Marine Sniper

by Charles Henderson

  “What’s Division going to do if the NVA decide to overrun Hathcock?”

  “They have units ready to move by chopper. They can be in there in less than an hour. I think Division wants to see if the enemy goes in to pull their pork out of the fire, and then they’ll hit ’em.”

  “You think those two can hold for an hour if they’re stormed?”

  “No. But I don’t think they’ll storm Hathcock. He probably has those gooners scared shitless.”

  Rain partially obscured the valley, but it did not provide the cover for which the pinned NVA soldiers had hoped. The two snipers lay in their leafy blind and watched heads pop above the dike and quickly drop back down.

  “Those hamburgers are getting ready to move,” Hathcock whispered to Burke. “Sun’s going fast and I’d stake my stripes on them making a run for the trees or them hooches down the valley soon as it is dark. Just hope those cannon cockers give us the illumes when we need ’em.”

  Burke nodded and put his binoculars back up to his eyes. Hathcock lay behind his rifle and slowly moved his scope along the paddy dike, watching and waiting.

  The afternoon showers faded and left the sky orange above the western mountains as the sun set behind them. Long shadows from the high peaks crossed Elephant Valley, and as darkness descended, the two snipers watched for movement emerging from behind the dike.

  “I can’t see a thing,” Burke said, dropping the binoculars from his eyes.

  “Call in an illume,” Hathcock said.

  Humid air hung through the dark valley, and only water dripping from the jungle’s leaves offered any sound for the two snipers to hear.

  High overhead a muffled bang echoed, and like a miniature sun dangling beneath a small parachute the illumination round exposed the NVA soldiers nearly one hundred yards from the dike, moving eastward down the valley toward a group of huts that lay another one thousand yards away.

  Without a word, both snipers’ rifles fired on the line of men who ran toward the huts.

  “Turn ’em back,” Hathcock told Burke. “Concentrate the fire at the head of their column.”

  As quickly as he could squeeze the trigger, Burke fired on the fleeing men. Hathcock followed as rapidly as he could work his rifle’s bolt.

  One after another the soldiers at the front of the column fell. The rest of the company hurtled back to the dike, leaving their fallen comrades behind them.

  “Well, I guess they won’t try that again for a while,” Burke said.

  “Don’t count on it. If I were them, I’d make a run for it right now.”

  A second illumination round burst overhead, lighting the valley with its eerie glow, showing no movement.

  “Sergeant Hathcock, those guys are just plain scared to move. I don’t think they’re going anywhere.”

  “Let’s give ’em some dark for a while and see what they try. Tell them to hold the illumes for a few minutes. Maybe they’ll make another run for it.”

  The two snipers lay quiet, listening to the sounds of the dark jungle. Croaking gecko lizards and small tree frogs chirped. Echoing through the jungle came the shrill cry of a foul-sounding bird, “Fauk-U, fauk-U, faaauk-uuuu.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Hathcock mumbled.

  Down below, in the rice paddies of the valley, they could hear only a deep silence, but, as soon as they called for another flare, it exposed a squad-sized group dashing for the huts that were just beyond the trees, east of the dike.

  “Don’t let ’em get to those huts. We’ll lose them in the trees and they’ll be on our backside in no time.”

  Both Marines fired as rapidly as their rifles could chamber rounds. The running NVA soldiers dropped to the ground and began returning fire.

  “Tell that battery to keep the illumes rolling in here. We can’t let it get dark or we’re dead,” Hathcock commanded Burke.

  The soldiers who remained behind the wall now joined in the fire, shooting toward the muzzle flashes that gave away the Marines’ position.

  “Concentrate on those hamburgers out in the open. Well-aimed shots—don’t waste your fire,” Hathcock told Burke, as he rejoined the battle.

  Hathcock laid his cross hairs on one prone NVA soldier after another and squeezed the trigger, killing a man each time.

  Burke shifted his fire to the NVA company’s main body, which now appeared to be charging over the dike. “They’re coming at us!” he shouted at Hathcock.

  “Well-aimed shots, Burke, well-aimed shots.” Hathcock turned his rifle on the charging company and began dropping a soldier with each shot.

  “If they don’t give up, we’re going over the ridge and up the draw, and let them have this place,” he told Burke, pumping his bolt back and forth as rapidly as he could shoot.

  “I’m ready any time you are.”

  But, just at that moment, the steam went out of the attack, and the soldiers who were left dashed toward the dike.

  “Keep shootin’, Burke—don’t cut ’em any slack.”

  Hathcock turned his scope to the right of the dike where the escaping squad had thrown themselves down. “I don’t see any life out there. If anyone made it, he got to that hooch down yonder. We better watch our backsides real close from here on out.”

  The night passed. The Marines lay listening for any sound that might mean attack. Under the dim light of the illumes, they potshot at any enemy soldiers whose heads popped up.

  “You reckon we ought to call in the cavalry? We’ve been hammering those guys nearly twenty-four hours. Sun’ll be up in an hour,” Burke said.

  “I’ll wait till we run out of lead or Division sends in troops. We can hold here awhile. We’ve knocked out a good third of them already.”

  The sun rose, and the two men began rest cycles—one watched while the other napped. Throughout the second day, the North Vietnamese stayed behind their mud wall. During the twelve hours of daylight, the snipers fired three shots, merely letting the enemy know that nothing had changed.

  The first illumination rounds came at sunset and lit the valley at intervals throughout the night. This small battle had reached a standoff. For the two Marines, time meant little. They took turns shooting and resting, eating their rations of cheese, peanut butter, jelly, and John Wayne crackers (large round crackers packed in C-ration cans). They felt confident and completely in control.

  They lay in the shade with water and food, while the enemy starved in the sun and exhausted what little water remained to them. Yet the NVA continued to wait.

  The third day began as the second had and followed through to the fourth without change. Hathcock knew that unless something happened, he and Burke would move out on the afternoon of the fifth day and leave the NVA company to a sweep team from the 26th Marine Regiment.

  Hathcock rested against a tree trunk and spread cheese on a cracker. Burke lay behind the sniper rifle, staring through the scope, slowly moving it along the length of the dike. “Sergeant Hathcock, you reckon that we set some sort of record pinning these guys for as long as we have?”

  “I don’t know, Burke. Reckon we’ll find out when we get outa here. Anyway, it don’t mean anything to me. It wasn’t like we were holding them off. These guys just want out of here. But I imagine that if we were to let them go, they’d come after us once they reached the jungle. When we leave, we’ll slip off before they know we’re gone and let the sweep team have ’em.

  “When you compare it to some of the times we had when we started up the sniper school last October, this is pretty tame.”

  Without lifting his eye from the rifle scope, Burke said, “Wonder how Captain Land is getting along back home?”

  “I imagine he’s enjoying life one hell of a lot more than we are. He’ll be getting ready for the Division Matches down at Camp Lejeune. I may see him when I get home. Those matches go about a week after I get back to New Bern—about six weeks from now.”

  “Intramurals ought to be in full swing right now,” Burke followed.

&nb
sp; “When did you first shoot in intramurals, Sergeant Hathcock?”

  “Back in Hawaii. I won the individuals. That’s where I met Captain Land—he and Gunner Arthur Terry ran the shooting team and the sniper school. I won the individuals and went to the All-Marine shooting matches. You get outa here, look into the shooting team wherever you end up. That’s one thing in the Marine Corps that I really love. I got my greatest sense of accomplishment from shooting and teaching other Marines how to shoot. I guess that the biggest moment in my life came when I won the 1,000-yard championship at Camp Perry.

  “Did I ever tell you about winning the Wimbledon Cup?”

  “No,” Burke replied, still staring down the sniper scope. “I’ve heard other guys tell about it, but I never heard you. I’d sure like to hear your side of it. We got lots of time. Those guys out there aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, I know. I won the Wimbledon at Camp Perry, Ohio, on August 26, 1965—the day after I went distinguished.”

  Burke asked with a tone of hesitancy in his voice, “Don’t think I’m stupid or anything, but I’ve heard you and Captain Land and Gunny Wilson all talk about distinguished for six months, and to be honest with you, I never really understood exactly what it is. I figure that it is a high honor for a shooter, but nobody ever told me how you become distinguished.”

  “Well, you become distinguished by placing in so many shooting matches. Every time you win a gold, silver, or bronze medal in matches, you get points toward becoming distinguished. A Distinguished Marksman in the Marine Corps is the top dog among shooters. He wears a gold shooting badge and is a member of an elite few marksmen. There are some great Marines among them, for example, Major General Merit A. Edson is distinguished. He died a while back, but he won the Medal of Honor on Guadalcanal leading the 1st Marine Raider Battalion. He went on to become the executive director of the National Rifle Association.

  “I went distinguished in 1965. When we got to Camp Perry that year, I was hard as woodpecker lips. I just missed the National Match Championship by a couple of marks, but the silver medal I won gave me the last few points that I needed to make thirty and go distinguished. The day that I won the Wimbledon Cup was special. It was the biggest day of my life, as far as shooting goes.”

  Burke turned from the scope and smiled. “Captain Land talked about Camp Perry and you winning the Wimbledon Cup. I think he was as proud about it as you were. He said that when the smoke cleared, there was one Marine Corps meatball down on the line, and that was you.

  “He said that everybody who was anybody, including the Commandant of the Marine Corps, was there. The whole National Rifle Association was there, and you beat them all.”

  Burke turned back to the scope and again began scanning the dike. Hathcock stretched out and rested his shoulders and head against the base of the tree. He watched the jungle behind their position, and in a soft-spoken voice he began his story, pausing with caution after every few words to listen for any sounds that might signal an unwelcome visitor.

  4

  The Best Shot in America

  COMPETITIVE SHOOTING IN THE UNITED STATES COMES TO A climax at one place every year—Camp Perry, Ohio. It is a small red square on many road maps, along Ohio’s Route 2. There State Highway 358 begins and then dead-ends less than a mile north at a gigantic complex of rifle and pistol ranges located on Lake Erie’s southern shore. There, military and civilian marksmen fire side-by-side in the single elimination tournaments that end with one shooter alone on the firing line, declared a national champion.

  There are various team and individual championships, such as the National Match Championship, but the single title that marksmen from all walks of life desire most is the 1,000-Yard National High-Power Rifle Championship—the Wimbledon Cup.

  On August 25, 1965, Carlos Hathcock was one of 130 marksmen lying prone on the firing line at Camp Perry, focusing through their rifles’ scopes at a target that at 1,000 yards resembled a pin’s head. The bull’s-eye at which they aimed measured 36 inches across, and inside that black field was a 20-inch circle painted in white with 5-V marked in its center. That small circle within a circle, the V-ring, was the very center of the target, and championships usually rested on the number of times the marksman’s bullets struck that circle—that number was the V-count.

  It was opening day for the first elimination round for the Wimbledon Cup. The high shooter from this 130-man relay would join the single high shooters from 19 other relays, also competing for the 1,000-yard championship, and shoot the sudden-death relay for the title—firing a single round at a time in three minutes.

  These 2,600 marksmen began the elimination with 10 rounds and 10 minutes in which to fire them. One shot out of the black, 5-point center and they could forget that dream of capturing the Wimbledon for another year. In order to advance from this first day of shooting, the marksman had to outpoint the other 129 shooters in his relay. Since most of the competitors shot a possible 50 out of 50 points, the selection of high shooter usually ended with a count of V-ring shots.

  Captain Jim Land, now shooting as a teammate of Corporal Hathcock on the Marine Corps Rifle Team, watched the skinny kid from Arkansas survive the cuts and make the semi-finals, where he had competed against nearly 3,000 other crack shots for one of the 20 targets set aside for the final’s sudden-death showdown.

  And when the first day ended, Hathcock and a sergeant named Danny Sanchez remained the only Marines firing bolt-action rifles—still in contention for the coveted Wimbledon Cup.

  August 26, 1965, blew in with such a wind that a bullet fired at the 1,000-yard target carried more than 190 inches to the right before it struck home.

  Twenty men lay on the line, ten behind bolt-action rifles and ten behind semiautomatic weapons, classified as “service rifles.” Beside going for the Wimbledon Cup, those shooting the service rifle also contended for a special award for their class alone, the Farr Trophy.

  Land looked at the backs of the men lying prone on the line, many wearing heavy, leather, shooting jackets, which were belted and strapped on them so tightly that each man had to force his breathing. He searched the line until he saw the round, yellow patch, with a red Marine Corps emblem in its center, sewn on the back of Hathcock’s green canvas shooting jacket.

  “There’s Hathcock,” Land told two of the team members who sat with him, high in grandstands filled with hundreds of people, including NRA officials, other marksmen who had been eliminated earlier, and family and friends of shooters who were on the line. And among those seated on the front row, center, with the NRA’s top brass, was Gen. Wallace M. Greene, Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps.

  Before the marksmen had taken their positions on the line, Greene had met with the Marine Corps team and shook Hathcock’s and Sanchez’s hands. “Go out there and win,” he told the young corporal and sergeant. “You have 196,000 Marines counting on you.”

  Land sat on the high wooden bleachers and watched Hathcock making notes in his data book, sighting down his rifle, and then writing again. Brass bands filled the air with patriotic march music. Booths and exhibits capped off the atmosphere, which resembled a county fair. Press photographers, reporters, and television crews swarmed along the front line as each shooter prepared to crawl down into his shooting position. Land spoke aloud to the Marines seated around him, “I wonder if he’s feeling the lump?”

  The lump, as competitive marksmen call it, is the tightness that builds in a shooter’s throat when the pressure of the competition becomes too much for him.

  As Hathcock began putting his shooting gear together on the firing line, he felt the lump building. His tension caused that cramped feeling in the pit of his stomach—a feeling that he dealt with the day prior when he lost the National Match by three points. He had won a silver medal in that competition, facing thousands of other marksmen, shooting his service rifle—an M-1 Garand—in slow and rapid fire matches at 200 and 300 yards, firing at 12-inch bulls’-eyes, and in slow fire matche
s at 600 yards, firing at 12-inch bulls’-eyes. And in it, one point could separate 20 shooters in the final standings. He looked at his data book and began concentrating on today’s marksmanship tasks, busying himself to the point that thoughts of General Greene and 196,000 other Marines left him.

  Hathcock looked down the firing lane. Twenty red, pennant-shaped flags, each one twenty feet long, lined the range’s sides at one hundred-yard increments. They ruffled in the wind that blew directly across Hathcock’s line of fire. He let out a deep breath and looked again at his data book containing his notations from the days of practice and the semifinal round. Leaning over his left elbow, he put his shooting eye up to the rear of a spotting scope, mounted low on a stand next to him, and watched the mirage, its layers of heat waves concentrated by his telescope, dancing and rolling from the left side of his view to the right, affected by the wind in the same way that the wind would effect his bullet. “I’m gonna go fourteen minutes left,” he told himself, calculating the effect the wind would have during a lull. “I’ll watch the flag and when it drops, I’ll shoot.”

  He laid his rifle on its side and began counting clicks as he turned the windage knob on the side of his rifle’s telescopic sight. After noting the change in his data book, he checked his leather sling, making sure that it was adjusted to the proper length and wrapped around his upper arm at the exact spot where he had looped it each time he fired. With the sling making a half-twist around his forearm, he slid his left hand, shielded by a thick leather shooting glove, up the hand guard of his rifle’s stock and jammed it tightly against the D-ring and swivel that held the sling to the rifle.

  Slowly, Hathcock leaned his weight on his left elbow and began working the rifle’s butt tightly into his right shoulder. “Got to be tight. No room for it to slip—not here.” As the sling tightened and stretched to accommodate the tight fit of the rifle into his shoulder, he felt the strap bite painfully into his upper arm and trap the blood in his left hand and fingers. He looked at their tips protruding from the shooting glove and watched them turn red and deepen to purple.