Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock
Hathcock enlisted in the Marine Corps on May 20, 1959, at age 17 years. Before his deployment to Vietnam 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.
Widely recognized as the Marines' most proficient sniper, Hathcock had killed a confirmed 93 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong personnel. His actual total is believed to be well over 100, which the official count does not reflect. North Vietnam even put a bounty of $50,000 on his life, which was far more than other bounties put on U.S. snipers�typically only $50-$100 USD. The Viet Cong and NVA called Hathcock Long Tra'ng du'Kich, translated as "White Feather Sniper" in English, because of the white feather he kept in a band on his bush hat. He only removed the white feather from his bush hat once while deployed in Vietnam, and that was for his final mission on his first deployment, which called for prone crawling over a thousand meters of field to snipe a commanding NVA general.
Hathcock's work demanded steady nerves and was exhausting. During that pursuit of the NVA general, he had to cover more than 1,000 meters of open terrain during three days and nights of constant crawling an inch at a time. In Carlos's own words, one enemy soldier (or "hamburger" as Carlos called them), "shortly after sunset", almost stepped on him as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow. [1]
Hathcock's career as a sniper came to a sudden end outside Khe Sanh in 1969, when the amphibious tractor he was riding on struck an anti-tank mine. Hathcock pulled 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 severe burns over ninety percent of his body, forty nine percent of which were third-degree burns. He was evacuated to Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, where he underwent 13 skin graft operations. The nature of the injuries left him unable to perform effectively in combat with a rifle. He was told he would be recommended for the Silver Star, but he stated that he had only done what anyone there would have if they were awake. Later in life, he was awarded the Silver Star�the third-highest honor�for this incident that occurred nearly 30 years earlier.
Said Hathcock, in his book, of his career as a sniper: "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 we got dressed up like Marines. Thats just the way I see it."
