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Posted: 9/30/2015 6:39:05 PM EDT
Some kind of viper?
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Several Viet Nam vets I've known told me the Bamboo Viper was known as the two-step. One talked about bamboo vipers crawling over him while his unit was in position to ambush an NVA unit. Another told me about the VC tying Bamboo Vipers to the roof of their tunnels as booby traps for the tunnel rats. A third talked about how even though their airbase in Thailand was known as cobra territory, they had more problems with two steps and then later said they were Bamboo Vipers. eta: When I was in Korea on of the chicks in our unit went out to help in the rice harvest. She said how one old guy was found dead, squatting, knife in his right hand and a dead bamboo viper's head at his feet in a pile of rice heads. His left had was still holding the clump of rice plants he'd just chopped along with the body of the bamboo viper that had bitten his left hand. Dude had enough time to after the bite to put the bundle of rice plants on the ground and chop the snake's head off before he died and not much else. |
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One snake was called a "Two-step" by GI's, because the word was you could only walk two steps after being bitten before you died. This may have been a myth to keep GI's alert in the bush, because there are no known snakes in the world that can kill that fast.
The fastest known killer, Africa's Black Mamba, can kill in about 2-1/2 minutes if bitten directly into a major artery or vein that goes straight to the heart. Generally speaking, though, it takes 15 to 30 minutes before life threatening symptoms appear from a snake bite, and usually a minimum of several hours or even days before death occurs from bites of even very venomous snakes. The fact is that over 30 of Vietnam's 140 snake species are poisonous. http://www.ichiban1.org/html/stories/story_38.htm |
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Several Viet Nam vets I've known told me the Bamboo Viper was known as the two-step. One talked about bamboo vipers crawling over him while his unit was in position to ambush an NVA unit. Another told me about the VC tying Bamboo Vipers to the roof of their tunnels as booby traps for the tunnel rats. A third talked about how even though their airbase in Thailand was known as cobra territory, they had more problems with two steps and then later said they were Bamboo Vipers. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Many banded krait This. I believe. Several Viet Nam vets I've known told me the Bamboo Viper was known as the two-step. One talked about bamboo vipers crawling over him while his unit was in position to ambush an NVA unit. Another told me about the VC tying Bamboo Vipers to the roof of their tunnels as booby traps for the tunnel rats. A third talked about how even though their airbase in Thailand was known as cobra territory, they had more problems with two steps and then later said they were Bamboo Vipers. VC would hang them in tunnels by their tails the unsuspecting tunnel rat would take the strike in the face.... |
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One snake was called a "Two-step" by GI's, because the word was you could only walk two steps after being bitten before you died. This may have been a myth to keep GI's alert in the bush, because there are no known snakes in the world that can kill that fast. The fastest known killer, Africa's Black Mamba, can kill in about 2-1/2 minutes if bitten directly into a major artery or vein that goes straight to the heart. Generally speaking, though, it takes 15 to 30 minutes before life threatening symptoms appear from a snake bite, and usually a minimum of several hours or even days before death occurs from bites of even very venomous snakes. The fact is that over 30 of Vietnam's 140 snake species are poisonous. http://www.ichiban1.org/html/stories/story_38.htm View Quote Our old base camp and 3rd Surgical Hospital was turned into a snake farm and venom collection point... One of my old platoon sgts went back for a visit and saw cages of kraits,cobras and bamboo vipers on display.... Had a large krait come after me about sundown once.....we were moving through a rice paddy in chest deep water and the sob came across the water looking for high ground and a place to sit while he ambushed rice rats...out of our platoon he picked me to try to crawl up on and was about 7ft long maybe.....might have looked a lot larger with all the adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream |
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Quoted: Several Viet Nam vets I've known told me the Bamboo Viper was known as the two-step. One talked about bamboo vipers crawling over him while his unit was in position to ambush an NVA unit. Another told me about the VC tying Bamboo Vipers to the roof of their tunnels as booby traps for the tunnel rats. A third talked about how even though their airbase in Thailand was known as cobra territory, they had more problems with two steps and then later said they were Bamboo Vipers. eta: When I was in Korea on of the chicks in our unit went out to help in the rice harvest. She said how one old guy was found dead, squatting, knife in his right hand and a dead bamboo viper's head at his feet in a pile of rice heads. His left had was still holding the clump of rice plants he'd just chopped along with the body of the bamboo viper that had bitten his left hand. Dude had enough time to after the bite to put the bundle of rice plants on the ground and chop the snake's head off before he died and not much else. View Quote More proof that anyone can tell you a bullshit story. |
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One snake was called a "Two-step" by GI's, because the word was you could only walk two steps after being bitten before you died. This may have been a myth to keep GI's alert in the bush, because there are no known snakes in the world that can kill that fast. The fastest known killer, Africa's Black Mamba, can kill in about 2-1/2 minutes if bitten directly into a major artery or vein that goes straight to the heart. Generally speaking, though, it takes 15 to 30 minutes before life threatening symptoms appear from a snake bite, and usually a minimum of several hours or even days before death occurs from bites of even very venomous snakes. The fact is that over 30 of Vietnam's 140 snake species are poisonous. http://www.ichiban1.org/html/stories/story_38.htm View Quote Exactly. Green mamba and black mamba are the deadliest....and fastest......at 4 mph. Also takes several minutes to kill you. |
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My dad just called them vipers, but he described them as being a pretty green... he told me a story about being back in a base camp after 21 days on a lrrp... he and a few other guys got completely shit faced drunk and had to carry one of his guys back to their hooch...
They basically tossed the guy on his rack and he fell off. ... when the guy hit the ground, they saw 4 or 5 vipers on the rack... someone pulled the guy out of the way while a couple others lit the snakes up with m16s... He said there were chunks of snake every where... Oddly, he had no fear of snakes, but spiders bothered him... |
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View Quote That is one deadly looking MoFo |
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That is one deadly looking MoFo Yeah, looks like a couple ripe candidates for some #4 buck for sure. |
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That is one deadly looking MoFo In our base camp (Dong Tam) we actually had a Phd herpetologist assigned to the 3rd Surg We had cobras which liked to hang out in the bunkers....one of the oddest things I have ever seen was a guy taking a picture of a cobra that had reared up to strike and he was awefully close to it taking a picture...but another guy took a picture of him taking a picture of the snake...it was that pic that demonstrated just how close the dumb ass was to being bitten... Sleeping on the jungle floor under banana leaves or in bamboo groves was always life threatening by VC,snakes,giant poisonous centipedes,or a variety of diseases and infections. It was amazing that a person can get so tired you lose your fear of such things. Besides the "two step snake" there was also the "cigarette snake" the warning was that after you got bit you had just enough time to light up a smoke and take a few puffs before you died.... IIRC the 2 stepper was supposed to be the little green bamboo viper and the cigarette snake was the krait..... Should have been the other way around....but in the jungle environment we worked in the green one in the tree was hard enough to spot in the day time...at night...forgetabout it. |
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bamboo viper? View Quote My dad referred to it as "Mr 1-2" Man has a lifelong, visceral fear/hatred of snakes from his time in Vietnam. As a kid I found out how bad it was when I discovered a baby garter snake hibernating in our dirt floored sub basement. Snake was about about as big as a #2 pencil. A little green worm with eyes and a tongue. Old man about had a heart attack when I showed it to him. |
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View Quote this just reniforces...I hate snakes |
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My step dad (Vietnam vet) does not talk about his time there much. He goes to Sturges every year and camps along the way.
He asked me to find him a small tent to carry with him - the only requirement is that it had a floor and zippered up to keep snakes out. I think I now know why! |
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Quoted: My step dad (Vietnam vet) does not talk about his time there much. He goes to Sturges every year and camps along the way. He asked me to find him a small tent to carry with him - the only requirement is that it had a floor and zippered up to keep snakes out. I think I now know why! View Quote When in Sturgis, visit the Reptile Gardens in Rapid City. http://www.reptilegardens.com/ |
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I guess the OP wants to be spoon fed instead of searching for himself.
Pure FSA! |
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In Korea there is the "three step adder", a type of venomous viper that would hangout in equipment. Perhaps a cousin to the Vietnam vipers. Exaggeration seems to follow regardless where you are.
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I thought it was the Bamboo Viper. I killed a bunch of them while I was in the field.
One of our guys was bitten by one and dustoffed to the field hospital in Chu Lai. I went to see him in the hospital and they had frozen the area around the bite. It looked horrible. |
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The SOG guys we worked with always said it was the many-banded-krait.
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View Quote This. |
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Under no circumstances approach or disturb the ant mounds, many types of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes in Vietnam nest in the ant mounds. That's an order. Repeat, that's an order you morons.
Ant mound cut open, snakes came pouring out, all types-all sizes, hilarity ensued. Luckily no bites. Story from my dad about the setting up of Cu Chi Base with 25ID in Feb '66. Hking |
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Quoted: Under no circumstances approach or disturb the ant mounds, many types of poisonous and non-poisonous snakes in Vietnam nest in the ant mounds. That's an order. Repeat, that's an order you morons. Ant mound cut open, snakes came pouring out, all types-all sizes, hilarity ensued. Luckily no bites. Story from my dad about the setting up of Cu Chi Base with 25ID in Feb '66. Hking View Quote Termite mounds, centipedes, gibbons sounding like a platoon of NVA... Plenty of perils in the RVN. |
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