Psychological repercussions
These tunnels hugely impacted American morale as it was difficult to comprehend that the enemy could be hiding just feet away yet were undetectable and unreachable. Frank Gutierrez, for example, served with the US Army in Vietnam from 1967 to 1970 as a rifleman, field wireman, and an ordinance specialist at Chu Chi and Long Binh. When interviewed he stated: “We often wondered how things happened in the night and we never saw what was going on, guys getting their throat cut. Nobody ever knew where these guys were coming from… they pointed out in jungle school that there was a tunnel system… we had numerous tunnel rats, but we never knew exactly where or how extensive or where the entrance was. We just didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
One of the huge psychological issues for tunnel rats was the closeness of combat. Even if they could deal with the claustrophobic conditions, air and artillery support had not prepared them for the type of old-fashioned combat that relied on savage behavior, individual strength, guts, and cunningness. The Viet Cong, with their lack of funding, was more skilled in this area given the necessity of their style of warfare. One Viet Cong technique was to slit a man’s throat or garrotte him as he came up through a connecting trap door; this often did not phase the men.
When it came to Americans, however, some found it difficult to kill when they were face-to-face with the enemy in such tight confines. Naturally, there were only first chances, never second, so some simply killed as they had to. On occasion, they ended up having severe nervous breakdowns and their colleagues dragged them out of tunnels crying and screaming. Sergeant Arnold Gutierrez of the 25th Division stated that after a while they became so tuned to what was happening “that when the other person would flick an eyelid up or down, you really knew he was there, in the corner, not even hiding anymore. Just sitting and waiting. [But] They were the ones you never killed. You just backed out and told them up above the tunnel was cold.”