“It’s their quotas that my men were filling. It’s time to balance the books!”
“Staff Sergeant Hathcock, the sergeant major is going to raise hell. It’s nothing new for me. Like I said, I lead the sergeant major’s hit-parade. I have a hunch that you and I will be competing for that number one spot after this. It’s your choice right now. Once you make it, the sergeant major will be on you just like he’s on me.”
“There’s no choice to be made, Gunny. My snipers come ahead of my own pleasure. I’ve got a hunch that fella I just relieved might have tried to get along and keep everybody happy. He was a good Marine when I first knew him. But you can only compromise so far. I think he chose to keep folks on the hill happy, and his Marines went to hell in a handbasket.”
Hathcock stood. “I’ve gotta go inspect my area and cut the troops loose. You eat chow yet?”
“No. I’ll wait for you to get back. We’ll go together.”
“Sounds good,” Hathcock said smiling.
BEFORE THE SUN REVEALED ANY LIGHT TO THE BLACK SKY THE FOLlowing morning, Hathcock sat behind a field desk in the sniper platoon hooch. He glanced down a roster of names and from it paired a senior-ranked Marine with one of a junior grade on each of ten teams he organized. He took the odd man, a corporal from London, Ohio, named John Perry. He would rotate these combinations of men and equipment until each team satisfied him. Hathcock compared it to arranging marriages, since much of a team’s success depended on the compatibility of the two partners.
The Vietnamese summer, which extends throughout the major portion of the year, drying the monsoon season’s mud brick-hard in its blistering heat, had set in long before Carlos arrived in-country during the final days of May 1969. Hot dust now covered this crackling world, its shades of green stripped treeless-brown by the bullets and napalm from a decade of fighting.
AS HATHCOCK SAT SWELTERING IN THE DARKNESS BEFORE ANOTHER sandpaper day in this dusty, hot land, the afternoon heat of South Carolina June broiled the left arm and face of Staff Sergeant Ronald H. McAbee. With his bare arm propped out the window, he drove his car through the sunny countryside near the house where his wife waited for him to arrive from Texas. He had left San Antonio the day before and slept in a roadside park in Alabama.
McAbee had spent two weeks at San Antonio with the Marine Corps Rifle Team, competing in the Texas State and NRA Regional rifle matches. Like his friend Carlos Hathcock, Ron McAbee departed from Texas with orders for Vietnam. During his tour at Quantico, he and Hathcock had become close friends—like brothers, he would tell anyone who asked.
Ron McAbee first met Hathcock at Camp Lejeune at the end of the Marine Corps rifle and pistol matches in the spring of 1967. McAbee had just finished shooting his .45 caliber “hard ball” pistol in the final day of individual competition when he met Hathcock in the red brick barracks at the rifle range near coastal North Carolina’s Sneed’s Ferry and Topsail Island. That night they crossed the tall bridge that leads to the beach community and drank Jim Beam bourbon whiskey and water at a tavern there. McAbee was allergic to beer.
McAbee knew that Hathcock was in I Corps, but he did not know where. He guessed his friend would probably be at the 1st Marine Division’s Scout/Sniper School, now at Da Nang.
In fact, when Carlos arrived in Vietnam, he had been destined to teach at the sniper school. He had called the 1st Marine Division’s operations officer from the Da Nang airport when he arrived in-country. That colonel sent a jeep and driver for this very special Marine. He even offered him the position of senior instructor at the school, but Carlos wanted action, not classes. He told the colonel that he could do the 1st Marine Division more good with a platoon of his own.
NOW, AS DAWN BOILED ABOVE THE SOUTH CHINA SEA, HATHCOCK stood in the doorway of his sniper hooch waiting for his first muster. The fresh start for 7th Marines’ snipers.
Already, before others in the encampment above them had stirred, most of the sniper platoon sat below the sandbag wall of their command bunker, talking. This morning they wore a variety of uniforms from pickle colored sateen—the standard stateside Marine Corps issue—to jungle camouflage uniforms with slanted patch pockets. Others wore uniforms cut from the same design as the camouflage but in a solid green color like the sateen utilities. The effort was obvious and Hathcock accepted that for now.
Hathcock shouted, “Corporal Perry!” and a Marine leaped to his feet and snapped to attention in front of the hooch.
“Yes, Staff Sergeant Hathcock.”
“Supply have trouble keeping you people in uniforms?”
“Yes. We get one set of utilities at a time. Several of the troops didn’t have any, so they borrowed extras that some guys managed to rat hole, or they wore regular sateens. They’re all Marine Corps issue, though.”
“I can see that. We all need to be dressed alike, or at least close. I prefer cammies. Where’s the nearest supply point?”
“On the hill. But they don’t have any. If you want real utilities, you have to go down to the Force Service Regiment at Da Nang. But you gotta have paperwork from Division to get anything from them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. By the way, you’ll be my shooting partner, unless you work out better with someone else.”
“That’s fine, Staff Sergeant Hathcock.”
Hathcock spent the next hour reading the initial pairings of teams and answering questions about how flexible these partnerships would be. He explained that each man could have a combination of partners, no one would be teamed with any one man. But all partnerships must be close. Both members of the team must understand and be able to almost read his partner’s mind. This would take time, Hathcock told them.
By ten o’clock that morning, the twenty-two snipers were behind their rifles, outside the wire, shooting at targets seven hundred yards away, zeroing their sights for that distance.
Meanwhile, back at the sniper hooch, the outgoing platoon sergeant flopped on the duty cot. He had gone to see Sergeant Major Puckett, just as Carlos had told him to do if he had a problem with being kicked out of the platoon. The sergeant major took exception to the quick decision by this newly reported staff sergeant and told the sergeant to return to the sniper platoon and work there until he left Vietnam in less than two weeks.
The sergeant major rang the sniper command post telephone, but no one answered. He sent a runner down with the newly returned sergeant, but that man came back with an empty shrug for a response. Finally, at ten o’clock, when the sergeant major received word from the operations office that the sniper platoon was outside the wire, sighting in their weapons, he shouted, “Get me Gunny Sommers!”
Sergeant Major Puckett also heard complaints from the camp commandant—a lieutenant in charge of the order and cleanliness of the regimental area. Half of his detail destined to collect the cans from each of the field toilets and burn them on the downwind side of the hill had not reported for duty this morning.
At eleven o’clock, a jeep roared to a halt at the small firing range that Hathcock had helped Captain Land construct in 1966. David Sommers casually asked Hathcock, “You ready?” He did not have to say more, Hathcock already knew the trouble.
“Perry, take charge of the platoon and take them back through the wire at fifteen hundred this afternoon, if I’m not back. Spend the rest of the day working in pairs, practicing stalking and movement. Don’t get all bunched up and keep your security out.”
When the jeep halted at the sergeant major’s tent five minutes later, Sergeant Major Puckett stood outside with his arms folded, waiting.
Hathcock stepped up to the sergeant major and smiled. “What can I do for you, Sergeant Major?”
“Be there when I call you, Staff Sergeant.”
“I got my platoon up early this morning, getting them ready for operations. We’ve got a whole lot of work to get done. I’ve got this here list of supplies I need, and I gotta get authorization to go down to Da Nang to get cammies for my snipers. Sure could use your ho
rsepower. Could you help us?”
“When you leave your hooch, I want you to carry a radio. I had several things happen this morning, and I needed to talk to you.”
“I’ll be glad to carry a radio. You get me one and I’ll carry it. In fact, I could use three or four.”
“See the comm chief, he’ll sign them out to you. Second thing. Where were your men who had police detail this morning?”
“I wasn’t aware of anyone who had police detail, Sergeant Major. Which Marine was he?”
“About a dozen men in your platoon!”
“I only have twenty-one men. That’s more than half my platoon. That’s a heavy quota. Do all the other units give up sixty percent of their Marines to burn shitters?”
“Don’t get smart with me, Staff Sergeant. We have priorities, and your men have not been committed to any action, therefore, they will pull police duty or whatever else that is necessary around this hill. They aren’t paid for doing nothing.”
“I beg your pardon, Sergeant Major. My men have been working all morning. They will be working long after everyone else has kicked back for the night too. We have a lot of lost ground and training to get caught up on so that we can get back into action. We will pull our fair share of duty. Every man, including myself. With all due respect—”
“Can it, Hathcock! I’ll hit the other units for quotas. You will pull your fair share, too. If I find one of your men lazing around the hill, I’ll have your hide for it. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Hathcock stood at attention and, with all the sincerity he could muster, said, “Sergeant Major, I’m on your side. In fact, I would be honored if you would consider joining us. I’ll set aside for you one of the best rifles. I just need your help. I need supplies. My men need working uniforms. You help me get this and I’ll give you a sniper platoon that 7th Marines can brag about.”
Puckett was a man who had always done what he thought was best for his soldiers, and now, in spite of himself, he had to be impressed. “I’ll do what I can for you, if you’re serious,” he said sternly. “Don’t you embarrass me.”
Hathcock reached inside the large cargo pocket on the leg of his camouflage trousers and pulled out a list that he had typed early that morning in the dim light of a small lamp. “Here’s a copy of my shopping list. I sure appreciate the help.” He walked back to the jeep where David Sommers waited and left with him.
All the way down the hill, the two men laughed. “Hell, Hathcock, he’ll probably deliver the stuff himself. You sure stuck your chin out, inviting him to become a sniper. The sergeant major’s just gunji enough to do that.”
“Good! If he’s one of us, then he can’t be against us.”
“Yeah. But he’ll still be a pain in the ass. You know, he’s got to take care of everybody else too.”
“I hope he does,” Hathcock said, jumping out of the jeep.
THAT EVENING, WHEN HATHCOCK WALKED INTO THE SNIPER HOOCH, he found the old platoon sergeant reclining on the duty rack, wearing his dirty jungle boots and reading a paperback western.
“Sergeant Major send you back here?”
“Yeah,” the sergeant said without taking his eyes from the book.
“You think you can generate enough energy to answer this phone, if it rings?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“For the next two weeks, you’re phone watch.”
The sergeant glanced at Hathcock and then turned his eyes back to the book.
Hathcock slammed the door as he left and grumbled all the way to the staff hooch where he found Sommers sitting outside, drinking a Coca-Cola.
“Two weeks with that bum! I don’t know how I’ll do it. I can’t stand two minutes with him!”
“Cool off, Hathcock. Look at it this way. The sergeant major will have someone to talk to when he calls. Who knows, maybe he’ll get tired of seeing him lie back there and put him to work.”
“Burning shitters? No sergeant’s gonna burn shitters. Not even him. But now that I think about it, he may give me the space I need to get these snipers trained and put to work.”
Sommers smiled and raised his soda can in a toasting salute. “See, even that dark cloud has its silver lining.”
MID-JUNE HEAT COOKED BROWN WHAT LITTLE GREEN COLOR EXISTED in the elephant grass in the valley below Hill 55. The summer sun sent the mirage boiling in heavy waves above the many empty rice fields that had flourished with tall stands of grain only a year before. Beyond the fields, near the broken trunks of hundreds of denuded trees that prickled the hillside with their shattered, gray skeletons, Carlos Hathcock and three of his snipers trudged in the shimmering heat, carefully following a plan set out by the patrol leader—a corporal who Hathcock was evaluating.
“You seem pretty familiar with this plan,” Hathcock said in a low voice to the corporal as they stopped to rest in the cover of several of the downed logs. “You walk this ground very often?”
“Yes. I’ve done it about three times this week, in fact.”
“You took this route three times this week?”
“Sure. I’ve gotten kills every time too. I thought that today, with four of us, we would hit the jack-pot.”
“Or Charlie will hit the jack-pot. You underestimate your opponent, Corporal. That’s deadly. Do you think they’re going to let you walk out here three times a week and not leave you a little present?”
The corporal was silent.
“Where were we headed next?”
“Down this slope and through that cane.”
“That the same route you took the last time you crossed here?”
“Yes. It’s a long way from where we’re going to set up. It’s the quickest way through here.”
“You think we ought to go through there?”
“No,” the corporal said. “We’ll have to go around and follow the contour of the hill, instead. It’ll take about forty-five minutes longer.”
“Right,” Hathcock said. “Now let’s walk down to that cane and see what that trail has to offer.”
Cautiously, the four Marines crawled over a high, dirt dike below which a tall stand of cane grew green and straw brown. Sitting on his heels Hathcock searched for trip wires. A tense smile spread across his face.
“You see it?” he asked.
“No. Where?” the corporal asked.
“About knee high, all along the edge of the cane. See it?”
The corporal looked closely, and as the breeze rustled the cane back and forth, his eye caught in a flash of sunlight, the fine, black wire stretched across a twenty-five-foot expanse of cane.
Hathcock was watching his expression closely. “All right, good,” he said. “Now look on the backsides of these thick stalks. See ’em?”
The corporal eyed each tall shaft of cane from its roots to its leafy, thin top. Suddenly he snapped his head toward Hathcock, his eyes open wide. “Yes!”
Hathcock said in a low voice, “I see at least four grenades tied in right here. That daisy chain stretches across the entire front of this field. Anybody walking through would be blown to pieces against this dike. I wouldn’t no more go through there now than I would tap-dance in a mine field.”
Unhooking a hand grenade from his belt, Hathcock looked at his men and said, “You men get on up over that dike. I’m gonna roll this down in the field and see if I can’t set off Charlie’s trap.”
The three Marines scrambled up the bank and over the top as Hathcock worked loose the pin with his left hand. He crawled halfway up the embankment and then tossed down the small bomb filled with heavy explosive.
Suddenly, a portion of ground gave way beneath Hathcock’s boots. His feet slipped as he scrambled at the top of the high bank, and, as he slid, he yelled. His Marines responded with six hands that grabbed hold of his shirt and pack and jerked him so forcefully that in a second he was airborne. His hundred fifty-pound body flew over the top just as the cane field exploded, sending thousands of deadly steel shards into the dirt bank
where he had struggled. The four Marines were showered with leaves and dirt and fragments of cane stalk.
Pale as oatmeal, Carlos looked at the three wide-eyed Marines beside him. “That wasn’t too smart either. Thanks.”
He looked down at his hands shaking from the adrenalin his body had poured out. “The next time you do something like that get behind cover before you throw the grenade.”
The corporal looked at Hathcock and said, “I started to say something, but I thought that was the way you did things. A little more gutsy than the rest of us.”
“A little more stupid,” Hathcock said with a laugh. He was glad to be alive. He stood, dusted off his trousers and took his three snipers on to the point. They killed three Viet Cong that day.
June was a busy month for Hathcock; he sent three sniper teams to work with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, commanded by Lt. Col. John Aloysius Dowd, who welcomed the opportunity to employ this added dimension of firepower. Hathcock felt honored because Dowd’s battalion saw the most action and led the regiment in enemy killed.
During April his battalion killed one hundred sixty North Vietnamese Army troops, fifty-one Viet Cong, and took one prisoner. The second and third battalions killed fifty-eight and eighty-five of the enemy respectively in the same period. In May, Dowd’s Marines tallied forty-four NVA killed in action, forty-one Viet Cong, and took two prisoners, while the second battalion killed none and the third killed thirty NVA.
The first battalion seemed to be where the action always occurred, and Hathcock, who had a high opinion of Dowd, was delighted.
While the six snipers operated with the first battalion, Hathcock sent eight others to the division’s sniper school at Da Nang. Next month he planned to send four more, and two others after that. By mid-August, he calculated, his platoon would be 99 percent operational.
He faced another problem, however, that would not be so easily solved—rifles. When he reported to Vietnam, he anticipated seeing nothing but the M-40 rifle in use. He saw the first arrivals of the new sniper weapon in January 1967, therefore, it was not unreasonable to expect this weapon—a Model 700 Remington 7.62mm rifle with a 10-power light-gathering, range-finding scope—to be the common denominator among snipers. But what he found when he arrived left him bitterly disappointed. There were vintage World War II era Model 70 Winchesters and M-1D sniper rifles, as well as a couple of M-40X rifles—the test model of the M-40.
Marine Sniper Page 25
