"Tunnel Rats" is an informal nickname for US military units during the Vietnam War, which specialized in operations in underground tunnels dug by Vietnamese guerrillas

"Tunnel Rats" is an informal nickname for US military units during the Vietnam War, which specialized in operations in underground tunnels dug by Vietnamese guerrillas.  The tunnels went 20-25 meters deep, turning into underground cities.  The Viet Cong built hospitals, training camps, warehouses, barracks, kitchens, printing houses, all underground.  Once they were able to bury an entire tank.

 At first, the Americans sent dogs into the underground caves, but they were quickly blown up by mines and died.  I had to send people.  The first such detachment was formed on the basis of the 25th Infantry Division.  Such detachments recruited exclusively volunteers - athletic, thin fighters, no higher than 165 cm. It took an average of three months to train "tunnel rats", they learned to look for mines, bypass traps, and plant explosives.  The specialty was considered extremely dangerous, being in the tunnels was a heavy burden on the psyche, the fighters suffered from claustrophobia.

 The task of the "rats" included penetration into the tunnels, reconnaissance and mapping of underground cities, the capture of documents and "languages", the placement of charges for undermining.  Firearms in the underground tunnel were almost useless, and they were rarely taken with them, limited only to M1911 pistols and bayonet-knives.  Knives were needed not only for combat, the soldiers poked bayonets in front of them in search of traps.  There were camouflaged pits in the underground holes, the bottom of which was thickly studded with sharpened bamboo sticks smeared with excrement or carrion, to be guaranteed to cause blood poisoning.  Thousands of rats, poisonous snakes and scorpions also lived underground.

 The losses among these soldiers were enormous, but there were always new volunteers.  The Tunnel Rats were one of the most respected members of the US Army during the Vietnam War.

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