Interesting Article & Video on Tunnel Rats in Vietnam

[prasta]

A U.S. Tunnel Rat Veteran Talks Human Trophies and Beheadings You'll need to click through to Youtube in order to see the video interview.

Did not realize they were using suppressed .38s, .25s & .22s down there, had only ever seen the iconic images of the .45 and the flashlight...

 

[jaypap]

You should read The Tunnels of Cu Chi. I read it long time ago. As soon as I saw your post the title came right back to me, that how good it was.

 

[gerrycaruso]

When I was the officer on engine 2 my driver was a former Marine tunnel rat. On one occasion he emptied his .45 into a guy who's AK had screwed up. It's no wonder his hearing wasn't so great.

 

[Rat187]

Rats were last thing you had to worry about...and yes Some 25th Division Cu-Chi tunnel rats carried suppressed ,38's

 

[Rat187]

I will not even speak to the beheadings, cutting ear crap mentioned above by the OP...but as you scroll past YouTube crap under: “NON GRATUS ANUS RODENTUM (“NOT WORTH A RAT’S ASS”). I recognize Franklin Short of Pennsylvania on the right holding a suppressed .38 and holding a Everready lamp. He was stabbed through the throat with a bayonet raising a trapped tunnel door but managed to get a shot off and kill his attacker. He was evacuated to the the 25th Div;s 12th Evac in Cu Chi by General Westmorland whose chopper happened to be flying close by. He actually told me he escaped the hospital in his hospital blues and hitched as ride north to his unit who was operating near Tay Ninh City.

He told me he thought he was transferred to my aviation company and sure as hell a pilot remembered him. I think he did 30 years in the Army and did the 1st Gulf war and retired as a Master Sargent.

 

[mac1911]

I wish i could remeber my dads friends name. He was a tunnel rat. Told us lots of stories but nothing terribly nasty , im sure that was on purpose.
My dad said to me once when i asked if a story was true... " knowing what i know, knowing what I,know he did. i would not doubt anything he tells you"

 

[rickflst]

I watched this on youtube last year. An incredible video

 

[FrugalFannie]

interesting. I am reading the Bosch novels and his "backstory" is that he was a tunnel rat in Vietnam