There are various comments along the lines in the thread title from WWII, but I can’t recall the more or less exact wording.
Anyone know?
Are you talking about M1 Carbine cal .30? I don’t understand the wording “… not to be trusted with real guns”. Doesn’t someone believe that the M1 may be considered a “real gun”? It may be less effective than other rifles of the times (owing to the small bullet and the consequent reduced range), but the semi-automatic mode, the capable magazine and its handiness, made of it a quite dreadful weapon, expecially in close combat situations. 
The comment I’m looking for was a disparaging comment, which I think was related to the M1, along the lines that officers in particular but along with cooks, drivers etc couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be trusted with firearms capable of real damage to anyone as officers weren’t very good troops.
It’s sarcasm about officers rather than the weapon.
I’m sorry, but i didn’t get the real meaning… 
No doubt some narrow minded individuals felt they were 'REMF"s (a very disparaging term.) It’s sad cause in the 8th Airforce ‘cooks, drivers and others’ volunteers became gunners on the bombers.
And ‘cooks, drivers and others’ on Guadalcanal fought at the front (which was maybe 400 yards away!)
And in the Battle of the Bulge those same ‘cooks, drivers, and others’ fought right along with the ‘regular’ GIs.
So the couldn’t be trusted with ‘real’ guns. Gee they went through boot camp like anyone else did so the term was just demeaning for no good reason.
Deaf
Your an Infantryman first and then you have your day job.
REMF is not necessarily a disparaging term, but some ill educated folks use it as that.
Today’s term is POGUE.
Never heard any reference to cooks, etc as lesser beings.
The army has less of an infantry oriented basic training than the Marines.
You get the bare basics including marksmanship and some field training, then on to your MOS.
Marines somewhat include infantry as part of boot camp.
“Everyman a rifleman” is a Marine term.
The main thing to keep away from a new Lt is a compass.
Today I guess it’s a GPS.
The only reason to arm cooks and such with carbines is that they are a secondary weapon and more easily put aside.
I don’t know about today but in '66 it was and we knew where we were going.
I was in 66-70 with 18 months in the field RVN.
We never disrespected the guys in the rear.
Everybody had a job. Not everybody got a choice.
Not everybody was cut out for the bush.
That is Kontum before we destroyed it in Tet
Nice picture. I was just wondering, when i saw it yesterday, in which part of Vietnam it was shot… Thanx for sharing.
You ever in Kontum? Not a rear area I was wounded twice not counting the nomal small things stuck in me from the near misses,LOL. Some times it was not worth hospital because of the things you see when there,grim. I was also in Dak To Oct. and Nov. '67 during the hill 875 thing. SOG and MACV Komtum had a great bar,LOL. So sad it was all destroyed in Feb. '67. I captured my first M16 there.
Take care
Hi MJ1. 
I’ve never been in Vietnam. I’ve been wondering about the picture, 'cause i’m very interested about the Vietnam war, i’ve got dozen of books and i learned a little about the brave soldiers that fought over there. I’m sure you’d have a lot of stories and remembrances about the time you spent there… I have an M16 like the one you handle in your last picture. It’s an old one, it was builded in that era (1969) by COLT FIREARMS CO. Thanx for sharing this pic, too. Nice.
Take care of you, too.
I wasn’t a brave soldier just a lucky one. The M16 came from a VC/NVA sapper who killed my friend Richard Gidion Feb 3 1968.
Pura Vida
May your friend Richard rest in peace. Honor to his memento.
carried on the person for the jump along with one’s pistol. 1911 .45 Colt or a GP35.
I’ve just begun reading a book about it.
In “With the Old Breed” Sledge discusses at great length the conflicts he had with the rear echelon troops. In fact, he usually describes them in a very negative light (I remember one part when he described a physical fight almost breaking out between his battalion and the rear echelon troops, another when he described them as just looking for souveniers and yet another when he compared the condition of the men he was with - dirty and unshaven - with the clean condition of the rear echelon soldiers).
By the way, I loved the Vietnam pictures and stories thanks for sharing. As part of the “echo boomer” generation (children of baby boomers) we are the children of the protesters and Vietnam vets (though, my father just turned 18 as the war was starting to wind down so they were too young to do much of anything during most of the war) so it is always interesting for me to see the other perspective.