Talk the Talk Call Signs - Second Infantry

11/04/09 at 12:45 PM

#26

Thanks for your impute Brother's. Here is another one for ya. How many of us were at Song Be?? The Rats were so bad there, that we actually if remember right had to take some sorta Bubonic Plaque shot!!! And of course the lice were really bad.. we were eat up with those little critters.
From what I have read or heard but it was said by the Marine's at Khe Shan was really bad with the rats.
Bu Dop had rats to.
Hard to sleep with those rats running around inside the bunker and your sleeping area.
Luther
Black Scarf Battalion 1/2
Delta Co.
Recon. 29er Platoon

11/04/09 at 03:06 PM

#27

I remember one morning one of our guy's waking up screaming because he had a rat curled up on his chest and then on another ocassion one of our guy's was screaming because he got red ants on his back from brushing against some leaves.
Guy's, when it comes to Viet Nam sayings lets not forget the word 'DUNG LAI' you son of a bi--h at which I remember using this one on suspected VC, of course my M-16 was on rock and roll!!!
                                   mike ogden
                                   1/2 HHC Recon 29er
                                   Black Scarf Battalion
                                   BRO '68'-'69'

11/04/09 at 03:42 PM

#28

i was a song be, but don't remember the rats , i also remember the leaches. we were crossing a small body of water, and i saw a leach that looked like a snake( the small little body of water i almost got drowned by my 60). there were some really bad insects and other critters in the nam. i dug up a large black scorpion while digging a bunker. i think it was about 3 or 4 inches in length.

harold w. defibaugh
b 1/2
dec 67-dec 68

11/04/09 at 08:47 PM

#29

I agree Harold, during Operation Quyet Thang in the Trapezoid.... March and April of 68'. Artillery boys dug up while filling sandbag's. The biggest Black Scorpion, I have ever seen.

While filling sandbags at Phuc Vinh we dug up some of the biggest earthworms ever. My Dad and I loved to fish.. and I wrote home telling him, how big these earth worms were in Viet Nam!

The climate of Viet Nam allowed it to have some incredible animals, insects, and jungles to house it all.. and then some, then there was something else and it had two legs... waiting to jump out, and kill us.

Did any of you Brother's ever run into any of the little deer while on patrol, the deer was native to Viet Nam??
OK that's it for me for now.

Who's Next

LJP
Black Scarf Battalion 1/2

Dennis E Peterson

11/09/09 at 02:37 AM

#30

Here's my rat story: I arrived in country at Tan Son Nhat very late. I wasn't there more than an hour. I was standing in line next to some waist high windows. It was dark on the other side of the windows, so I leaned up against one to see what was on the other side. I saw something moving, there were about 3-4 shadows that soon came into the light. I said to myself, 'lookit the cats!', Ha, they were rats!! Now, we've all been in many airports, but I never saw anything like rats bigger than cats on the move in say, Chicago!! Before, I wasn't too excited/worried about being in Vietnam, then I saw them rats. I went, "Holy Crap"! This is gonna be a long year!!
Dennis
1/2 HHC '66 -'67

Dennis E Peterson

11/09/09 at 02:58 AM

#31

Now that we are telling stories.. Here's a snake story.. In those early days at Phuoc Vinh our showers were 50 gallon drums on stilts with a spigot and a C ration can with holes in the bottom. The drums were filled with river water.(?) I went for a shower one day and I reached up to turn the water on and a white snake was looking down at me. It had curled up in the can!! Well I went back to the tent and got my machete and came back out. The snake was gone!! Took my shower anyway.
Dennis
1/2 HHC June '66 - June '67

11/09/09 at 09:15 AM

#32

i remember while we were at song be, a couple of people from another unit that was on the mountain got medivact out because they got bit by bamboo vipers. while i was at fort polk, we caught some rattlesnakes, they were not very big, but if ya got bit, they were big enough to do some damage. i don't like snakes, give them all a lot of room if i see them or even think they might be were i am!!!!!!!!!!!!!

harold defibaugh

Broz

11/09/09 at 10:09 AM

#33

I remember at Thunder IV, there were rats in the bunkers so at night everyone slept in hammocks off the floor, I always slept on top of the track no matter where we were.

11/11/09 at 05:40 PM

#34

Responding about the tiny deer, I saw many of them while we were securing the Rome plows busting jungle. The were the size of a small dog. Some of the Vietnamese would be out in the jungle while we were flanking the plows (probably trying to decide at what height to place the booby traps). They would pick up any animal that got trapped by the jungle as it was pushed over by the plows. One had a deer but it was dead. They were cute.

John

11/11/09 at 09:40 PM

#35

When we patroled in the elephant grass below the Cambodian border the Impala deer would all the sudden take off in front of you and scare the crap out of you, the grass was about seven feet tall and there were plenty of NVA in the area, we would get about 100 meters outside our NDP site and be in a full fledged firefight, things were very tense!!!
                             mike ogden
                             1/2 HHC Recon Patrol
                             Black Scarf Battalion
                             Point Man '68'-'69'

11/12/09 at 10:54 AM

#36

How about laterite, the red material they used to build their roads out of? We went on a long road march once (in the APCs) and had the laterite dust on us the whole way. It was a good thing we did not have to fire our weapons towards the end of the march because they were covered in laterite and were filthy.

I had to go to the hospital towards the end of the run and had my filthy, short stock & barrel M-16 but could not find a place to clean it. After I got out of the hospital, I finally used water to wash off the dirt and cleaned it throughly when I got back to my unit.

11/12/09 at 02:26 PM

#37

i remember that red dust at quan loi when i first got there, and it reminded me of parts of western oklahoma and especially a cemetary where my grandparents are buried called red hill cemetary out by a little ole town called hammon, okla. i remember the red dust at quan loi turning to red mud during the monsoon season also.

harold defibaugh

11/12/09 at 08:45 PM

#38

I read somewhere that the Laterite that we encountered somewhat on a dalily basis. Had a great deal of iron content in the soil itself. Having said that,.. it was so much more difficult for the mine sweeper to pick up buried mines. I hope you catch the drift.
It was good for building highway's using laterite. But horrible to dig in to......... where's the C-4
I know i put it around here somewhere, just kidding
Anniversary Date Coming Up. But nothing to smile about that!

Patton L.J.
Black Scarf Battalion 1/2
Delta Company, November Platoon, RTO
Recon. 29er Platoon RTO, Point Man
Noli Me Tangere

Dennis E Peterson

11/14/09 at 03:09 AM

#39

Laterite! While the 1/2 spent that month at Quan Loi I went on a security detail for the engineers (they were building/expanding the QL airstrip then in Oct. '66). We went out to a laterite quarry a few miles away. While on guard duty near a stream we encounter the Montagnards again. The women were doing their laundry (remember? the Montagnard women were topless!) and this kid came over. We gave him some C rations. He wasn't too interested in the c ration cans of food, so he put the cans aside and out of his shirt pocket he took out a frog. He then proceeded to set fire to the empty c ration box and cooked the frog and ate it whole! Don't frog legs taste like chicken??

Dennis
1/2 HHC '66 - '67

11/14/09 at 10:04 AM

#40

never had frog legs. i have heard that rattlesnake taste like chicken, never had that either, don't plan on ordering them anytime soon, i will leave that to the lovers of fine foods, l'll stick with steak and potatoes and all the other good food i grew up on here in oklahoma.

harold defibaugh

11/14/09 at 12:14 PM

#41

Well Brother's, I have had frog legs and rattlesnake. I will take Fried Chicken anyday!
Luther Patton
Black Scarf Bn.
Nam June 67 June 68

11/14/09 at 02:20 PM

#42

There's this guy I worked with who would eat a rattlesnake whenever he found one, he said it tasted like chicken but was greasier tasting, myself i've never tasted it. While in VN I probly ate monkey or rat and did'nt know it, my 2nd tour in VN the Army was famous for seving what they called roast beef but I know it was probly horse!!!!!
                                      mike ogden
                                      1/2 HHC Plt.
                                      Recon 29er point man
                                      Black Scarf Bn. BRO
                                      '68'-'69'

11/14/09 at 04:02 PM

#43

i remember some of the meat they passed on as beef, could have been water buffalo. luther, i like chicken also. there is a place close that serves might fine chicken, you might have heard of the place, it's eishen's bar, the oldest bar in okla. got drunk one time at summer camp at camp shelby ms, had oysters on the half shell and rare steak, never did that again. while i worked at the fed prison we had several parties and a couple of the guys that worked there were also ranchers, cooked up a bunch of calf fries, baked beans and french fries, beer, pretty good.

harold defibaugh

11/15/09 at 02:43 PM

#44

Harold, I take your word on the restaurant that you mentioned. I have not ate there but when it comes to fried chicken my Grand Ma Patton could fry up the best fried chicken with fried potato's and chicken gravy!!!   The gravy was soooooo goooood, I can make chicken gravy but it will never be as good as my Grand Ma could fix.
When I was going to college at NEO at Miami, Oklahoma we went to Baxter Springs to moms place, an old house she turned into a bar and had home cooking!!! Yep you guessed it friend Chicken is what I ordered along with cream peas and gravy. The gravy was  delicious, just like Grand ma could fix, but never as good.

And yes, Mike I know that the papa son that pushed his little cart around was selling sandwiche's made of French Bread, and I bet the meat on it was monkey, they did not kill their water buffalo that i know of..... it was their Plow Power!

Gee I'm getting hungry for fried chicken.

Luther Patton
Black Scarf Battalion 1/2
Delta Company, RTO
Recon. 29er Platoon RTO, Point Man

11/15/09 at 04:29 PM

#45

luther,

i know what ya mean about good ole home-made food, like you mentioned. i can taste my dad's home made biscuits and gravy and home made hot rolls, and home made cinnamon rolls. i remember papa son coming around with those big loafs of bread, but never had any meat on them, he also had cold bottles of coke. seemed like he kept them in bags with big chunks of ice in them, not sure my memory is kinda weak sometimes after about 40 plus years.

harold defibaugh

11/15/09 at 05:19 PM

#46

Harold,

Do you remember the rice husks in the ice? Any time you drank anything with ice in it, you would have the rice husks. We had a full size (4' wide) ice box in the back of the APC and usually had cold beer but had to clean the ice before we put it into the ice chest.

11/15/09 at 06:56 PM

#47

john,

i do remember the rice husks in the ice, the more we talk about some of the things we saw there the more you remember. for a long time i just pushed it all away and didn't want to think about it. there were some good times, but a lot of bad also.

harold defibaugh
b 1/2
dec 67-dec68

11/15/09 at 08:05 PM

#48

   I remember I had just arrived in country and a couple of guy's and I noticed a coca cola sighn on one of the vietnamese houses so went up to it to see if they had any for sale and as we looked into the house a big hog got up from under the kitchen table, I guess you could say it was just a little bit of culture shock!!! Also in the 20mos. I spent in VN I can only remember seeing only two vietnamese dogs wondering about, guess maybe they did'nt consider them as man's best friend?
Luther you're probly right about those push carts, myself and a few of the guy's had gone into a vietnamese restaurant to eat and of course it was white rice and a few slices of some kind of meat, between that and the 33 beer thought it tasted okay, he' haw'!!!
                              mike ogden
                              1/2 BRO '68'-'69'

11/24/09 at 04:56 PM

#49

Here is one I just thought of, I was in a Vietnamese village (on a river) and saw (and used) the village shitter. They had built it over the river and had screened fish inside the perimeter of four poles that held up the platform you stood on and under the two holes that the villagers used to relieve themselves. The two holes were inside an little structure to give only minimal privacy. When you took a sh** the fish would fight to get it (it looked like a the water was being beat with a stick) and then eventually (I am assuming this) the villagers would use the fish to fertilize the fields. It was a wild experience!

PConlon

11/24/09 at 09:18 PM