Operation Rolling Thunder

[Zipper730]

I'm not sure that I can even begin to describe the triple canopy jungle, the monsoon rains, rice paddies fertilized with human and animal waste, heat, humidity, snakes, leeches, ticks, mosquitoes with Malaria, and RATS!!

Sounds like it truly stinks, plus the rats present a concern of rabies (100% fatal), and Malaria is also genuinely fucked up.

Not entirely sure but at the time I DEROS out Fraggings were unheard of.

What does DEROS mean, and when did you serve in Vietnam?

They happened more in the 70s when everyone knew that the US was pulling out and no one wanted to be the last man KIA in Vietnam. It is also important to remember that Judges often gave young men convicted of drugs and various violent crimes a choice of jail or the Army. As a result the Army of 60-72 was composed of large numbers of criminals, drug addicts, and sociopaths.

Well 20% of the criminal population are sociopathic or psychopathic.

 

[fubar57]

First hit in Google, learn to use the freakin' thing and save us all these "quotes"

 

[tyrodtom]

Sounds like it truly stinks, plus the rats present a concern of rabies (100% fatal), and Malaria is also genuinely fucked up.
What does DEROS mean, and when did you serve in Vietnam?
Well 20% of the criminal population are sociopathic or psychopathic.
That few?
The breakdown in discipline seemed to be based on the unpopularity of the war and the idea of giving criminals an option of joining the military, correct?
So, bar-fights, animal encounters, and vehicle accidents were under "non combat" if they occurred outside of a battle and "combat" if they occurred in battle?

Zipper it seems you always feed a little false information into most of your reply/question returns.
For one Rabies is not 100% fatal, if you wait for the onset of the symtoms of the disease, you chances aren't good at all, but if you get treated within a reasonable period of the infection your chance of recovery is very good.
I know a survivor.
Dogs, racoons, etc. were know, and encountered in my part of the country in the late 50s and early 60s.
I shot a suspected rabid dog myself when I was about 15.
Some of your questions, like that last one, has me wondering what planet you grew up on.

 

[Zipper730]

Zipper it seems you always feed a little false information into most of your reply/question returns. For one Rabies is not 100% fatal, if you wait for the onset of the symtoms of the disease, you chances aren't good at all, but if you get treated within a reasonable period of the infection your chance of recovery is very good.

I meant if PEP wasn't provided right away. You'd have to have treatment within reach, and be able to get medevac to you within a few days.

I know a survivor.

Really? I only know of two cases, both of which were recent (Jeanna Giese who was given the Milwaukee protocol; and another person who, far as I know, was unnamed, and was given PEP after symptoms appeared, but survived because of this).

Some of your questions, like that last one, has me wondering what planet you grew up on.

Earth post November 17, 1983...

 

[tyrodtom]

I meant if PEP wasn't provided right away. You'd have to have treatment within reach, and be able to get medevac to you within a few days.
Really? I only know of two cases, both of which were recent (Jeanna Giese who was given the Milwaukee protocol; and another person who, far as I know, was unnamed, and was given PEP after symptoms appeared, but survived because of this).
Earth post November 17, 1983...

I thought I made clear it was a rabies case treated well before onset of symptoms, 1 or 2 days after he was bit.

 

[Zipper730]

I thought I made clear it was a rabies case treated well before onset of symptoms, 1 or 2 days after he was bit.

Uh, I didn't notice that detail. Regardless, you should read about the Jeanna Giese case, it's pretty fascinating (fucked up, but fascinating).

BTW: I don't "feed in false information" -- I'm not trying to deceive anybody.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

BTW: I don't "feed in false information" -- I'm not trying to deceive anybody.

Nobody's accusing you of deliberate deceit, Zipper. It's just that in your habit of paraphrasing other people's posts to enhance your understanding, you often choose words that change the meaning or implication of the original thought. I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but it comes off to some of the wordsmiths around here as "putting words in their mouths" that they didn't intend.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[mikewint]

RATS: rats were literally everywhere in Vietnam though surprisingly few around major cities and villages. My first trip through a Vietnamese open-air market gave me the answer. Rats were a major food item and hundreds of skinned, roasted, rat carcasses were sold. The meat was a bit "gamey" a lot like rabbit/squirrel (both of which are after all rodents).
The largest rat concentrations were around US bases mostly due to the large amounts of garbage produced and dumped usually nearby. Fire bases were especially bad since, generally, garbage was simply dumped over the edge of the base into some ravine. Rat breeding/feeding heaven with a single pair producing 2000 offspring a year. Now as to the rats themselves we're NOT talking about those cute little white lab rats or even the city rats you may have encountered. These dark-brown monsters were the size of a large cat, easily 15 to 18lbs (7 to 8kg) with no fear of man. In the jungle we developed a way of wrapping yourself up in your poncho so no skin showed as you slept, else you'd wake up to find a rat gnawing on your fingers or !!! Woke-up more than once to find one sitting on my chest. US commercial rat traps were a joke. The rats would trip them and then just walk off trap and all.
In a brilliant idea we offered a bounty on dead rats. Starting out we might get 5-10 a day, then after about three weeks or so the numbers began to climb. After about a a couple of months 20-40 a day or more...Either the villagers were fantastic rat-catchers or.... After a bit of searching we found the village rat-farm. If the Dinky-dau Americans wanted rats, they were going to supply them

RABIES: Being involved more in the villages/training programs/clinics and occasional combat missions I really can't recall any rabies cases personally. However animal bites were either ignored or if serious sent to a field hospital for evaluation. With all the bats, monkeys, and free-roaming village dogs in Vietnam rabies was a major problem. On the US side the danger was from US troops keeping "pets": tigers, cheetahs, bears, roe deer, monkeys, dogs, and cats. The primary threat for rabies infection in Vietnam came from one specific mammal: young puppies. In fact, over 25% of the dogs' rabies cases were diagnosed in puppies 8 to 16 weeks of age. These puppies posed a particularly insidious threat to humans because they were almost always asymptomatic when they died. Thus the bitten human seldom if ever sought out medical treatment and the pups were not available for testing as they had probably been eaten by that time. YES, dog meat was another culinary Vietnam diet staple (Bar-B-Que dog ribs were pretty tasty)
The Pasteur Institute in Saigon surveyed Saigon, Na Trang, and Da Lat in 1966 and estimated that, in just these three cities, at least 10,122 Vietnamese were potentially exposed to the virus; 4,845 received postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) treatment; and six people died. Of the 470 animal specimens examined during this time, 51% were positive for rabies.
1,506 US military personnel were potentially exposed to rabies; 628 were treated with rabies PEP; and 21.5% of rabies specimens submitted to military laboratories tested positive for the rabies virus
As a result the US Military Veterinary service started a massive campaign to vaccinate US Military "pets" and Village dogs in villages near US bases.
In 1969, there were 2,967 potential rabies exposures within the US Army forces in Vietnam, resulting in 1,628 patients receiving rabies PEP.
From January to June 1969, 17.8% of dog specimens submitted to the laboratory tested positive for rabies. Additionally, none of the cat, monkey, bat, or rodent samples submitted tested positive.
By 1970, these numbers had decreased to 1,905 and 1,039, respectively.

 

[Zipper730]

RATS: rats were literally everywhere in Vietnam though surprisingly few around major cities and villages. My first trip through a Vietnamese open-air market gave me the answer. Rats were a major food item and hundreds of skinned, roasted, rat carcasses were sold. The meat was a bit "gamey" a lot like rabbit/squirrel (both of which are after all rodents).

Though this might sound stupid, but do cooking temperatures kill the Rabies virus?

Now as to the rats themselves we're NOT talking about those cute little white lab rats or even the city rats you may have encountered. These dark-brown monsters were the size of a large cat, easily 15 to 18lbs (7 to 8kg) with no fear of man. In the jungle we developed a way of wrapping yourself up in your poncho so no skin showed as you slept

I assume this was passed along to newer units coming in?

RABIES: Being involved more in the villages/training programs/clinics and occasional combat missions I really can't recall any rabies cases personally. However animal bites were either ignored or if serious sent to a field hospital for evaluation.

And I guess the rabies cases were usually the serious cases that ended up resulting in a medevac?

With all the bats, monkeys, and free-roaming village dogs in Vietnam rabies was a major problem.

Bats are a common source of rabies in the US as well. I guess it spreads to the dogs from the rats, and the dogs and cats eat the rats (and in doing so prevent them from proceeding to bite and infect people).

over 25% of the dogs' rabies cases were diagnosed in puppies 8 to 16 weeks of age. These puppies posed a particularly insidious threat to humans because they were almost always asymptomatic when they died.

Yikes

Additionally, none of the cat, monkey, bat, or rodent samples submitted tested positive.

That's interesting. I do know that cats an somehow go asymptomatic for up to a year. That said, if they tested them, they basically decapitated them and examined the brain itself.

 

[mikewint]

do cooking temperatures kill the Rabies virus?

The rabies lyssavirus is a fragile virus in that drying out, sunlight, and heat can deactivate (NOT kill, virus particles are NOT alive to begin with) it. Freezing will not deactivate the virus.
Rabid animals dot not always appear to be rabid. The lyssavirus will begin to appear in the saliva of a affected animal in from three to six days before the animal shows physical signs of the disease. Next, the lyssavirus is concentrated in the brain, spinal cord, and saliva NOT in the blood, urine, or feces. In the latter stages viral particles can appear in muscle tissue but again the major concentrations are in the brain, spinal cord, and salivary glands.
Street vendors in Vietnam were not under any kind of government health/sanitary controls or regulations. So eating anything on the street was akin to Russian Roulette. Dead animal carcasses hung in the open air from vendors stalls waiting for a buyer. Other vendors kept their animals alive so that potential buyers could see that the animals were healthy. Once selected the vendors would kill the animal on the spot and skin/butcher it if asked. Again under zero sanitary controls.
Recently there were two cases of rabies in men from Hanoi, in Vietnam. One had no known history of an animal bite or other rabies exposure, while the other had been bitten a month before becoming sick by a non-rabid dog (the dog was still healthy when the man developed rabies – if the dog had been rabid at the time of the bite it would have died within two weeks). Both patients had butchered and eaten either a dog or cat, including the brain, within 3-8 weeks of becoming sick.

• The first patient had butchered and eaten a dog that had been killed in a traffic accident. He took out the dog's teeth before butchering it, thinking that this would protect him if the dog had rabies (because rabies is so often associated with bites, he likely didn't realize the virus is actually in the saliva and brain tissue). The skull was opened to remove the brain. The man wore work gloves, and didn't report any injuries during butchering. All parts of the dog that were eaten were cooked first. No one else that ate any part of the dog got sick.
• The second patient had butchered and eaten a sick cat that had been acting abnormal for a few days. Again, all parts of the cat that were eaten were cooked first, and no one else that ate any part of the cat got sick. However, the man who developed rabies had prepared the cat's brain for cooking using his bare hands.

In both cases, the affected people were exposed to animals that were sick (cat) or may have been sick (dog hit by car). Only the people who butchered the animals got rabies, while no one else who ate the animals got sick. It is most likely that the two men were exposed to rabies virus during butchering, through contact of infected nervous tissue (e.g. brain) with any tiny bit of broken skin, or even possibly the eyes, nose or mouth, before the tissue was cooked. In Vietnam,butchering (not eating) dogs is a recognized risk factor for developing rabies. It is extremely unlikely that eating cooked meat from a rabid animal would result in transmission of rabies to a person.

 

[Zipper730]

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was President Johnson's key to unlocking public and congressional support for greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and the key to the resolution was LBJ's brilliant manipulation of the press. It is, perhaps, the best example of how presidential news management can shape public policy. In early August 1964, North Vietnamese PT boats and a U.S. destroyer did battle in the Gulf of Tonkin. Other than those two facts virtually every other report was either misleading or even false. Contrary to the New York Times report that the U.S. destroyer "was on a routine patrol when an unprovoked attack took place" the destroyer Maddox was on an intelligence gathering operation near an area where the U.S. had twice attacked North Vietnam the day before. In fact, evidence suggests that the second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats never happened.

Actually, the second attack was the result of bad weather, hypervigilance bordering on paranoia, and something that the task force commander, the ships captain, or both basically said they weren't sure even happened.

This was known since at least 1988 (Going Downtown mentioned this).

 

[tyrodtom]

Actually, the second attack was the result of bad weather, hypervigilance bordering on paranoia, and something that the task force commander, the ships captain, or both basically said they weren't sure even happened.

This was known since at least 1988 (Going Downtown mentioned this).

1988 ???
You're forgetting the Pentagon Papers, that came out in 1971.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

This thread has been one hell of a read -- I've learned a lot this afternoon. Much appreciation to those who've contributed to it, and much respect especially to those of you who've shared your experiences.

 

[SaparotRob]

The rabies lyssavirus is a fragile virus in that drying out, sunlight, and heat can deactivate (NOT kill, virus particles are NOT alive to begin with) it. Freezing will not deactivate the virus.
Rabid animals dot not always appear to be rabid. The lyssavirus will begin to appear in the saliva of a affected animal in from three to six days before the animal shows physical signs of the disease. Next, the lyssavirus is concentrated in the brain, spinal cord, and saliva NOT in the blood, urine, or feces. In the latter stages viral particles can appear in muscle tissue but again the major concentrations are in the brain, spinal cord, and salivary glands.
Street vendors in Vietnam were not under any kind of government health/sanitary controls or regulations. So eating anything on the street was akin to Russian Roulette. Dead animal carcasses hung in the open air from vendors stalls waiting for a buyer. Other vendors kept their animals alive so that potential buyers could see that the animals were healthy. Once selected the vendors would kill the animal on the spot and skin/butcher it if asked. Again under zero sanitary controls.
Recently there were two cases of rabies in men from Hanoi, in Vietnam. One had no known history of an animal bite or other rabies exposure, while the other had been bitten a month before becoming sick by a non-rabid dog (the dog was still healthy when the man developed rabies – if the dog had been rabid at the time of the bite it would have died within two weeks). Both patients had butchered and eaten either a dog or cat, including the brain, within 3-8 weeks of becoming sick.

• The first patient had butchered and eaten a dog that had been killed in a traffic accident. He took out the dog's teeth before butchering it, thinking that this would protect him if the dog had rabies (because rabies is so often associated with bites, he likely didn't realize the virus is actually in the saliva and brain tissue). The skull was opened to remove the brain. The man wore work gloves, and didn't report any injuries during butchering. All parts of the dog that were eaten were cooked first. No one else that ate any part of the dog got sick.
• The second patient had butchered and eaten a sick cat that had been acting abnormal for a few days. Again, all parts of the cat that were eaten were cooked first, and no one else that ate any part of the cat got sick. However, the man who developed rabies had prepared the cat's brain for cooking using his bare hands.

In both cases, the affected people were exposed to animals that were sick (cat) or may have been sick (dog hit by car). Only the people who butchered the animals got rabies, while no one else who ate the animals got sick. It is most likely that the two men were exposed to rabies virus during butchering, through contact of infected nervous tissue (e.g. brain) with any tiny bit of broken skin, or even possibly the eyes, nose or mouth, before the tissue was cooked. In Vietnam,butchering (not eating) dogs is a recognized risk factor for developing rabies. It is extremely unlikely that eating cooked meat from a rabid animal would result in transmission of rabies to a person.

Good to know!