Blurred Images

By Bill and Bill Lynch

Blurred Images is a fictional story of Tommy Owens, a Marine Corps decorated sniper from the Vietnam War area.
The story begins with his enlistment, initial training, and his assignments with the CIA.
Tommy rotates back to the United States after setting several records for the number of kills and the longest kill by a Marine sniper. He accepts work for the CIA as a sniper and gets sent to Iraq, where he loses his sight in an ambush and roadside bomb.

After being rotated back home, he realizes he is a seventy-two-year-old man trying to adapt to being blind and aging. He finds help from an illegal immigrant whom he hires as a live-in nurse and maid. They create a love-hate relationship that leads them to form a new CIA team as a blind, older rich man and nurse. The team accepts a mission in Brazil which could cost both of them their lives.
A Marine Sniper I served with in Vietnam inspired this storyline through the stories he shared with me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Self
• Release date: Sep 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223245711

Book preview

Chapter 1: The Enlistment

Tommy Owens sits on the front porch of his cabin in Ola, Arkansas, drinking black chicory coffee. It is only 0500, still early for anyone except a retired military man to be up. Tommy gets up each morning at 0500, does one-hundred pushups, and jumps rope for thirty minutes, habits he carried over from his thirty-four-year careers with the United States Marine Corps. Tommy is nearing seventy-two years of age; however, he doesn’t appear to be over fifty-five. His hair is graying, and his beard is gray, but he stills moves with the smooth cadence of a middle-age-man.

Tommy is a creature of habits, up early each day, exercise, then coffee on the porch. As he sits on the porch, he reaches down and rubs the German Shepherd, which lays next to his wooden rocking chair. He knew the shepherd would be there; the shepherd has been by his side for several years now, a gift from his buddies while he was in the hospital. Tommy finished his coffee and moved to the front door, fumbling as he feels for the latch. He opens the door and makes his way to the kitchen, where he pours another cup of coffee. Tommy carries the coffee in his left hand as he taps the floor with his cane. He knew the front door had a small step up and he did not want to trip and spill his coffee. The shepherd nudged his leg to warn him of the step, and he rubbed the dog’s head as a gesture of thanks. He found his rocker and sat down hard, but still easy enough to not spill the coffee. He could feel the warm sun on his face as it began its climb in the Eastern sky. It was relaxing and though he could not see the sun. He thought he needed his glasses to protect his sensitive eyes from it. He reached down and patted the shepherd and said, Bomber, get my glasses. The Shepherd jumped up and, in only a few minutes, returned with the man’s dark shades. He rubbed the dog’s head, telling him how good he was, and bent over and kissed his nose. Then the Shepherd lay back down by the rocker.

Tommy got The German Shepherd as a gift from his friends in the CIA, where he used to work prior to his accident. The dog was only three months old when his CIA friends gifted him with Bomber. Tommy had gotten injured while on an assignment and his friends thought having a dog would be company while he was healing. Later, during his recovery, the CIA continued training the dog and gave him the name Bomber because of his ability to locate explosive devices. Now Bomber is Tommy’s full-time partner and guide dog, and accompanies him wherever he travels.

The owner of Bomber is Tommy Owens, born in Ola, Arkansas, and attended school in Ola. He was a quiet child until he got mixed up with the wrong crowd at age seventeen, when he got implicated with a gas station larceny. Since he had never been in trouble, or arrested for anything, the judge gave him a choice, military or jail; Tommy chooses the military.

They placed Tommy in the Marine Corps during MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Center), then sent to San Diego, California for bootcamp. During his initial training, he qualified as a top expert on the rifle range, which got him noticed as a candidate for Marine Corps Sniper Training. After completing bootcamp, ITR, and MOS training, he volunteered for sniper training, which is the only way they accepted candidates into the program.

The process for Marine Corps sniper training is volunteer only, with a high fail rate of around fifty-five percent. Tommie’s rifle range score got him noticed, but he had to verify his skills again for the training class. Once again, he went to the range and showed his shooting skills with an even higher score, Tommy got accepted into training, and for the next seventy-nine days he worked at perfecting his skills with the Marine Corps M-40 sniper rifle, in Virginia.

It was early in 1967, and before Tommy completed his sniper training, he got assigned to his permanent unit. Tommy’s first unit would be the First Battalion Twenty-six Marines who were preparing for deployment to Vietnam in April of that year.

On 4 May 1967, they flew Tommy and the First Battalion Twenty-six Marines from Phu Bai, Vietnam, to Khe Sanh, Vietnam to support the hill battles around the Khe Sanh, area. This assignment would give Tommy his first KIAs of the Vietnam war, and would earn First Battalion Twenty-six Marines a nickname as the Walking Dead.

Soon after arriving in Khe Sanh, the base became under the Tet siege of 1968, which lasted from 21 January, 1968 until April 14, 1968. This siege would increase Tommie’s KIAs to just under fifty. But killing another human was not something he bragged about or even thought about. Tommy was trying to hold the base and prevent it from being overrun. After Khe Sanh, Tommy continued his fight in Vietnam, where he earned the name "White Feather" and gained notice from the NVA with his skills, his name, and the feather he kept in his bush hat.

Tommy was already a distinguished shooter. Now he had become an efficient sniper. In Vietnam, he killed over 103 enemy with a variety of firearms. But Tommy’s fame and reputation came from more than just his kills. His determination allowed him to complete dangerous missions alone and often without support. In one instance, he killed a high-value target after a brutal two-day stalk where he moved only inches at a time and was often within just feet of enemy patrols. 

Owens also stalked enemy sharpshooters throughout the war, eliminating famed Vietnamese snipers known as Cobra and the Apache Woman. For several decades, Tommy Owens held the record for the longest-distance confirmed kill, which he got by using an M2.50-caliber machine gun. He also held the record for the most sniper kills in the Marine Corps, all earned during the Vietnam war. He served 16 months overseas and killed 103 enemy soldiers, with 216 more probable kills. At one point, a platoon of enemy soldiers had him surrounded, and he killed 16 of them with headshots before escaping. 

Another one of Owens’ most notorious kills was that of the woman sniper called Apache. Apache’s claim to fame was to ambush and torture Marines. Which motivated the Marine units to want her eliminated. For weeks, Owens would go out every morning in search of Apache. Then, late one afternoon in 1968, His partner spotted a woman who matched her description, traveling up a small incline with a group of men. He pointed her out, and Tommy noticed she had a rifle with a scope. Once she reached the top of the incline, Owens took aim, fired, and the Apache collapsed in her tracks. Tommie’s shot, which killed the NVA sniper, the Apache, caused the North Vietnamese government to place a bounty of $30,000 for Tommy Owen, dead or alive.

After 13 months, 103 recorded kills, fearful of the bounty placed on him, and being asked to complete a suicide mission of a Vietcong general, Owens succumbed to burnout and returned home to stateside duty.

Chapter 2: Life After the War

Tommy’s home sits on a small plot of land just north of Ola, Arkansas. His home is a log cabin style home, with six rooms and a fireplace and other rooms he wanted. Tommy designed the home while he was still on active duty with the Marine Corps. After he returned to his home station in North Carolina, he contracted Red River Log Cabin of Batesville, Arkansas, to put a package together with his design and build the cabin. The company was so impressed with the design they bought it from Tommy and use it to this day.

The CIA approached Tommy prior to his retirement and asked if he would consider working a job when and if they had a need for his skills. Tommy thought about the offer and said yes and shared his contact information with their personnel office. The retirement for Tommy was seventeen years ago, and today he remains on the CIA’s call list for his sniper skills.

Tommy gave the Marine Corps thirty-four years of his life, seeing action in both Vietnam and Iraq. Now at seventy-two years of age, he continues to practice his skill. He continues to uses the M-40, which will reach anything that his scope will help him see, and the OMEGA 300 suppressor will keep the crowd away, which allows him to practices his skill on his property without disturbing his neighbors or anyone nearby his home in Ola.

At the present time, people in Ola see Tommy as a retired seventy-two years old Marine unable to see game or do any deer hunting, and whose hands shake too much to hold a sight-picture for a clean shot. Tommy is ok with those thoughts and he wished everyone would think in that manner. Tommy works hard to support this image by carrying a cane, wearing dark glasses, and using Bomber as his guide dog.

The people of Ola do not know Tommy’s history as a decorated Marine Corps sniper, or anything about his thirty-four-year military career. They only know he joined the Marine Corps to stay out of jail many years ago, and came home on leave to visit his family. Then when he got discharged, he returned home blind or almost blind.

Tommy enjoys the charade he lives under; it allows him freedom to observe people being themselves in his presence. However, it creates a slight problem with practicing his skill as a marksman, and his personal exercise he enjoys.

The charade began several years ago when Tommy was serving in Iraq as a sniper, supporting a headquarters unit. He and his spotter were being transported to a drop off point where they would begin the search for their targets. Tommie’s convoy had only cleared Bagdad City limits when his vehicle got hit with an IED. The blast rendered Tommy unconscious with wounds to his head, eyes, and ears, while the attack killed his spotter. The Taliban soldiers killed the remaining members of the vehicle in the blast or beheaded them. Tommy got spared because of the large amount of blood surrounding his unconscious body, which caused him to appear dead. Later, Tommy got airlifted to the hospital in Baghdad by the rescue team.. There his condition stabilized, then they transferred him to Frankford, Germany, for further treatment.

In Germany, they diagnosed Tommy with a severe concussion, loss of sight, and severe lacerations to his chest and back, a ruptured eardrum, and a detached retina. After two months, Tommy’s wounds had healed, and he had regained his hearing, but his vision was only a blur of light, and did not allow him the ability to move about. Tommy returned to Bethesda, Maryland, where his eyes received the best treatment possible, and then they presented him with Bomber, the German Shepard guide dog. Tommy trained with Bomber for two weeks, then he and Bomber went home on medical leave to Ola, Arkansas.

In Ola, the Cabin Tommy could move in and use the cabin it for his living quarters. However, he encountered a problem with cooking and housekeeping. His vision was only a blur of light and he did not know the house well enough to move around. To overcome this handicap, Tommy and Bomber rely on restaurant food and taxi service for his local transportation. Tommy could not see well enough to drive, so to get to and from the restaurant, he used a taxi service. It was during one of these breakfasts runs he met Milina, a server in one of Ola’s restaurants.

Milina Chavez works at Stans Diner in Ola, Arkansas, as a server. She is a hard-working woman and doesn’t mind the work as a server. She just wished Stan would pay the minimum wage of nine-dollars and twenty-five-cents per hour. Malina knew Stan was aware of their status and would never treat them as an equal. He has no feelings for his employees and only pays them five-dollars per hour and takes half of their tip money. At this point in Milina’s life, she has no choice, since she has entered the country from her home in Brazil.

Milina loved Brazil. She was born there, schooled there, and even volunteered to serve in the Army of Brazil for two years as a sniper. But it was during her time in the Army of Brazil that she realized the Brazil government and the officers of its military were crooks. So, after her two years, she resigned and made her way to the United States by passing through Mexico.

But now, as she works at Stans Diner in Ola, Arkansas, she wonders if she made a mistake coming to the United States. She is not happy working for Stan. The money is wrong; the hours are long, and over half of her time at work gets spent slapping his hands from her body. Milina doesn’t mind the work; she just hates Stan’s hand on her. She prays for relief from this hell and this man, and to make matters worse, he threatens each girl with deportation if they don’t sleep with him. Milina wipes a tear from her eye as she thinks about her job. It has good parts to it, like when the blind man and his dog came in. Now when he