I'm not used to using VS and when I realized my constructor was being ignored, you can understand why I would be confused

example:

VTXMENU::VTXMENU()
{
Submenu = NULL;
Next = NULL;
Previous = NULL;
Parent = NULL;
Base = NULL;
ItemType = 0;
ItemName[0] = 0; // (these two are character-array strings)
Command[0] = 0; //
cout<< "created\n";
}


and I'm creating one dynamically via:
VTXMENU *fish;
fish = new VTXMENU;


not only do my strings end up full of garbage, but the message "created" is never displayed

Why is this happening?
thx