CONSIDERED  GREATEST  SNIPER

IN  HISTORY  OF  THE  MARINE  CORPS

Excerpts from article published in Los Angeles Times on 2/28/1999:

His license plates in Virginia read SNIPER, and during the Vietnam War he was just that.  But when Marine GYSGT Carlos N. Hathcock II died last week at the age of 57, the enemy that ultimately felled him was the slow, patient progression of multiple sclerosis.  No Marine sniper was more effective than Hathcock at killing North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces.  The number 93 reflects his confirmed kills, but his actual total is believed to be several hundred.  As a testament to his effectiveness, North Vietnam once put a bounty of $30,000 on his head although the normal bounty ranged from $8 to $2,000.  The Viet Cong knew him as well and called him "Long Trang du Kich," the white feather sniper, because he often wore one in his bush hat.

Hathcock is a legend in the Marine Corps.  The Carlos Hathcock Award is presented annually to the Marine who does the most to promote marksmanship and there is a sniper range named for Hathcock at Camp Lejeune.  Late in his life, he was awarded the Silver Star for an incident that happened nearly 30 years earlier, when he pulled seven comrades off a burning armored personnel carrier that had struck a mine.  That act of bravery left Hathcock badly burned and effectively ended his career as a rifleman.

Hathcock, a native of Arkansas, was a slight, unassuming man with a self-contained temperament that made him perfect for a job that involved infiltrating deep into enemy-held territory and waiting, often for days, to take one shot at his target.  He once said that he survived in his work because of an ability to "get in the bubble," to put himself into a state of "utter, complete, absolute concentration," first on his equipment, then on his environment in which every breeze and every leaf meant something, and finally on his quarry.  His work demanded steady nerves and was exhausting.  During one pursuit of an enemy general, he had to cover more than 1,000 meters of open terrain during three days and nights without sleep of constant crawling an inch at a time.  Enemy patrols came within 20 feet of Hathcock, who lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in the open.  During two 13-month tours of duty in Vietnam, Hathcock volunteered for so many missions that his commanding officer once had to restrict him to quarters to make him rest.  At the time the 5-foot, 10-inch Hathcock weighed only 120 pounds.  "It was the stalk that I enjoyed," he once told a reporter for the Washington Post.  "Pitting yourself against another human being.  There was no second place in Vietnam--second place was a body bag.  Everybody was scared and those that weren't are liars.  But you can let that work for you.  It makes you more alert, keener, and that's how it got for me. It made me be the best."  One of Hathcock's most famous accomplishments was shooting an enemy sniper through the enemy's own rifle scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him.  Hathcock and a spotter were stalking the enemy sniper in the jungle.  The sniper, known only as the 'Cobra,' had already killed several Marines and was believed to have been sent specifically to kill Hathcock.  When Hathcock saw a flash of light (light reflecting off the enemy sniper's scope) in the bushes he fired at it, shooting through the scope and killing the sniper.  Surveying the situation, Hathcock concluded that the only feasible way he could have put the bullet straight down the enemy's scope and through his eye would have been if both snipers were zeroing in on each other at the same time and Hathcock fired first, which gave him only a few seconds to act.

Raised outside Little Rock, Hathcock lived with his grandmother after his parents divorced. He loved the outdoors and taught himself to hunt in the woods as a young boy.  He knew where the rabbits and squirrels ran.  "As a young'n, I'd go sit in the woods and wait a spell," he once said.  "I'd just wait for the rabbits and squirrels 'cause sooner or later a squirrel would be in that very tree or a rabbit would be coming by that very log.  I just knew it.  Don't know why, just did."  By age 10, he was bringing meat home to the table regularly.  As soon as he turned 17 in 1959, Hathcock enlisted in the Marines.  It didn't take him long to make his mark.  He qualified immediately at boot camp in San Diego as an expert shot.  Over the next several years he won many shooting championships, including the prestigious Wimbledon cup--long-range shooting's most prestigious prize--in 1965.  A year later he was sent to Vietnam.  His first job in Vietnam was as a military policeman but he wanted more action.  He volunteered for regular reconnaissance patrols but felt uneasy with Marines who did not have the woodcraft skills that he possessed.  He wanted to hunt on his own.  At first his fellow Marines questioned the usefulness of a lone sniper, but after six months--and 14 confirmed kills--Hathcock's methods won acceptance.  He once said that Vietnam was "just right" for him.  Although he once told a fellow Marine that he never looked at his work "as a shooting match, where the man with the most kills wins the gold medal," he told a reporter that he "did enjoy it once.  And it scared me.  Bad."

Hathcock's career as a sniper came to a sudden end in 1969, when the amphibious tractor he was riding on was ambushed and hit a 500-pound box mine.  Although knocked unconscious, Hathcock awoke in time to pull seven Marines off the flame-engulfed vehicle before jumping to safety.  As was his way, he rejected any commendation for his bravery.  He came out of the attack with second- and third-degree burns over more than 40% of his body and was evacuated to Texas where he underwent 13 skin graft operations.  The nature of the injuries left him unable to perform effectively again with a rifle.  After returning to active duty, he helped establish a scout and sniper school at Quantico.  "He emphasized snipers could not be John Wayne, that we should be reserved," said SGT William Bartholomew, a sniper in the Baltimore Police Department who trained under Hathcock.  "If you didn't apply what he taught you, if you made an absent-minded error, he could stare right through you," Bartholomew told the Baltimore Sun.  "He could chew you out without ever raising his voice."

In 1975, Hathcock's health was deteriorating and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  He stayed in the Corps but continued to decline in health and was forced to retire just 55 days short of 20 years but was awarded 100% disability pay.  During his retirement ceremony he was presented a plaque by his commanding officer.  It read: "There have been many Marines.  And there have been many Marine marksmen.  But there is only one Marine Sniper--Gunnery Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock II.  One Shot--One Kill.”  Despite the sentiment on the plaque, Hathcock left the service an embittered man as he felt he had been forced out of the Marines.  He lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with his wife but his health declined to the point where he was confined to a wheelchair.  Eventually, he came out of his depression and was hired by police departments to lecture on the art of sniping.  Two books were written about his exploits and a movie called "Sniper," which was loosely based on his career, was released.  His death came two weeks after he helped pin a promotion on his only child, 34-year-old Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock III, USMC, during a ceremony the Marines moved from North Carolina to the Hathcocks' Virginia Beach home.  After the Vietnam War a friend showed Hathcock a passage written by Ernest Hemingway: "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter."  "He got that right," Hathcock said. "It was the hunt, not the killing."

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)