# Were snakes a big problem for soldiers in Vietnam?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 31, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424 "2015-03-31T16:10:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/1 "2015-03-31T16:10:33Z")
Hello Everyone,
I was just wondering if snakes were a huge problem for soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam. I’m sure there were plenty of venomous snakes in the area. Did we lose soldiers due to snake bites? Did medics carry anti-venom?
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/2 "2015-03-31T16:24:52Z")
- Studies indicated only 25-50 snakebite incidents occurred annually in US forces. Of these, only a few necessitated intensive therapy…
…The most common venomous bite was from the arboreal white-lipped bamboo viper, but such a bite was never lethal for an American soldier (Berlinger and Flowers 1973) (fig. 69).\*
From [here](http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/vietnam/GenMedVN/CH10.html). From the reference above apparently fear of snakebite was pronounced, but all out of proportion to its actual occurrence or lethality. Quoting some more:
_The authors found, upon interviewing troops in Vietnam, that the majority believed that poisonous snakes were to be found in abundance there and that few persons survived a bite. Soldiers from rattlesnake infested areas in the United States harbored little fear of these reptiles but were deathly afraid of the “bamboo vipers” of Vietnam. In actuality, the “bamboo viper” is a small snake which seldom injects sufficient venom to inflict a serious bite, whereas rattlesnakes are capable of producing death or permanent injury in victims. Almost all of the persons questioned had heard of the “cigarette snakes” (when you are bitten you only have time for one cigarette); or the “two-step snake” (no explanation necessary), but were not cognizant that only one snakebite death had occurred in US forces since United States involvement there_. \*
\*As of 1973 when the article with that quote was released.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/3 "2015-03-31T17:34:00Z")
That’s interesting, because I had always heard tales of the deadly “two step” snakes. Interesting that there was no such thing!
I should have guessed - on TV shows when I was a kid, the western US was full of deadly creatures. Everyone “knew” scorpions, black widow spiders, tarantulas and rattle snakes were all instant death machines. (It’s so pathetic to see Bond “menaced” by a tarantula in Dr No. And on top of that, they used photo tricks - Connery wasn’t even in the scene with the spider.)
How did these creatures ever get that reputation? Scorpion stings are not pleasant, a black widow bite can make you so sick that you hope for death, but generally you won’t die from either. And tarantulas were never fatal. Rattlesnakes - yeah they can be fatal. One out of four.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/4 "2015-03-31T18:03:08Z")
Nah, Vietnam may be a buggy, snake-infested hellhole, but it’s no Australia.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/5 "2015-03-31T18:14:08Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> How did these creatures ever get that reputation? Scorpion stings are not pleasant, a black widow bite can make you so sick that you hope for death, but generally you won’t die from either. And tarantulas were never fatal. Rattlesnakes - yeah they can be fatal. One out of four.
They got the reputation because people died from them. People have varying levels of sensitivity to venom and there were no genuinely effective treatments until relatively recently. In addition, some number of bite/sting victims were allergic and died due to anaphylaxis, for which there also was no effective treatment until recently. Not to mention that although “only” one out of four people may die from a rattlesnake bite (in this age of modern medicine) that statistic ignores the number of bite victims that lose digits or whole limbs to [tissue damage](http://www.natural-health-news.com/rattlesnake-bite-symptoms-causes-diagnosis-and-treatment/). [Check out some brown recluse bites for additional hilarity.](http://www.emedicinehealth.com/spider_bite_brown_recluse_spider_bite/page12_em.htm) Pre-antibiotics, the open sore from such bites was, alone, an invitation to death by sepsis.
People had good reason to develop fear of venomous creatures.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/6 "2015-03-31T18:20:40Z")
:eek: :eek: I’ll take my chances with the snakes.
> **[Man-eaters. The tiger and lion, attacks on humans.](http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/maneating13.html)**
>
> Man-eaters. The tiger and lion, attacks on humans.
> [@](#):
>
> Stories from Vietnam:
> Tiger attacks increased during the Vietnam war; this was due to the frequency with which bodies lay unburied. Despite claims to the contrary, tigers will scavenge and feed at old kills, be they their own, or someone else’s. Having developed a taste for human flesh they would then attack soldiers quite readily. The first stories illustrate some of the many tiger encounters experienced in during the Vietnamese war.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/7 "2015-03-31T18:22:44Z")
There has NEVER been a recorded death from a tarantula. Never.
Black widow and scorpion bites are rarely fatal in healthy adults. They hurt like hell. In certain cases, yes, bites and stings can be fatal.
But, so can getting trampled by a ornery cow, or kicked by a horse. But horses and cows are not considered lethal killing machines of the west like scorpions and black widows.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/8 "2015-03-31T18:24:07Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> :eek: :eek: I’ll take my chances with the snakes.
>
> [Man-eaters. The tiger and lion, attacks on humans.](http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/maneating13.html)
NEVER get out of the boat! Absolutely goddamn right!
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/9 "2015-03-31T18:30:36Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> There has NEVER been a recorded death from a tarantula. Never.
>
> Black widow and scorpion bites are rarely fatal in healthy adults. They hurt like hell. In certain cases, yes, bites and stings can be fatal.
>
> But, so can getting trampled by a ornery cow, or kicked by a horse. But horses and cows are not considered lethal killing machines of the west like scorpions and black widows.
What answer are you looking for? People are teh stoopud? People learned to fear them because of painful, disfiguring, not infrequently lethal bites. Whether you consider their fears valid is a separate issue and not one that is arguable one way or the other.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/10 "2015-03-31T19:25:00Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> **Scorpion stings are not pleasant** , a black widow bite can make you so sick that you hope for death, but generally you won’t die from either.
Emphasis added. That mostly hold true in the United States were there is only one [medically significant scorpion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_bark_scorpion) and that only barely makes it over the border - mostly it is an issue in Arizona. But elsewhere ( like the Pacific coast of Mexico ) there is a slightly more diverse crew of nasty actors. Generally speaking very, very few scorpion species are dangerous ( less than 0.025% ), but some of the ones that are can pack a real wallop.
Props to Australia - they have none of those deadly species :D.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/11 "2015-03-31T19:36:29Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> - Studies indicated only 25-50 snakebite incidents occurred annually in US forces. Of these, only a few necessitated intensive therapy…
>
> …The most common venomous bite was from the arboreal white-lipped bamboo viper …\*
ARBOREAL? You mean like, I’d be walking along and poisonous snakes would drop down onto me out of the trees? I totally understand the need for intensive therapy. :eek:
Also: Snakes have lips?
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### Author:  [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/12 "2015-03-31T20:00:37Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#):
>
> ARBOREAL? You mean like, I’d be walking along and poisonous snakes would drop down onto me out of the trees? I totally understand the need for intensive therapy. :eek:
>
> Also: Snakes have lips?
The better to kiss you with, my dear. o\_O
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### Author:  [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/13 "2015-03-31T20:23:49Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> That’s interesting, because I had always heard tales of the deadly “two step” snakes. Interesting that there was no such thing!
You will always have much longer to live than two steps, but there are several species of snakes in the world whose bites are close to 100% fatal without antivenin.
IIRC the only one of these native to Asia is the Krait (there are other species whose untreated bites kill well over half the victims). Here is an account of the death from a Krait bite of a world-renowned herpetologist who was careless. He succumbed in about 28 hours:
[The Death of Dr. Joe Slowinski](http://www.outsideonline.com/1917911/bit)
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### Author:  [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/14 "2015-03-31T20:57:18Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> :eek: :eek: I’ll take my chances with the snakes.
>
> [Man-eaters. The tiger and lion, attacks on humans.](http://www.lairweb.org.nz/tiger/maneating13.html)
It is gathered that tigers in Vietnam are nowadays in a bad way, compared with in the days of the war.
> **[Indochinese tiger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochinese_tiger)**
>
> The Indochinese tiger is a population of the Panthera tigris tigris subspecies that is native to Southeast Asia. This population occurs in Myanmar and Thailand. In 2011, the population was thought to comprise 342 individuals, including 85 in Myanmar and 20 in Vietnam, with the largest population unit surviving in Thailand, estimated at 189 to 252 individuals during the period 2009 to 2014.
> Panthera tigris corbetti was proposed as a scientific name for this specific population by Vratislav Mazák ...
It would appear from the above, that the Indochinese variety of the tiger is highly endangered: doing – very relatively – better in Thailand and Myanmar, than in the three countries of Indochina proper, where it is teetering on the edge of extinction. While one would have to be a very extreme wildlife enthusiast, to welcome being killed and eaten by a tiger in the course of going about one’s business: I cannot but feel sad about the current situation.
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### Author:  [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/15 "2015-03-31T20:57:32Z")
FWIW, the [King Cobra](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cobra) (_Ophiophagus hannah_)'s range includes Vietnam. Weirdly, if you’d asked me before I looked it up, I’d have thought that [Russell’s Viper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daboia) would’ve been the big killer and that the King Cobra, like the Spectacled Cobra, (_Naja naja_) would’ve only been found in India and Sri Lanka. Russell’s isn’t native to Vietnam, though the wiki states that it’s being found there more and more often. As a popular way to avoid American reconnaissance was to dig bunkers underground, I wonder just how bad a problem snakes were for the NVA and VC? Similarly, it’d be interesting to read accounts from the Communist side about animal encounters along the Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia border region.
Here’s [another site](http://www.ichiban1.org/html/stories/story_46_tiger.htm) with **aceplace57** ’s account, this time with pictures of the critter. The [Korean tiger is supposedly making a comeback](http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/05/09/tiger.tracking.dmz/) within their DMZ.
Beautiful animals, even the snakes.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/16 "2015-03-31T23:10:14Z")
Only when they flew.
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### Author:  [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/17 "2015-03-31T23:14:41Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> - Studies indicated only 25-50 snakebite incidents occurred annually in US forces. Of these, only a few necessitated intensive therapy…
>
> …The most common venomous bite was from the arboreal white-lipped bamboo viper, but such a bite was never lethal for an American soldier (Berlinger and Flowers 1973) (fig. 69).\*
14 minutes from question to answer. Well done, sir, even if you are one of the worst conquerors in history. 😉
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### Author:  [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/18 "2015-03-31T23:37:42Z")
Tangentially related, there was an interesting [Cracked article](http://www.cracked.com/article_22206_8-facts-about-vietnam-war-i-learned-as-viet-cong.html) recently about Vietnam, from the point-of-view of an enemy combatant.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/19 "2015-03-31T23:39:44Z")
**Moderator Note**
Typo in title fixed.
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### Author:  [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-snakes-a-big-problem-for-soldiers-in-vietnam/716424/20 "2015-04-01T02:01:05Z")
> [@Nelson\_Pike](#):
>
> You will always have much longer to live than two steps, but there are several species of snakes in the world whose bites are close to 100% fatal without antivenin.
>
> IIRC the only one of these native to Asia is the Krait (there are other species whose untreated bites kill well over half the victims). Here is an account of the death from a Krait bite of a world-renowned herpetologist who was careless. He succumbed in about 28 hours:
>
> [The Death of Dr. Joe Slowinski](http://www.outsideonline.com/1917911/bit)
If only he’d have been Quickinsky.
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