Marine Sniper (3 page)

Sure enough, just as he had expected, he spotted a figure slipping from the trees to the edge of a distant rice field. He knelt and put his face in the water, and when Carles put his scope on him, he could see a Chinese K-44 rifle slung across his back.

A lieutenant from a company that had participated in the sweep now sat next to the Marine sniper, staring through binoculars.

"You see him down there?" Hathcock asked the young officer.

The lieutenant shifted the binoculars toward the direction that the machine gun now pointed and found the Viet Cong soldier, still drinking. "1 got him. How far you judge that to

be?"

'Twenty-five hundred yards. He's right on the spot where I zeroed this gun when I first got here."

The lieutenant laughed, and Hathcock said, "Let's see if I can't rain all over his parade." He took a firm grip on the gun's two wooden handles, took a short breath, and began pressing the trigger, waiting for the recoil's surprise.

The lieutenant watched. He felt strange because even at mis distance he could see the man's face and his eyes. He had never looked at a man's eyes just as a bullet killed him. The young officer jerked as die machine gun belched a single round down the hill. At that precise second, the enemy soldier started to rise and caught the bullet just below his chin.

The lieutenant saw the soldier kicking in the dirt and shouted, "You missed!"

In his Arkansas, low voice, Hathcock drawled, "He's dead, sir. They just flop around a lot when you shoot 'em in the head."

Hathcock never connected with a longer shot.

Later that day, he saw a Viet Cong soldier coming down a trail. On the same trail, an old woman was carrying water-filled buckets hung on the ends of a long pole, which she balanced across her shoulders like a yoke. She was teetering up the path when the Marine sniper's bullet struck the dirt between the soldier's legs and ricocheted over the woman's bead. The frightened man charged right at her, and she attempted to set down her load. But, just as she began to squat, the soldier struck her head-on. The woman tumbled over backward into the dirt, spilling her buckets and losing her pole.

Hathcock had a chance at a second shot, but his laughter took charge of his aim. He continued chuckling as he dismantled the big machine gun. It was a satisfying end to his long watch atop the hill at Due Pho.

The weapons platoon retook possession of their M-2 ,50-caliber machine gun that had served as Carlos Hathcock's sniper weapon during his stay on the Due Pho hilltop.

Hathcock fastened the long Unertl scope back on his sniper rifle - a match-conditioned, .30-06 Springfield caliber, Model-70 Winchester anchored at the receiver with precisely torqued screws that held it in a glass-bedded, Monte Carlo-style stock, above which the finely tuned barrel floated, less man the width of a dollar bill, allowing the barrel to flex freely when he fired the rifle. He again zeroed the weapon for seven hundred yards.

With his NVA pack strapped snugly to his back and his rifle shouldered, Carlos Hathcock waited at the landing zone for the helicopter that would take him back to Hill 55, his base of operations. He liked Hill 55 because it overlooked miles of Viet Gong-controlled countryside - hot spots like Elephant Valley to the north and, to the south, Antenna Valley. East of Hill 55 were the friendly strongholds of Marble Mountain and Da Nang, but to the west lay the badlands known as Charlie Ridge and Happy Valley.

Hathcock felt glad to be getting back to his old hunting grounds. Charlie Roberts stood next to him and nudged him, "Looks like our frog." He pointed toward the twin-rotor heli-copter that had just cleared the horizon along the northwest coastline and now raced toward them, skimming the treetops.

Hathcock said nothing to Roberts. It was typical of their relationship. They had never gotten along, and Hathcock politely endured die staff sergeant whik suppressing his often felt frustration with the senior Marine. As they waited, Hathcock recalled the first day on Due Pho and how Roberts had stood atop the rocks surrounding the sniper position, admiring the breathtaking view, and drew a hail of enemy fire. A senior NCO in the battalion had yanked Roberts off the rocks just as the shooting began and then questioned the reliability of both the Marines. That insult had deeply wounded Hathcock's pride. From that day forward, the rift between the two men grew. Hathcock did his thing, and Roberts did his-mostly watching.

Hathcock smiled and took off his bush hat, holding his white feather secure in the hatband with his thumb.

More than seven years before, on a warm spring day in 1959, Cartos Hathcock had stood in die Marine recruiter's office in Little Rock, Arkansas, and watched his mother sign the papers giving him permission to join the Marine Corps. It was May 20-the day of his seventeenth birthday. He was fulfilling what for him was already an old dream.

That afternoon he got on a plane bound for San Diego, where he would have thirteen weeks at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in which to prove himself man enough to join the United State's most elite society of warriors.

Carlos stood five feet ten inches tall and weighed one hundred forty pounds. Although slight in build, he could run all day and lift a load equal to bis weight over his head. He had developed mis strength after dropping out of high school at age fifteen and going to work for a Little Rock concrete contractor, shoveling cement ten hours a day, six days a week.

Boot camp wasn't going to be any picnic, but Carlos had the physical stamina to withstand the long, punishing days and nights. As for the mental pressures, he would handle them with the strong self-discipline that he had developed at an early age when he was forced to shoulder the responsibilities of his family.

Hathcock arrived at MCRD San Diego sitting on a brown, plastic-covered seat inside a dull gray bus with "U.S. Navy" stenciled on its side. He and approximately thirty other reemits had ridden it from Lmdbergh Field to the recruit depot. Several of die young men talked loudly and smoked cigarettes, although the chubby, blond-haired Marine private who drove the bus had warned them that that wasn't the best way to start their military careers.

It was eleven o'clock of a warm, West Coast evening. The bus came to a halt, and a Marine sergeant wearing a tan uniform, with creases so sharp that they stood out a half inch from his chest, stepped briskly aboard.

The sergeant wore black, spit-shined shoes, which glistened like patent leather, and a brown, beaver-felt campaign hat with a wide, flat brim. Centered on the hat was a coal Mack Marine Corps emblem. The Marine walked directly to where one of the cockiest recruits was sitting. -

During the ride from the airport, this loud-talking fellow boasted how tough his St. Louis gang had been. The young man wore his long and thick black hair heavily oiled and combed back in a ducktail. He sported a pack of Camels rolled in the sleeve of his black T-shirt. A smoking cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth.

Without a word, the Marine drill instructor plucked the cigarette from the recruit's lips, dropped it on die black rubber mat mat ran down die aisle of the bus, and crushed it out with a single twist of his toe. Half a dozen other lit cigarettes suddenly dropped to die floor in silence as die broad-shouldered sergeant gazed toward die rear of the bus with his stern, dark eyes, almost hidden under die brim of his hat.

Hathcock was in awe. "This is it!" he said loudly.

The Marine looked at him. Hathcock was just about to rise to his feet when he caught the drill instructor's cold stare.

"Ladies-you too, sweetheart," he said in a loud voice and looked directly at Hathcock. "You will not utter a word from this moment on, unless you are addressed by your drill instructor. When that occurs, die first word out of your mouth will be Sir," die DI growled emphatically, pausing for effect. "And die last word out of your mouth will be Sir. Is that dear?"

Only silence followed.

"When you are addressed by a drill instructor, and he asks you a question, you will respond with Sir, followed by the appropriate answer, and then finish with Sir. Is that clear?'

Again, only fearful silence met the DI's ears. He looked at Hathcock. "Private!"

Hathcock swallowed and answered him in a low, Arkansas drawl, "Yes Sir?"

"What did I just say?"

Hathcock felt the blood rushing through his face. He rose to his feet and mumbled, "Sir... ah... you ain't supposed to say nuthin..."

The Marine cut him off in mid-sentence. "You? You? Boy, do you know what a ewe is? That's a female sheep! You're a country boy, ain't ya. You ought to know what country boys does to them female sheeps. They fucks 'em, don't they- boooy. You want to fuck me?"

"Sir, no Sir," Hathcock quickly responded.

"Sit down, boy," the drill instructor barked.

"Sir, yes Sir," Hathcock said, gladly shrinking to his seat.

"I can't hear you, boy."

Hathcock responded loudly, "Sir, yes Sir!"

"Okay, ass eyes," the granite-faced sergeant said angrily. "When you answer me, you are on your feet, at the position of attention, and your asshole better pucker and your ears better pop. If they don't you ain't answering loud enough. You got that?"

Hathcock leaped to his feet, arching his back and jutting his chin straight up. He screamed with his eyes squeezed tightly shut and bis veins bulging on his neck, "Sir, yesss Sinrr

The Marine sergeant walked down the aisle, "Ladies, any time a drill instructor addresses you as a group, you will answer as a group. You will answer property and loudly. If you fail as a group, you will pay for your sins as a group. Is mat clear?"

Thirty young men chimed together, assholes puckering and ears popping, "Sir, yes Sir."

"Very good."

"When you speak to a drill instructor, you will address him in the third person. That means if you have a request, such as one of you ladies might need to go tmkle, you would request it in this fashion, 'Sir, the private requests permission to make a head call, Sir.'

'Two words that will never be a part of your vocabulary are I or You. You will replace those words with The Private and The Drill Instructor, respectively. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes Sir," thirty voices yelled.

"Now, when I step off of this bus, I don't want to hear the sound of anything but wind sucking in, filling the vacuum that you just left, and the thunder of your hooves hitting those yellow footprints painted out there on the concrete. You got that?"

"Sir, yes Sir."

"I wiU not hear one word out there. Marines are sleeping in the barracks just down the road and we don't want to disturb them, do we?"

"Sir, no Sir."

The Marine turned his back and stepped off the bus, followed by the stampede of thirty frightened recruits, including Hathcock.

That night they gave him a web belt, a pair of tennis shoes, a green utility cap, jacket and trousers, a large white T-shirt, a large pair of white boxer shorts, green wool socks, a blue, plastic soap dish, a bar of Dial soap, a blue, plastic toothbrush holder, a can of Barbasol shaving cream, a razor, a tube of Crest toothpaste, a toothbrush, a pair of rubber thongs that the marines called shower shoes, a pair of gray shorts, a yellow sweatshirt with a red Marine Corps emblem emblazoned on the front, a green canvas seabag with a wide strap that clipped through a ring on the top, a bucket, two sheets, a pillow, and a blanket. He got to bed at 4:00 A.M., and an hour and a half later a drill instructor rousted the exhausted recruits and sent mem on the first day of their thirteen weeks of hell.

Hathcock chuckled as he recalled those unforgettable days. He gazed out the helicopter's door at the emerald-and-orange jungle, watching treetops blur past just a few feet beneath the chopper as it raced toward Hill 55. He thought how that first day in the Marine Corps had to be his most memorable birthday.

He thought that he could have married Jo on a May 20 also, but choosing die Marine Corps' birthday-November 10-seemed better, somehow. It balanced the year's celebrations, and it was a date that he remembered easily. November 10, 1967, would mark his fifth wedding anniversary. These five years of marriage had passed quickly for Hathcock. They had been happy for the couple, but not easy.