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"We lived with and flew in support of these Green Berets out of Forward Operating Base (FOB)-2 in Kontum Vietnam 1967-1968."
Warren Castaneira
February 25 at 3:09 PM
Here is a re-post on Bubba. We got him in Laos after his mom tramped on a landmine. He was only two days old, but I had him in my jungle jacket wrapped in a towel and when we were extracted we fed him milk and got him started on his way.
He did well because he got much larger than an Asian Tiger usually grew to. His weakness was real beer (He had two cans a day) which he slurped down, went to a corner of the hooch, rolled on his back, showed his junk and snored like it was his last day! If the Bubster wanted to get in your bunk with you, you just rolled over and dealt with it.
It's such a shame so many tigers were killed over there because most were killed for sport and not in self defense.
When we cycled out, the question was, what the hell to do with Bubba? He couldn't survive because he only knew SOG, Special Forces, Seals, etc. Here is where we got creative. We had access to things normal military didn't.
So we got creative and a phone call went to a research zoo in Sidney, Australia and we asked if they wanted a "free tiger?" When the lady at the other end realized we were for real she pissed her pants and said, "Yes, but how do we get him?"
I don't want to reference Air America, but we flew the Bubster to his new home and I got off the airplane with him walking beside me like a dog on a leash. They all went nuts when he walked to the lady and heeled by her side looking at her for instructions. He must have had a very good time and life there because he sired tons of babies.
When I was back in Sidney in 87 I saw a bronze plaque telling about the SF Tiger that came to them in 1969 and made lots a great baby tigers.
That part of my life is gone, like Bubba who lasted to 1985, but every time I hear a Tiger make those special noises my head and heart goes back to a tiny little baby we found in Laos in 1968.
God I miss him! BTW the Bubster never lived in a cage. He was always shown love from a bunch of very dangerous men whose hearts melted when they met him. To discipline him you grabbed a handful of hair and flesh on his shoulder and simply said "no." He never retaliated he just complied.
When I said he never lived in a cage, the decision was made about the zoo where he ended up, because it was a research zoo that was very excited because of gene diversity. It also had the new concept of no animals in cages. People were the ones in cages or behind glass.
It took a bit for him to get back to being a tiger, but after he figured out the male/female thing, nature took its course and he was off to the races and he made a ton of tiger babies who are in zoos around the world.
God Bless, to my knowledge, Bubba was the only Special Forces tiger in the history books.
An interesting side note is that SF and MAC V were in many ways involved with the CIA. The coats and ties back in Langley, VA couldn't understand how our intel was so accurate.
Picture a NVA prisoner strapped into a chair and being questioned. Also picture the prisoner telling us in multiple languages to go F--- ourselves. So a hood goes back on and the prisoner was told to spill the beans or we were going to feed the zip to our tiger. They all laughed their asses off and said we were crazy. Enter the Bubster and we'd have his head about two feet from the prisoner, pull the hood off-- at the same time I would pinch the back of Bubbas neck. He roared in the dinks face with his extremely nasty tiger breath and the prisoner usually pissed his pants or worse while he sang like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
God I miss that stuff. BTW, our intel was so accurate the pencil necks were amazed, but they never found out why!
