Saltpeter, Black Syph, Rocket Watch, Shit details, and Other Things We Swore Were True
🪖 Brothers In Arms • Field Notes from Those Who Served
War Runs on Rumors
Saltpeter in Our Chow?
Every generation of Marines seems to hear this one.
The rumor was that the military mixed saltpeter into our eggs or coffee to lower our sex drive and keep young Marines from chasing Vietnamese girls—or catching diseases while doing it.
Was it true?
The military has always denied it, and there’s no scientific evidence saltpeter actually works that way.
Personally?
I’m skeptical.
But after months in the bush carrying seventy pounds of gear, sleeping four hours a night, eating C-rations, and wondering if you’d survive tomorrow, your romantic ambitions weren’t exactly running at full throttle anyway.
Maybe exhaustion was the real ingredient.
Gold Beyond the DMZ
One day I was riding shotgun in a supply convoy heading toward Dong Ha when our driver got excited.
“I heard they found gold north of the DMZ!”
He wanted to keep driving.
Into North Vietnam.
To look for it.
Had Kelly’s Heroes already been released, I would have sworn he was trying to recruit us for the sequel.
I just laughed.
“You boys go ahead,” I said.
“Drop me off at Dong Ha.”
Black Syph
If jungle rumors had a boogeyman, this was it.
Everybody had heard of Black Syph.
Nobody had actually seen it.
The story was simple.
Catch it from the wrong girl…
…and you died.
No cure.
No treatment.
Just dead.
Looking back, it was probably nothing more than another exaggerated scare story designed to keep young Marines out of trouble.
Whether it worked is another question.
Rocket Watch
Every unit had practical jokes.
Ours included assigning the newest guy to Rocket Watch.
His mission?
Sit on top of the bunker with a machine gun and shoot down enemy rockets before they could reach your compound.
Think about that for a second.
You hear the rocket…it sounds like a 747 is landing on your roof.
You can’t see it coming, it’s balistic.
It was Vietnam’s version of a snipe hunt.
The poor kid would climb onto the bunker completely serious while the rest of us waited to see how long it took before the shooting started or a guy who instead realized he’d been had.
“Your Cow Has TB”
One day some Marines confiscated a mysterious amber-colored liquid that local drug users were mixing with heroin.
It was sent away to the lab.
Everybody waited for the official analysis.
The report finally came back.
One sentence.
“Your cow has TB.”
To this day I have absolutely no idea what it meant.
Neither did anyone else.
Burning The Shitters
If Hollywood ever wanted to make an authentic Vietnam movie, there is one detail they almost always leave out.
The toilets.
Our “heads”—or “latrines” as the Army called them—weren’t much more than glorified outhouses. They were simple rectangular structures with bamboo walls, corrugated metal roofs, and wooden platforms with toilet seats mounted over half barrels.
And that’s where the fun began.
The barrels were actually 55-gallon drums cut in half lengthwise and partially filled with diesel fuel. Everything dropped directly into them.
Every few days, one of the least desirable jobs in Vietnam had to be performed.
Some unlucky enlisted Marines—usually anyone below the exalted rank of E-4—were assigned to “burn the shitters.”
The process was exactly what it sounds like.
The barrels were dragged out through a trap door at the back of the latrine, doused with more diesel fuel, and set on fire.
The smell was something that cannot be adequately described in polite company.
Unfortunately, simply setting them on fire wasn’t enough.
To ensure complete combustion, someone had to stir the burning mixture with a stick.
Imagine a witch’s cauldron.
Now imagine that the witch had very poor sanitation habits.
Once the fire had done its work and the contents had been reduced to something manageable, the barrels were dragged back under the seats, ready for another few days of service.
It was hot.
It was dirty.
It was disgusting.
And it was one of those jobs that convinced every Marine that promotion to Corporal was one of the noblest ambitions a man could have.
Looking back, we laugh about it now.
At the time, however, “burning the shitters” was compelling evidence that military recruiters sometimes left out important details during the sales pitch.
Continue Exploring
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Boot Camp Didn’t Prepare Me for Vietnam
The journey from MCRD San Diego to the combat zone that no amount of training could fully prepare me for. -
The Walking Dead Man
How a Marine became marked for death and what happened when everyone around him knew it. -
The Theft Ring
The story of corruption, fear, and survival inside the Marine Corps in Vietnam. -
Boot Camp Legends, Vol. 1
The stories every Marine remembers from recruit training but never found in the official history books. -
From Ambush to Birdies
How a place where I once took sniper fire eventually became part of a championship golf course in Vietnam.
BUNKER NOTICE: Every war creates its own folklore. Some stories were true. Some were exaggerated. Some were probably complete nonsense. We told them anyway.
If you enjoy military memories, Vietnam stories, barracks humor, and the strange culture that develops when young people live through extraordinary circumstances, you’ll feel right at home in the Bunker Briefing.