another funny Vietnam story

[huff]

Many of the sleeping quarters for enlisted men in our small basecamp at Binh Phouc had sandbag walls with some wood posts in the walls to help support the roof on them. My place was long enough for 4 cots that ran along the wall on one side of the room and 3 cots on along the other wall with only maybe a yard wide aisle between the cots. We were right next to our battalion headquarters, so we were fortunate to have electricity. The sandbag walls of our place were more than 4 foot thick and the only opening in the walls was the one door. We had a big rat (that we called George) that lived in the walls. Every once in awhile George would tunnel inside our room. We proved to be inept at throwing bayonets at George when he did this. One of my roomies, that slept on a corner cot, had nailed a wooden box (for 105mm rounds) on a post in the wall about 4 foot above his cot. He kept some things in it and on top of the box he kept some spare magazines for his M 16 and a couple of the old style iron pineapple grenades.

Well, just imagine all 7 of us being sound asleep in our small room and being awoken about 2 a.m. by someone in our room who has let out a blood curdling scream. Needless to say, all hell broke loose in our room. I immediately sprang out of my cot only to hit head first into the stomach of the guy getting out of his cot across the aisle from me. I hit him so hard I knocked him back over his cot and against the wall behind him. The same thing was happening to the others in our room. Guys that managed to stand were tripping over the others that had been knocked to the floor when they scrambled for their rifles. All during this, someone in our room continued to scream.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of chaos, someone in our room found the light switch for our lone light bulb and turned it on. The guy in the corner with the 105 mm box was still laying on his cot. He was holding his crotch (the family jewels) with both hands while he rolled side to side on his cot still uttering sounds that told you he was in great pain. Next to his cot on the floor lay one of his iron pineapple handgrenades.

It seems George the Rat had made a new tunnel in our walls during the night that came out into our room level with the top of the 105 mm box. There, George had knocked off one of the grenades, scoring a direct hit on the guy sleeping below it.

One or two of us may have deserved a purple heart that night. Also it was a good thing we were all young men for an older one may have suffered a heart attack from the blood curdling screams the guy had let out. In the few seconds of mayhem in our small room we had put some serious hurt on each other scrambling out of our cots in that completely dark small room.

By the way, George did not live too long after the incident he caused.

[Clyde]

Ah, yes rats. Two tales, only moderately amusing about them.

Our battalion HQ had rats, despite all efforts to deal with them (boxes for poison, traps, etc..). N0 cats of course because if somebody ahd found a cat and let it loose to do its rodent killing thing, it would have soon fallen prey to one of the Viet hooch maids who'd have had it minced and in spring roll filling before you could turn around. So - rats. Every now and then one would be running across the rafters in the BOQ, much to the distress of any inhabitants who happened to be there at the time (none of us liked rats). One member of the battalion staff who shall remain nameless even now particularly feared and hated rats. He had also, for reasons never quite clear to me, brought a gun to Vietnam. A Colt Junior in .25 ACP. Which he woke us all up with one morning - a scream of "Take that you damn SOB" followed by a magazine of 25s let off rapid fire. The rat was untouched, but our nerves were badly frayed and there as a cluster of quarter inch holes in the tin roof right over his bunk. Monsoon hadn't struck yet, but it came soon...

The battalion Command sergeant major didn't like rats either, and he took a more effective step. Went out to some village (probably the market at Tam Hiep) and bought a python. A live python, fairly young and small, maybe 6ix or seven feet. HE then turned it loose, with blood-curdling threats as to what would happen to anybody who molested his anti-rat artillery. I will say that it seemed hungry for the rodents and cut down on them considerable (or something did), but it was a little disconcerting to be headed for the shitter or whatever at oh dark thirty and encounter the thing. It must have grown a couple of feet at least in the roughly four months between Smadge getting it and my transferring...

[huff]

Clyde, know what you mean about the rats being everywhere. One night in our sleeping quarters one of the guys (without warning us) cut loose on our rat George with a 45 cal 1911 pistol. That one had us jumping and yelling. The rats were big weren't they. We effectively delt with them by having a series of rat killing contests in our base camp at Binh Phouc. As I remember it, guys participating in the contest put up an entrance fee. Whoever killed the most rats during the night won most of the entry fee money, with second place getting the rest. It so happened that the night of our first contest I was on perimeter guard duty on a bunker very close to the two mess hall buildings. Needless to say, that area of the base had an over abundant supply of rats.

Just before sunset, I watch two engineer guys set up folding chairs between our bunker and the first messhall. They placed the chairs next to a narrow dirt street that ran along the inside of our perimeter. They had one spring type rat trap, (biggest trap I've everseen, wooden base about 5X10X1/2), on which they used a big chunk of cheese for bait. They put the trap in the middle of the street about 7 foot from them and sat down to wait for sunset. One of them had something that resembled a baseball bat.

OK, just after the sun finally set, I'm on top of our bunker and I hear the trap snap shut, a squeall, then a thud. The two engineers reset the trap and returned to their chairs. A minute or so later, I heard the trap snap shut again, another squeall, then another thud. Well, this routine went on all through the night. By daylight the two engineers had killed a little more than 100 rats and would be the winners of our first rat killing contest. If memory serves me correctly the next closest rat killer that night was a guy who killed about 70. I do not remember the total number of killed rats that night in our basecamp but it was impressive. We would later have more of the rat killing contests to control their population.

another rat story: In our base camp, some of our soldiers had set up a cage in which two rats (that had been starved) were placed and bets were made on which rat would kill the other to have something to eat. Our version of cock or dog fighting. I understand it was well attended and lots of bets were placed.

One day a G.I. that I casually knew, approached me holding an ammo can. I said "hi" to him and then he asked me, "you are a country boy like me aren't you?" "Sort of", I replied, then I asked him "why that question?" He replied, "I have a critter in this ammo can I want you to tell me what it is." So I looked in the can. Darn if he did not have a shrew in it that he had caught when it burrowed out into his sleeping quarters. (another sandbag hooch with dirt floors) I knew it was a shrew because I had caught one when I was about 12 years old. Not sure what I had caught, I had done some research in our local library and learned a little about them. I told him it was a shrew and then mentioned them relying on their keen sense of smell and hearing because they had such lousy eyesight. Also mentioned they were exceptionally quick, fearless little fighters and had to eat two to three times their body weight each day to survive. The guy said he thought it was a shrew, but wasn't sure, never having actually ever seen one. He then reveiled his plan to me to clean up that night by entering his shrew in the rat fights. Remember him commenting, "I'm gonna clean up on those city boys tonight."

A couple of days later, I cross paths with him again and asked how did the shrew do in the rat fight? "Little critter won me about $100 dollars." "You should have been there when I challenged the guy with the winning rat that night for a match and took the shrew out of the can to show it." "Everyone laughted at it and me and I got some pretty good odds on the betting." Then he went on to describe how the rat in the cage ran to one of its corners in great fear, when the shrew was put in the cage. The shrew sniffed around, ears twitched and zeroed in on the rat and then viciously attacked the rat and killed it. "That little critter was just a blurr going after that rat." "It was fun taking the money from those city boys."

[Clyde]

Didn't help that much, did it? Always more.

What used to get me is guys would cosntrantly throw stuff 9ration cans, that sort of thing) out of the perimeter bunkers at Long Binh nstead of follow SOP and put it all in a garbage sack. And then complain that there were rats around. And - worse as far as most people were concerned - things to eat the rats. Things liike snakes. Cobras fairly often - i shoot two doing bunker checks. Always carried a shotgun. With the first round birdshot instead of buck.

We had one incident of a person bitten by a snake out on the perimeter, in this case a palm viper that was by a bunker entrance. Hit him on the cheek and made him very sick, but non-fatal. And know of two people who got cobra bites out in the storage area of the Depot. Once again, non-fatal except for curst enar scaring both of the guys to death and mking them pretty sick. The more I think about it, the more I conclude my initial reaction to Vietnam was justified and accurate - it was a pretty shitty place to spend a year, and I'd say most of that year was pretty shitty, too.

[RiverRaider68]

Rats and Roaches, Snakes and Spiders(big) and Bees the size of salt and pepper shakers not my idea of fun in the sun. How could I forget Leeches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would have given big odds on the Shrew kicking butt............

Regards
Art

[falm16]

man i love reading these stories. glad ya'll made it back to tell them.

[Moonclip]

Didn't help that much, did it? Always more.

- i shoot two doing bunker checks. Always carried a shotgun. With the first round birdshot instead of buck.
.

How hard was it to get birdshot in Vietnam? What kind of shotgun? My dad talks of pulling 5.56 bullets out of 5.56 cartridges in Vietnam, making a soap bullet of sorts, and shooting rats with the soap projectiles.

[Clyde]

Us too, I assure you.

[RiverRaider68]

How hard was it to get birdshot in Vietnam? What kind of shotgun? My dad talks of pulling 5.56 bullets out of 5.56 cartridges in Vietnam, making a soap bullet of sorts, and shooting rats with the soap projectiles.

I'm pretty sure the shotguns were Remington 870s(pumps). We carried a couple on the boats but always had double 00 buck in them.

Regards
Art

[Clyde]

Had a Stevens and a Mossberg at different times. Shot cartridges weren't any great problem, though they didn't come through normal supply channels. 12 ga shot-shells were available on the economy if you wanted them. i did.

Lot of 870s around, too.

[huff]

Snakes, yea I can remember walking out the front gate of our base camp and observe two Vietnamese kids play flip the snake. One would stand in front of the snake to get its attention and the other would grab its tail and flip it toward the other kid. Then they would reverse roles and repeat the process. As I stood watching with the guard at the gate, I asked him, "isn't that a poisonous snake those kids are playing with?" "Yep", the guard answered, "but don't worry, its a baby one so the bite won't be so bad."

Another time I woke up very early one morning, dressed and headed for our mess hall which was just behind my sleeping quarters. Dawn was just breaking and I noticed no one else in the area. Along the front of the mess hall and along its sides was a loose pea gravel walkway. Just when I turned the corner of the mess hall to go to the side door, something slithered from underneath the messhall (built on blocks) and all I could think to do was step on its head. Darn if it wasn't the same color as the one I had seen the kids play with, except it was much larger. I tried to kill it by swiviling my boot with most of my weight on that foot. All that happened was the snake curled its body around my leg. Thanks to the loose pea gravel, all I seemed to be doing was making that snake mad as it curled tighter around my leg. I looked around, still no one was to be seen and I could not see any cooks in the mess hall. Out of desperation, I began yelling for help, hopeing someone would hear me. Finally one of the guys who slept in my bunker came around the corner still in his underwear wanting to know what I was yelling about. I just pointed to the snake wrapped around my leg and its head under my boot. His eyes got big, he said the appropriate words and ran back into our bunker. He quickly returned with his M16, telling me to "hold still and I'll shoot him." "What," I shouted as he started to take aim while standing about 8 foot from me.. "Are you f--k--g crazy, go get a bayonet and cut its head off. If you shoot you'll probably hit me!" The guy stood there for four or five seconds pondering my advice, then went back into the bunker and returned with a knife to deal with the snake. I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

[rickyracer2]

Man what great stories thanks!

[Engineer 179]

Rats were a problem in more than one area. We had to station more capable "walking wounded" to insure the rats did not chew on the bandages and wounds of of the worst cases while waiting for evac or in triage. They represented a real hazard of infection and damage to immobilized casualties.

A number of folks had "house snakes" to keep down the rat population. We saw a number of cobra's and various forms of vipers in less disturbed base areas like the fuel and ammo dump areas. In the wild, we had one person bit by a boomslang(? spelling), he made it but it was a close call. I used all of our anti-venom just getting him evacuated. As for shotguns, yes we could get shot shells, I had a Mossberg for a while, I do not think buck shot would have been overkill for some of the rats.

Engineer 179

[Clyde]

Doubt anybody was bitten by a boomslang in SEA, since their range is limited to sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar. But there were sure enough plenty of other "pizen sarpents" to be found. Cobras. Kraits, or relatives thereof I think. Several types of smallish, vicious pit vipers ("Palm vipers" I mostly heard them called, but I'm not by any means sure all of the critters were properly palm vipers). Very poisonous sea snakes off the coast (pity one of those didn't bite Jay Effing Kerry).

[ammolab]

Our Hooch was quite nice with a concrete floor and tin roof. just ten guys in a space that could have held 20. As a drafted Medic, I was not too keen on Spit and Polish like my RA bunk mate. He was always after me about the box of dirty laundry I kept inbetween our two bunks. One day he says, "Clinton Get this Stinking laundry OUT OF HERE!". With this he kicks the cardboard box of fatigues etc., and it begins to stir! As we watch in horror my dirty shorts almost come to life before our eyes. The garments slowly part and a real Big Boar RAT peeks at us from the box. Stareing at me for a second, then making eye contact with my now quiet pal before slowly jumping from the box and slowly walking to the back screen door of the Hooch and letting himself out.

I quit hoarding my laundry between the bunks and told our House Girl about the Rat. That same day she found a nest in the sandbags and proudly presented me with about 8 little pink Rat youngsters. She held them in her hand to show us all.....then she ground them all to jelly under her flip-flops on our concrete floor. What a sweetheart!

[Clyde]

Hah - surprised she didn't stir-fry them for lunch.

Nearly had a riot in my company when one of the hooch maids butchered a couple of puppies for her lunch one day. The troops were always raising dogs and there were too damn many of them and not enough cats (can't recall ever seeing cat in Vietnam, though I know there must ahve been plenty), with risk of rabies and such. We (the COs of three of the companies that were located in proximity) finally got the Troop Command CO to back us up in cutting the numbers down. A lot of bitching, pissing, and moaning and some near-fights as it was sorted out which dogs could stay and which were to be disposed of, but it finally got done.

[Mike]

Cats were better chow than dog in some areas.

We issued texas and Louisianna rice to our strikers.

There was a rat problem and we could not poison them as they were a choice dietary supplement.

We would buy a cute kitten from one of our guys.

They would get nice and fat from ratmeat, then mysteriously disappear.

One of our regular supply planes was a 123 with a beagle like mascot that was so fat it could barely move.

Our little guys would be unloading it and slobbering over that dog.

Think they tried to trade everything but their daughters for that cur.

Several people bitten by "Russel's Vipers." The team medic, for some reason was not allowed to maintain anti-venom on site.
They always managed to fly some out in time, though.

Some of that stuff really sucked, but I would not trade it for anything.

[Clyde]

Russel's viper is a BAD snake. One of the heavy-bodied Old World "true" vipers, with long fangs and fairly bad temper if stepped on or near. Wonder why they wouldn't let you have the serum, since the stuff is usually in dried form and is reconstituted for use so there isn't a problem, with it going bad from lack of refrigeration. Odd - strange and mysterious are the ways of the US Army on occasion.

[Capt Zorro]

We had the snakes and rats too. mama San called the snakes "two steps" supposedly if they bit a small statured Vietnamese they'd only make it two steps before hitting the ground.
The ARVIN next door had their mess hall next to the E-5 hooch with sandbags and wire between their compound and ours. When I first got there my buddy Badon from Louisiana and I were sitting on the sandbags watching the twin 40 Duster fire down the beach when I saw something moving in the wire. I said "look Larry there's a damn possum, I didn't know they had them over here". He said "You stupid Fu*@in' Hillbilly, that's a Rat!" Well it was as big as a possum. I bought an M2 carbine from the Filipino generator operator and we'd get in a little target practice sometimes.
Only saw one cat and it was movin' fast..

[Engineer 179]

It is entirely likely that the particular snake our guy was bitten by was not a "slang" it is a generic term we used for any of the thinner bodied light to olive green tree dwelling, bird and small animal hunting member of the "viper" family. Most were likely bamboo or cane-brake vipers or their related forms similar to the brown tree snakes, most of us were not that good or interested in vermin identification. Officially we were not supposed to have anti-venom or super-glue in our kits, lets just say some of us viewed certain of the standard equipment regs as suggested minimums. Some of the extras, while they could be a pain to carry, helped save lives or reduced the effects of injuries so we put up with being even more like pack animals.

Engineer 179

[Ol Duke]

I wondered how long it'd be before the Capt. waded in with a story about "two steps". I'd heard that one from him. With a little coaxing, maybe we can get some more stories from him...knew he had a carbine...didn't know where he'd acquired it, though. He told me about shooting up the river with the M2.

[Niner]

In the rainy season, outside of the firebase Gettysburg in the Plain of Reeds in early 1970. I was with the CP of Alpha 6/31st, 9th Division and a squad of one platoon. It was night as we moved into a November Lima. We weren't far from Gettysburg and could actually see it outlined against the sky. The area we were in was wet and overgrown with reeds that grew in thick mats. We settled down in a place with the water over our ankles. We spread out and set out the claymores and set up the ambush.

At the time I was the RTO-ReconSGT. Mostly just RTO actually. In the CP was the Captain, the first Lt. FO, myself, and a guy named Joe who was the CO's RTO.

We settled in and it was a misting rain coming down in the humid heat. When off watch, with the poncho covering and laying on the reeds in the warm atmosphere, it was really kind of comfortable because the thick reeds when pressed down made a pretty good mattress and it was no trouble to drop right off to sleep when our time.

Sometime in the early hours there was contact initiated by another squad from the company a hundred or so meters off. A recoiless rifle was captured before the gooks got a chance to fire a round or two at Gettysburg. The men I was with never needed to fire a shot and played no part in the contact.

The next morning the guys I was with got up and did the usual stuff, like taking in the claymores and trip flares and eating whatever C rations they had. Then Joe , the CO's RTO, started acting a little upset.

"Ok, who took my hat?", he asked.

Nobody answered.

"Real funny, but I"m serious, time to give it back."

Nobody responded.

"Alright you #$@%^&'s you are really &^%$$# ing me off now!"

Nothing.

Then after a few minutes a guy comes forward.

"Found this, Joe. Look like yours?"

The hat had the band chewed out. Some rat had pulled it off of his head in the night while he slept when not on watch and chewed the band for the salt content.

[Mike]

Checked with some team medics on anti venom.

Apparently it was in short supply and quite expensive.

We weren't considered an American unit, so were low on the food chain for some things.

You could last about 48 hours if you were lucky.

Never knew if that one or two-step stuff was real or just legend.

Never checked but was told at an event once that 8 GIs were killed by tigers in VN.

We came on some tracks once-the size of pie plates.

[Clyde]

There are rare, very unusual instances of a big viper hitting a major vein and causing near-immediate heart stoppage, but people who just drop after being bitten mostly died of fright - heart attack brought on by extreme panic reaction. Or so an ER doc told me after he got back from a seminar that included a session of latest medical views on serpent bites.

Could be that a few GIs were killed by tigers in Vietnam, but I never saw any figures on casualties that included tiger bite.

Recall a sweep organized to go through the M&S area at Long Binh in probably May or June 1969, ostensibly to hunt for suspected VC hides, but I think in reality to try and find a tiger who had been spotted on a recon photograph. Some tracks were discovered, but not so much as a glimpse of the orange and black critter. The pre-sweep briefing included notice that we might encounter a tiger and to be careful in case it acted aggressively...

Couple of small caches including food and ammo were found, one with a "VC snake" (yes - that's what the intel summary said a day or so later called it. "One VC snake KIA" was part of the report...) in it along with the other things.

[Quillon]

"One VC snake." As in left behind as a living booby-trap?

[Niner]

I was on radio watch getting sitreps one night out of Gettysburg, Plain of Reeds. Sometime in the middle of the night guy on watch in an ambush location reports a big dog had come into the ambush and layed down with them. Now this is the middle of a big reed swamp unpopulated by civilians....domestic dog not likely.

After a while another guy reports that it seems to be something other than a dog but don't want to blow their bush shooting it since it doesn't seem to be wanting to cause them any harm.

At morning, with enough light to see, it was discovered to be a tiger that had come in to lay down with them. They shot it.

I remember later in the morning two tiger scouts bringing it in with it's paws tied over a long pole of some sort, tigers back draging the ground. They expected to cut it up and eat it at some time later.

I thought I took a picture at the time....but must not have.

[Clyde]

"One VC snake." As in left behind as a living booby-trap?

No, I don't think so. Suspect it just crawled into the hole (well camo'ed, found when somebody stepped on the lid and felt the give) and had the misfortune to be discovered. i don't even think it was pizzen (there really were non-poisonous snalkes over there, besides the big pythons). Somebody's sense of humor after they pulled the lid open and the first guy to look inside saw it - and shot it without waiting to see what kind it was. Heard the shooting - if was just a few hundred meters from the area my company was sweeping - and it sounded like the guy let off a full magazine in one burst. The "how" of the discovery was related to me by somebody in that unit who was close by. Tell you what - it really perked everybody's ears up, just in case there was a reason for it.

[Quillon]

No, I don't think so. Suspect it just crawled into the hole (well camo'ed, found when somebody stepped on the lid and felt the give) and had the misfortune to be discovered. i don't even think it was pizzen (there really were non-poisonous snalkes over there, besides the big pythons). Somebody's sense of humor after they pulled the lid open and the first guy to look inside saw it - and shot it without waiting to see what kind it was. Heard the shooting - if was just a few hundred meters from the area my company was sweeping - and it sounded like the guy let off a full magazine in one burst. The "how" of the discovery was related to me by somebody in that unit who was close by. Tell you what - it really perked everybody's ears up, just in case there was a reason for it.

It's amazing how scared of snakes some people are. If I had to chose between jumping back from a snake or firing into an ammo cache I was almost standing on, I believe I'd keep my finger off the trigger.

[Mike]

This is a baby.

I got into a wrestling match with a MUCH larger one in Cambodia.

The snake was winning til my strikers quit laughing and untangled us.

Thet are mean as hell and will bite.

I was coming up out of a creek and found myself eyeball to eyeball with it. Curled up like a stack of tires.

I grabbed it by the throat-barely got both hands around it.

We rolled down the bank and the fun began.

It measured right at 31 feet. Folks go pooh-pooh over this, but I measured the sucker and it was 31 feet. I had every intention of bringing it in alive and becoming famous.

We were one night out on the way home and the Montagnards cut it up and sent a detail in with it.

I hated handling snakes BEFORE wrestling this one.

We had a 20 footer in a cage that we fed chickens and the occaisional small child.

[Engineer 179]

Yes anti-venom was not easy to get, the freeze-dried stable stuff we could carry was very hard to come by, we had a supply Sarg in the 40th ARRS that was capable of very creative requisitioning so we always had what we needed. Our rule was let him know what you need but do not ask how it got there. Even with this work we only had enough general purpose viper and general purpose cobra anti-venom to have two doses per field kit. We could not get the specific anti-venoms at all but we would have had to carry about 20 types which would not have been practical.

As for the guy that got hit by the snake, he was not wearing a shirt, just a flak jacket. While poking some vines out of the way, he yelled and tossed about a 5 ft thin light green triangular headed snake away. He had been hit right by the front top of the right shoulder at the edge of what the flack jacket covered. I gave him one of the viper anti-venoms right away, there was no way to apply a tourniquet and we got nothing with the suction cups in the bite kit. I gave him our other viper anti-venom dose just a the evac bird got there. I had hung three units of normal saline on him and used a good amount of anti-shock drugs but his b.p. was still low and I could only keep his heart rate at 45-50. He made it but I later heard that the nuro-toxins had caused major loss of function in his right arm and lots of other damage. I was also told that he needed some 12 rounds of anti-venom before he stabilized. Bad area to get a solid hit from a good sized snake.

I only saw one live tiger in SEA, that one was at the edge of an abandoned paddy over Laos. We saw it from the air one very early morning. We may have heard a few but they were distant so it would be impossible to know for sure. We also saw some tracks that had to be tiger but again they were at least a day old. I would guess actual encounters were rare. One of the guys I knew from the brown water navy said they did not worry about tigers, it was wild water buffalo that worried them. If they spooked and ran your way, you were in big trouble.

Engineer 179

[ammolab]

Checked with some team medics on anti venom.

Apparently it was in short supply and quite expensive.

We weren't considered an American unit, so were low on the food chain for some things.

You could last about 48 hours if you were lucky.

Never knew if that one or two-step stuff was real or just legend.

Never checked but was told at an event once that 8 GIs were killed by tigers in VN.

We came on some tracks once-the size of pie plates.

I can not belive Tigers killed 8 armed GIs in a war zone. Nothing in the news then...nothing on the internet now. I can belive that GIs killed EIGHT TIGERS during the war. Plenty of pictures and stories on the net about that action.

Sad but only about 200 Tigers are left in all of Vietnam today.

[Moonclip]

So tigers much less of a danger than a water buffalo? Makes sense actually. My dad said also that water buffalo are hard to kill as well, especially with a 5.56.

[Clyde]

90mm hyper-shot will do one a treat...

[BetaDeltaKA]

90mm hyper-shot will do one a treat...

Sounds like a story that needs to be told, Clyde.

[Clyde]

Could be. I'll think about it. It says something about war-zone humor and just what wars do to people's attitudes toward things after they have been in one for a while. You can and will find amusement in things that it bothers you (well, it bothers you if you are the king of person I want to look at in the shaving mirror in the morning) to contemplate later - "I thought THAT was funny? Oh my God".

[J.Stein]

Tell the story Clyde or I will.

That water buffalo was no longer an "animal" but was in fact serving as a Viet Cong prime mover. :D

[Clyde]

Yeah, that's true, Stein. Still - it sort of bothers me to recall the glee I (and the rest of the merry crew as best i could tell) felt at seeing the dink go up into the air to become an aerial target, no matter how much it turned out he deserved it (being a tax-collector and all). OK though - here goes.

I was at Camp Blackhorse, east and south a bit from Xuan Loc and at that time (as the name suggests) base camp for the 11th ACR. I was there to do some records checking and training (we were supposed to keep training records, even in a curst war; the Army does some funny things) verification for a company belonging to my battalion and remote stationed - i was the S2/S3 of a maintenance battalion just then. Turned out I was going to have to stay a day waiting for some information to be put together and a college classmate was a troop commander in the Blackhorse Cav. He got me to agree to go out on a short sweep through the free-fire zone that surrounded the base.

So - out we go, patrol consisting of an M-48 and three ACAVs. Around noon, we settle in a shady tree-line looking out over an abandoned rice paddy and have a bit to eat and plot the route back to camp - being careful to not follow the route out back. While we are doing this, one of the lookouts spots a water buffalo sauntering along out of the trees across the dry paddy (probably a hundred or so meters IIRC, not far), being ridden by a Viet. Well - it was a free-fire zone, he was a legitimate target and too far away to summon to surrender. So - Tom tells the tank to set up with hypershot (most of the ammo load was canister or HE, but a few rounds of AP were on hand for the odd hard target) and put it through the water buffalo, while everybody else was to take that as the signal to shoot the dink. BAM!!! goes the main gun. Water buffalo takes it right through the ribs and reacts about like a prairie dog hit with a 45 grain .220 Swift slug at around 4000 fps striking velocity. Sort of puffed up and collapsed in a heap. The Viet was thrown straight up with clear air under his ass. Four 50 cals, six M60s, the coax 7.62 on the tank and a number of M16s open up. The dink is obviously hit and lands to lie still. We motor over to discover he was a deputy province tax collector for the VC, with some lists of who had (and hadn't) paid which were useful intel. Some money, of which some found its way to the regimental intel officer and some (judging from the report i saw a few days later) into the troop health and welfare fund, which doubtless spent it on beer (much better than turning it in for the intel weenies to steal at some point, eh?). And the backstraps out of the water buffalo were salvaged for a barbecue that night. Washed down with beer bought by the Troop health & welfare fund, So now you know how I know 90mm hypershot will do up a water buffalo a treat. And it was still funny to see the dink going up into the air, even if i really shouldn't take it so. But being in a war will cause your sense of humor to warp a bit...

[rickyracer2]

I found the story to be interesting and I understand your feelings about discussing it.

[rickyracer2]

Yes anti-venom was not easy to get, the freeze-dried stable stuff we could carry was very hard to come by, we had a supply Sarg in the 40th ARRS that was capable of very creative requisitioning so we always had what we needed. Our rule was let him know what you need but do not ask how it got there. Even with this work we only had enough general purpose viper and general purpose cobra anti-venom to have two doses per field kit. We could not get the specific anti-venoms at all but we would have had to carry about 20 types which would not have been practical.

As for the guy that got hit by the snake, he was not wearing a shirt, just a flak jacket. While poking some vines out of the way, he yelled and tossed about a 5 ft thin light green triangular headed snake away. He had been hit right by the front top of the right shoulder at the edge of what the flack jacket covered. I gave him one of the viper anti-venoms right away, there was no way to apply a tourniquet and we got nothing with the suction cups in the bite kit. I gave him our other viper anti-venom dose just a the evac bird got there. I had hung three units of normal saline on him and used a good amount of anti-shock drugs but his b.p. was still low and I could only keep his heart rate at 45-50. He made it but I later heard that the nuro-toxins had caused major loss of function in his right arm and lots of other damage. I was also told that he needed some 12 rounds of anti-venom before he stabilized. Bad area to get a solid hit from a good sized snake.

I only saw one live tiger in SEA, that one was at the edge of an abandoned paddy over Laos. We saw it from the air one very early morning. We may have heard a few but they were distant so it would be impossible to know for sure. We also saw some tracks that had to be tiger but again they were at least a day old. I would guess actual encounters were rare. One of the guys I knew from the brown water navy said they did not worry about tigers, it was wild water buffalo that worried them. If they spooked and ran your way, you were in big trouble.

Engineer 179

Way to many dangers to worry about on top of worring about the enemy shooting you!

[Clyde]

I found the story to be interesting and I understand your feelings about discussing it.

It doesn't really make me feel good about myself - but that sort of mindset is a necessary survival mechanism in a shooting war. If you are lucky, you get over it after you come home. Read what Dave Drake has to say about that sort of thing.. Or get his fine (if somewhat hard and hard-edged) novel REDLINERS. Or the middle book in the REACHES (Lands Beyond Pluto) trilogy (title is THROUGH THE BREACH). And for that matter, the final book in that trilogy - FIRESHIPS - for a look at what Dave has to say about the cost of conflict on the people who are put to it. For my money, he is entirely right in his view.

[Moonclip]

Interesting stories all! Made me snicked a bit too because I was cleaning my house today and found a wallet made of water buffalo!

[Horseshirt]

This is an Air Force story.
Being a pilot in Nam (C-130), I got to sleep in a place with A/C. We even had a refrig that stayed stuffed with cold beer. One day, the Col. came in to get a beer and found a half pint of milk in the frig along with about 300 cans of beer. He called a special meeting to hammer into all of us what the consequences would be if he caught someone abusing the beer frig. again.

I got some snake stories; monkey stories; and dog stories too. I just like this beer story because it is so lame.

[Mike]

Here's one tiger reference.
We were there a long time and took a lot of casualties you might have missed a couple.

Tiger habitat is being destroyed there pretty fast to clear cutting.

I spent all my time near the border in Phuoc Long Province.
I had been a popular hunting area and there were still quite a few unusual critters there despite a lot of bombing.



http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/maneating13.html

[Cross of Iron Butterfly]

With a name like Phuc Long, I am sure there were more than a few interesting and delicious critters. Reminds me of one of those times my father wanted to belt me but couldn't stop laughing long enough. It was in a Thai restaurant, one of three in a little row on 55th Street. After going out of my way enthusiastically to describe, in my young emcee voice, just how delicious the Phuket Noodles appetizer sounded, I decided to try for the main course, invitingly titled, "Big Yum Yum Phuc." After inquiring of our highly attractive young hostess just exactly what was involved in the preparation of a Big Yum Yum Phuk, I ordered a double helping, which I enjoyed most thoroughly.

[albacore]

With a name like Phuc Long, I am sure there were more than a few interesting and delicious critters. Reminds me of one of those times my father wanted to belt me but couldn't stop laughing long enough. It was in a Thai restaurant, one of three in a little row on 55th Street. After going out of my way enthusiastically to describe, in my young emcee voice, just how delicious the Phuket Noodles appetizer sounded, I decided to try for the main course, invitingly titled, "Big Yum Yum Phuc." After inquiring of our highly attractive young hostess just exactly what was involved in the preparation of a Big Yum Yum Phuk, I ordered a double helping, which I enjoyed most thoroughly.

Hah, you're making me hungry for some Thai food right now.