also, Re; Rats-
Dak To sounds like my kinda place... NOT !!

Beer, YES!! C-rats, well, o.k.

I guess you were relatively safe from ricochets from the light switches, huh?

Pots and pans? skru dat!!!

At bunker 26, which I occupied several times, I saw rats I thought at first were HUGE cats, but cats would have moved silently, not rustling the c-rat cans and other trash.

I had a high-school pal at 71st Evac- (the Armorer there)- had a nice selection of "toys"-
I visit him occasionally, and we'd paste rats (in his hootch) with single shots from a .45 and a
.45 M3 Grease gun with a wax or soap bullet, both fired only with the primer. Great fun.

In fact, one day (must have been a Sunday, late in my tour- Rick decided we'd take a bunch of "his"
weapons out to the boonies and "test" them...
we gathered up at least one of each type we could find (there were MANY) and except for the ones we were normally accustomed to, (our standard issue), all the ammo we could scrounge up.

We got a 'deuce and a half and went out toward Enari, to a huge stand of trees on the left as we drove south from the Intersection of QL19 and 14.

Fired that mutha up. Didn't EVEN think about mebbe gettin in trouble of any kind, or runnin' into any out there. Duh ! and I remember a while later seeing photos of a bunch of dinks "supposedly" engaged and defeated right out there...but that was a 7/17th Cav story, so.....

When some Cav kid took his own life, the 52nd Commander (LTC Merritt?? I think Utzman was gone) had all E-5 and below "support" guys- lock up their weapons in the Arms Rooms or in Conexes at their duty sections. No kiddin'. for over a week.

Rick let me borrow a .45 for a while, and I had an M2 carbine that Davey Silk and I strongly suspect, here in 2002, that Davey built- it was behind a plywood panel in the wall of my hootch, just within reach from the door. A shakedown, come to think of it, would have been my undoing...

I just recalled a form from my 201 file, which I signed at Holloway,, agreeing that having "other than authorized weapons" was a violation of Article 92, UCMJ... oh, well... some of the stuff I saw guys with... ha ha ha...

I'm a strong believer in the 2nd Amendment, Bob...

TLump