Critters in Combat, Stories

JJ_BPK · 02-14-2009, 16:18

I have always had this fascination for the different critters I ran into while in Viet Nam.

Asian Silka: We found this one in a bomb crater. I sent the rack home and still have it. Nice 3x3 rack.

Asian Tiger: We spent the night in a wooded patch, waiting for resupply the next morning. At 6AM, I sent a scout out to check the other side of the clearing. On the way back, he saw these foot prints. they were about 40 ft from where we slept.

Asian Reticulated Python: We were stooped for a brake, I was reading the Army Times. He crawled up between my feet with his head about 10inch from my Johnson.. We had fresh meat for the evening,, C4-BBQ. At least me and my terp.

Orangutans: One night we were set up in some really thick stuff. We put out trip flares 100 ft out & dug in. About 2AM, first one, then two, then the third flare went off,, all hell broke loose. Trying to get a feel for the action, I sat looking for green tracers??? None?? I called a halt,, no return fire??? needless to say we all stood watch for the rest of the night. In the morning, I went out to see if we did any damage, could not find anything, on the way back to our camp, I spotted a chunk of long red hair. I reported it to the S1 and he started laughing, seems there were Orangutans in my area and they forgot to tell me^*^*^

I am looking for the snake picture..

Until then,, Anyone been to this Luxury Resort and Spa in the 3rd pic??? I only flew by, never got to partake..

Anyone else have "Critter in Combat" Stories??

Fixed: there are no Baboons in Asia,, but there are Orangutans,,, dah..

Just added a snake,, not mine,, but similar..

JJ_BPK · 02-14-2009, 20:21

OK, here are a couple more pictures of the Viet Nam Zoo.

If your in one fess up..

Dozer523 · 02-14-2009, 23:54

JJ Which one of those youngsters is you?

JJ_BPK · 02-15-2009, 04:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dozer523

JJ Which one of those youngsters is you?

None,, When I was Medevac'd, I asked my RTO to keep my Randall (model 16) and send my personal kit to the Co 1st Sgt in Tay Ninh. At which point it and all my pics disappeared. The only pictures I have are those I had sent home, very few..

Here is one I sent home after coming back from 3 months in Camp Zama,, no chuckles,, My mom was an Army nurse in WW II,, so she insisted on details. The blue arrow is pointing to the big scar.

I had put on a couple lbs sitting in the O club playing the slots & parting with a young lady that was spending her summer with her parents. Her dad was an 06 at the hospital...

When I got back, I was assigned Div HQ Co XO, forward, in Phuoc Vinh(?). I baby sat 300 REMF's,,, Nuff said... Here I'm standing with my 1st Sgt and the E7 who had the EM & NCO mess. Among other tasks, I had 2 EM mess, 1 NCO mess, 1 O mess, the Generals mess, 2 EM clubs, 1 NCO club, and 1 O club.

f50lrrp · 02-15-2009, 10:25

Nui Ba Den Mountain. I had the mission of leading the 1st recon mission down that terrrain feature. I was a lrrp with the 25th Division at the time. My team and I spent three days and two nights negotiating the boulders and triple canopy jungle to get to the bottom (Northeast side). We spotted bucoup VC while going down and when I called in our last sitrep, A new C.O. ordered us to return to the top of the mountain.

I, for obvious reasons, Decided to call for an emergency extraction. When the helicopter got us to the top of the mountain. The new C.O. chewed my a-- for a while and then ordered that I be one of two NCOs That he had been ordered to provide to B-36 (SF 3RD Mobile Strike Force). It was probably the best move that I ever made in the Army,

Richard · 02-15-2009, 12:05

That was a nice tiger. I only saw one in the wild--it was on the border between Thailand and Burma. Our group was midway up along a long ridge line and watching a rather narrow valley running across both sides of the border when the tiger came out of the far wood-line about 6-700 meters away. It was kinda sickly looking--bare patches of fur, thin, kinda drunken gait. Moved along the valley for about 100 meters or so and then went back into the jungle on the far side. Kind of a let-down to see a tiger and then get to see a sickly one...but it kept us alert 'cause we knew at least one was out there somewhere...and he was sick, tired and hungry. Never saw him again, though.

Most of our encounters were with 'no-shoulder' types--kraits, vipers, pythons and cobras. Wasn't afraid of them but didn't like any of them...although cobras do make pretty good eating if roasted--raw or boiled, not so good.

Kraits were night problems, vipers just about any time, cobras always seemed to be in pairs, and pythons could be around anywhere...especially if there was any water around.

SGM Buddha Grant ran over a huge Burmese Python when driving the road (a misnomer if there ever was one) from Ban Pak Chong to Nong Takoo. The snake was mortally injured but still alive, so he threw it in the vehicle and brought it with him to our camp. We were in the club watching a movie when the door opened and Grant walked in holding the nearly dead 20+' snake. Cal was sitting next to the door running the projector and Buddha draped the snake over his shoulders. There was a scream like I've never heard before or since, the projector was sent flying, and Cal hit the back door in a dead run for his hooch. Buddha thought it was hilarious until we saw Cal heading back to the club wearing his harness and carrying his s..t. Buddha thought he was going to shoot the snake until it became obvious to us that he was after the SGM. We gang tackled Cal and kept him under close watch at the camp for a week, and Buddha left mo-ricky and never came back to our camp. Cal never forgave Buddha for draping that python over his shoulders and we were leery of joking around with anyone after that when it came to snakes. Gibbons, otters, dogs, honey bears and the like remained fair game, however.

One of my favorite animal stories is from a good friend who was the 1-0 of RT Maryland. His team found a small NVA unit using an elephant for transporting heavy supplies. One of the Yards was spotted and the shooting began--wounding the elephant. It turned out to be a very short fight as the wounded elephant went berserk and started stomping around, going after the only people he could see that might have caused the hurt he was feeling...the NVA troops. The NVA were so involved in avoiding the mad elephant that they weren't able to fight and Maryland was able to withdraw unnoticed. I always thought that would make a great movie scene!

Richard's $.02

Scimitar · 02-15-2009, 12:19

My Father (VN 71-72) always remarked about the butterflies.

He was amazed how these things could fly. Apparently they didn’t really fly they just kinda flopped around the air cos they where so big.

In one story his Plt was approaching a suspected VC encampment after it had been shelled and everything was deathly quite, but there where these big butterflies everywhere.

"It was the weirdest thing" he said "Surreal"

He brought a display box home of some of them – these things are huge – always used to just stare at them as a little cub, thinking VN must have been like Gulliver’s-Travels-Land or something.

S

mark46th · 04-24-2009, 21:12

Hey Rich- I remember that story! Grant had a helluva time trying to drive and hold on to the snake. I came out of the shower one night at Nam Pung Dam(Thailand) to find a 12 foot python stretched out on the sidewalk... At Nong Takoo, one of our teams was going out on a MedCap- A young captain gave Al Drapeau a .22 cal revolver with 3 rounds. He told Al that a tiger had carried off an old woman in the village he was headed for. Al Gave it back to him....Snakes! Geezus!! Read Don Valentine's story of scouting out a location for what became Nong Takoo...

One of the locals fron Ban Kham Phoem(the village by Nam Pung) killed a 200 kilo wild boar with a muzzle Loader. I still have one of he tusks. At Nam Pung one of the engineers bought a sun bear cub at the market. It would get away and climb the pole that held our electrical equipment. The only thing it would come down for was a bottle of Squirt!!

Dozer523 · 04-24-2009, 21:29

Does anyone have stories about stinging ants? I worked for a LTC at SWC who talked about these ants that formed balls that hung from the trees. Said he'd seen firefights dirrupted for both sides because the ants got disturbed.

alright4u · 04-24-2009, 22:06

We ran into bamboo vipers, kraits, vine snakes, and some apes making sounds at night. We did not do any hunting for reptiles or non two legged humans.

04-25-2009, 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dozer523

Does anyone have stories about stinging ants? I worked for a LTC at SWC who talked about these ants that formed balls that hung from the trees. Said he'd seen firefights dirrupted for both sides because the ants got disturbed.

Not my generation, to young to see combat like the older guys, sorry fellas!

While trng with Hondurian SF, we made a jump on a well known DZ. The problem was the DZ was covered with these termite looking ants that built large cone like fortresses, standing 2.5 to 4.0 ft high. We were given the option to either land on the DZ, or chose the ocean or tree line. The ocean had it's own problems, SHARKS!, cruising the shallows in 5 to 10 ft of water, just off the DZ, or we could choose the tree line with caimens. The trees proved more dangerous than the timid caimens. I opted for the DZ, probem was I selected a perfect landing point, while my canopy cascaded over three mounds of termites. Gathering the chute was ok. I felt sorry for the truck driver who had to unload kit bags and the riggers who re-packed the gear. I took some Johnny Walker, (3 bottles, all I had) to the Hondurian soldiers and helped shake chutes.

Termites flew in the breeze!

alright4u · 04-25-2009, 15:36

Not a man I served with in SOG, nor any SOG man I have met, from any FOB, when out with an RT or HF was doing any four legged animal hunting or reptile hunting.

Why would an RT give away their location with any shot or noise? Even with a 32 man HF platoon to an entire company, we were not looking for reptiles or animals to hang on the wall. Damn, we did not want the enemy to know where the hell we were, and; we damn sure dreaded getting hit on the LZ.

Why shoot a tiger or anything, thereby giving away your location and losing the element of surprise? Maybe on a local OP some SOG guy or pilot shot a deer, but; I assure you, that where we normally went- we damn sure were not the superior force.

Yes, the yards killed a few bamboo vipers, but; they did so without making a damn sound.

I never understood why some US units made so damn much noise from throwing C rat cans to outright sad ass noise discipline. I came across a number of US unit foxholes along the border that clearly gave away the size of their unit

I had a US ARTY FO party with me on all of one OP. The yards wanted to kill them as they, the 1LT and his SGT RTO, made too damn much noise. I damn near killed them myself, as I told that 1LT- we are going to hit a company size basecamp. His eyes looked terrified as we were all of 32 men plus these two clowns. He damn sure talked to his RTO, and; I put the sad ass RTO back with my top NCO. I put that sad ass leg 1LT behind me . When we hit that basecamp on 11/15/68 after 7 plus hours to include reinforcements and TAC Air. We finally took it. I owe my life to that sharp SF senioe NCO.

I guarantee that FO party never again wanted duty with an SF HF again.

greenberetTFS · 04-26-2009, 02:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJ_BPK

None,, When I was Medevac'd, I asked my RTO to keep my Randall (model 16) and send my personal kit to the Co 1st Sgt in Tay Ninh. At which point it and all my pics disappeared. The only pictures I have are those I had sent home, very few..

Here is one I sent home after coming back from 3 months in Camp Zama,, no chuckles,, My mom was an Army nurse in WW II,, so she insisted on details. The blue arrow is pointing to the big scar.

I had put on a couple lbs sitting in the O club playing the slots & parting with a young lady that was spending her summer with her parents. Her dad was an 06 at the hospital...

When I got back, I was assigned Div HQ Co XO, forward, in Phuoc Vinh(?). I baby sat 300 REMF's,,, Nuff said... Here I'm standing with my 1st Sgt and the E7 who had the EM & NCO mess. Among other tasks, I had 2 EM mess, 1 NCO mess, 1 O mess, the Generals mess, 2 EM clubs, 1 NCO club, and 1 O club.

JJ,

That picture indicates you hadn't missed to many good meals and I assumed some very good booze considering that your assigned position had some excellent perks as top dog in the Div HQ Co XO.............................

GB TFS

Stras · 04-26-2009, 07:14

0100hrs 20 Dec 89, 2/75 RGR combat assaults Rio Hato with 3/75(-). Our target is two of Noriega's SF/Ranger like units.

As we're cutting the fence and entering the perimeter of the base. I move forward and get down behind what I thought was a large rock. "Damn, it smells like a** here." About this time, we start engaging the PDF and my "rock" starts moving. It's one of the anteaters (or a close relative), that the unit had as their mascot. Being as how he didn't respond to the challenge and password, or the running password, he was quickly dealt with. I am sure to this day, that he was a collaborator...

JJ_BPK · 04-26-2009, 07:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenberetTFS

JJ,

That picture indicates you hadn't missed to many good meals and I assumed some very good booze considering that your assigned position had some excellent perks as top dog in the Div HQ Co XO.............................

GB TFS

Your very correct,, I had just returned from 3 months in Camp Zama. I was kicked off the ambltory ward the 2nd day,, moved over to the BOQ,, costs $00.50 a day, with maid service.. O club most afternoons,, down town nites..

A little spoiled..