Never Sleep in Wet Clothing, the Army Said. 15 Truths About How Vietnam Grunts Really Slept

Ask a Vietnam veteran what he remembers most about the field, and a lot of them won't start with the firefights. They'll tell you they were tired. Tired all the time, for a year. In this countdown, an old grunt who served with the 25th Infantry Division around Cu Chi and then in the Mekong Delta remembers how he slept, or didn't: the 1965 jungle manual that said "never sleep in wet, dirty clothing," leeches, scorpions and red ants, the enemy's parachute-cloth hammocks and the Army's hammock test, the patched air mattress, the rats in the bunker and the 21-day rabies wait, mosquito nets and malaria, sleeping on top of the track and on the floor of a Huey, the pills to stay awake, H&I fire all night, the Delta where you couldn't dig a hole, the 10-year maximum for sleeping on guard, the first real bed on R&R, the WRAIR doctors who came to the paddies, the 48-hour rule that finally let men dry their feet, and the most important rule of all: two men in a hole, one sleeps, one watches. What was the worst place you ever tried to sleep over there? How many hours did you get on a good night? And who was the man in your hole, the one you trusted with your watch? Tell us below. Chapters 0:00 Two in the morning, west of Cu Chi 1:29 #15 What the manual said 4:12 #14 Company in the dark 6:22 #13 The enemy's hammock 8:34 #12 The air mattress 10:29 #11 Rats in the bunker 13:00 #10 The mosquito net 15:29 #9 Sleeping on the move 17:53 #8 The pill to stay awake 20:04 For veterans: Agent Orange presumption + your hours on a good night 21:02 #7 Outgoing all night 23:42 #6 No place to dig 25:59 #5 Asleep on guard 28:30 #4 The first real bed 30:40 #3 The doctors who came to the paddies 33:08 #2 The order to dry out 35:38 #1 Two in a hole 38:23 Back to the hole 39:46 Who was the man in your hole? For veterans: the VA presumes Agent Orange exposure for anyone who served on the ground in Vietnam. Under the PACT Act (2022), hypertension and MGUS were added to the presumptive list. https://www.va.gov/disability/eligibi... (Not affiliated with the VA.) If nights are still hard: Veterans Crisis Line, dial 988, then press 1. About the veteran's voice: his memories are a composite drawn from many published veterans' accounts. The facts, names and figures in the narration come from the sources below. Sources FM 31-30 "Jungle Operations" (1965); FM 21-75 (1962); FM 7-15 (1965): US Army field manuals Spurgeon Neel, "Medical Support of the U.S. Army in Vietnam 1965–1970" (CMH Pub 90-16): malaria, skin disease, WRAIR field team, plague surveillance, aviator fatigue Julian Ewell & Ira Hunt, "Sharpening the Combat Edge" (CMH Pub 90-20): Delta night operations, immersion foot, the 48-hour rule, Operation Safe Step John Hay, "Tactical and Materiel Innovations" (CMH Pub 90-21); Donn Starry, "Mounted Combat in Vietnam" (CMH Pub 90-17); John Tolson, "Airmobility" (CMH Pub 90-4) Army Concept Team in Vietnam, jungle hammock evaluation (DTIC AD0813494, 1967); Australian War Memorial collection: VC hammock of US parachute fabric John M. Hawkins, "The Costs of Artillery" (Journal of Military History, 2006): H&I fire Executive Order 11317 (1966); UCMJ Article 113; Army Board for Correction of Military Records cases Lukasz Kamienski, "Shooting Up" / The Atlantic (2016), citing the 1971 House Select Committee on Crime: stimulant use HistoryNet; Australian DVA: R&R; Beverly Deepe Keever collection (UNL): Operation Summerall photo Neylan et al. (Am J Psychiatry 1998); Raskind et al. (Am J Psychiatry 2003; NEJM 2018): nightmares and prazosin Veterans' accounts: 11th Armored Cavalry, 3/4 Cavalry (Centaurs), 4th Infantry Division (Steedly), Firebase Bastogne