The Verminator

Testosterone is the most potent of toxins. There is also a strange cumulative effect that is invariably manifest when large numbers of young males congregate. In no place is this more starkly manifest than in the military.

The US Armed Forces are at least a bit more of a gender balanced mob these days. Some 14% of the US Army is currently female. That number was markedly smaller in my day, particularly in the Combat Arms. While I have my reservations about coed tank crews being crammed into a space the size of a closet for a month at a time, I do suspect this brave new world has brought some welcome civility.

In my era, however, a combat unit was just a bunch of guys. Jocular, profane, inimitably coarse and shockingly loyal, this merry band comprised the most curiously dysfunctional family. Their antics could fill a proper book.

Enemy Forces

The formal appellation of the humble house mouse is Mus musculus. The common mouse is one of the most successful mammalian genera on earth today. Their capacity to adapt and reproduce at a simply breathtaking rate has helped these ubiquitous rodents thrive around the globe.

Mice actually have fairly lousy eyesight, but they compensate with superb hearing and an exceptional sense of smell. A primarily nocturnal species, mice use their sense of smell to find food and their super hearing to avoid predators. Mice are notorious for eating stuff we’d sooner they not and building elaborate burrows, sometimes in undesirable places.

Up close a single mouse is actually fairly adorable. In prodigious numbers mice are invariably unsettling. In addition to being a major source of crop damage, mice carry parasites and spread disease through their feces. As a result, a proper mouse infestation is best dealt with aggressively and fast.

The Battleground

Our hangars dated back to the 1920’s and had previously hosted airships. Given that our massive Army helicopters were 98 feet long and weighed 25 tons, the space was welcome. However, sealing such an expansive edifice against both the elements and rodents is no mean feat. My guys began noticing that we were developing a bit of a mouse problem.

It’s kind of a big deal. Some sort of kangaroo rat got into my aircraft one time in the desert and ate the sweaty palms out of my flight gloves. I spent the rest of the deployment looking like some kind of homeless Rambo. If they started munching on the aircraft wiring or something similar — that would not be cool.

I have no idea what these little guys found to eat in the hangar. In my personal workshop, the mice ate my bar of soap, my matches, and a really cool water moccasin hide I had stretched out and mounted on a board. At least I hope they ate that stuff. I’d sooner not ponder a world wherein mice can practice good hygiene, start fires, and wander about masquerading as venomous serpents.

When faced with such a quandary, the sensible man (or any woman) would go out and buy half a dozen mouse traps or maybe just adopt a cat. However, these were not sensible men. These were young enlisted soldiers with more enthusiasm than sense. To make things worse, they also possessed some undeniably mad technical skills and had access to some simply breathtaking resources. As a result, they decided they’d make their own mousetrap.