Critters

Encounters with indigenous wildlife while trying to fight a war.

“Was lifted into the Bong Son area, linking up with E/17 Cav (recon), was on point 200 meters W of E Troop, just began our walk and was trying to traverse around some wait-a-minute vines, turned as I was still in forward motion, smack, face-first into a bird-eating spider, scrambling around with 12-guage in hand, tripping on the tangle foot, only to jump up as our Team Leader was hurrying my way. He saw this creature growing out of my mug and slapped at it with his boony hat, cutting my eye lid, then impaling the creature with his K-Bar. It was pretty darn funny to everyone ‘cept me!” – Bill Cody

“They had this little terror over there called the Banded Krait. It had rings on it like a coral snake, but black and white. During my second tour I went down to take a shower and ran into another crew chief. I’m shaving and he killed a snake in the hooch that morning. “Ya, this little ‘grass’ snake was down by my flip flops so I just stepped on the little bugger and killed it.” I asked him what he did with it and went up to have a look. It was one of those kraits.” – Mark Crist

“I heard a story about a millipede that got to 8” and stung or bit. This guy had just finished a shower and was grabbing his fatigues to dress when this puppy fell out of the pile and ran up his arm toward his head and tried to duck inside his head. He swears that he heard that Mr. Mili favored the human ear canal. – Frank Wright

“A friend of one of my co-workers was an engineer up north, and he told the story about how one day he looked down at one of those centipedes climb up his boot, wondering what the heck it was. He found out right away when it bit right through the canvas. The result was excruciating pain and then the skin on his foot turned black. After a while it peeled off.” – Gary Rieth

Here is the thing about animal life in Vietnam – every creature is aggressive. Every one. There are no cuddly animals. All are in defensive mode if you get too close, or offensive mode if they are hungry. Every animal there will bite or sting.