Posted on 05/27/2002 7:44:48 AM PDT by Slam
AMERICANS SLOW TO RECOGNIZE VALOR OF 'MURDER INC.'
The academics write their mighty histories. The politicians dictate their memoirs. The retired generals give their speeches. The intellectuals record their ironic epiphanies. And in all this hubbub attending wars either lost or won, the key man is forgotten - the lonely figure crouched in the bushes, wishing he were somewhere else: the man with the rifle.
Such a man has just died, and his passing will be marked elsewhere only in small, specialized journals with names such as Leatherneck and Tactical Shooter and in the Jesuitical culture of the Marine Corps, where he is still fiercely admired.
And in some quarters, even that small amount of respect will be observed with skepticism. After all, he was merely a grunt. He fought in a bad war. But, worst of all, he was a sniper.
Gunnery Sgt. (Ret.) Carlos N. Hathcock II, USMC, died Feb. 22 (1999) at 57 in Virginia Beach, Va., after a long decline in the grip of the only enemy he wasn't able to kill: multiple sclerosis. In the end, he didn't recognize his friends. But he had quite a life. In two tours in the 1960s, he wandered through the Republic of South Vietnam, and with a rifle made by Winchester, a heart made by God and a discipline made by the Marine Corps, he stalked and killed 93 of his country's enemies. And that was only the official count.
It's not merely that Vietnam was a war largely without heroes. It's also that the very nature of Hathcock's heroism was a problem for so many. He killed, nakedly and without warning. The line troops called him ''Murder Inc.'' behind his back. When they kill, it's in hot blood, in a haze of smoke and adrenaline.
But the sniper is different. He reduces warfare to its purest element, the destruction of another human being. He learns things no man can learn - how it looks through a scope when you center-punch an enemy at 200 yards, and how it feels - but he learns them at the risk of his own possible exile from the community.
Maybe Hathcock never cared much for the larger community, but only the Marine Corps and its mission. ''Vietnam,'' he told a reporter in 1987, ''was just right for me.''
And one must give Hathcock credit for consistency: In all the endless revising done in the wake of our second-place finish in the Southeast Asia war games, he never reinvented himself or pretended to be something he wasn't. He remained a true believer to the end, not in his nation's glory or its policies, but in his narrower commitment to the Marine code of the rifle. He was salty, leathery and a tough Marine Corps professional NCO, even in a wheelchair. His license plate said it: SNIPER.
''Hell,'' he once said, ''anybody would be crazy to like to go out and kill folks. . . . I never did enjoy killing anybody. It's my job. If I don't get those bastards, then they're going to kill a lot of these kids. That's the way I look at it.''
Though he was known for many years as the Marine Corps' leading sniper - later, a researcher uncovered another sniper with a few more official kills - he took no particular pleasure in the raw numbers.
''I'll never look at it like this was some sort of shooting match, where the man with the most kills wins the gold medal,'' he once said.
The only decoration for valor that he won was for saving, not taking, lives. On his second tour in Vietnam, on Sept. 16, 1969, he was riding atop an armored personnel carrier when it struck a 500-pound mine and erupted into flames. Hathcock was knocked briefly unconscious, sprayed with flaming gasoline and thrown clear. Waking, he climbed back aboard the burning vehicle to drag seven other Marines out. Then, ''with complete disregard for his own safety and while suffering excruciating pain from his burns, he bravely ran back through the flames and exploding ammunition to ensure that no Marines had been left behind,'' according to the citation for the Silver Star he received in November 1996 after an extensive letter-writing campaign by fellow Marines had failed to win him the Medal of Honor for his exploits with a rifle.
He was equally proud that as a sniper-platoon sergeant on two tours, no man under his command was killed. ''I never lost a person over there,'' he told a visiting journalist in 1995. ''Never lost nobody but me, and that wasn't my fault.''
Hathcock was an Arkansan, from a dirt-poor broken home, who joined the Marine Corps at 17. He qualified as an expert rifleman in boot camp and began quickly to win competitive shooting events, specializing in service-rifle competition.
He went to Vietnam in 1965, but it was six months before the Marines learned the value of dedicated sniper operations and a former commanding officer built a new unit around his talents. Hathcock took no liberty, no days off, and toward the end of his first tour finally was restricted to quarters to prevent him from going on further missions.
After the war, he suffered from the inevitable melancholy. Forced medical retirement from the Corps in 1979 - he had served 19 years, 10 months, 5 days - led to drinking problems and extended bitterness. The multiple sclerosis, discovered in 1975, certainly didn't help, and burns that covered 43 percent of his body made things even more painful. But what may have saved his life was the incremental recognition that came his way. His biography, Marine Sniper, written by Charles Henderson, was published in 1985. It sold more than half a million copies.
He authorized a poster that showed him in full combat regalia, crouched over his Model 70 Winchester, his face blackened, his boonie cap scrunched close to his head, the only identifier being a small sprig of feather in its band. In fact, a long-range .308-caliber ammunition was sold as ''White Feather,'' from the Vietnamese Long Tra'ng, his nickname. He appeared in several videos, where he revealed himself to be a practically oriented man of few but decisive words, with a sense of humor dry as a stick. He inspired several novels and at least two non-fiction books, and his exploits made it onto TV, where a JAG episode featured a tough old Marine sniper.
Finally, and perhaps best of all, he ascended to a special kind of Marine celebrity. The Corps honors its best marksman with the annual Carlos Hathcock Award. A Marine library in Washington, D.C., has been named after him, and a Virginia Civil Air Patrol unit named itself after him. In 1990, a Marine unit raised $5,000 in donations to fight multiple sclerosis and presented it to him at his home. They brought it to him the Marine way: They ran 216 miles from Camp Lejeune, N.C., to Virginia Beach.
According to the account in the Norfolk (Va.) Virginian-Pilot, the old sniper told the men, ''I am so touched, I can hardly talk.''
In the end, he could not escape the terrible disease that had been discovered in 1975. But death, with whom he had an intimate relationship, at least came to him quietly - as if out of respect.
Mine too. With a few more like him, and more emphasis on SF rather than sending over planeloads of cannon fodder, the casualties on our side would have been much lower
Another great warrior who deserves more recognition than will ever happen. What a strange sort of prejudice the military has toward these men. Somehow it's legit to designate the targets they are given, but not acknowledge the great significance of their achievements.
I believe only those who have fought the enemy on the ground - and seen them - appreciate these men.
It doesn't help when the headlines call them "Murder Inc.".
Hathcock will never get the CMH because he made it look too easy. Hold off an entire company of the enemy with just a another soldier to spot for him?!? Child's play. Crawl to an enemy compound and kill a enemy General surrounded by his army?!? Child's play. Hunt down a sniper who was sent out specifically to kill you?!? Child's play. Yeah, there's nothing to this trigger pulling stuff. < sarcasm to the highest extreme. >
The history and effectiveness of American Snipers goes back to the French and Indian War to the Rev. War, the War of 1812 to the present.
The cost effectiveness and strategic effectiveness of the sniper is what scares many of the multi starred brass of the Army and Marine Corp and now the Navy with snipers in the Seal ranks.
They kill the enemy in the most cost effective manner. Also, by targeting enemy officers and lead NCO's, they devastate the enemies command structure. Our guys in combat continue to fight when their commanders get taken out in combat. Often our enemies will surrender in mass when their tyranical commanders get taken out or they retreat in mass.
Our new space age snipers will be the remote controlled UMV's with the ability to spot the enemy leaders and take them out with rockets fired hundreds or thousands of miles away. They, too, after this war on terrorism will become despised by the brass and those who depend on strong enemies being alive to make their living.
If the Jag Off lawyer had not prevent the taking out of Omar in the early days of the Afghanistan war, the war in Afghanistan would have been over even faster.
The Islamic thugs who are in command present tremendous targets of opportunity. In Iran if the top 100 Mullahs and top 100 Iran military were taken out by Predator UMV's and snipers. That would be it for the Islamic thugs in control. The war would be over before it started. If that happened, even Saddam might just surrender.
That must be why the Corps mustered Hathcock out just a few days before his 20 years, so they wouldn't have to pay him a dime, not a single lousy dime, of retirement pay.
Semper f*cking Fi! Indeed!
Perhaps. However, I continue to believe in the minds of the "common man" there is a negative tilt attached to what snipers are assigned to do. The reasoning seems to go - theirs is not a straight-up fight. Thus, they cannot be awarded hero status. It's wrong-headed, but there just the same.
God Bless Sgt. Hathcock. A true American combat hero to those who have been there.
Perhaps the brass themselves are threatened at a personal level by effective snipers. I've wondered about that before. In any conflict, aren't Command & Control always targets? Hmmm.
The MOH should ONLY given to those who commit acts of supreme bravery with no consideration given to their own safety.
Remember Dugout Doug, et al.
Sniper's Serenity
A green phantom stalks these lands,
Three Oh Eight in a Master's hands.
Chamber a matched, perfect round,
Slide home the bolt, forward and down.
Stay detached, loose and cool,
Time your breathing, remember the rule.
Get them now, kill them clean,
before they can hurt another Marine.
The first dies quick, the second has looked,
that one dies fast, a third has booked.
Number Three goes down, sight on Number Four,
this one's for my Brothers, Brothers of the Corps.
Even now at home, I remember that scene,
the four of them and a young Marine,
I would do it again, once more with pride,
to protect my Marines, the enemy has died.
Jungle Vet '95 by Robert W. Baird 1/1D, 1st Platoon, Team "West Orange"
In my analysis there are many other factors, besides the raw numbers, the number of men (and women) that were killed, that determines who might of been the "best"...and most are subjective...and that's fine as we all have and are entitled to our opinions.
I doubt if either of those warriors had or would ever want a discussion (especially by any of us mere mortals) as to who was better or who killed the most.
We can say that both were "better than most," pretty darned good and be fairly certain that we were correct. But did they ever shoot off against each other at a match?
Semper Fi.
the infowarrior
The guys who stop the sniper programs are in the Pentagon and never near the field.
One Marine Major or Captain in the field with 5 to 10 Sniper teams was a very effective way of destroying the field command leadership and a lot of NCO's of the enemy. A bolt action rifle with a good scope is not expensive and a few boxes of rounds for each venture is cheap. Our snipers represented a real danger to big budgets and expensive war toys that may not work. That has been the problem with the brass.
They are/were by their nature just too difficult for The Brass to control to the extent that is the basis for the very fiber of said Brass' exalted being on high....
You are so wrong. A 20 year hitch is actually 19 and 6. The kept him unitl he had cleared the full retirement requirements. Don't be talking bad about my Marine Corps.
Thanks for posting this. I was not totally aware of this problem, but it makes sense.
Again the scale of economies in waging a war enter into this. We know how effective our spec ops were in Iraq, when they lazed targets. That effectiveness has been fine honed in the Afghan battles. Communications have improved and all Air Services work with all of our Spec Ops on the ground when they are finding targets. This eliminates the need of expensive and potentially dangerous bombing runs which saturate a target area. Often one or two guided bombs into or on a lazed target is all that is needed. Or a CIA manned Predator can be used to eliminate the command guys of the enemy.
I felt that both in Panama and Grenada our Seal Teams were put into bad situations. Bad situations that made them vulnerable as small units with minimal fire power against larger enemy forces with more massive firepower. Those situations lead to the death and wounding of seals. Were those seals placed there to be harmed by those who were jealous of their real potential? I don't think that will be done again with Rummy and GW in charge.
Thanks for your feedback and comments here.
And the reported rules of engagement during the assault on Noriega's private escape pod were a prescription for mayhem and tragedy raining down on -- once again -- our SEALs. Your suggestion that the SEALs were set up (by jealous "Brass?")in Granada and/or Panama is indeed chilling but, I pray, entirely outside the realm of possibility...
As Will Rogers once said, "All I know is what I read in the newspapers"(and other sources, in the present case). Take care...
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