Suzanne Rice

            My own stark and dramatic introduction to the overwhelming rat infestation on Vietnam’s firebases occurred, somewhat ironically, during the Chinese “Year of the Rat” – 1972. In January 1972 I took command of C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Battalion (105mm M102 howitzers) on Fire Support Base (FSB) Maude, aka Hill 350, about 15 kilometers due west of Danang, Vietnam, providing fire support to the 196th Light Infantry Brigade – eventually the 196th became the last ground combat brigade to leave Vietnam (August 1972). From the top of FSB Maude, towering over 1,000 feet above the surrounding pool table flat terrain that was, essentially, at near sea level, we could on a clear day easily see the South China Sea and all of the environs of South Vietnam’s second-largest city. During the monsoon season, when the weather socked-in that region, FSB Maude usually loomed above the billowy, white layer of clouds stretching endlessly in every direction. It gave the appearance that one could almost “walk” on top of those clouds all the way to Danang.

Yet, typical of all of the long-existing American artillery fire bases in I Corps area of South Vietnam, FSB Maude dated back nearly 7 years to its creation shortly after the first U.S. combat troops arrived in Vietnam (the U.S. Marine Corps units that came ashore in Danang in March 1965). To protect the American enclave at Danang, fire bases consisting of, typically, an artillery battery and an infantry battalion headquarters plus one infantry company and a weapons platoon (81-mm mortars) for base security were created in a wide arc west of the enclave. In January 1972, FSB Maude was a fortified, entrenched, barbed wire-enclosed, hilltop firebase, about two-thirds of which was occupied by a 196th Light Infantry Brigade infantry battalion headquarters and infantry company (the battalions “rotated” among the Danang area firebases every few months, so FSB Maude during my tour hosted 2-1st Infantry, 3-21st Infantry, 4-31st Infantry, and 1st-46th Infantry during this timeframe) while the eastern one-third, separated from the “infantry side” of the firebase by a wide helicopter landing pad (our one and only contact with the “outside world”), contained my Charlie Battery, 3-82nd FA. Charlie Battery consisted of 4 officers – “BC” Battery Commander, “XO” Battery Executive Officer and two “FDOs” Fire Direction Officers — plus about 80 cannoneers under our battery senior enlisted soldier, Sergeant First Class “Smoke” Schimmel, the “Chief of Firing Battery” aka “Chief of Smoke”, and one of the finest soldiers with whom I ever served in my 36 years in the Army, while the remainder of the battery’s 20 or so cannoneers were stationed in the battery rear area at the battalion’s Camp Redhorse HQ back in Danang under our battery First Sergeant, 1SG Wirts.

         Living conditions on FSB Maude were, understandably, “primitive” (although a significant “step up” from being out in the field in the “boonies”!) with everyone occupying hand-constructed “hootches” carved into the top and sides of Hill 350 and consisting of multiple steel culvert halves and dirt-filled, wooden 105mm ammo boxes, covered by several sturdy layers of sandbags. Only our battery Fire Direction Center and our field kitchen “mess hall” – the highest and most vulnerable structure on FSB Maude– consisted of anything resembling a “fixed structure,” and these were only sand-bagged “conex” containers (cube-shaped – 8X6X6 feet — steel, shipping containers converted to a specific combat purpose). Our 105mm howitzers were in open “firing pits” surrounded by a circular, 4-foot high “berm” created of several layers of sandbags, each gun-pit also contained extra-reinforced, sandbagged ammunition bunkers for easy access to immediately-accessible 105mm projectiles and their fuzes. Yet, we did enjoy at least one “creature comfort” – a telephone booth-sized “hot shower” constructed out of the remains of a canvas tent stretched over a wooden frame, topped by a 55-gallon drum filled with water which was heated by a standard, multi-fuel-burning, G.I. immersion heater. Compared to the infantry “grunts” slogging through the surrounding jungle that we daily supported with artillery firepower, us “Redlegs” on FSB Maude had “all the comforts of home”…well, relatively speaking.

            Each day, after I attended the obligatory daily morning briefing of the infantry battalion commander by his staff in the “Grunt TOC” on the other end of the firebase, our days were typically spent enduring a mind-numbing, monotonous and seemingly endless repetition of what G.I.s referred to as “same-o, same-o” – long hours of seemingly interminable boredom punctuated intermittently by periods of frantic activity responding to the calls for “contact” fire missions supporting the infantry companies conducting the battalion’s continuous operations in our area of responsibility. But, our nights…well, our nights were mostly spent repelling the constant assaults of those hordes of voracious rats that erupted, soon after the sun set, out of the vast, years-accumulated heaps of trash and garbage surrounding FSB Maude.

When I first arrived in Vietnam at the huge U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay on Thanksgiving Day 1971 (I had departed the U.S. on my son’s first birthday, November 24, so our family “celebrated” it a few days before I departed for McChord AFB at Ft. Lewis, WA) after flying into Vietnam on a trans-Pacific World Airways contract flight which included numerous members of my Class of 1969 West Point classmates, I never dreamed I’d have the privilege of commanding a U.S. artillery battery in combat in the rapidly-drawing down Vietnam War – President Richard M. Nixon’s “Vietnamization” of the war was in full swing by then, and at that time only two ground combat brigades remained “in-country” (3d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division in III Corps area and the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, the successor and remaining infantry brigade of the former Americal Division, in I Corps). But, fortuitously, I was soon sent on to the 196th, and upon arriving in Danang, had a personal interview with the 3-82nd battalion commander, Maj. James K. Broadus – one of the finest officers every produced by the U.S. field artillery. Maj. Broadus asked, “OK, Captain, what would you like to do?” I immediately answered, “Sir, I want to command an artillery battery as soon as possible!” At that time, 3-82nd FA comprised three M102 105mm howitzer batteries (A, B, & C), one battery of M114 155mm towed howitzers, and an attached, combined 8-inch/175mm battery on loan from XXIVth Corps Artillery. Thankfully, Maj. Broadus quickly agreed.

Luckily, before assuming battery command as a brand-new Captain (only two-and-a-half years after U.S. Army commissioning), I was able to get my feet on the ground and acclimate myself to Vietnam by serving as battalion Assistant S-3 Operations Officer, during which I learned much about serving in Vietnam. My only regret during that apprenticeship was having to preside over a brigade “combat insertion” on Christmas Day 1971, causing me to miss Bob Hope’s USO Tour visit to Danang.

In January 1972 I took command of Charlie Battery from its previous commander, Captain Jim DeLoach.

It was a dream come true – except for the nighttime “nightmare” rats! During my first night as Charlie Battery commander, I awoke on my cot in my sandbagged hootch on FSB Maude from an unusually vivid dream about a cat sitting on my chest, tickling my face and neck with its whiskers. But, upon awakening, I found myself staring directly into the beady red eyes of a huge rat sitting on my chest! I reflexively struck out, knocking the creature off my chest, but that only seemed to “annoy” it. Hitting the floor, the rat quickly recovered and, it appeared in my not-quite-fully-awake state, was preparing a counterattack! Fumbling in the dark in still unfamiliar surroundings, I grabbed my M1911A1 .45 pistol from under my pillow, jerked back and released the slide, chambering a round, pointed it toward the “monster” rat and…luckily woke up enough to realize what was happening – and what could happen! – I judiciously flicked on the thumb safety.

Had I actually fired at the rat, I could have endangered my innocently sleeping “hootch-mate,” our battery XO, Lt. Williams, and most likely deafened both of us in the process. For the full effect had I fired, try enclosing yourself in something like my sandbagged “hootch” – a claustrophobic, eight foot-by-four foot-by-five foot “tunnel,” barely sufficient to contain a standard military cot, and certainly not high enough to permit a normal-sized American to stand upright without stooping – then fire a heavy, 230-grain round from one of the world’s most powerful handguns. If you can envision that, you’ll have some idea of the shot’s potentially deafening explosion. My “lesson learned” that night was that .45-caliber pistols definitely are not “weapons of choice” for eradicating rats.

Through hard-earned experience, we developed a number of “anti-rat” weapons, usually unsuccessfully employed. Chief among these were traps – but not standard, large “rat traps” encountered stateside. We did requisition and receive the standard large rat traps, but these proved totally ineffective – although the rats would “trigger” the traps and get caught by them, the persistent rodents would simply shrug them off and just carry the traps with them as they scurried back to their trash dump sanctuaries.

Next, we tried “building a better mouse trap” (“rat trap” in this case). We cut a one foot by one foot section of plywood, nail four large rat traps – each facing in-wards – to each corner, then anchor this “four-plex” rat trap firmly in place with a length of sturdy commo wire attached to an immoveable object. It was a brilliant idea! It seemed the solution to our “rat problem,” and…it didn’t work. When caught in the traps, the rats simply chewed through the commo wire like soft butter and fled back into their “trash heap” sanctuaries to stage for another nightly assault.

We eventually discovered through trial and error that one of the most effective means of killing the large rodents was to shoot them individually with “soap bullets” – M16 rounds in which the full metal jacket projectiles were removed and replaced by inserting the “business end” of the round into a bar of soap, thereby “arming” the bullets with a solid block of wax-like soap. Propelled by the bullets’ powder charge, the “soap bullets” could easily kill a rat without endangering any nearby G.I.s. But that method’s significant danger arose when soldiers inevitably lost track of their “soap bullets” and inadvertently let loose with a “real” bullet – “pop,” “pop,” “pop,” “BLAM!!” the latter ricochet in the close quarters of a G.I. “hootch” causing everyone to duck for cover! Obviously, this was too dangerous as the “rat problem” solution.

A fortuitous accident in late-February 1972 actually revealed a better “rat problem” solution. During a routine helicopter lift of our battery “water buffalo,” the G.I. nickname for the two-wheeled, 845-gallon capacity G527 water carrier, static electricity from the CH-47 helicopter accidentally set off one of the “Fougasse” explosives planted all around our firebase for close-in defense against possible enemy ground attacks. This slurry of diesel and gasoline in a 55-gallon drum wrapped in detonating-cord and primed with C-4 explosive to be electronically triggered, if necessary, exploded that day in a massive blast of flame and oily smoke towering over our firebase (nearly engulfing our “mess hall” conex!). Thousands upon thousands of rats were instantly incinerated and additional thousands more fled from the trash heap into the jungle to escape the inferno. Great! Burn you little bastards!

In a final irony that even Hollywood would hesitate to portray, one of the last movies we played on FSB Maude was…you guessed it!…Willard! No kidding!! Naturally, the G.I.s enthusiastically cheered for the rats – some, tongue-in-check, quipped, “Hey, BC, this must have been filmed on Maude, right?”!

For our remaining time on FSB Maude, rats continued to annoy us; but, periodically we applied the proven “Fougasse” treatment, incinerating the rotting trash dumps. Yet, when the last U.S. ground troops evacuated the Danang area in August 1972, even a “math goat,” like me could confidently predict that our persistent, prolific “rat enemies” will have eventually prevailed, long ago reoccupying our abandoned positions. Much like our VC and NVA enemies, all our rodent nemesis need do to ultimately prevail was simply to outlast us…

Originally published in Vietnam magazine

            Every single night, the enemy attacked our remote firebase in Vietnam in continuous, relentless waves. Fearlessly pressing forward while totally oblivious to their own casualties, they kept on coming. No matter how many of them we killed, more appeared to take their places and join the attacks. These nightly assaults erupted on all sides of us, and no isolated nook or cranny of our firebase was safe from their repeated, fanatical attacks. Wave after wave. Attack after attack. Night after night.

This combat was always hand-to-hand, quite literally a “tooth and nail” struggle that could only end at dawn’s arrival when the suicidal enemy finally, grudgingly withdrew to sanctuaries at the base of the hill upon which our firebase stood. We ruthlessly employed every available weapon in these nightly “close quarter” encounters. We used rifles, pistols, bayonets, machetes, entrenching tools, our 105mm howitzers’ trail handspikes, makeshift “traps” – even our gloved fists and combat boots! In extremis, we grabbed our helmets and swung them mercilessly at the invaders. Despite killing countless numbers, only daybreak halted their persistent attacks.

Every morning, in the aftermath of the enemy’s nightly onslaughts, we formed up in a long, continuous line, and moved deliberately across our artillery battery’s position in “line abreast” formation “policing up the battlefield” by sweeping across our firebase to gather up the dozens upon dozens of enemy corpses produced by the nightly slaughters. Then we unceremoniously tossed their lifeless bodies over our hilltop firebase’s steep sides into the deep valley below. No eulogies were ever muttered over the piles of enemy corpses – this was a fight to the death, with “no quarter” asked or given.

         Unlike the VC and NVA soldiers we faced, however, this fanatical enemy never entered combat armed with the communist troops’ preferred assault weapons — AK-47s, hand grenades and explosive satchel charges — and they never attacked under a barrage of mortar, artillery or recoilless rifle fire. Instead, they charged mindlessly forward like legions of frenzied animals…

         Well, of course, they charged like “frenzied animals” since, as readers who served in-country in Vietnam have likely by now discerned, these nightly attackers were, in fact, animals — massive hordes of huge, voracious creatures of the class Mammalia, order Rodentia, family Muridae, genus Rattus – commonly known, simply, as RATS. Indeed, this plague of rats we faced nightly remains today one of the most overlooked and underappreciated of the innumerable animal and insect pests that afflicted G.I.s in the Vietnam War – such as malaria-carrying mosquitoes, poisonous snakes, rabies-infected bats, an occasional wild tiger or two, and disgusting, bloodsucking leeches infesting the country’s waterways. And although mosquitoes, snakes, bats, tigers and leeches typically were only encountered when G.I.s were serving “out in the boonies” rather than in built-up areas in the much cleaner, better-maintained rear areas, the persistent, ever-hungry, ubiquitous, seemingly ineradicable, rats seemed to exist and thrive – to a greater or lesser degree depending on the locale’s cleanliness — virtually everywhere in Vietnam.

Rats were particularly a major infestation on the older, longer-established U.S. firebases at remote locations in the field, in general situated well away from Vietnamese-populated areas of the country. My (admittedly unscientific) theory is that since the Vietnamese historically have included (and still do) rat meat “on the menu,” so to speak, as a viable – even preferred by many Vietnamese — source of protein, that dietary preference helped keep rat numbers reasonably in check within the densely-populated areas. In fact, rat meat is reportedly quite flavorful, described by contemporary European food critics and gourmands variously as “resembling pork,” “akin to chicken,” “gamey…with a taste close to rabbit,” and “similar to squirrel” (the latter comparison quite understandable since rats’ fellow-rodents, squirrels, are in effect just “rats with bushy tails…”).

This author will defer to the Vietnamese people and to the European food critics regarding the flavorful (or not so much…) taste of rat meat – although later in the war, while serving in Hue Citadel as an American fire support adviser to ARVN I Corps artillery units, I did (as a matter of courtesy to my always-gracious Vietnamese counterpart hosts) bravely sample “dog-meat sparerib BBQ” (not too bad actually) as well as a local Quang Tri Province delicacy consisting of a huge, deep-dish plate of coagulated chicken blood (it has the consistency of Jell-O, is served up in pie-like “slices,” and has a taste that must be similar to licking “rusty nails”); but, rat meat, thankfully, was never offered nor consumed. To us culturally-biased G.I.s, therefore, being (from a “Western” point of view anyway) more “fastidious” in our culinary choices, cooked rat meat was never remotely considered as a “rat population control” option.

Rat infestation, especially on the older firebases, was the direct, inevitable and completely predictable result of the U.S. G.I.s’ historic propensity for generating massive amounts of trash and garbage at any location where they spent more than a few hours or days. In fact, an innovative graduate student or forward-thinking PhD candidate could likely create an award-winning thesis proposal by thoroughly researching and calculating exactly the average number of pounds of trash/garbage created by the typical G.I. during a 24-hour period in a combat zone during America’s 20th century wars.

On these essentially “permanent” American firebases, usually created on the summits of steep-sided hilltops out in “the boonies,” trash, kitchen garbage, used C-ration cans, and anything and everything G.I.s considered disposable as no longer useful, routinely was simply chucked over the firebase’s sides, accumulating in massive piles in the ravines surrounding all sides of a firebase. Rotting garbage, decomposing trash and fresh rubbish, some of which, like at my Vietnam firebase, had been piling-up since 1965, provided hordes of rats with the perfect “breeding and feeding” environment. And since a single pair of rats can produce as many as 2,000 descendants in one year, the resulting exploding proliferation of rats in one location is astonishingly huge. Multiple that “2,000” by the number of rat pairs initially congregating in the firebase garbage dumps, and then multiply that huge number once again by the years the base has been in existence, and one gets just some idea of the unbelievably gigantic scope of the problem – and that massive rat total is just for ONE firebase. Although, admittedly, I barely managed to squeak through with a passing grade during our obligatory two years of “advanced mathematics” – a miserable, inescapable curse inflicted upon all West Point cadets back then — it doesn’t take a “math genius” to figure out that the total, countrywide number of these voracious rodents exceeded hundreds of millions…or even more.

Importantly, these Vietnamese rats were definitely not the more familiar to Americans, innocuous, small and cuddly, white “lab rats” – cute and precious, mouse-sized “pets.” No, indeed! These large, dark-brown monsters appeared to us to reach the size of a typical house cat – even the less-well-fed Mekong Delta “rice rats” (living off the Vietnamese rice paddies in that water-logged region of the country) reportedly reach a weight as heavy as 6kg (over 13 pounds)! And our “firebase rats” always enjoyed an even more calorie-rich diet than their brother “rice rats.” Sporting razor-sharp incisors that easily chewed through plastic-coated steel commo wire, chain-link fences, and even 1-to-2-inch diameter lead water pipes, these “monster rats” were genuinely the horrific stuff of nightmares! Think of the horrifying “waves of attacking rats” scene in the claustrophobic Venice catacombs in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), or, even more terrifying, the 1971 film Willard in which legions of predatory rats constantly threaten the protagonists, eventually devouring the main character. Yeah, I’m talking about those kind of rats!