, the Vietnam was was always in the news. I knew that Vietnam had a lot of jungles. And when they talked about geurilla (gorilla) warfare, I always pictured big black apes in army uniforms, wearing helmets and carrying machine guns and jumping out of trees, attacking American soldiers.

MrVengeance

I was around 10 or 11 years old when the Viet Nam War began. When the news commentators talked about the guerillas coming out of the forest I was always amazed that they were able to train guerillas to actually fight in wars.

Rosemary

When I was a kid, I watched all of the Planet of the Apes movies. Then, when news reports would come in about Guerillas fighting in Central America, well, I thought they meant real Gorillas.

Ed

As a child during WWII I would listen to news reports of the fighting and they would report the Guerillas had killed so many of the enemy. I was amazed that a bunch of monkeys would be on our side.

Ted

My mother used to tell me that when she was a kid and watching the news she heard the term guerilla warfare for the first time. She thought it odd gorillas waging war. She wanted to know what the gorillas were upset about. She believed it was the furry gorillas fighting men with guns in the jungles...quite a cute thing to believe in really.

heather

When we were 8-9 years old, my best friend thought guerrilla warfare meant they used actual apes. He even told our teacher, "Wow, those must be some smart gorillas!"

Anon

When I was younger in the mid 70's,my parents use to listen to the radio and I thought that the guerillas were coming and that they were armed and dangerous.
It was years before I realized that they weren't gorillas.

Jill Marie

When I was young I believed that gorillas fought in wars overseas. I used to watch news reports closely but never managed to actually catch sight of the gorillas the reporters were talking about. It was really upsetting when I realised they meant 'guerrillas' and Planet of the Apes wasn't based on a real place.

Cheryl

When I was about 3 years old, I would watch Planet of the Apes movies with my Uncle *a lot*.....
... Then one day I was terribly confused and horrified by the News reporting "Gorilla" warfare. I became terrified to go outside because I believed that it was REAL because the news reported it.
:)

Kimberly in AZ

I remember being very worried as a child when a story on the news said that people in Africa had been attacked by "200 guerillas armed with sub-machine guns".

All I could think of was the ape army in Planet of the Apes!

Dave Hughes (England)

When I was a child I would watch the evening television news with my parents. Whenever the newspeople would mention "Gorilla fighters", I remember thinking "Wow, those things are SMART!"

Eric

When I was about 6 or 7, durring the Grenada conflict, I was shocked to learn about guerilla warfare from the TV news. I didnt think that gorillas could even use guns, and I cried for hours thinking that we were shooting at the defenseless apes.

Ryan

like many people here i thought that guerrila warfare involved monkeys. I have a good reason for this though. I was born in the early 90s, so wen i was only about 6 or 7 i saw tarzen, and i got scared out of my mindd when my brother showed me planet of the apes. a couple of weeks later, in a war encylapedia book i read vietnam was a jungle war with guerrila warfare. Since tarzan was in the jungle, i thought wen they shot the monkeys it was jungle guerrila warfare. i also thought in planet of the apes, that since it is in the desert, that is desert guerrila warfare like the persian gulf warfare. it never occured to me of the spelling diffences and the logic

i hate monkeys