Marine Sniper

by Charles Henderson

  The two Marines walked away from the buzzing command tent toward their hooches, where they would clean their gear, then themselves, and get some rest. Hathcock looked at Burke and rubbed his finger down the Marine’s cheek where sweat had washed white streaks through the light and dark green camouflage greasepaint that both snipers had caked on their skin. Hathcock shook his head and then lazily drawled, “Come on, Burke, let’s get cleaned up, your mascara has done run all over your face.”

  6

  In the Beginning…

  A STACK OF MAIL LAY ON CARLOS HATHCOCK’S FIELD DESK when he walked inside the 1st Marine Division Scout/Sniper School’s hard-backed tent. Two letters were from Jo—one thick and one thin.

  Hathcock looked at the postmarks and opened the letter that bore the oldest date first—the thick letter. As he unfolded the letter, a small clipping from the Raleigh News and Observer fell onto a copy of Leatherneck Magazine that lay on his desk.

  Hathcock grunted as he read the bold print that led the story. A sharp knot tightened in his stomach as he laid the clipping aside and began to read the letter.

  “Dear Carlos,” the letter began, “they wrote about you in the newspaper. I don’t quite understand, but I hope you can explain…

  “Now every day I wonder what you are doing. I keep waiting for them to come up the sidewalk and tell me you’re dead…

  “I thought you were safe at the headquarters, teaching. Now I read that you go out alone, or with one other Marine, sniping in enemy territory. I want to know how you are. I want to know the truth.”

  Hathcock folded the fat letter and looked at the thin one that was postmarked the following day. It was two pages long and began, “I’m sorry that I was angry with you. I know that you don’t need to be getting negative letters. I understand that you just didn’t want me to worry…”

  The letter also told about their son and what Jo hoped to do once her husband was home. It asked, “Have you decided about staying in the Marines?”

  Hathcock took a tablet of paper from the field desk’s right-hand drawer and scrawled, “Dear Jo, I’m sorry. I didn’t think telling you would make the waiting better for you. I didn’t want you to worry.

  “I know that I’m not invincible, but none of these hamburgers are smart enough to get me. I promise you that. Don’t you worry about me…

  “I have decided to quit the Marine Corps and settle down there in New Bern.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks…Love, Carlos.”

  Gunnery Sgt. James D. Wilson, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the 1st Marine Division sniper school, walked in the hooch just as Hathcock licked the envelope’s flap and pressed it closed.

  “Letter home?”

  “Yeah. I got a bone to pick with that reporter who was up here a couple of months ago. You know, the one who interviewed me and Captain Land after Charlie put out the bounty on us?”

  “Sure. What happened?” the gunny asked.

  “You remember Captain Land tellin’ that guy that the story he wrote was just for the Sea Tiger? That it was for in-country, only?”

  “Yeah?”

  “His story—almost word for word—appeared in the Raleigh newspaper. My wife just mailed me the clipping.”

  “No shit. That’s a hell of a way for a woman to find out about her husband, by reading it in the newspaper.”

  “That’s what she thought, too.”

  “You know, you lead the list of confirmed kills, and that makes you the Marine Corps’ number one sniper. And there is no way you can keep that secret from her. How’s she going to handle that news?”

  Hathcock lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Blowing a cloud of smoke toward the mud-and oil-stained plywood floor, he said, “I never looked at it like this was some sort of shooting match where the man with the most kills wins the gold medal. Hell, Gunny, anybody would be crazy to like to go out and kill folks.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you can take those numbers and give ’em to someone who gives a damn about ’em. I like shooting, and I love hunting. But I never did enjoy killing anybody. It’s my job. If I don’t get those bastards, then they’re gonna kill a lot of these kids dressed up like Marines. That’s the way I look at it.

  “Besides, Gunny, I got a lot more kills unconfirmed than confirmed, and so does every sniper over here, including you. So what the hell does it mean? Who really has the most? And who gives a shit—this ain’t Camp Perry.”

  “The fact that you got as many kills as you do isn’t the issue,” the gunny said. “It’s the way you got that many that’s impressive. The Army has this fella that they say has got a hundred confirmed kills. They take him by helicopter and drop him on a hilltop. He’ll sit there awhile and sharpshoot folks, and then they’ll lift him off and drop him somewhere else. I don’t think he knows stalking from Shineola. He sure as hell ain’t a real sniper—not like you or anybody else who learned in this school.

  “You’ll go home next month with more than eighty kills, and the Marine Corps might just want to do something about that. That’s my point. Like it or not, you are Super Sniper.”

  “I never set out to be no Super Sniper,” Hathcock said sharply. “I just did my job.”

  “Hathcock, you did your job…and kept doing it over and over when any other sniper would have reported back after completing the original assignment he was sent on. Hell, Hathcock, you started a regular campaign selling yourself to every battalion and company commander in I Corps. Remember Captain Land sending me down to Chu Lai to bring you back to Hill 55—under restriction? Tell me about just doing your job and nothing more.

  “Also, stop and think about the fact that you and Captain Land were the first snipers to have the big bounties put out on your heads by the North Vietnamese. They didn’t do that because they thought your white feather looks cute in your hat—you’re hard on their health. In fact, the sight of a white feather in anybody’s hat scares hell out of half the country.

  “I’ve heard you tell how there ain’t no VC or NVA smart enough to get you, and that’s why you wear that white feather, to dare ’em to try. You wear that feather in your hat like some of these assholes wear a bull’s-eye painted on their flack jackets. Now, you can’t tell me that you don’t enjoy your work. And you may not like killing, but I remember about six weeks after we moved up here when you killed that woman sniper platoon leader. Hell, you were dancing around like you had won the National Match Championship.”

  Hathcock nodded. “I was happy about getting her. But you know why—she was bad. Real bad! I still say I do my job and nothing more, but I don’t wait until somebody orders me out to the field. If I did, I’d be laying in here and have no kills. I know my job, and maybe I am the best there is at it. So if that makes me Super Sniper, so be it. But I never went on any mission with anything in mind other than winning this war and keeping those shovel-headed bastards from killing more Americans. I never got pleasure out of killing anybody, not even that woman that they code-named the Apache. No. Not even her, and you know she tortured and killed a hell of a lot of people before we got her.”

  FIVE MONTHS EARLIER, ON SEPTEMBER 30, 1966, A STRETCH DC-8C airliner landed at Da Nang and unloaded another 200 soldiers bound for I Corps’ battlefields. When it took off again, it was carrying 219 cheering soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines whose tours in Vietnam were over.

  Sitting on his tightly stuffed military suitcase, Capt. Jim Land watched the big jet, which had now become what American servicemen called a “Freedom Bird,” lumber down the runway and lift into the hazy sky, headed for Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa. Land awaited transportation to Chu Lai, where he would check in at 1st Marine Division’s headquarters and begin the task of establishing a sniper program—per his commanding general’s orders, issued to him a few weeks earlier in Okinawa.

  It was Land who had put sniper teams back into Marine Corps thinking for this war. He had written papers on the merits of training and using scout/snipers well before th
e United States became involved militarily in Vietnam. He told how commanders could use snipers to penetrate the enemy, deny him leadership by killing his officers and NCOs, demoralize him by random hit-and-run attacks, and cut off his support from crew-served weapons by sniping those who operated them.

  In 1960, Lieutenant Land, who was then officer in charge of the Hawaii Marines shooting team, organized a scout/sniper school. He had spent the previous year as an infantry platoon commander with the 4th Marine Regiment—the same organization to which Private Carlos Hathcock belonged.

  A chief warrant officer named Arthur Terry assisted Land with the shooting team. Gunner Terry had survived Wake Island in World War II and had competed on rifle and pistol teams throughout all his years as a Marine. Terry had been the one who turned Land’s attention to sniper warfare—not from his Wake Island experience, but from another angle. “If we don’t provide a service as a rifle and pistol team, we’re going to wind up losing our happy home. They’re not going to pay for us to run around the country and shoot—we have to deliver something worth the money.

  “There are no sniper units in the Marine Corps, although we do have sniper rifles in every Marine infantry battalion’s inventory. I think that because sniping requires fine-tuned marksmanship, we might give the team new meaning by pushing the sniper angle.”

  Land listened, and what the old Marine veteran said made sense. Both men dearly loved the shooting team, and Land liked the idea of an insurance policy to keep their competition-in-arms program going.

  “Gunner, how will we sell it to the Marine Corps, though? You know that if they have the sniper rifles in the inventory, and they don’t have any sniper units, there has to be a reason.”

  “I’ve thought of that, E.J. I’ve got the selling point to put it over. We send men back stateside every few weeks to attend scout school at Camp Pendleton. If we combine sniping and scouting into one school and call our graduates scout/snipers, I think that they’ll buy it for the scouting aspect alone. The sniper training will be just sweetening.”

  Land did some homework and wrote a proposal that began:

  The Neglected Art of Sniping

  There is an extremely accurate, helicopter-transportable, self-supporting weapon available to the Marine Infantry Commander. This weapon, which is easily adapted to either the attack or defense, is the M-1C sniper rifle with the M-82 telescopic sight in the hands of a properly trained sniper.

  Every infantry battalion has twenty of these rifles. Too often it will be found that through lack of knowledge and lack of qualified instructors these weapons are packed away and virtually forgotten. Very little or no time is devoted to training personnel in the operation, maintenance, and employment of this valuable equipment.

  There are several problems that will be encountered in organizing a training program for snipers. The first, and probably the most handicapping, is the lack of reference material. Most of the information found in the field manuals presently in use is very limited, and only through research can much of the needed information be found. Two excellent books on sniping and related subjects are A Rifleman Went to War by Captain Herbert W. McBride and Field Craft, Sniping and Intelligence by the late Major Neville A.D. Armstrong, O.B.E., F.R.G.S., Chief Reconnaissance Officer, Canadian Army. Although these books are written of World War I, it is evident that sniping is not outmoded with trench warfare, but is really just coming into its own with the present emphasis on dispersed units and on guerrilla warfare…

  There are several prerequisites that need to be considered before selecting a Marine for training as a sniper. Due to the nature of his duties, a Marine selected for sniper training must have physical and mental capabilities not normally found in the average Marine. Excellent physical condition is a must. The sniper must be able to move rapidly over great distances. Good physical condition also builds the courage, confidence, and self-discipline necessary for the Marine sniper who will be required to work in pairs and, at times, alone. He must have better than average ability with the rifle; while marksmanship can be taught, it is very time consuming. To achieve a highly skilled state of training in marksmanship, it is imperative that the shooter have excellent noncorrected vision, both day and night. It is very desirable to use men with an out-of-doors background, such as experienced hunters, trappers, game wardens, or hunting guides. The late Major Armstrong expressed it in this manner:

  The art of a hunger coupled with the wiles of a poacher and the skill of a target expert, armed with the best aids that science can produce, equal success.

  A sniper’s mission requires that he be able to score a hit on small, and sometimes moving, targets at great distances with the first or second shot. To accomplish this feat, he should be armed with the best aids that science can produce. I would recommend an accurized, bolt-action rifle such as the Winchester Model 70, caliber .30-06, equipped with a variable-power telescopic sight. Although, I feel it is highly desirable that this equipment be made standard issue for Marine snipers, it is realized that such a change in Table of Equipment would create some problem. Nevertheless, the Winchester Model 70 is already available in sufficient number to outfit the Marine sniper in event of an emergency. Since they are presently in the supply system, it should not be difficult to acquire more as needed…

  Our potential enemies have large numbers of well-trained snipers. With a Marine sniper’s knowledge of the art of sniping he would be the best man available to cope with the enemy sniper. Here, if I may use an old adage to illustrate, it takes a thief to catch a thief…

  It was 1960, and in that year the first scout/sniper school commenced under Land’s and Terry’s direction. The course lasted two weeks—one week of marksmanship skills and a second week of field crafts and land navigation training. Hathcock graduated in 1961, from the second class that Land taught.

  In 1965, the United States forces operating in Vietnam suffered under an unchecked sniper war leveled at them by an enemy who stalked and killed Americans at will. Land served then at Quantico, Virginia’s Marksmanship Training Unit, as a member of the Marine Corps Rifle and Pistol Team, and, by this time, he had written papers that advocated a sniper and countersniper doctrine.

  That year, the Marine Corps, frustrated by the casualties inflicted by an unchecked enemy who moved with ease, set the wheels in motion. They took Land’s and other sniper advocates’ arguments to the drawing board and initiated sniper warfare against the enemy in Vietnam.

  While in Miami, competing in a rifle match at Trail Glades Range, Land spoke with a reporter from the Miami News—Jim Hardie, their outdoor editor.

  His December 6, 1965, story quoted Land:

  I’ve helped in the initial planning of a new Marine Corps program to place snipers in Vietnam. A group of us interested in marksmanship had been trying to sell the Corps on the idea of training snipers for the past four years.

  Six months ago the Corps decided to set up a special sniper program. Starting in January, a training program will begin at Camp Pendleton, California…

  We have been sending out patrols in sizable numbers which the VC could avoid. But they can’t avoid a sniper slipping up on them. This will be an entirely new threat to them. Now they won’t be safe anywhere they go.

  Major General Lewis W. Walt, 3rd Marine Division’s commanding general, organized the first sniper unit in Vietnam. Land and his counterparts at Quantico developed the weapons and a doctrine to support the sniper effort.

  After several months of testing, the choice came down between two rifles—the Winchester Model 70 and the Remington 700. Remington won out. They mounted a Redfield 3-to-9-power scope atop the rifle.

  During that time, Land had been transferred to an ordnance job on Okinawa.

  In August of 1966, Maj. Gen. Herman Nickerson was on his way to Chu Lai, Vietnam, to assume command of the 1st Marine Division, and he stopped for staging at Camp Butler, Okinawa, where Land commanded the ordnance company.

  It was a twist of fate that brought
Capt. Jim Land and General Nickerson together, and it was that chance meeting that caused a major turn in the life and future of Carlos Hathcock.

  Nickerson encountered Land by coincidence at a command briefing. “Captain!” the general said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m Ordnance Company’s commander.”

  “Ordnance! You’re no ordnance officer—you’re a shooter. You did all that work selling and developing the sniper program. Why aren’t you over in Vietnam, killing the Viet Cong?”

  “Sir, I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you,” Land said bravely.

  “I have a proposal for you, Captain Land. You get your gear together and report to me in Chu Lai. You have thirty days to be effecting sniper casualties on the enemy in Vietnam.”

  NOW LAND WAS HERE IN VIETNAM, STANDING IN THE BRIGHT SUNLIGHT of Da Nang. The stocky Marine captain with the short-cut hair and the bulldog expression pulled a list of names from his pocket and began reading through them. He recognized many teammates from the Marine Corps Rifle and Pistol Team. He searched the unit designations for Marines who belonged to 1st Marine Division, since they would be easiest to have placed under his command.

  Many of the Marines belonged to 3rd Marine Division, which had a sniper program started some months earlier. Major Robert A. Russell headed the snipers there and already employed several of the men whose names appeared on Land’s list.

  Land took a pen from his pocket and circled several names, one of which was Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, who had been serving as a military policeman at Chu Lai since April.

  By October 3, Hathcock had joined Land at the 1st Marine Division headquarters in Chu Lai. There they, together with M. Sgt. Donald L. Reinke, Gunnery Sergeant Wilson, and Staff Sgt. Charles A. Roberts, made preparations to move north into the Da Nang Tactical Area of Responsibility, where 1st Marine Division would relieve 3rd Marine Division.

  The move was well timed as far as the new sniper school staff was concerned. The small nucleus of snipers had spent every waking hour searching for rifles and scopes with which they could begin their own training operations. After Land obtained rifles, he had them all rebuilt and put into match condition by former shooting team armorers. By the time the sniper school staff had fully equipped themselves, the move north was ready to begin. They could start shooting the enemy as soon as they reached Hill 55, their base of operations, thirty miles southwest of Da Nang.