In the Vietnam war Special Forces Medics were in charge of Green Beret camp sanitation. One cleanliness issue to be dealt with was rats. Medic Jerry Kizan first used a 12 gauge shotgun to stem the horde. In order to reduce indoor personnel and equipment damage, he loaded it with uncooked rice instead of buckshot. But at one point the Army decided that U.S. soldiers shouldn’t have shotguns and took away Jerry’s weapon. That left rats with the run of the camp. Looking for a way to keep the rat population down, he decided on feline intervention. So he got a couple of kittens from a nearby village. One turned out to be a first rate ratter, with Jerry saying that the cat “definitely deserved some kind of medal”. Next: Medical Dogs.
