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One of the officers at the school was a tunnel rat, And he was talking to my class.

He told us about how their were all the traps and all that, But he also talked about some of the funny stuff he saw

Gives a little to that suggestion with the helo having music.
He said they sent out a Helo full of speakers with like a huge range of armored helos, And as they would start the music, a little after they started they would light the area up and to hell, Jets, 50 fire, Everything else they had their, And the commander did that because the theory was they would hear the music, and know that a huge bomb or something was coming, and they would just stop fighting =P

He also told us that while PT Boats were going down the river , Maned and all, some folks would be water skiing off the back of the boats =P

Anyone else hear any other cool Vietnam war stories?

perhaps an odd question, but what's an ex-tunnelrat doing as a teacher in iceland?

Sounds kinda like Apocalypse Now

Wakain wrote:perhaps an odd question, but what's an ex-tunnelrat doing as a teacher in iceland?

Na its an American school =P

It was interesting to hear him talk, But in total we got an hour to listian, First day back in January we got 20 minutes because of the school being delayed.
Today we had about 40 And he talked about that.

He also said he did HALO jumps into enime territory, Said that he saw the north Korean capital when he talked to us in January. I forget what the city was called.

Talked about how he did not use soap and only ate Vietnamese food so when he was out in the woods, they would not smell him. He was special forces more or less, But small enough of a guy to be a tunnel rat, and when he was their he said i think their were 57 tunnel rats.

He said the hardest part of coming back home to america was using soap, And smelling everyone, Because he spent 18 months in Vietnam without soap and Vietnamese food.
He also said he only eats eastern food like that once or twice in a year at most =P

I wish i could talk to him one on one about it for a while, I am interested in the Vietnam war.

My friends dad was a tunnel rat too.
He told me it was, in his opinion, the safest job next to being a medic/corpsman as no one wants to go in the tunnels so they would protect him so they wouldn't have to.

AgentMongoose wrote:My friends dad was a tunnel rat too.
He told me it was, in his opinion, the safest job next to being a medic/corpsman as no one wants to go in the tunnels so they would protect him so they wouldn't have to.

ha that makes sence i guess =P

The guy who talked to us said that the tunels had many 90Deg turns, So someone could be waiting arround any corner, or any booby trap, or anything could be their, And becuase of all the turns, Tear gas and satchel charges did not work well agianst it, The gas got stuck in all of the Turns and such (Some parts that went underwater where you had to swim to the other side)

Satchel charges because they had other ways out =P

bloodthirsty_viking wrote:He also said he did HALO jumps into enime territory, Said that he saw the north Korean capital when he talked to us in January. I forget what the city was called.

In the context im putting it that line doesnt make any sense,he HALO'ed into vietnam behind enemy lines and saw pyongyang?

Or im i totally wrong here?

That's one HECK of a HALO jump!

bloodthirsty_viking wrote:
He also told us that while PT Boats were going down the river , Maned and all, some folks would be water skiing off the back of the boats =P

Man thats crazy. The impression i get from the vietnam war that teh soliders didnt care about it. Dont no too much about the war

supahpingi wrote:In the context im putting it that line doesnt make any sense,he HALO'ed into vietnam behind enemy lines and saw pyongyang?

Or im i totally wrong here?

He told us he did HALO jumps to behind NME lines.

idk how he saw pyongyang, It might have been HALO jump, might have been just walking.

I should probably have put that in 2 different lines =P

I remember he said that when he went to base with all the grunts, they all said he smelled bad, but he thought to himself at least he would not be dead on a patrol, because the VC could smell the marines from the soap and the stake and potato meals every night, while he had rice to cover the smell, and never used soap (Yes i know i said that earlier)
But ya he said that the HALO jumps, he jumped high altitude, and pulled the chute at only a few hundred feet at most, i think he said 100 feet, so they had the least chance of being seen and shot.

myles wrote:Man thats crazy. The impression i get from the vietnam war that teh soliders didnt care about it. Dont no too much about the war

Well he talked about how lots of grunts got high in the war. He said that one night they were in a battle (He did not say when or where) But one solder was so high he tried to catch the fireflies.
Then he said their are no fireflies in Vietnam, Only tracer rounds.

You can guess what happened.


I might try to talk to him during lunch one day and see if i cant ask him to talk about it and record it with just voice... or i could try to bring a video camera and record it. Who knows.
He did not come right up and volunteer to talk about it though. He said our teacher has to ask him 3 times before he agreed.

you sure he didn't mean the north Vietnam capital??

I think your instructor there is FOS, dude.

Text here

[R-DEV]Eddie Baker wrote:I think your instructor there is FOS, dude.

FoS Festival of Speed
FOS From Outer Space
FOS Figure of Speech
FOS Feat of Strength
FOS French Onion Soup
FOS Fellowship of the Sun (fictitious religious organization; True Blood; TV show)
FOS Finger of Suspicion FOS Full of Stool (medical slang)
FOS Full of Stuff (polite form)
FoS Followers of Set (roleplaying)
FOS Father Over Shoulder
FOS Funky Old Soul
FOS former owner's stamp (used books)

Im guessing full of stool?

bloodthirsty_viking wrote:Talked about how he did not use soap and only ate Vietnamese food so when he was out in the woods, they would not smell him.

When you think of it, that's pretty smart

@ other 'special' Vietnam stories: I've heard that the Australian SASR had men walking on their socks to make less sound, can anybody confirm this?

Wikiquote:

The Australian and New Zealand SAS killed at least 492 and as many as 598 and losing only two men killed in action and three fatalities from friendly fire. The remains of the last Australian soldier who went missing in action in 1969 after falling into the jungle during a suspended rope extraction was found in August, 2008.

Mr Smiles wrote:Im guessing full of stool?

That's correct. There were psychological ops helicopters with speakers on them, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Riverines and SEALs actually water-ski behind the patrol boats, because bored troops are scary like that. But those are things depicted in so many movies and TV shows that just about everybody in the US who watched TV or movies in the mid 1980s has heard of it or "seen it."

And to do combat HALO jumps, plural, into enemy territory? The only unit known to have done such jumps (and have it be declassified) is MACV-SOG, and the dates and details on all but three of them are sketchy, and IIRC those last three were done by three different teams. Don't know if they had guys designated as tunnel rats in their recon teams, as they were pretty small.

The closest I have heard of any ground troops being to Hanoi (North Vietnam capital) was the Son Tay raid. From the air, you probably could see all the way to Hanoi; it was something like 40 km away. Odds of him being on one of those SOG HALO teams AND a Son Tay Raider are very slim.

And if he really got confused between the North Vietnamese and North Korean capital cities, then there's a serious loss of credibility.

[R-DEV]Eddie Baker wrote:I think your instructor there is FOS, dude.

I second that.
Tunnels were limited to the south iirc.

i call BS on no fireflies in vietnam, they are pretty common in southeast asia. Though most insects would stay away from military bases. they dont like the smell of the sulfur in gunpowder. Its the same reason why nomads used to play with fireworks immediately after setting up camp. keeps the snakes and insects away.

Totally agree with everyone else. His acounts sound like his knowledge comes from movies and urban myths. Either he is kidding with you or he is a fantacist.

It amazes me how fantacists fail to do any planning on their lies. I met a guy who was friends with a friend of mine who was telling me how he was going to join the army go behind enemy lines blah blah. I saw him half a year later still with long hair saying he was in tank recon as he wanted. I asked him about the hair "oh we can wear hair nets". I told him its insulting to me that beleived i was stupid to beleive such rubbish.

PT boats were in the iv corps only the mekong delta. There were no tunnels or tunnel rats in that region. He could have done several tours of duty in which case it possible but iam sorry the stories are fishy.

sorry kid you teachers almost definatly lieing he probably was in vietnam as a clerk or some other rear echelon job if he was. How old is he?

JUST a quick BTW to those who do not know.

Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea.

Capital of Vietnam is Hanoi.

EDIT: No, it is Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh city is north of it.