Every soldier serving during the Vietnam War can relate to my story below. No matter where you were “in-country” something similar occurred and the memory of that experience probably still pops up occasionally in your dreams. Nobody was immune. It was a fearful time for all. WARNING: ROUGH LANGUAGE.
The following is an excerpt from my book, “Cherries: A Vietnam War Novel.” I’ve added random photos from the internet to this article in hopes of providing readers with an up-close and personal look at what many of us experienced. The language within has not been modified for this article.
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“The rat. You know what a rat is, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he answered, still unsure as to what to do next.
“Well, these fucking rats have a tunnel complex under this place. You don’t know where they will turn up next. When you’re lucky enough to spot one, you just throw the first thing you can lay your hands on. It’s not bad during the day, but it’s a real terror at night. They climb in bed with you, looking for food.”
John shuddered inwardly…
During this first night, the new inhabitants would find themselves in a very different battle – one that would cause additional nightmares in the days and years to come. Uninterrupted sleep during the night, and waking rested and refreshed, would not be an option while in Firebase Tomahawk. Every person on the hill became a reluctant participant in this battle, from the highest-ranking officer to the lowest grade of enlisted man. The rotting garbage dump was providing plenty of nourishment for the camp’s other tenants during the past several weeks of vacancy. Hundreds of hungry rats scurried about the hilltop after darkness set in, following the scent of this appetizing feast.
Ongoing screams filled the night as rats fell from overhead rafters and onto unsuspecting sleeping soldiers. The grunts were in a stupor, thinking that one of the other men in the bunker must have thrown something onto them while asleep. When the realization hit that a rat as large as an alley cat shared the cot with them, no two reactions were alike. Those soldiers from the city were more apt to scream out in sheer panic and cower in fear. The country boys, however, were not intimidated by the invasion, and immediately fought back with whatever weapon they could lay their hands on. Shots rang out as surprised soldiers instinctively aimed at the extremely furtive creatures before realizing their actions were putting others in danger. Still, others used machetes, steel helmets, folding shovels, and even boots to disable or kill the invaders.
In the morning, dozens of carcasses lay on the ground outside of bunkers or hung from clotheslines by their tails. The rats spared no one during the night and everybody had a story to share during breakfast.
“Let me tell you ‘bout my experience last night,” one soldier recounted. “Some screams from the other bunkers woke me up and I sat there for a minute to get a clear head. I thought I was seeing things when I looked over at Cecil. At first, I thought a cat had wandered into the bunker and found a place to rest on Cecil’s chest. It looked like the cat had a deformation or some kind of disease because his tail did not have any fur on it.
At about that time, it turned and looked me straight in the eye. That’s when I noticed it was a big goddamn rat. I froze in place and couldn’t do anything but watch. The rat turned back to face Cecil, its nose and whiskers twitching like crazy. It crept up to Cecil’s mouth and started sniffing around his lips. Then suddenly, the rat’s tongue came out and started licking at the corner of Cecil’s mouth, intent on getting to the dried food or something else from earlier in the day.” Clarence stopped for a minute while those around him shuddered at the thought and made comments.
“Ooooweee, rat tongue lickin’ on the motherfucker. Goddamn!”
“You know I couldn’t just sit there and watch. My ass would have been long gone,” said another at the table.
“I’ve been licked by many things in my life, but never a rat. That’s got to be a weird sensation!”
“I sure never want to find out.”
“Me neither. Go ahead Clarence, what happened next?”
“The nibbling at his lips must have woken Cecil because he opened his eyes and blinked several times to see clearly. When he looked down and saw the rat’s head only inches away, his eyes bugged open in fear and he screamed as if his ass was on fire. It was so shrill and sudden that it scared both the rat and me. Cecil was fast though, and I have to give him credit, he snapped his poncho liner and catapulted that rat onto the floor in the center of the bunker. And, just that fast, he jumped out of his cot with a Bowie knife and proceeded to stab that creature until it was dead. Needless to say, neither of us could sleep anymore for the rest of the night.”
“Damn! That is one bad mother fucker, maybe we all need to move in with Cecil,” one of the men commented. They laughed nervously at the comment.
“Hey dig this,” another soldier at the table began. “Me and Kevin had to go and piss during the night and headed to the latrine with our flashlight beams leading the way. We both thought we were seeing things because everywhere we looked there were glowing red dots. We were stumped and stopped to figure it out. Then, these red dots started moving around randomly in pairs. Something bumped into my leg and startled me. When I shined the light around our feet, several rats ran away. That’s when it dawned on us that the rats had us surrounded. That scene was so bad, man. We booked like hell back to our bunker and barricaded the doorway to keep the bastards out.”
Unfortunately, four men, bitten during the night, awaited evacuation to the nearest hospital. This news heightened the fear in many but also made them aware of how vigilant they now had to be during the night.
In the daylight, only a few rats moved around in the garbage dump. The thousands of others rested and stayed hidden in obscure areas or underground in burrows, waiting for darkness to arrive.
In an attempt to turn things around, Cap came up with an idea. He was sure it would interest the soldiers enough to get involved and help clean the hill of the vile creatures. After breakfast, he called the men together and rolled out his idea.
“We are going to start a contest tomorrow to see who can kill the largest rat on the hill.” The men looked at one another in disbelief. “We’ll start tonight and the competition will continue until the day we leave this hill. The only rule is that you use common sense and good judgment. I do not want to see anyone get hurt during this contest, but you are free to use whatever you have at your disposal to win. The deadline every morning will be 0800 hours; make sure you tag your submissions then lay them out on the ground outside of the Commo Bunker. If you find that there is already one there bigger than yours…”
One of the black soldiers in the formation called out, “Ain’t nobody here got one bigger than mine, this is a complete package,” he cupped his hand around his crotch and shook it a few times. “Yep, you can just give me the prize right now.”
This solicited laughter and comments from those around him.
“Like I was saying,” Cap continued when the chatter stopped, “if there is already a rat tagged and it’s bigger than your rat, then don’t bother entering it. Go and dump it in the trash or throw it off the side of the hill. The CP will judge all entries during breakfast and will measure from the tip of its tail to the tip of its nose. I heard that some rodents running through our camp last night were as big as cats, and know that it would make more sense to use weight as a qualifier, however, we don’t have a scale so we will judge the length instead.”
“What does the winner get?” Someone called from the crowd.
“I was getting to that, and I think you’ll really like this. The daily winner will be exempt from all details during the day and will receive twelve, ice-cold beers to do whatever he would like with them. If you want to sell them or give them away, that is up to you. Now, this is where I think it will be interesting. The names of all the daily winners will go into a hat, and I will pick one grand prize winner on our last day here. The odds of winning will depend on how many days we are going to be here. Nobody knows that, and if we leave at the end of the week, the odds of winning would be better than leaving at the end of the month – unless one of you continues to win many of the daily contests. The grand prize winner will get a three-day R&R to China Beach and I’ll even throw in fifty bucks in MPC to spend as you like.”
Loud cheering erupted in the ranks. They were already planning and sharing strategies.
“When does the winner get to go to China Beach?”
“He can leave on the next day if he wants. It’ll be his call.”
The commotion continued within the formation. The men could not believe this exciting prospect and many were anxious to get started.
“There’s one last thing I forgot to mention, and this is really important. All entries submitted for the contest must be in one piece from tail to nose. Do not alter the bodies and try to make them longer, and do not enter anything pieced together like a puzzle. Are we clear?”
“Airborne!” The group shouted.
“All the way, men! Good hunting!”
Early the next morning, several carcasses were already on display before daylight arrived. They were long, but eventually replaced by larger entries during the last hour of the daily contest. Six entries were found to be so close that each had to be measured several times and the lengths confirmed by others. Only one-eighth of an inch separated the winner from second place and measured exactly twenty-nine inches in length.
The winner quickly dispensed the twelve beers between his squad members and admitted that they were supporting him during this hunt and deserved a cold one. However, he also made it clear that he was going to China Beach alone. When looking over the carcasses on the ground, the thought of creatures that size stalking them at night was mind-blowing and sent shivers down spines.
The men of Alpha Company killed and burned almost one thousand rats during that first week on Tomahawk. The contest was an excellent motivator for reducing the rat population, however, there were still more than enough rodents roaming the hill to keep men awake and frightened during the night.
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Did anybody have a similar experience? Did any of you never see a rat during your tour? Please share your experiences in the comment section below so readers of this article can get a different perspective. Thank you in advance.
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CherriesWriter - Vietnam War website 
LZ Jane, Summer of ‘68. Rat problem on the LZ. They’d scurry around at night in our bunker. Slept with my boots off one night, rat got under my mosquito netting, ran across my chest and bit me in my left big toe. Started 14 days of rabies shots the next day. When I got back, we tore the sandbags off the bunker roof and found a nest of them. Killed the babies but the mama got away. Shots weren’t bad because they’re intradermal into the belly. Wary about sleeping with my boots off after that incident.
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Brought back memories of 1968 Wunder Beach. Rats as big as cats would come into our sand bag bunkers. They were attracted to the salt in our webbing gear. Each night before we hit the sleeping bags we would take a flash light and a mag of m16 “rat rounds” We removed the bullet and plugged the round into a bar of GI soap. We learned that when we would shoot them with a m16 round, it would simply go thru them. The soap round splattered and stopped them. We were in the 572nd Trans Co “Gypsy Bandits” We drove the 10, 40 ton KW trucks. The Koreans had the maintenance and repair contract with Vinnel Corp and the Army for those trucks. They would BBQ the rats. Sounds crazy today.
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Dan talked about the rats a lot, had dreams about them, never wanted to see one again – dead, alive, or in a picture. Those, and the side-winder snake in his foxhole that slithered across his boot, were the only things I ever knew him to be afraid of.
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Great article I was stationed at FSB bearcat I was a spec, five flight engineer on chinook helicopters , A CO. 228th ASHB the old 11 th Group. First Calvary Division.
My Crew Chief got drunk one night and passed out over his mosquito net with Jo right hand on the floor. He had eaten some peanuts earlier in the night.
The Rat family trimmed the end of his fingers to the his finger nail. He had to get all those shots and walked around for 10-12 days with bandages on his hand.
When I tell you, we had some little large rats they were even larger and smarter. They would get into the wiring bundles on our helicopters and chew wires till we had electrical failures. Some of those rats had more combat flying hours, and air meals than I did.
Their favorite meal was tobacco and chocolate in the C rations.
Thank you for the article , I had forgotten those times such a long time ago, 1970 1971.
My name is CW 4 Frank Steele retired.
I served 15 years enlisted at the rank of E-7 in 1982 I took a direct warrant to WO1. Was in the Ordance Corps Auto repair technician. Hey it was a pay raise, and that was the name of the game cause none of us unless you were a general made decent money and those days.
A heartfelt thanks to all my brothers and sisters that fought in the Vietnam war, a war, which we were never supposed to win!!
If we had to drop the big bomb big boy to on Hanoi, we could’ve came home to drums, beaten, eaten hotdogs, apple pie, and driving a Chevrolet as it was we came home to the United States that was out of control. That’s all I got to say about that because it was terrible, when I came back from the gulf war flew right back into Fort Benning, the wives were there the drums were beaten people were thanking you for your service, and it really felt good to be appreciated like John Cameron Swayze used to say I’m out of here and again, thanks to the brothers and sisters for their selfless service and the republic of Vietnam🙏🙏🇺🇸🇺🇸
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Not much appeal to those furry critters. As if you didn’t have enough to deal with during the war. :0
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On Dong Ha mountain we fought the rats with modified M16 rounds. Remove the bullet and part of the powder. Insert dried rice and seal with candle wax. On of our guys ambushed one rat with blasting caps from his claymore inserted in a bag of noodles. The result was unrecognizable. Nobody I knew got evacuated for a rat bite though.
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i was there 1966 67 i know about the rats. I was on my cot with a net coving me when a big rat was on top of the net trying to get to me, i took my 45 pistol shot it blew it apart,it was big as a cat/////// this article is great /////////////////
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Near Saigon, Newport, under the bridge loading ammo on night shift. A local walks by with a bird cage full of exotics, we thought. We got closer and it was a cage full of RATS! Never forget the sight!!
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Worked with the ROK Marines providing support as an English speaker on the radio with 1st ANGLICO . First night on hilltop up in Que Son Mtns I had arrived sort of late in the day and was shown my bunker, think average sized chest freezer found in any American home built from sandbags. Entrance to crawl into and a small slat (missing sandbag) facing downhill to fire from when needed. It had a mosquito net tied up inside where I put my “rubber bitch” and poncho liner. As dark came upon me and the local mosquitoes greeted the fresh blood I decided to get some sleep and retreated inside the mosquito net. Since this was July 71’ and hot I slept in skivvies only on top of “rubber bitch” and poncho liner. A few hours passed and I was awakened by a mouse/small rat (honestly not sure which) sitting in the middle of my chest. My reflexes sent it flying never to be seen again. Shudder.
Next morning inspected the mosquito net and found in too holy. Picked a different chest freezer sized bunker and put up my non-holy mosquito net. Lesson learned by this FNG.
First thing I did in the ville of Hoi An, after getting off hill, was to seek out a kid that had a small Rat Terrier and bought it. It helped dissuade some of the rats/mice but not all. The Terrier would later cause a rift with some ROK’s as they wanted my dog to fight their dog for sport/entertainment. But that is another story for later.
When I was not on the hill I stayed in a compound outside the ville of Dien Ban with a bunker mate, Nate Turner of Saginaw, Mi. At night the rats would get into the small 10’X 10’ bunker. Our solution was to pull the bullet out of the 7.62 brass, dump a tad of powder out, reseal it with hot wax and insert a one inch piece of C-Ration box wire into the wax. Oh yes we did our best to plink them in the night but not often due to the noise and confusion it created with the ROK Marines. Personally don’t blame them for getting upset about the noise as their watch was along the front not from inside the camp. I remember all night long someone would sing out, either from the watch tower or on the perimeter, roughly translated, “the watch is along the front, Comrade.” The sing song chant would then travel clockwise around the perimeter with each foxhole chiming in on their turn. If someone did not join in the chant, someone would contact said guard. Not responding meant only two possibilities, one: we’ve been breeched, two: someone fell asleep and was due an assbeating. I know folks will argue oh no, they were disciplined with KP or push-ups or a stern letter home to Mother. Well the ROK Marines we’re not that polite to their conscripts, there was a lotta “hands-on” done out of eyesight. I remember in the rear, “funny thing to say, the “rear”, as it didn’t exist anywhere “ in Hoi An you would see/hear a platoon of ROK’s running in cadence. There’d be a guy up front tooting cadence on a whistle, followed by the in-step platoon and two big Marines (not big as Americans think big) but stout guys brought up the rear carrying bats or pieces of two by fours. If a guy fell out of the run, he’d get a “taste of the wood.” Seriously folks, tough fighting men. ( They disliked the Vietnamese because they felt, “why are we here fighting your communists when we’ve got them in our own backyard.”) Sorry, but I digress. Hated rats and our live-in giant spider. ( Another tale I’ve shared on this site.)
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Oh my God, John! Just reading it gave me the heeby jeebies!
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Yes, they were as large as cats and a source of protein for the locals. Also, in Vietnam and I saw same in the Philippines, one would see vendors selling bits of barbecued meat on bamboo sticks, slathered in red sauce. “Oh yes, beef”, the vendor would assure you. “Very tasty, number one, you try.” I watched guys devour them but was always reluctant to participate in said delicacy.
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The biggest rats I ever saw were when we were pulling security at a bridge near Cu Chi (I think it was the Ba Bep Bridge). One of my buddies stomped on one about the size of a house cat, and it just made the rat mad. Had to kill it with a machete as it came at him. Another time, different location, I was sleeping in a bunker when two rats chased each other across my chest, around my head, and round and round. So many rat memories. Damn, I HATE rats to this day.
E/2/14th, 25th ID, ’68-’69
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Great article. One of the problems is the rat holds a place in the Asian zodiac. He’s one of their twelve most important animals. I was born in the year of the rat, the rat is considered clever and industrious. He’s almost a mascot for those qualities.
In inventing “Mickey Mouse,” Disney made it that much more difficult to iradicate those cute, little fellows.
I was in Ca Mau, An Xuyen Province in the Delta. They were everywhere. The older, and more populated the location, the more rats. We had rat poison boxes in the compound and I was sure they served as homes for the local rats. Never saw a cat or a rat terrier anywhere.
My next tour was in Chinhae, South Korea. Same problem. Don’t kill Robby the Rat, that’s an insult 1/12 of the population, the cleverest, most industrious portoin of the human population.
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After sleeping night after night on the ground in the jungles of Vietnam I would have welcomed a rat as a hooch mate as I slept on a cot after a shower.
Sgt Eads C/1/7 1st Air Cav
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Finally someone who gets it!
Sgt Kent C/1/5 1st Air Cav
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Chilling. Creepy. Horrific. ~ and these are just a few words that popped into my head…I could think of more, but it would give me the willies.
My late husband was USMC, ChuLai ’70-71. He passed away in Aug, 2014, after suffering for more than 20 years with AO complications. (We were married for 37 years by that time.)
When he talked about his experiences during the war, he mentioned all kinds of things ~ places he had been, people he had known ~ but I don’t remember ever hearing about the RATS! Maybe he just didn’t want to “gross me out”…I don’t know. But I do know that there was plenty going on over there to give him nightmares for the rest of his life.
And I am sorry for all of you who had to go through that ~ it should NEVER have been. Thank-you for your service …ALL of you. And may I offer my condolences to all who have suffered loss of loved ones because of it.
SEMPER FIDELIS. God bless America. ❤️️🇺🇸💙 …
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Spring of 1970 went to An Hoa one day to replace a defective TACAN. Had to stay over night in an underground bunker. One of the Marines had captured a rat and had it in a cage. He attached a field phone to the cage and cranked it up a number of times electrocuting the rat. Eventually took it outside in the cage and doused it with gasoline. He then set it aflame and let it run out of the cage into the night. Watched it run through the wire until it dropped. My only encounter with a BFR while in country.
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I HATE rats! Always have, always will. Just about as much as I hate Communists!
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From the book I have just finished⦠it is a journal of time in Vietnam as a brown water sailor:The CrossRoads Diaries â OH!! Rats!!I have heard that the noise level at prisons is very loud. Could that noise level be louder than living on these boats? As previously written, the engines are always running; many people are always awake and shouting back and forth plus playing any kind of music as loud as possible; the ships also generate numerous types of sounds and audible disruptions; there is the whoop-whoop-whoop of helicopters; frequent cannon gunfire and firefights in the surrounding vicinity; the obnoxious snoring of some sleeping; and, of course, … the Sounds of Silence! Hello darkness, my old friendI’ve come to talk with you againBecause a vision softly creepingLeft its seeds while I was sleepingAnd the vision that was planted in my brainStill remainsWithin the sound of silence The last time I was sleeping I was dreaming about getting a pedicure. I have never had a pedicure. I have no memory or recollection or information about what a pedicure would be like. This pedicure dream woke me from my sleep because my right big toe was being chewed on by a critter. This critter was about the size of a cat and/or opossum. The critters are known for swimming from the shore to the boats and ships and trying to create an environment where they can live. We do have a solution to help reduce the critter infiltration. Part of the boatâs armament are the shotguns. Most of the shotguns are short barreled so they can be used in self-defense against human intruders. If you take a shotgun round, shell, apart… you can remove the pellets contained inside. Once the pellets are gone it can only shoot out the wadding that has been left. A shotgun round with just the wad is reasonably harmless to the surrounding area and human users. However the round is still very deadly to the invading critters when shot at a point-blank range.  Our 25 boats can kill a hundred in a night. I don’t think this activity of killing critters is the meaning for âa shot in the darkâ …  But I do know… it’s another noise in the night… and the reason that many call us âThe River Ratsâ! Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: CherriesWriter – Vietnam War websiteSent: Sunday, December 1, 2019 8:31 PMTo: tango91four@gmail.comSubject: [New post] The Rats pdoggbiker posted: " Every soldier serving during the Vietnam War can relate to my story below. No matter where you were "in-country" something similar occurred and the memory of that experience probably still pops up occassionally in your dreams. Nobody was immune. It was "
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I devoted several pages in my book, “In the Sanctity of the Snake Pit”, to having slept with the rat population. Can relate to your experience and disgust of those large rodents, having one under the poncho liner with me. Didn’t sleep to well for many months, waking up with every screech.
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“SEEN THE SAME THING.” “YOU SHOOK OUT YOUR BOOTS, IF YOU TOOK THEM OFF . BECAUSE SNAKES, RATS, & EVEN COCKROACHES WERE IN THEM.” “WE WOULD KILL THE RATS,& SOME OF THE POISONESS SNAKES & COOK THEM,& EAT THEM.” “IF WE WERE RUNNING OUT OF K-RATIONS.”
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K-Rations ? When was that?
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K-rations were the individual field ration developed in WWII. They were replaced by C-rations. K-rations offered three choices, breakfast, dinner, supper and they were all dry – got old in a hurry. C-rations offered a greater verity of choices of meals. If my memory serves me correctly, there were 12 choices in C-rations and they were wet. Unlike most, I liked the eggs (aka. green=eggs-and-ham). I also liked the ham and lima beans, which wasn’t everybody’s favorite. The problem with C-rations is that they were heavy and bulky.
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I was joking around with Richard Williams response. I tried K-Rations when I was a kid. M y dad brought some home from the bombing range in Avon Park, FL. They were packed in what looked like a cracker jack box and were even produced by cracker jack.
We had LRRP and C-Rations. We would select the peaches from one meal and the pound cake from another. The ham slices with plastic cheese were good when cooked over C-4.The crackers, lifer bars, PB & J were OK. No one ate the ham and limas, etc. We ate the LRRPs except the chili con carne and pork with escalloped potatoes. Sometimes we had ARVN rations produced in US that even included Christmas Candy. We never got the A or B meals. Had to hump meals for 5-6 days before log bird would show up. Extra Cs were picked up by VC. Sometimes we did a stay behind ambush and wiped them out over a few cans of food. That was then.
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We had ARVNs attached to our line company. They’d catch rats, pull their teeth, and carry them in their packs to cook up with rice for their night meal. No shit!
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In most local markets you could buy butchered rats. At Soc Trang in ’68-’69 there was a papa son that trapped rats on the compound and sold them in the local market, at least he did until he was killed one night wearing a NVA uniform when the NVA/VC attacked the compound. I recall a story about a rat getting lose on a helicopter loaded with ARVNs while in flight and almost causing a crash. I always wondered how a rat got onto a helicopter, now I know.
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I do, but thank you anyway. My rat story began my first night in the field at a good size fire base. Sitting on the bunker line, I thought I heard monkeys running from tree to tree. Old timer said said they rats. After that whenever we were at a fire base we’d tried to kill them with knife throwing. Needless to say the Cajuns always won those contests. Sent from my iPhoneIn
>>
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Leave it to us Warrants to find entertainment wherever we were.
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I commanded an aviation company in the 229th Bn. Our young Warrants used wire cage traps. When they could gather they would line them up, douse them with lighter fluid, one ablaze as the door was opened. The betting was to see which one could run the furthest before expiring. Entertaining.
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OMG The secrets not told to the rest of us. Bless you men.
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While in Nam, I saw warff rates big as cats.
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One night on guard duty in a bunker near Bien Hoa, it started to rain. Turns out the rats didn’t like the rain any more than we did. They started jumping in the bunker like crazy! RATS…. I hater RATS!!!
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On one the few times we were in base camp at xaun loc ( 11th ACR) same experience in a perimeter bunker. Big rat ran across my hands. I hate and am scared of rats to this day. Lots of them in the sand bags around the tents. 67/68.
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WOW GOOD ARTICLE ABOUT THE RATS , SAW MY SHARE BACK IN 1966 WITH THE CORPS, PHUBAI. ROCKPILE DONG HA ETC
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I spent time on FSB Tomahawk and found it the least rat infested of the bases I was on. FSB Barbara and Charley 1 were the worst (both ARVN bases we back filled temporarily). On Barbara, a rat started knawing on my bunker mates foot and he almost stabbed me with his bayonet. No more boots off there!
On Barbara, the CO did a similar contests but it was # killed overnight, vs. size (they were ALL big!…lol).
We came up with a technique to get multiple kills ….we coated blasting caps with peanut butter. Then, we put it near a hole….when the rats came out they would start fighting over the peanut butter and then we hit the clacker. Our largest number with one cap was 5.
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Damn – I wish I had thought of that.
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What a great idea! We seldom had electric caps as we used mostly time fuse caps. I would have saved a few that we did have if I had thought of that.
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Great articles I only did the Rat hunt when we came in for our 3 day stand down but we always nailed the cockroaches that was in the bunkers we stayed in!😎🇺🇸
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In ‘69, while at Mai Loc with C Btry., 6/33 Arty, we were fortunate to have several actual buildings- with roofs and walls! (We were air mobile, so we didn’t stay long.) While crashed on my cot, a rat awakened me by running over me. When I reacted, it proceeded to run up the nearby wall. Attempting to hide, the rat jumped into my hat hanging on the wall. I grabbed a baseball bat and smacked the hell out of my hat and the rat. As I’m so fond of telling my grandsons: I killed a rat in my hat with a bat!
Got a new hat ASAP.
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“A rat in my hat with a bat!! That’s cool!!
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During ’67-’68 the guys in the motor pool (213th ASHC) had a large python that fell into a deuce and a half one day. They kept it in a cage in their area and let it out at night to hunt rats. This snake was huge about 8-9 feet and heavy. They got a new dude as a replacement one day and forgot to tell him about the snake roaming free at night. The snake crawled over him that night, he freaked out and shot it with his ’45. Pissed us all off because thTat snake kept the rats at bay.
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Great post. Never experienced anything quite like that! Did have a run-in with vampire bats once while in Panama! 😎
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My rat story is a little different. In ’68 – ’69 in Soc Trang there was a Papa Son who trapped the rats and sold them for meat in the down-town market . He had free run of the base. Everybody thought he was just an old man trying to make a living. During Tet of ’69 Soc Trang was attacked one night by VC and NVA. Next morning when a patrol checked the perimeter they found Papa Son ‘s (Rat Man) body in the wire. He was wearing an NVA uniform. In his satchel there were detailed maps of the entire base. So much for a dumb old man catching rats.
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I drove a Jeep, and drove many of guys to DaNang navel hosp for rabie shots. Even had someone shooting at one one night ,
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I find your stories to be very entertaining. Like something from M+A+S+H . I honestly wish that I had memories like that. Same time- different war. There were rats in the rice caches that we found in Cambodia and Laos. They were not as brave as the rats in your article, though. I guess they heard that we would wear their little ears around our necks next to the two-legged rat ears. Somewhere , maybe in Laos, an army of insects cut a path through the underbrush during the night – while eating the bottom out of my air mattress. It was like a Tazmanian Devil Cartoon – a pathway right through and then on into the bush! Sometimes, I still wake up thinking about it. I never did get another air mattress. They were too noisy anyway. I then used a gook hammock. He did not need it anymore. I got shrapnel in my thigh one night – dug it out with my buck knife and packed it with sulfa gauze – stopped using the hammock- monsoons were a little rough.
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They were not only on land. The first night I spent on the boats I learned not to sleep flat on the deck. Woke up with something that felt like a cat or dog walking up my leg and realized it was a rat. Almost shot my leg off before I realized where I was actually at. They hitched rides in the bilges of the boats. Tangos and Alpha boats mostly.
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Ugh, rats. I woke up one time to find a rat sitting on my chest, its little red eyes staring into mine. Another time, two of them were chasing each other in a circuit over my chest, around my head and back again. Monsoon season was the worst, especially if we were set up by a river.
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You got movement here..per the writing. Keep it up! Rats will be around forever!
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Wrong very wrong story when i was going to bed !!!@ hard enough to think of them during the day but not at night when im reading to go to sleep lolol ill finish this story tomorrow if you dont mind lololol hate them also as im sure you did Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
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Great article. I saw one on an empty bar in Saigon and it was big as a full grown cat. In the 69th Sig Battalion inn TSN, one hooch had a big box. One night while visiting, a big commotion came from the box and squealing. The lid was lifted up and a 6 ft python was being fed a large rat. Enough said.
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