1st Battalion 22nd Infantry Battle of The Rock Page2

1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

June 1970

In the month of June, we spent from the 1st through the18th in the Area of Operation, the AO, where David Prentice was killed and Steve Wach was wounded. I do not have the maps for those grids, but I do know that it is nowhere near the AO of the Rock. But we were very nervous and jumpy in this area as there was a lot of enemy activity. It was not the thick jungle that we were more accustomed to but was what I would call lightly forested. In many places visibility was 100 yards or more. We had several contacts (firefights) and were sniped at several times, losing Prentice and Wach to snipers.

I recall one occasion in this AO, perhaps the day that Steve was wounded or the day before, I was knelt down heating my C-Rations, suddenly it sounded as if someone fired a weapon right beside my ear. I hit the dirt scrambling for cover. My buddies there around me looked at me as if I were nuts, for they had heard nothing, but only for a second or two, then we all heard the sound of the weapon being fired in the distance and they were hitting the dirt also. We were taking sniper fire. I have discussed this with many grunts in the years since, while not unheard of it is somewhat rare. We all agree, it is the sound of the bullet breaking the sound barrier right by a person’s ear. The round traveling so much faster than the speed of sound and beating the noise of the actual weapon being fired. The question is, how close? An inch? A foot, two feet? 1/8 inch?
Much more common are those who have heard the whiz of bullets overhead. Again, those rounds are very close. But, also, how close? A foot? Two feet?
I have no answers, only a story.

Steve later told me a version of the same thing. He said when he was shot in the leg, he was momentarily confused as to what happened because he didn’t hear anything. I would imagine in both instances the sniper was two to three hundred yards away, but I’m just guessing.

We were glad to be CA’d out of there, or so we thought. In retrospect, we jumped from the frying pan into the fire on 19 June.

I hope to write more about this time frame of Jun 1-18 at a later date.
I do have the dates of our CA’s between 1st and 18th, and the grids and the memories, but not the maps.

I will jump straight to the story of what happens after the CA of 19 June. Those of us involved always referred to it as The Battle of the Rock.

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