1st Battalion 22nd Infantry The sniper

C Company 1/22 Infantry stayed in the jungle between An Khe and Binh Khe for nearly two months in late 1970. We humped
everything we needed on our backs, finding or making a clearing every 4 or 5 days for re-supply by helicopter. High in the mountains
we took water from streams, filling our canteens and adding purification tablets and packets of Kool Aid we had folks from home send us
to kill the horrible taste of the tablets. At times we would come across nothing but water too foul to use or no water at all. Then the helicopters
would sling huge black rubber blivets with potable water and bring them with the re-supply. The blivets were big 500 gallon tanks of water
with a spigot on one side to allow the water to flow out into our canteens.

At one LZ (Landing Zone) on the top of a ridge line, a few hours after we had received our re-supply “Utah” and I were detailed
to fill the canteens for our squad. One of the big blivets had been set down in the landing zone to supply us with water.

The LZ had been cut by hand by us and Engineers who had been flown out to help. To clear the landing zone of jungle
we used axes and chainsaws brought by the Engineers along with our machetes. A number of trees were blown down
with C-4 plastic explosive. The blivet was away from the center of the LZ next to a large pile of cut down limbs and branches
and tree trunks.

We had finished filling the canteens and were standing about three feet apart when a sniper in the opposite tree line fired a shot
that went literally right between me and “Utah”. The shot passed so close I felt my shirt move from the air the bullet displaced
as it travelled supersonically between us. “Utah” later said he felt the heat from it. I don’t know if you can actually feel the heat
from a bullet but at least what he said meant he felt it too and I wasn’t just imagining it.

We dove into the pile of limbs just as the sniper’s second shot cracked overhead. His third shot smacked into the limbs and made us
burrow deeper into the tangle of branches, nearer to the ground. Our frantic scramble to get inside those limbs and branches left both
of us in extreme unnatural positions with our arms and legs bent at awkward angles and pointed in different directions as we tried to
become liquid in our attempt to hide inside those branches. We looked so ridiculous that we both couldn’t help it and we burst out
laughing at each other for a minute before we untangled ourselves and got on the ground against the pile, shielded from the sniper.

The guys in the tree line on our side of the LZ yelled out to stay put. But we weren't going anywhere. We each had a rifle and a
bandoleer of ammo, a pack of cigarettes, all the water we wanted and were behind excellent cover. We figured to stay there all day,
no problem.

About fifteen to twenty minutes later we heard brush breaking in the jungle on one side of the LZ, halfway to the sniper's treeline.
Then a lot of brush breaking and even chopping and hacking. Then a whole lot of shouted curses. It was the unmistakable voice
of Livingston our squad leader for 1st squad. He was a Southern boy and we Southern boys have a knack for colorful language
but Livingston was teaching us all a few new things in the stuff he was yelling. Utah and I laughed hard for we knew what had happened.
Livingston had led the rest of the squad around the LZ to go get the sniper but had run into jungle growth so thick they couldn't
get through it. It really upset him to not be able to get through it and get that guy.

After things quieted down the sniper popped off another round just to let us know he was still there. Half an hour or so
after that the guys yelled out to us to get ready to run toward our side of the LZ. They were calling in artillery on the opposite
tree line and would lay down cover fire with M-60's for us. They would stop and hold fire long enough for us to make it to the safety
of the trees. Four M-60 machine guns opened up, raking the jungle across the LZ and when they stopped firing the guys started yelling
for us to move but we were already up and running. The last ten feet I flew through the air, landing on my stomach next to a gunner
from 2nd Platoon who resumed firing before I hit the ground. Not but a few seconds later the artillery began impacting on the far side
of the LZ. Sometime after it finished our Lieutenant led a patrol across the LZ and into the jungle on the opposite side but found
neither hide nor hair of the sniper.

Dodd "Utah" Owens

Photo by Michael Belis

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Huey Livingston on the left,
Michael Belis on the right
at Base Camp November 1970

Photo by Bo Bonnema