I think maybe so. This is a true account of an event. No fiction, just some of the language has been toned down or altered for the forum. The teller of this will turn 91 next month. He went on to serve as a sniper in Korea with 32 confirmed hits and 29 probables. He used his VA benefits to get a PHD. in wildlife biology, is a well known researcher and a world recognized expert in some mammal species.
I can set and visit with him for hours on end.


Korea – 1952 Mountain Man

Smell'em

It was really dark that night, so dark we couldn't see three feet from our hole. It had been raining for days and our hole was a soggy bathtub that we kept bailing out with the steel shells of our helmets but there was really no place for the water to go.

We had taken the hill three and a half days ago and had repulsed three days of counter attacks, mostly at night. The last attempt to drive us off the hill had been a half-hearted one that morning. Since then it had just been a continuous bombardment of 120 mm artillery. That led us to believe they were planning something for that night. We had no wire in front of us. None had been brought up the hill. Very little had been brought up except ammunition. They could have sent us something to eat, but they hadn't. We had been issued three days of assault rations, but like soldiers throughout the history of warfare, we had eaten it all on the first day.

It was 0200 hours on the fourth day and we had been awake for three days and nights. Forty-eight hours without sleep is not so hard when you are getting shot at and fighting off counter attacks. After 72 hours, life gets a little weird and it gets harder to focus on what you are supposed to be doing. You begin to hallucinate at night and see things that are not there. Even imagine things that didn't happen.

It was at this point that Red whispered to me “they're out there.”
Who's out there ?
“Enemy are,” said Red
Where ?
“In front of us --- and close.”
How do you know ? I can't see a thing.
“I can smell 'em'. “
Do what ? I can't smell a thing.
“You got a cold?”
No I don't have a cold, I just can't smell 'em --- and you can't either.
“The heck I can't smell the stinking yellow turds. They're not 10 yards from us and I could spit on them from here.”
Chinese or Korean ?
“Chinese.”
You can tell the difference ?
“Yes I sure can.”

With that said, Red eased the pin out of a hand grenade, let the “spoon” off and counted one, two, and gently lobbed the grenade out in front of our hole. We ducked down in our hole and waited two seconds , the grenade exploded and the flash was followed by a scream or maybe two screams at the same time.
After that it was quiet and we were wide awake now.

Red said that he could still smell'em but he thought they were dead. “They're not moving any more and I think they're dead. I can smell their blood.”
You're crazy, I said. Smell their blood ? For crying out loud. You can't smell their blood.
“The heck I can't. I smelled the stinking turds didn't I. You can't tell me I didn't smell any turds. I can still smell the yellow turds and they are as dead as four o'clock. Just you wait till morning and you'll see.”

As it dawned, wet and steamy, we could see two dead Chinese --- maybe five yards from our hole and beyond that a trail of blood down the hill.
Red said “see, there they are just like I told you. They're dead now, just like I said they were. You gotta get over that cold Carter. You gotta be able to smell'em when it's too dark to see'em.”

Red was from somewhere in the hills of eastern Tennessee and was easy with the darkest night.
No doubt he had spent a lot of time chasing coon hounds through the woods at night.
He was a true mountain man with the senses of a caveman.
He could always see, hear and smell things the rest of us couldn't.

Great story, maybe put it over on the writer's forum.

Great story

I can believe that he could determine a scent of a nature that wasn't in his group of GI's. If they were eating a lot of Kempshi (sp), its got a strong smell.

Our soldiers in Nam were told, " if you go out on a 30 day stay, careful what your eating, the enemy can smell the food in your waste.

Then they can determine who you are, and what decisive moves to make. Often we ate rice and fish. What I was told.

I believe it... was sitting with a customer I just delivered bait to... heard a car door open out of sight in the parking lot...Told the owner of the shop , "here comes a bunch of Korean customers"

Sure enough around the corner of the building came 4 Korean gentlemen, I could smell them as the left the car, around the corner of the building, over 50 feet away, in a baitshop! ... they were upwind though, lol

We have quite a few Somalis in our area. They have an odor that distinguishes them from others. Some say it's because of a tea-like beverage that most of them drink.

That's a great story. Well written too. Good job.


I can smell coyote and raccoon order coming out of my pores a couple days after I start skinning. Blood does smell. I bet most of you can smell things like that.

I liked that story!

A friend I grew up with was a Navy Seal in Nam. He said they ate what they ate and worn their sandals so army boots would not give them away.

If anyone has ever eaten, or been around someone that has eaten, Petai aka "Stink Beans" You better believe you will smell them! One of the favorite foods of Asians. Turn your pee green and the smell . . . WHoooooo!

I was asked once by an NCO to take a look in a tunnel. I told him, "that is not my MOS"! "If you want to stop whatever is in there, give me a grenade and stand back!

Then I'll proceed to bury it with my dozer. And hope that works."

I dated a girl and her dad was a Seal in Nam. He worked over there off of the first nuclear sub, the Nautalis I think it was. I can't even imagine what all a Seal had to do off of a sub in Nam but I'm sure he did it. He said when they were going out that they would eat and sleep off by themsleves at camp like the enemy would and be out for days on end eating like them in the field too. It wasn't just your poo it was your BO and breath and just smell in general soaps and aftershaves that you can't smell like so you can't really be around your buddies either.

The biggest thing that he ever talked about that bothered him most was knowing what had really happend to boat of our soldiers and where they were and what they were doing isn't what all their family got told and he battled with having that information and not being able to tell them but thinking that they should be told that everything happend half way around the world from what they thought.

There is a scene in We Were Soldiers like that. It was dark, they couldn't see anything, and the one guy could smell them so they shoot and the enemy was on top of them.

Odd continuation of the story but I was from a town in Ohio and he was from Chicago and an old timer in my small town served with him. Like they knew each other well from over there. Whats the chances of that? Weird.