One Shot War In The Crosshairs The longest shot ever recorded in South Viet Nam was in 1967. The weapon was the Remington Model 700 w/Redfield 3x9 scope The distance was1900 meters, distance and KIA was confirmed by a Marine 1st Lieutenant 1/5

Who was the shooter? L/Cpl. Martin E. Berry 5th Marine Scout Sniper Platoon

We, my partner and I were working from the platform of a spotting tower some 30 feet above the base camp." The "SEABEES" had built the tower so the Marine Fire Base could get a better view of the valley and its many trails that crossed through the rice paddies that cover the valley. The trails went from the north side of the valley leading from a group of villages tucked inside the tree line, across the rice paddies south to the foothills and jungle on the other side of the valley. These trails had been used to carry NVA/VC troops, weapons and other products of war from the north to support the war effort in the south. The spotting tower had cut down most daytime travel and night movement that stayed 1500 to 2000 meters out from the fire base. Flares would catch the troop movement at night and mortars would scatter the enemy for an hour or so. The fire base was having problems with the local VC trying to remove the tower, a clear clue that the enemy needed to move more troops and supplies south and quick. The local VC controlled village would have kids ride their water buffalo's up close to the tower with explosives in bags hanging from the water buffalo. When the kids got close, they would jump off the beast and charge the fence line throwing the bags of explosives at the tower base. After a few of these attacks, the fire base commander had signs put out at the 500-meter line warning that anyone going beyond this perimeter would be shot. When this plan failed, they asked for a team of Scout Snipers to man the tower to shoot the water buffalo if a villager walked him beyond the signed warning zone. We saw a lot of movement the first couple of days, but most sightings were too far away to tell if the target had a weapon or not. Standing orders required that we had to have at least two marines to confirm that the target had an identifiable weapon before a shot could be approved. Crossing was heavier today than we had seen all week, we asked that the 1st Lieutenant in charge of the fire base come up to the tower and check it out. The spotter was marking a target when the Lieutenant made his way to the top of the tower. After I went over the list of movement at the far side of the valley, the Lieutenant took a look through the 20X power spotting scope at the target my spotter had been tracking across the paddy about 2,000 meters out. Everyone agreed on the distance and that we had about 5 minutes before the target made it to cover on the other side. We waited for the officer to confirm that he also saw a rifle hanging from the far side of the target as he walked the trail crossing the paddy at a normal pace. I had already set my scope for 1100 meters and had a perfect zero from this elevation, adding 900 meters was going to be guess work. I figured my lead and then picked a vertical line somewhere up the hill side as a reference point that I could use to make adjustments for my second shot. When I received the all clear from the officer in charge (OIC), I adjusted and squeezed off the first round. When I recovered my site picture I had already chambered a second round; now I waited for the spotter to give me details of where my first round hit so I could make the needed adjustments to get off one more round before the sound of the first round reached the target. I couldn't find the target and neither could the spotter. My spotter was sure that I had hit the target but the 1st Lieutenant didn't think so .We waited 15 minutes scoping the trail where the target was seen; there was no movement and all travel coming from the other side had stopped . The Lieutenant decided to send out a patrol to see what all the extra traffic moving across the valley was about and promised to have them check out our target. It took over an hour to get a squad saddled up and out to the trail we had been watching. The radio call back to the tower was an excited confirmation that a KIA was lying in the rice paddy and they would bring him back with his weapon. "Confirmed 1900 meters one shot, one kill." with a 308 cal rifle.