How This Tunnel Rat Survived The Vietnam War

How This Tunnel Rat Survived The Vietnam War

There was times out in the jungle when we come across the tunnel, and it only maybe be this big around. Being five foot six, hundred and thirty pounds wet, I was designated the tunnel rat. I’d take my .45 pistol and a flashlight, and I crawl in these tunnels. Sometimes they go way back in there, and then there might be a big old chamber where there could be people in there, or they might store rice in there, ammunition, and stuff like that once we would confiscate. To this day, I have claustrophobia because of that.

Like if I go to get an MRI and they put in that tube like that, they have to give me a tranquilizer in order for me to do it.

“Yeah, when you would go in those, would you contact the NVA very often inside those tunnels?”

There was one time, and I had my pistol in front of me, and I shot at him. I can’t be certain I killed him, but probably did. You don’t know when you’re going in there if they’re booby trapped, if there’s going to be a grenade go off, if you’re going to hit a tripwire, or if there are punji sticks.

And you know what a punji stick is. It’s a pointed piece of bamboo, and they usually crap on it, so that if it hits you, you’re going to get blood poisoning or something else it’s going to be. The whole idea of the punji stick is to wound you, not kill you, so that it takes other people to take care of you, which takes them out of combat.

So when you’re crawling through these spider holes, what they call them, you don’t know what you’re gonna hit, what you’re going to see. You’re just hoping you’re not gonna lose it.

“Yeah, were you the only guy in your outfit that did that?”

No, there was one other guy. He was almost my same size. His nickname was “Peewee,” and I was “Peanuts.” We were both about the same size, so sometimes he went, sometimes I went, but that was a very traumatic experience in itself. I hated it. That was one of the worst things I had to do.

Another time, we come across a whole bunch of tunnels. There’s a sort of a depression in the ground, and there was holes like this every so often around this thing. There’s lots of them, and I grabbed a whole bunch of grenades, and nobody else went with me. I just went over and went around all these tunnels, throwing a grenade in there and hoping for the best. That’s how I earned that Army Commendation Medal up there, it’s for that. But I hated tunnels.

“Yeah, did Peewee make it through doing that? Did he get injured, or…”

He went home, he made it through. I lost contact with him, and I don’t know what his mental state was, but I’m sure it wasn’t up to par because, you know what, that’s a bad scene, those tunnels.

“Yeah, did you stay in touch with any of the guys when you got out?”

I do, some. Like the guy that wrote the book Courage Under Fire, my big brother over there. He saved my life three times, and I saved his life twice. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. I have not seen him since then, and his health isn’t so good anymore, but then that’s been 50-some years ago. But I am in contact with him, and we are on Facebook together, but not too many of them, no.

Fats, the guy that machine gunner right there, I heard after he came home, he lived in Texas. A week after he came home, he was killed in a car wreck. Spending all that time in Vietnam, making it home, and then killed in a car wreck. That’s sad.

And then I’ve heard through the grapevine that a lot of my comrades in arms have passed away from various things. You know, most of us are in our 70s.

“Yeah, that guy you called your big brother, was that actually your big brother, or…”

No, no, just someone I considered it. Yeah, he was considered my big brother, and I’m considered his little brother, because we took care of each other over there. He saved my life like three times, and I think he got awarded something for that, too.

“And you’re that close to him…”

Yeah, yeah. I can show you on my Facebook page. You know, he was probably six-foot-two or four or something, a big guy.

“Yeah, is that somebody that you would consider a hero?”

Most definitely, he was a hell of a hero.