if they intended to survive. Mistakes meant death. “In this shooting match,” he told them, “second place is a body bag.”
The first class of the 1st Marine Division Scout/Sniper School commenced during November 1966. It was a learning experience for both student and instructor alike.
November arrived at Hill 55 with torrents of rain. Inside the sniper school’s damp, hard-back tent, twenty wet and muddy Marines sat on long wooden benches listening to Captain Land welcoming them as the school’s first students. He told them that they would be divided into two-man teams and that each team would have the benefit of a sniper instructor who would not only take them through their paces at Hill 55 but accompany them on every assignment in the bush.
Like a football coach welcoming a new squad to summer practice, the captain stepped atop a wooden footlocker and began to preach to the men, telling them why they were so special and why they should work hard to succeed in the school.
“Gentlemen,” Land told the men, “you have been selected to become scout/snipers not because you are the meanest sons-of-a-bitches in the valley, nor was it for showin* off what a tough guy you are to the gang back on the block. You were chosen not because you have muscles in your do-do, and not because you have potential to become some sort of coldblooded killer who would just as soon blow the eyes out of a baby as step on a bug.
“Your units selected each of you to become snipers because you are good Marines—men who are well disciplined… courageous … duty-bound… and loyal to your country and your Corps. You have been screened and found to be in top physical condition, mentally sound, and very patient. Each man here has demonstrated to his commander that he has good moral character and a strong sense of values, among which he holds life sacred.
“These attributes are important to be a successful sniper. When you go on a mission, there is no crowd to applaud you—no one for whom you can flex your muscles or show how tough you are. When you go on a mission, you’re alone.
“You have to be strong enough to physically endure lying in the weeds day after day, letting the bugs crawl over you and bite you, letting the sun cook you and the rain boil you. shitting and pissing in your pants, but lying there. Lying there because you know that Charlie’s coming, and you’re gonna kill him.
“You don’t shoot the first gooner that walks into your field of fire, either. You select your target carefully, making sure that the gooner you kill is Charlie, so that you can waste the bastard with no doubts or remorse.
“When you kill ole Nguyen Schwartz, other than you added another digit to your company’s body count for that month, nobody will give a shit.
“But you give a shit! You acted as a professional. You identified and put an end to a man, a woman, or even a child who would have killed your best friend, most of your friend’s friends, and you. And that’s what is important to you.
“I know mat as grunts, it was easy for you to feel justified in killing the enemy when he attacked you—he was trying to kill you. If you attacked him, he also had a choice to fight or surrender—you did not murder him, because he died trying to kill you. That’s self-defense.
“As a sniper, you do not have that luxury. You will be killing the enemy when he is unaware of your presence. You will be assassinating him without giving him the option to run or fight, surrender or die. You will be, in a sense, committing murder on him—premeditated.
“To deal with this successfully, you must be mentally strong. You must believe in what you are doing—that these efforts are defeating our enemy and that your selected kills of their leaders and key personnel are preventing death and carnage that this enemy would otherwise bring upon your brothers.”
The captain stood silent, looking at his new students solemn faces, allowing this sermon to digest. He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, the screening is not done. It has only begun. We want strong, good men—the best. We will weed out the ear, finger, and tooth collectors and send them packing. We will eliminate the hot dogs and cowards and send them packing with the dummies, liars, and thieves. I will tolerate none of these among my snipers.
“I will tolerate only hard work and dedication. You give us that, and we will make you the deadliest creature on earth—a sniper.”
The muggy tent erupted with cheers and whistles from the Marines. Hathcock stood near the back door, clapping.
The rain continued falling that warm November day. It soaked the many rice fields, hedgerows, and jungles that surrounded Hill 55. At the edge of the barbed-wire perimeter that surrounded the Marine encampment atop the hill, a rifle squad passed through a checkpoint as they left the compound’s security. The Marines making up this patrol were mostly cooks, administrative clerks, and supply personnel. It was a chance for them to see action and earn medals.
The patrol was a routine one. They would walk down the hill to a crossroads, where they would check the local citizenry’s identification cards and possibly return with some Viet Cong suspects for interrogation.
Hathcock stood at the back door of the snipers’ hooch, looking at the gray afternoon and watching the distant figures walking at the sides of the water-covered road. Stepping back inside the hooch, he sat next to his cot and began cleaning his rifle. The sound of the rain spattering against the canvas left him relaxed, feeling warmly secure as he scrubbed the rifle’s bolt with a solvent-soaked rag. The solvent’s pleasant, aromatic smell spread throughout the tent, wafted on the cool afternoon breeze that came through the hooch’s large, screened windows.
The quiet afternoon was suddenly shattered by the sound of rifle fire below the hill. The sound of a command-detonated mine exploding brought Hathcock to his feet. Even before he reached the door, he knew that the patrol that had just left Hill 55 had walked into an ambush.
He saw several Marines running for cover, trying to regroup and fight. But the enemy’s fire was heavy, and the best ; mat the patrol could do was try to survive. The Viet Cong had set up their ambush in a tree line and planted claymore mines* along the edges of a rice paddy dike that served as a trail cutting across a series of rice fields. The Marine patrol frequently used it as a shortcut to the crossroads. When the patrol turned up the well- traveled pathway, the Viet Cong opened fire. They then detonated the claymores as the Marines leaped into the rice paddy—the VC’s killing zone.
Realizing their tragic error, the dazed Marines mounted the dike and turned their rifle fire toward the tree line as they ran for their lives. Four bodies, partially in the water, lay sprawled against the dike, including that of one Marine who lay unconscious from a round that penetrated his steel helmet, cut his scalp, and knocked him out.
“Damned VC,” Hathcock said, pounding the door with the heel of his hand. “It’s like trying to kill ants: You can burn ’em, poison ’em, and stomp on ’em, but they just keep crawling up out of the ground.”
The sergeant who led the patrol reported to the intelligence chief that four of his Marines had died on the rice paddy dike and that the remainder of the patrol, including two seriously wounded men, had made it back to the hill. His report had been accurate, except that the fourth Marine did not die on the dike.
A reinforced platoon descended on the ambush site, but the woman who had led the attack had already told her guerrillas to carry the living Marine away.
The platoon searched the tree line and hedgerows for the fourth Marine until well after dark. When they quit looking for their fallen comrade it appeared certain that the Viet Cong had him.
The rain stopped just after nightfall and ushered in a light shroud of fog, which covered the low rice land surrounding Hill 55 like sheer, white chiffon. Inside a sandbagged bunker, where Marines drank beer and listened to rock ’n roll music,
The din of the music shut out the war but soon, one after another, Marines began disappearing from the dimly lit room. A corporal tapped Hathcock on the shoulder, “Some poor bastard is screaming bloody murder outside the wire.”
Carlos left his beer and walked over to where Captain Land and Gunnery Sergeant Wilson knelt behind sandbags, searching the tree line with a starlight scope.
“I can’t see a damn thing, Gunny,” Land told Wilson, as he passed the scope to him. Resting the scope across the sandbag, Wilson slowly panned across the tree line from where shrill cries echoed over the rice paddies.
Hathcock knelt beside Wilson. “That bitch! That filthy-assed Communist whore!” Wilson growled.
Across the quarter-mile of rice fields that separated the tree line from the hilt, the tormented Marine who had been taken prisoner that afternoon hung naked on a rack made of bamboo. He wore only his boots and the green wool socks that had his name stamped in black ink across the tops. Blood streamed down his cheeks, mixed with tears.
