Hey everybody, welcome to my podcast!
What do you say Grunts, did this about cover it? Looking for your comments below…
If you missed part 1, here’s the link: https://cherrieswriter.com/2020/09/12/podcast-what-was-it-like-to-hump-the-boonies-in-vietnam/
CherriesWriter - Vietnam War website 
No doubt, the infantry endured the worst but not alone. Some of us did not see base camp until we rotated out.
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Centipedes and earthworms
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Beetles that looked like turtles, hard shell and all.
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The things I remember about Mother Nature in Vietnam were not insects or reptiles. I grew up in Texas and was pretty used to those. What I was not prepared for were the endless days of rain during the monsoons and the endless days of heat during the warmer months. Living in the jungle for a year under those conditions really took a toll on me.
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Very interesting. Flew from an AFB in RVN and met a few of these lovely creatures. Had the base sprayed for mosquitos so they weren’t much of a problem. However, having been sprayed by the mosquito spray, I’m expecting a 3rd ear To pop up sometime in the future. I’m already on the Agent Orange Registrar for Prostate Cancer.
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Your initial comment about tigers and elephants was correct about the tigers . Working the Cambodian border area we had a tiger trip a claymore and was wounded, it screamed all night and I tracked it down with my scout dog the next day. We found it dead and a Huey came out and lifted it out supposedly on orders from brigade commander that had a rug made from it !
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Thank you for this total.recall of time in the bush.
Brought back some.terrible
Memories.
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Pretty good John! All I’d add is that the damn termites seemed to love to puncture air mattresses. I lost track of how many times I was awakened in the night to the realization that rocks, twigs and roots were poking me where my air mattress had been. This was often made even worse by the annoyed termites biting me as they escaped from beneath the air mattress!
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Wow! Thanks to all you Hero’s!..You lived a literal nightmare for our safety!💔💕🙏🇺🇸 I had a cousin there I think he did three tours two for sure.. Sadly he died from agent orange at 52 right now he should be 76😭 You wrote to me every day and I tried to write every day while away at school. He told me some of the most horrendous things that I could never repeat the most people. Initials in bodies… I’ll stop there. We came back so different quiet and withdrawn..not him at all normally.. I can’t imagine living through one of those things never mind all of them I wish I could hug you all those that have gone before and those still here. Just know that my heart is full of thankfulness and sadness for all you had to endure!💔💔💔💔💔💔
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Crotch rot. Chafing, raw skin each step you take. Burning, stinging pain. The good old days. I remember them well. Thanks for the article.
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Great article. I was USAF so had it way better than you guys did. We did have to put up with mortars, rockets, mosquitoes, and the anti mosquitoe spraying planes, but it was a cake walk compared to bding out in the bush.
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I salute you Sir. With the greatest respect.
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I thought it was a great tutorial on humping it out in the bush!
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Do you have to be a “grunt” to reply? I was not an 11B. I was a 13E. But I spent my entire tour in the bush with the 11B’s.
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Living out a year in the jungles of the central highlands around Dak To wasn’t fun. All them insects that such your blood n them snakes. Monkeys in the tree tops spooking everybody. Didn’t see elephants, saw their trail n poop. One patrol had n encounter with a tiger. While on patrol with my squad we ran across a wild boar. Monsoon season u would freeze in the morning n b sweating by mid day.
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I was in the 1st Cav Div, based out of Phouc Vinh in 1970. Thankfully I did not spend much time in the bush. Camp Gorvad at Phouc Vinh was built in a rubber plantation. Most of the rubber trees were dead or dying. No birds, no flies, no mosquitoes, very few other insects… the only wildlife I saw (besides rats and cockroaches) were the little ‘fuck you’ lizards…. (Tokay geckos). Even the soil was dead…. hard, dry (red) laterite…..
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When I saw the picture of the snake it reminded me of one of more fun or interesting moments of my time in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. My squad while on patrol found a similar snake of about equal length and put a rope around it, drug it back to camp and took pictures of the snake with different individuals. I only wish I had the pictures as I was later wounded and flown out of the bush to Japan and later the states. Thanks for letting me share my story. All this as I have found is part of our healing process
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