“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 1 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 mat 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 1 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 1 never went on any mission with anything in mind other than winning mis 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 die 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.
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 the 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:
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, arid 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 mat 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,
