One of the differences between the War in Vietnam compared to others is that the enemy was not often regular army types. In this case it was the para-military Viet Cong that was the main opponent to Free World forces. As such, it was difficult to tell who was the 'bad guy' as these folks normally dressed the same way as villagers. The VC also tended to use tunnels in which to hide and in which to store their materiel. These tunnels could be anything from a simple hole in the ground to long complexes. Often they were rather large and contained several rooms. The entrances, exits and ventilation holes were often very well camouflaged and could be anywhere from under a hooch to the bottom of a well to under a pig pen.

As such, they were quite difficult to find and once they were found someone had to go in there to check them out. This was a job for what came to be known as the Tunnel Rat.

Tunnel Rats were not specifically trained for this job and it was strictly volunteer. It took a man of relatively small stature to be good at this as these tunnels were generally quite small. It was not possible to maneuver in these tunnels with standard combat gear so often the tunnel rat wore little more than his boots, pants and perhaps a t-shirt. Armed with a flashlight and pistol, his job was to find out what was there.

Often these places had booby traps set up to maim or kill any unknown personnel and some times these tunnel had VC in them. With little chance at any sort of cover, you can see why this was a volunteer job. Those who did not want to volunteer were not looked down upon, nor were those who went in once or twice and decided it was not for them. These men go no extra pay nor any benefits, though frequently they were released from service soon after their tour was up rather than spend time at a holding facility for a few months while time ran out. As dangerous as their job was, there is no Tunnel Rat Association, no monuments to their work and very little in history books or in museums about this important work.

The author, Gordon Rottman tells the story of these people by starting out with the motivation to do the work, what little training was provided, the tools used by tunnel rats (including colored smoke bombs tossed in holes to see where the vents and exits were), and how these folks lived and did their work. All of this is further enhanced by the excellent art work of Steve Noon as well as a goodly number of photographs, many of them in full color. surprising number of period photographs.

In all, an excellent book on a relatively unknown but very dangerous aspect of the war in Vietnam, and one that is most highly recommended. As a final note, if you know ten men who served in combat in Vietnam, there is a good chance that at least one was a tunnel rat.

May 2012

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