Mike Stubbs: [00:00:00] We know that the third Brigade of the first Infantry Division, we were the only brigade in Vietnam that had the Vietnamese village inside of our perimeter.

CROAN: [00:00:10] That’s Mike Stubbs speaking to me from his home in North Carolina. He enlisted in [00:00:15] the Army in June of 1966 and served in Vietnam with the first Infantry Division, the big Red one, from November of that year until October of 67, when he was seriously wounded in combat. Mike left the Army in June of 1968.

Mike Stubbs: [00:00:29] Everybody [00:00:30] else, if they were near a Vietnamese village, it was beside of them, like Zion, where the first Infantry Division headquarters was located. They had a village a couple of miles right outside of it, but we actually surrounded this Vietnamese village, which was an old French village [00:00:45] that the French had whenever they occupied Vietnam.

CROAN: [00:00:48] Mike was among the early wave of infantrymen who first encountered vast underground complexes of tunnels in Vietnam. At that time, there was no training or protocol for how to deal with them, and it wasn’t [00:01:00] anybody’s job officially to check them out when someone did. It was usually someone like Mike who felt it was important enough to go involuntarily, and who was small enough to fit.

Mike Stubbs: [00:01:12] Sometimes the missions you would actually have [00:01:15] contact, sometimes you could find traces. I mean, Charlie was pretty smart. He knew where we were a lot better than we knew where he was. And he’d go out on an ambush at nighttime. I we knew that old Charlie’s probably down in the tunnel somewhere nice and dry. [00:01:30]

CROAN: [00:01:30] And do you remember the first time you went into a tunnel?

Mike Stubbs: [00:01:33] Oh, yes. It was. It was early April and, uh, become squatted and a sergeant. And the situation was with big Red one, first Infantry Division, when when I was there, they did [00:01:45] not have a tunnel rat company. We did not have one at all in the division. It was a volunteer thing. You couldn’t, you know, tell men they were going to go down in that tunnel and such and such. And we had guys. I mean, there was guys that would they would have been court martialed before they would actually went in. They were that scared. [00:02:00] And I just, you know, I don’t know, I was a little guy, but I said, here’s my chance to see what’s going on. The first time was we [00:02:15] had close to Zion with the first Division headquarters was there was a village, and they knew this village was heavily infiltrated with Vietcong. So they took our company, our battalion, and they flew us on choppers after dark. [00:02:30] And they landed. They landed a couple of miles from this village where they wouldn’t hear the choppers landing. And we had to walk, you know, that night to that village. The [00:02:45] next morning we went into the village, started searching the village. We were searching every hooch, every every, every, every building that they had. We were walking along and all of a sudden [00:03:00] I looked over and I saw this thing.

Mike Stubbs: [00:03:02] I wasn’t sure it was like I said, look, what is this? I looked at it, well, it’s got to be a tunnel because it’s like a little hatch. And it wasn’t quite closed all the way. And what I did, I flipped it open. Nothing [00:03:15] happened. So I knew right then, you know, they said they want to know who would go, who would be willing to go down that hole. So I’ll go. I went down in the hole. And [00:03:30] it wasn’t a tunnel. It was like a room. And it was kind of dark. I had my flashlight and so on with me. And [00:03:45] I could smell somebody in there. And finally I shined the light. There he was. I mean, he he said something to me. I don’t know what he said. I said he don’t know what I said to him. He was probably [00:04:00] as scared as I was. But finally got him out when I got him out. See, we had S-2 with us, which was, you know, there’s two people in interrogation. Plus we had the Arvns working with us because [00:04:15] they they would be the ones interrogating these guys because the speaking Vietnamese. Well, they got him out. He tried to claim he was just an old farmer. And he was scared. You know, he they figured out we were there, they were going to be checking the village.

Mike Stubbs: [00:04:26] And he got in that hole to hide because he was scared. And, [00:04:30] uh, well, what it was, he they started interrogating him. He kept wanting his pants. Kept. You know, I didn’t know what he was saying. And they finally said. The [00:04:45] interpreter said he wants his pants he had on, you know, like underwear. All he had on. So I went back down and I found his pants with his pants was full of money. I took his pants, went back and threw them out. And I went back down and started finding all kinds of documentation [00:05:00] he had. He had notebooks. He had books and things. He had the names of the people in that village who contributed to the VC. They were in heaven when they got these books because they had all kinds of information in it. It told who, give what, and so on and so on, supporting [00:05:15] the VC. And he turned out to be basically they said he was basically like the rank of a captain. So we cleaned the whole I got everything out of the whole all the all the documentation that he had and they loved that. So we finally they took him. They [00:05:30] actually put him on a chopper. We started moving again. We hadn’t gone 20 yards and looked up and there was another one.

CROAN: [00:05:37] How many tunnels did you go in that day?

Mike Stubbs: [00:05:39] Oh, that day I went in several. Actually, the second time a flashlight went out on me, I probably 30 or [00:05:45] 40 yards down that this tunnel and my flashlight went out and. Crap. I mean, you’re talking dark. You couldn’t see, you know, see nothing in front of me. And then I could see was where I had come in, just a little bit like a little piece of light were coming through the hole where I’d come into that tunnel. [00:06:00] So I had to back out. And finally after that, when I got back to base camp, people laughed at me, but I started carrying a pouch with me. I carried a spare flashlight and I carried spare batteries. I said, this will never happen to me again. I was not going to be stuck in there and not have [00:06:15] a light. I mean, if anybody says they went in tunnels and they were not scared, they didn’t go in tunnels, that’s all I can say. Because if you did not, if your heart wasn’t racing and you were not nervous, something’s wrong with you because, uh, you know, you just because you don’t know [00:06:30] what you’re going to run into, you got, you got and didn’t like, you know, you don’t really like shining the light, but you had no choice. Because, I mean, if the enemy is in there, what’s the first thing he’s going to shoot at? He’s going to shoot toward that light. That’s things I did in tunnels. I will never, ever talk about some of them. Some things I just had to do [00:06:45] that I had no choice. And I know we found one tunnel complex and it was just just started down the down the hole and just barely could get in it. And. When it started out, I was crawling.

Mike Stubbs: [00:06:59] Then I started [00:07:00] kind of almost to a stoop, and then I could almost stand up. And then I heard gunshots. He actually was not shooting at me. What they were doing, they were letting us know they were in there. So I had to back out, get out of the tunnel because we had no idea what was there. So we, you know, we actually [00:07:15] brought in a flame thrower, put the flame thrower down in the hole and shot the flame thrower. You know, that takes oxygen out of the air and everything else. Uh, we we didn’t go back to that location, you know, set set up our NDP, our night defensive position for the the company [00:07:30] in the general area. Well, the next day, we went back to this complex. We started going back down in there. I mean, actually, a couple of guys went with me and it turned out to be a hospital underground. It was amazing. They took a lot of stuff with them, [00:07:45] you could tell that, but they left a lot of stuff behind, too. Equipment, medical equipment, some weapons. And then there was some blood there. So we’re assuming this was probably a hospital where they actually probably, maybe performed perform surgery and stuff. They had like a little generator like thing. They [00:08:00] actually had a, like a bicycle. And that’s how he created power to generate and have lights in there and stuff. These people were amazing with some of these tunnel complex. I mean, you know, these tunnel complexes were there when they fought the French. So they had, you know, they had them [00:08:15] all the way during back in the I guess it’s like the 40s when the French was occupying Vietnam. And just incredible to see what these people could do with a tunnel.

CROAN: [00:08:26] The fact that such tunnels existed was probably not a total surprise [00:08:30] to the American military leadership. After all, they were fighting alongside South Vietnamese forces who certainly knew about them, and they must have been aware of the Vietnamese use of tunnels in their long war of resistance against French colonists. But discoveries [00:08:45] like Mike’s revealed just how effective, complex and resilient the use of these tunnels was, and just how unprepared we were for that kind of warfare. In this episode, we’ll explore the creation of the big Red ones, first [00:09:00] organized, trained and dedicated team of Tunnel Rats soldiers who volunteered whenever necessary to do their fighting underground. Stick around. From [00:09:15] the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, founders of the wall. This is echoes of the Vietnam War. I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict more [00:09:30] than 50 years later. This [00:09:45] is episode 53, Tunnel Rats, part one. Last month at College of [00:10:00] the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, a small group of Vietnam veterans gathered for a reunion. It wasn’t a division level reunion, though. These men were all part of the first Infantry Division, and it wasn’t a battalion reunion, though they had all [00:10:15] served in the first Engineer Battalion. This was something much more specific and much more intimate, given that long distance travel has grown difficult for some of these men. I wondered why they felt the need to come so far for so few. [00:10:30] I asked Jobe Gonzales, one of the organizers of the event, to explain.

Jobe Gonzales: [00:10:36] Most of the reunions I’ve been, whether division or battalion, it’s a very little is ever said about the [00:10:45] orphans. You know, the yeah, they existed, but what did they do? I don’t know. Well, you know.

CROAN: [00:10:51] Wow. Even within your own battalion, you guys were. Yeah, kind of orphans. Yeah

Jobe Gonzales: [00:10:59] Yeah.

CROAN: [00:10:59] So [00:11:00] here’s Pete Schultz, one of the attendees, discussing why, after more than 50 years of keeping mostly to himself, he came to Point Lookout. Why now? And why these guys?

Pete Schultz: [00:11:12] Why now? Because. Well, [00:11:15] I’ve gone through a lot of therapy. I’ve gone through a ton of meetings with other veterans, you know, [00:11:30] on talk groups, stuff like this. And I’m finally starting to come out of my shell. Just that simple. I had the shit packed [00:11:45] into me so tight that I couldn’t come out. My son, one of my sons and I have four asked me what I did in the service. I couldn’t tell. [00:12:00] Then my youngest son found one of my medals and he goes, what’s this dad? And he could read. And I said, this is what I got when I [00:12:15] was in the service. And, I mean, they’re still packed up.

CROAN: [00:12:20] Do you mind if I ask you what decorations you earned?

Pete Schultz: [00:12:23] I have two silver stars, a bronze star, ACM Army [00:12:30] Commendation Medal, and that’s enough.

CROAN: [00:12:34] Yeah. Boy, I’ll say, as small as the affair was, it drew more than just actual tunnel rats like Jobe and Pete. A few of the attendees were there [00:12:45] out of pure admiration. Phil Hoge served as the XO for the first Engineer Battalion. He traveled all the way from Niceville, Florida, and it’s not his first time reuniting with these guys.

Pete Schultz: [00:12:58] They were a great team. You know, I [00:13:00] love the team that worked together and they were super soldiers that you never heard a complaint from them. And I always felt that they were never given credit for the credit they deserved. For me personally, there was [00:13:15] no there’s no doubt about it. It was a courageous bunch of guys that I, you know, I respect. I have a lot of respect for them.

CROAN: [00:13:21] Terry Heusser was a platoon leader in the first Engineer Battalion and spent a lot of time in the field with the Tunnel Rats.

Terry Heusser: [00:13:28] I know these guys. [00:13:30] I fought with these guys. These are the guys. I knew what they were doing all the time, and I was close to them. When I was in Vietnam, I always carried a camera with me and I always took pictures. And, uh, whenever I went on a tunnel thing or something like [00:13:45] that, I’d take pictures of the guys. And when we had the presentation at the First Division Museum of the Tunnel Rats. I gave them each a CD with all the pictures I took, and a lot [00:14:00] of the pictures I took were of them, you know, on different operations that we were on together. And they liked that. And, you know, kind of made me an honorary tunnel rat.

CROAN: [00:14:12] A small center of gravity can still exert a huge [00:14:15] pull. To understand why this elite group of subterranean fighting men are so drawn to each other, and why they draw such admiration from others, it helps to understand some context about the tunnels themselves. You’ve [00:14:30] probably heard of spider holes, camouflaged holes in the ground where enemy combatants would hide, popping up [00:14:45] to shoot an American soldier or two, or throw a grenade, and then disappearing back into the ground before anybody had time to react. And maybe you’re aware that these spider holes were sometimes connected to each other by a network of tunnels. Well, that’s just the tip of [00:15:00] the iceberg, in that the part you can see is just a tiny portion of the whole thing. Actually, in this case, it’s more like the tip of one iceberg in a giant network of icebergs. These tunnels were so much more [00:15:15] than spider holes. A single tunnel entrance might lead to a bunker or a storehouse, which would be impressive enough. Or it might lead to an underground medical clinic for triaging the wounded. Or it might [00:15:30] lead to an entire field hospital, complete with operating rooms and generators like the one Mike Stubbs described at the top of the episode. Or it might lead to an unimaginably vast network of multi-level [00:15:45] underground facilities, complete with primitive but very clever ventilation systems. Here’s Jobe Gonzalez again.

Jobe Gonzales: [00:15:54] You get several levels under. So you go down five feet or so. Go over maybe [00:16:00] 20ft. Go down, go to the right, go to the left, go down again. So you could be you could be 10 or 12ft underground and you’d have a vent line coming down to you. It’s pretty amazing that you know how [00:16:15] they would do this and make these tunnels.

CROAN: [00:16:18] So you can find vividly detailed descriptions of just how vast these complexes could be. In the book The Tunnels of CU Chi, a harrowing account [00:16:30] of America’s tunnel rats in the underground battlefields of Vietnam, which, incidentally, features some of the same tunnel rats I spoke with, according to that book. There were hundreds of kilometres of tunnels connecting villages, districts [00:16:45] and even provinces. One source quoted in the book, a senior officer on the Communist side, estimated that 48km of tunnel excavated during the war against the French had grown to 200km [00:17:00] by the time the American army arrived in 1965. Aethes. If it could help the communists fight in South Vietnam, and if it could be accommodated underground, you’d find it in the tunnels. They were hiding places bomb shelters, [00:17:15] weapons factories, food stores, hospitals, headquarters, the necessary troops and supplies that were assembled for the Tet Offensive and operation of monstrous proportions were prepared in the tunnels. And they weren’t just [00:17:30] in the jungle, they were in villes and hamlets and plantations, even directly under US military installations. Once US forces realized the strategic value of these tunnel complexes to the enemy, it was [00:17:45] an understandable impulse to simply try and destroy them, usually by caving them in with explosives, which had mixed results. But cooler heads soon realized, like Mike Stubbs did, that these tunnels could be gold mines. Even if you [00:18:00] didn’t find the enemy down there, you might find his plans, his maps, his secret documents, his food, his money, or his weapons caches. Any of these prizes would justify exploring the tunnel rather than simply destroying it. The problem? [00:18:15] Well, there were many, and any one of them could kill you. Here’s Phil Hogue.

Phil Hogue: [00:18:22] You’re entering an environment that is totally dark, totally black. There’s no no light at all. Uh, [00:18:30] within the tunnel, you would find all kinds of different types of booby traps. You might find snakes tied to the wall. Uh, you might find a wire, a tripwire. The dangers were as many. As many as you could think of. The enemy was pretty [00:18:45] ingenious about what they put in the tunnels.

CROAN: [00:18:48] Booby traps. Snakes. Rats, bats, spiders. That’s not even counting the enemy himself. The [00:19:00] US Army launched more than one major operation in an attempt to deny the enemy the use of those tunnels. But it turns out that ultra modern, super sophisticated military technology and techniques weren’t super [00:19:15] effective in an ultra primitive combat environment. And the enemy knew it. You can’t bring a tank to a knife fight. Even an M-16 is too unwieldy for tunnel work. The [00:19:30] big red one needed a very specific kind of soldier small enough to fit into the tunnels, smart enough to search them and survive. Fearless enough to fight in them and capable enough to destroy them. Enter [00:19:45] the combat engineer. We’ll learn more about them, and I’ll introduce you to a couple more of the tunnel rats I met after a short break. Stick around. On [00:20:15] Veteran’s Day 1996, Vvmf unveiled an exact replica of the wall that could be packed into an 18 Wheeler and hauled to cities and [00:20:30] towns all across America. Since then, the Wall that heals has been displayed in nearly 700 communities throughout the nation, spreading the healing legacy of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to millions of visitors. If you want to know more about this traveling exhibit [00:20:45] and the impact it can have on a community, check out episode 15 of this podcast. The Wall That Heals and the Mobile Education center that travels with it will be in Springfield, Missouri, June 8th through 11 and Kalispell, Montana, June [00:21:00] 22nd through 25. To see the rest of this year’s tour schedule, and to learn how you can bring the wall that heals to your town, visit ivmf.org.

Gary Sinise: [00:21:11] Hello, I’m Gary Sinise. Nearly 3 million Americans [00:21:15] served in Vietnam, and more than 58,000 have their names inscribed on the wall. Those that paid the ultimate price in service to America. Some might ask why the Vietnam War still matters. It matters [00:21:30] because more than 58,000 lives were cut short and their families forever changed. It matters because we should never forget how Vietnam veterans were treated when they came home. A lesson learned so that our current generation of veterans [00:21:45] are treated with respect. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the organization that built the wall, works to ensure that future generations will understand the war’s impact. I’m asking you to help keep the promise. [00:22:00] The wall was built on. Never forget. Visit vvmf. Org to find out how you can get involved.

CROAN: [00:22:12] The registry is an online community created [00:22:15] by Vvmf that connects veterans of the Vietnam War with each other. By signing up for the registry, you can upload and share stories and images, connect with others who served during the Vietnam era, and connect your service with people you knew whose names are now [00:22:30] on the wall. Join the community and preserve your legacy or family members by signing up today at vvmf. Org slash registry. Before [00:22:45] 67, Tunnel Rat didn’t really exist as a dedicated job. Why do you think it was important [00:23:00] to make that well, a specialty?

Gary Oatman: [00:23:02] Well, the one thing was the Chemical Corps was they were willing to pump this gas into the tunnels and blow them up, but they didn’t want to search them.

CROAN: [00:23:13] That’s Gary Oatman. He [00:23:15] was one of the earliest leaders of the newly formed Tunnel Rats team.

Gary Oatman: [00:23:19] That, you know, they’re not combat arms, and they just didn’t really want to be involved in the searching.

CROAN: [00:23:26] If you’re the first Infantry Division and you need a soldier who can build things [00:23:30] and destroy them, who can clear minefields and disable booby traps, and who can also handle himself in a firefight, you don’t have to look very far. The big Red one’s first Engineer Battalion was made up of such men known as combat engineers. [00:23:45] Here’s Pete Schultz.

Pete Schultz: [00:23:47] A combat engineer is a is a guy who is versed in combat and also in bridge building, in [00:24:00] expedient runways for airplanes, helicopter landing pads, anything that the Army wants the engineers make is [00:24:15] that simple.

CROAN: [00:24:16] So you got to be able to do that and fight, be.

Pete Schultz: [00:24:18] Able to do that and fight.

CROAN: [00:24:21] So Phil Hogue, the former executive officer of the first Engineer Battalion.

Phil Hogue: [00:24:28] Our missions were better described, [00:24:30] I suppose, as counter-mobility. One would describe them as road, road construction to some degree, but rough road construction. So our our functions were combat in all cases and supporting the three brigades. Uh, most of that included land clearing, [00:24:45] uh, clearing the jungle. So the VC couldn’t ambush us alongside the roadways, clearing land landing zones, providing fortifications of one sort or another, building towers that were mobile or [00:25:00] and providing all kinds of engineer support for the infantry units that we worked with.

CROAN: [00:25:06] Once the need for trained, specialized tunnel rats was identified, it fell to the combat engineers to flesh out and fill that role. Here’s Gary [00:25:15] Oatman again.

Gary Oatman: [00:25:16] I guess somewhere along the line, they looked around and they said, well, let’s give it to the engineers. We didn’t throw anything in the tunnel. We went in the tunnel. We searched them first and then we blew them up, which was a little more dangerous [00:25:30] thing. You know.

CROAN: [00:25:33] The army would eventually establish a formal training program. The tunnels, mines and booby traps. School. But in the meantime, somebody had to write the field manual, so to speak. [00:25:45] The tunnel rats I spoke with were in Vietnam in 67 and 68, just as the role was being formalized. So they were the trailblazers and every single one of them, individually and unprompted, credits the same man for [00:26:00] creating and teaching the protocols that kept them alive. His name was Sergeant Robert Batten, but everyone called him Batman.

Earle Gulp: [00:26:10] Well, he was like Mr. Tunnel Rat. I mean, [00:26:15] he really was. If you would follow his advice when searching tunnels, you would probably come out alive if you didn’t follow his advice. You may not.

CROAN: [00:26:27] That’s Earle Culp.

Earle Gulp: [00:26:28] But I always go by [00:26:30] Hap and I actually with my guys, they actually called me Hap. They didn’t call me Lieutenant.

CROAN: [00:26:38] Hap took over the tunnel rats from Gary Oatman in June of 1968. It was Gary and Batman who showed him the ropes. [00:26:45]

Earle Gulp: [00:26:46] Batman was. Of course, all of us were small. He was a redhead, somewhat redhead, and a small stature, somewhat slight build. [00:27:00] I mean, that’s practically every one of us in there. But when it came to somebody that you needed that you knew would, like go into a tunnel, [00:27:15] he would search the tunnel, you knew that he would do the job. Right, and that if there was a problem with a Viet Cong or something in there, he would eliminate it. Batman was [00:27:30] an extraordinary individual.

CROAN: [00:27:32] He was your NCO in charge? Yeah.

Earle Gulp: [00:27:34] There were two of them, actually. There was a Sergeant Batman. And there was a. Spec for Preston [00:27:45] Stone, Who was? We called him three. Five cowboy. Okay, but Batten would. I mean, he was this unusual individual who loved being a tunnel rat. And he had, [00:28:00] like, a sixth sense about him. He could go into places and he’d go, this place is booby trapped. Watch yourself. And yes, it was. I can remember going with him one time, and [00:28:15] he would sit on the front bumper of a of our truck and find landmines. That’s the type of person he could be. And, uh, Batten and I got along well because [00:28:30] both of us came from the viewpoint that we have an enemy, and that’s what we’re dealing with. There’s no such thing as giving it an edge. It’s like if you came to the corner and [00:28:45] fired the rounds. You couldn’t think about what was around the corner. And that’s the way Batman approached it. I mean, that was. Unfortunately, that’s warfare.

CROAN: [00:28:58] Batman’s sixth sense for danger, [00:29:00] coupled with his unwillingness to recognise any humanity in his enemy, made him particularly effective in his role as Mr. Tunnel Rat. In fact, there’s an entire chapter about him in the tunnels of CU Chi in [00:29:15] part two of Tunnel Rats. We’ll hear more from Job and Pete, Garry and Hap as they share their personal experiences in the tunnels. You’ll hear Robert Batman’s name come up again and again and again. He passed [00:29:30] away some years ago. Nobody could tell me exactly when, but he might as well have been sitting right there with us at that reunion. That’s how profoundly I felt his presence in the memories of men who, if not for him, might not be [00:29:45] here to share them with me. And with you? Two weeks from now.

CROAN: [00:29:53] See you then.

Full Interview with Mike Stubbs