Black Panther tat and the Vietnam War

I need help finding the meaning of the crawling black panther during the Vietnam War. My father served in Vietnam and had this tatoo on his upper right arm. I already had a tatoo, but since his death, I have wanted that tatoo (or a version of it) and my brother says that it symbolized something from the the war and that it wasn't a good idea. However, my father would never really explain its meaning. Can anybody help?