The centipedes of the highlands of Vietnam were fifteen inches of
pure ugly. If you saw one, it was something you would not soon forget.
If you have a story about a run-in with these critters, please feel
free to share with us. You do not have to be a member of the 1/92nd
Artillery, and your story, or photos will receive credit.
The
Centipede
By
David Powell
The Time
Mid Year 1970, Approaching
monsoon season
The Place
A Hilltop firebase in Northwestern
II CTZ
The Mission
A two to three day hip shoot
to fire GSR for the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade
The Situation
They
dropped our Platoon at an old abandoned firebase with enough Ammo
and Supplies for the hip shoot. The jungle had a good start at re-claiming
this firebase. We spent a major part of the day repairing and rebuilding
the Ammo and Powder bunkers to make the Gun Pits serviceable. The
roof of the hooch was completely unrecognizable. Since the roof was
level with the surrounding terrain, the jungle had completed the take-over.
The timber supporting the roof was sound, which was more than we could
say for the sides and the atmosphere within. Inside it was cool, but
also dark and dank. The hooch had a dirt floor and it was so soft
it caused the legs of our cots to sink. A single line of bare bulbs,
hastily hung from the ceiling, supplied the lighting.
The
Setting
This
particular mountaintop firebase was encircled by some of the most
beautiful countryside I had seen during my tour of duty. It also had
some of the reddest soil I had ever encountered. It penetrated and
permeated everything. There was a Montagnard Village very close to
our location. They dammed up a small stream with a wall of bamboo,
which had three or four bamboo tubes coming out of the face and there
was a bamboo walkway out front. For our first day of labor, our reward
was a warm C Ration meal. Then we took a cool shower in front of the
dam while the local native women did laundry downstream.
The
Encounter
I
was walking back to the hooch in a towel and my Ho Chi sandals, and
it seemed my only care in the world was, "How would I keep that
red dirt off my clean, but still wet feet?" I did not want to
put on clean socks and clothes just to drag that red mud down the
inside of my pants, or spread it all over my poncho liner. If nothing
else, I really wanted a clean bed. I stopped and had a smoke, and
a beer with a couple of the men. By the time I headed back to the
hooch, it had gotten rather dark. As I felt my way down the roughly
timbered entry steps, I realized I did not hear the generator running.
This could only mean I was going to have to fumble my way across our
cellar-like living quarters in the dark. I cursed all the way to my
cot, where my Zippo would offer some relief in the pitch-blackness.
I was almost there when I stepped on a stick. Then at the same time,
the generator outside sprang to life, just as I was putting more weight
down on the "stick", it also sprang to life. It pushed it's
head and tail backwards up and over my sandaled foot until it was
surrounded. Both the head and tail met, on top of my foot. Imagine
my shock and surprise, when the lights came up, what I discovered
when I looked down. There was this Horrible, Huge, Big headed, Multi-segmented,
Thousand legged CREATURE, writhing around my foot. It wasn't until
later, after I'd stomped it's ugly body into the red earthen floor,
when I realized I'd just had a "Close Encounter" with one
of the local centipedes.
An
Unwanted Tenant
By
Steven Ollerton
I
t was cool up at altitude heading for LZ Baxter. I was impressed with
how rugged the mountains were below. Soon the Chinook descended and
came to rest on a narrow saddle-back, that turned out to be the jungle-covered
rim of an extinct volcano. Our guns were to the left of the chopper,
and we huddled next to ours while the Chinook lifted into sky. We
quickly got the gun ready for duty, and lugged the ammo over to it.
The next order of business was our personal hootches. It turned out
that the dirt was easy to dig, the only thing slowing us up were the
large roots that had to be chopped with our machetes as we dug. By
morning our hootches were in good order, and the lieutenant allowed
us two hours sleep before starting on the ammo, and powder bunkers.
We put down a tarp in the bottom of our hootch, unrolled our sleeping
bags, took off our boots which we had worn for three days straight,
and laid down. I turned to the dirt wall closest to me, and found
myself staring at one of the biggest centipedes I had ever seen! It
was holed up in a little tunnel in the wall, but as I watched, it
crawled out onto the wall, and was over a foot long. It was an almost
neon orange in color, and had huge pinchers. I took my machete, and
hacked at it , and cut off its head. Head and body fell to the floor,
and as the body walked over the head, its pinchers bit into its own
body with a sickening crunching sound. We watched as the body writhed,
while the pinchers kept crushing segments, making more cracking noises.
It seemed like I watched for a long time, but it was, probably, only
seconds until I crushed the whole mess with the butt of my M-16. I
took an entrenching tool, and threw it all down the hill. So much
for two hours sleep!
On
the Wall
By
Then Sp4 Bill Bigford
There
was about seven of us cannon-cockers in entertainment mode one night
in our bunker. The ceiling of our living space was really high so
we built a platform for sleeping above our heads with pallets. our
mosquito nets were combined to keep the bugs out. Nothing went up
there but the four of us that shared the sleeping attic. That left
the lower area as a living room for the music and chairs. Well, we
were all sitting in this room and someone actually screamed like a
girl. We looked up on the wall and saw this nine inch, bright orange
centipede just about to crawl into our sleeping attic. Outside the
bunker a comrade heard the scream and ran into the room. He said "Don't
worry I'll save you!" and threw the knife and pinned it on the wall.
It was quit embarrassing, but we were all relieved not to have that
critter in our sleeping loft.
Ben
Het, 1970
