Charles Henderson - Marine Sniper

“We had pretty well ground that particular battalion down to nothing in the past two weeks—they needed these guys bad. But not bad enough to come down and face whatever it was that had them pinned. They figured you controlled the high ground on the south side, and they didn’t want to screw around with you guys. That NVA prisoner said that they had no idea what in hell they faced up on that hillside, but whatever it was, it was deadly.”

Hathcock took a final draw off the cigarette and crushed it into the brass ash tray that sat on the corner of the gunny’s desk. Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he smiled and then tucked his bush hat back on his head, stroking the white feather in its band.

The two Marines walked away from the buzzing command tent toward their hooches, where they would clean their gear, then themselves, and get some rest. Hathcock looked at Burke and rubbed his finger down the Marine’s cheek where sweat had washed white streaks through the light and dark green camouflage greasepaint that both snipers had caked on their skin. Hathcock shook his head and then lazily drawled, “Come on, Burke, let’s get cleaned up, your mascara has done run all over your face.”

A STACK OP mail lay on Carlos Hathcock’s field desk when he walked inside the 1st Marine Division Scout/Sniper School’s hand-backed tent. Two letters were from Jo—one thick and one thin.

Hathcock looked at the postmarks and opened the letter that bore the oldest date first—the thick letter. As he unfolded the letter, a small clipping from the Raleigh News and Observer fell onto a copy of Leatherneck Magazine that lay on his desk.

Hathcock grunted as he read the bold print that led the story. A sharp knot tightened in his stomach as he laid the clipping aside and began to read the letter.

“Dear Carlos,” the letter began, “they wrote about you in the newspaper. I don’t quite understand, but I hope you can explain…

“Now every day I wonder what you are doing. I keep waiting for them to come up the sidewalk and tell me you’re dead…

“I thought you were safe at the headquarters, teaching. Now I read that you go out alone, or with one other Marine, sniping in enemy territory. I want to know how you are. I want to know the truth.”

Hathcock folded the fat letter and looked at the thin one that was postmarked the following day. It was two pages long and began, “I’m sorry that I was angry with you. I know that you don’t need to be getting negative letters. I understand that you just didn’t want me to worry…”

The letter also told about their son and what Jo hoped to do once her husband was home. It asked, “Have you decided about staying in the Marines?

Hathcock took a tablet of paper from the field desk’s right-hand drawer and scrawled, “Dear Jo, I’m sorry. I didn’t think telling you would make the waiting better for you. I didn’t want you to worry.

“I know that I’m not invincible, but none of these hamburgers are smart enough to get me. I promise you that. Don’t you worry about me…

“I have decided to quit the Marine Corps and settle down there in New Bern.

“I’ll see you in a couple of weeks… Love, Carlos.”

Gunnery Sgt. James D. Wilson, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the 1st Marine Division sniper school, walked in the hooch just as Hathcock licked the envelope’s flap and pressed it closed.

“Letter home?”

“Yeah. I gotta bone to pick with that reporter who was up here a couple of months ago. You know, the one who interviewed me and Captain Land after Charlie put out the bounty on us?”

“Sure. What happened?” the gunny asked.

“You remember Captain Land tellin’ that guy that the story he wrote was just for the Sea Tiger? That it was for in-country, only?”

“Yeah?”

“His story—almost word for word—appeared in the Raleigh newspaper. My wife just mailed me the clipping.”

“No shit. That’s a hell of a way for a woman to find out about her husband, by reading it in the newspaper.”

“That’s what she thought, too.”

“You know, you lead the list of confirmed kills, and that makes you the Marine Corps’ number one sniper. And there is no way you can keep that secret from her. How’s she going to handle that news?” Hathcock lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. Blowing a cloud of smoke toward the mud—and oil-stained plywood floor, he said, “I never looked at it like this was some sort of shooting match where the man with the most kills wins the gold medal. Hell, Gunny, anybody would be crazy to like to go out and kill folks.

“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.”