Tunnel Rat
We just called him Al, which was short for Aloha. None of us could pronounce his real name. We just knew he was from Hawaii. He was 4’ 2” tall, which made him our tunnel rat. Vietnam was full of tunnels. After all, the Vietnamese had been fighting someone for the last 500 years. The French had been the last to be defeated in 1954. However, we were Americans. Five hundred years of fighting and preparing for war. Five hundred years of tunnel digging. Yes, we had to have a tunnel rat, and that was always the smallest soldier in the unit. That was Al.
You see tunnel rat was not a job that anyone wanted. A tunnel rat would have to go down into a tunnel alone, armed with only a 45-caliber pistol, a flashlight, and wearing a gas mask, looking for the enemy. That tunnel could be full of Viet Cong, booby traps, snakes, spiders and they were always dark. That tunnel could be multilevel. (We found one tunnel that turned out to be seven different levels deep). My unit was the 2nd battalion of the 47th Mechanized Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division.We were somewhat famous for finding weapons cashes, tunnels, and Viet Cong base camps.
Anyway, when we would find a hole in the jungle floor, we would throw a smoke grenade down the hole, then spread out and watch for smoke to come up out of other holes. We would put a man on each hole with an M16 rifle and send the tunnel rat down one of the holes to chase any Viet Cong out into the open. It was a dangerous job. Al had a couple of things going for him. He had been trained just for the job of tunnel rat, and he was Hawaiian, which meant he looked a lot like the Vietnamese. Sometimes that would be all the edge Al needed to get the advantage on the enemy. Which in my opinion made Al the best tunnel rat in Vietnam.
If the tunnel were found to be unoccupied or after we had taken prisoners, Al would pop back up; get some C4 rope explosive, which he would loop back through the tunnel. After he was back on top and we were far enough away, we would detonate the C4 and the tunnels would be destroyed, at least for a while.
It was a hell of a war.
You see tunnel rat was not a job that anyone wanted. A tunnel rat would have to go down into a tunnel alone, armed with only a 45-caliber pistol, a flashlight, and wearing a gas mask, looking for the enemy. That tunnel could be full of Viet Cong, booby traps, snakes, spiders and they were always dark. That tunnel could be multilevel. (We found one tunnel that turned out to be seven different levels deep). My unit was the 2nd battalion of the 47th Mechanized Infantry of the 9th Infantry Division.We were somewhat famous for finding weapons cashes, tunnels, and Viet Cong base camps.
Anyway, when we would find a hole in the jungle floor, we would throw a smoke grenade down the hole, then spread out and watch for smoke to come up out of other holes. We would put a man on each hole with an M16 rifle and send the tunnel rat down one of the holes to chase any Viet Cong out into the open. It was a dangerous job. Al had a couple of things going for him. He had been trained just for the job of tunnel rat, and he was Hawaiian, which meant he looked a lot like the Vietnamese. Sometimes that would be all the edge Al needed to get the advantage on the enemy. Which in my opinion made Al the best tunnel rat in Vietnam.
If the tunnel were found to be unoccupied or after we had taken prisoners, Al would pop back up; get some C4 rope explosive, which he would loop back through the tunnel. After he was back on top and we were far enough away, we would detonate the C4 and the tunnels would be destroyed, at least for a while.
It was a hell of a war.
posted by 7horses | Tuesday, June 21, 2005
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