Those of you who fought in Nam… did you ever have a buddy disappear in a firefight but his body was never found? Did you ever think you had the enemy cornered when they suddenly disappeared? Did you ever sweep a village clean, and then have the VC suddenly appear where they weren’t before?

Most of you know what I’m talking about. But most of you might not know that these disappearances – including your buddy’s body – were just the enemy trying to mess with your head.

This 15,000 word short story digs into the details of how they did it through a system of underground passageways some of which were three levels deep and stretched up to 100 miles in length. A vast network of tunnels that was virtually under your feet!

Not many of you would believe that back at your base of security eight feet down under your hooch the enemy could be resting in his coffin-sized hole reading in the flickering light of a bottle lamp. But those bases that were over-run in the middle of the night by their suicide squads might wonder how the hell all of those crazies got through their perimeter defenses without triggering a firefight!

This is about how the Vietnamese built and maintained those black tunnels and who our brave Tunnel Rats were who went down into those deadly traps to fight them. It was the stuff of nightmares. It is said by those who know that of all the U.S. servicemen in Vietnam, only the Long Range Reconnaissance Teams (LRPS) and helicopter pilots had such close brushes with mortal danger and consistently enjoyed that reputation. Tunnel Rats that were good at what they did, and were able to survive did so because they were extremely lucky. Hot, dirty, and gasping for breath, a rat squeezed his body through narrow and shallow openings on all fours, never knowing whether the tunnel might collapse behind him or what he might find ahead around the next turn; getting a jolt of adrenaline at every sound.

They were loners who gained respect from the men they soldiered with because they took on missions no other soldier would even consider doing. But once you read this you will know what kind of special bravery it took to do what these men volunteered to do.

If the tunnel rat had any experience at all he knew that there might also be booby traps that could be set off merely by touching a concealed wire in the darkness as they fumbled their way along; or perhaps in the darkness sat one or more of the armed enemy just waiting for them. While our rats were concerned about turning on a hand light for fear it might make them an instant target, not lighting that light was also a hazard. In the dark they could bump into all kinds of trouble, not to mention enemies of another kind: Real rats, ants, scorpions, deadly vipers and something as simple as a fine copper wire attached to a hand grenade’s pin that had already been pulled most of the way out.
All it took was one touch on that wire and you would never even hear the explosion. Dead and buried and who you were carefully noted because you always left your dog tags behind!

But you readers are lucky. You get to go where only the very brave Rats go to do their deadly thing – or not – and all of you will – I promise – come back in one piece…but I can’t do anything for that hammering heart you might have.