Marine Sniper

by Charles Henderson

  Without a word, the Marine drill instructor plucked the cigarette from the recruit’s lips, dropped it on the black rubber mat that ran down the aisle of the bus, and crushed it out with a single twist of his toe. Half a dozen other lit cigarettes suddenly dropped to the floor in silence as the broad-shouldered sergeant gazed toward the rear of the bus with his stern, dark eyes, almost hidden under the 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, the first word out of your mouth will be Sir,” the DI growled emphatically, pausing for effect. “And the last word out of your mouth will be Sir. Is that clear?”

  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 his veins bulging on his neck, “Sir, yesss Sirrr!”

  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 properly and loudly. If you fail as a group, you will pay for your sins as a group. Is that 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 tinkle, 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 will 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 them 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 the 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.

  JO DID NOT LIKE BEING A “SHOOTING-TEAM WIDOW.” HOWEVER, WHEN she married Carlos in 1962, she knew what lay ahead: He would be gone often, competing in regional, state, and national shooting matches throughout the United States. Carlos would leave Thursday and come home Sunday night. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday he worked from 5:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M. at the rifle range. In the evenings, he lay on the floor in front of the television and practiced “getting into position”—the tightly contorted stances (standing, sitting, kneeling, and prone) from which he fired in the matches. From March through April he did nothing but shoot.

  However, Jo had resigned herself to that life-style when she decided to become Mrs. Hathcock. Had someone asked her if she would ever make that decision when she first met him, she would have laughed in his face. Hathcock, on the other hand, had thought Jo was swell—nice looking and with a great personality. He formed that opinion the day that he walked into the bank in New Bern, North Carolina, where she worked as a teller. That was in January 1962.

  Hathcock had just reported to the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point from the 1st Marine Brigade in Hawaii, where he had spent the past two years cruising the exotic ports of the Far East and South Pacific.

  It had been a dramatic change for Hathcock, departing that tropical paradise, with its brown-skinned girls and wonderful liberty nights, for coastal North Carolina, with its tobacco-lined country roads and gas-station entertainment.

  After boot camp and basic infantry training, Hathcock had left Camp Pendleton for the base at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, where he sailed on a troop ship to Hawaii. There he became a machine gunner in the weapons platoon of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. And he did his best to maintain the image of the battalion’s nickname—The Magnificent Bastards—during his liberty stops in Taipei, Tokyo, Papeete, and other exotic ports, as well as at home port in Honolulu.

  When Hathcock reported to the air station in North Carolina, the first problem that the personnel chief had to solve was how does an air station employ an infantry Marine? The nearest infantry regiments were forty miles south at Camp Lejeune. The personnel chief asked Hathcock if he would like to work in special services, sweeping out the gym and passing out basketballs. Hathcock swallowed a lump in his throat and tried not to show the repulsion he felt at that idea.

  He looked straight in the eyes of the ruddy-faced Marine and innocently asked, “Does Cherry Point have a rifle range?”

  Hathcock knew that they did and that it was the home of an outstanding shooting team, too. He figured that if he asked to be assigned to the team right off, the personnel of
ficer might not respond to the wishes of a private first class. But if he let them come up with the idea, it would be a sure thing.

  “I have some experience shooting,” Hathcock told the gunny. “I coached at Kaneohe Bay and shot on the Hawaii Marines team, too. You can call Gunner Terry or Lieutenant Land back in Hawaii. They put me through their scout/sniper school there. I might be of some use out at the range.”

  The gunnery sergeant listened and then said, “I’ll call Gunny Paul Yeager down at the rifle range and see if he has a slot for you.”

  The phone call lasted but a moment. Yeager had heard that a hard-shooting PFC named Hathcock was headed his way and that this young Marine had won the Pacific division rifle championships the year before. He had already made plans to have Hathcock try out for the All-Marine Champion, Cherry Point Shooting Team.

  In his three years of shooting at Cherry Point, Hathcock rose from a talented novice to become a Distinguished Marksman, winning Marine Corps, Interservice, and National shooting championships. He set the Marine Corps record on the “A” course by shooting 248 points out of a possible 250—a record never matched again—and retired with the course. That was during his first year there.

  Hathcock spent his first Carolina Christmas alone in the barracks, where he read books and practiced squeezing his slim body into tight, rock-solid shooting positions. The South Pacific’s liberty ports had been an unforgettable adventure, but competitive shooting was more fulfilling. For Hathcock, marksmanship represented the essence of a Marine: It was the skill of his trade. Hathcock did not mind the lonely Christmas. The thought of the rifle range opening for the new season and the opportunity to possibly make the Cherry Point shooting team kept his spirits high.

  But some of the other Marines who lived with him during the holidays felt sorry for this quiet and unassuming shooter. He looked as though he could use a good time. One of the well-meaning Marines had a girl friend who worked in a bank in New Bern, North Carolina, a small community located a short drive west of the Cherry Point air station’s main gate. She had a girl friend who might provide the perfect medicine for this lonely Marine.

  It was a very cold January day when Carlos Hathcock walked inside the New Bern bank where Josephine Bryan Winstead worked. She was a woman who had just entered her thirties, yet looked hardly a day older than twenty-one. She wore the latest hairstyles and fashions and had adjusted to living independently again after an unhappy and unsuccessful marriage. Now she took care of her mother, who lived with her in a small apartment in New Bern. On weekends, she and her mother drove to Virginia Beach where they visited Jo’s sister. She had dated little since her divorce.

  On this brisk January morning, Hathcock wore a black, long-sleeved, polished-cotton shirt with white pearl buttons on his collar, cuffs, and shirtfront, and black sharkskin trousers. They were the only civilian clothes that he owned.

  Hathcock usually wore his uniform. He was proud to be a Marine and loved to put on the tan outfit that had impressed him as an eight-year-old boy when he saw his first Marine. He had all of his uniforms tailored to fit perfectly. He even had his green herringbone utility shirts and trousers tailored and leather heels with horseshoe cleats put on his spit-shined boots. He was a poster-perfect Marine. He had never needed civilian clothes until his buddies at the air station’s barracks convinced him that he would get much further with the ladies if he wore his civvies.

  When Jo saw the slim, dark-eyed Marine with his jet black hair and clothes, she thought, “Oh my God! What on earth have I gotten myself into?” And when Hathcock swaggered across the bank’s polished marble floor, the loud click of his heels added accent to Jo’s first impression.

  “Hi! I’m Carlos Hathcock,” he said with cocky bravado. He locked his dark hazel eyes on hers without blinking and smiled, showing his sparkling, straight teeth.

  Jo tried very hard to look beyond the bold clothing, and she noticed a very handsome young man who was slim and muscular, clean and clear-skinned. But his eyes seemed to dominate his entire presence—they pierced and flashed. It was a glance that overpowered Jo and left her blushing and turning her eyes toward the floor.

  “I’m Jo,” she said. She had not felt so uncomfortable since her teen years. She suddenly felt very shy.

  As they walked down the street, she asked Hathcock, “Aren’t you cold? I’m freezing! Where’s your coat?”

  Hathcock’s face turned bright red and Jo suddenly knew that she had asked the wrong question. In a concerned tone she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” he answered, holding his head high. “I just got here from Hawaii and haven’t bought a coat yet. I’m freezing too.”

  Jo suddenly moved very close to Hathcock as they walked, putting her arm around him, trying to share her warmth. “Let’s hurry. I don’t want you to freeze.”

  A wide smile crossed his face.

  Pay came twice monthly for Hathcock—less than $50 each fifteenth and thirtieth. He had bought U.S. savings bonds since his first week in boot camp. He had also taken out an allotment of $20 per month from his pay, which went into his savings account. After slightly more than two years, he had amassed more than $500 cash, not counting his bonds. He had planned to buy a car when he made corporal. Meeting Jo caused him to alter those plans. He barely had enough to cover the monthly payments, but the $500 that he paid down on the Chevrolet Bel Air kept the total cost within his range.

  Gunnery Sergeant Yeager lost his temper when he saw what the underpaid private first class had done. “Hathcock! Are you out of your mind, or do you come by that special brand of stupidity naturally? What are you going to do for spending money? After you pay for your haircuts and cleaning and then make your car payment and buy gas, you won’t have a dime left to your name.”

  “I eat in the chow hall. I sleep in the barracks. That’s all free. And haircuts cost a quarter, and I spend five dollars a month on cleaning. I won’t have any problem making the payment,” Hathcock retorted.

  Hathcock spent the summer dating Jo and not spending more than $5 a week doing it. But for Jo, that didn’t matter. She had come to know and love this gentle young man. He had a boyish nature, full of ideals and dreams. He made her feel very comfortable. By August she had fallen deeply in love with Carlos, and he in love with her. Their relationship had gone for nearly nine months, and Hathcock made no overtures beyond their frequent dating. Jo felt it was up to her to make the next move—he certainly was not doing it.

  “You and I have to stop seeing each other,” she told Hathcock as they drove away from the bank on a warm August evening. “We have no future like this. I don’t want to go on just seeing a movie on Friday nights and riding in the country on Saturdays and Sundays. I want more. I’m a woman, not a little girl.”

  “I can’t get married,” Hathcock said in a low, almost inaudible voice. “You gotta be a sergeant. I got busted to private already twice now, and I just sewed on my PFC stripe for the third time. Do you think that they will give me permission to get married?”

  “I won’t wait,” she said. “And they can’t tell you no, either.”

  Hathcock saw there was no use in arguing with her on this subject. He had never asked any of his superiors about marriage; he only knew the scuttlebutt that fellow snuffies* told concerning the Marine Corps’ feelings about it. He did know that a PFC’s or even a corporal’s pay was not nearly enough with which to even dream of supporting a wife. But Hathcock loved Jo, and he did not want to lose her. He felt that he could suffer through anything, as long as she was willing, too.

  When the alarm buzzed next to Hathcock’s head at four thirty Monday morning, the sleepy Marine put his feet on the floor and struggled to stand. He felt as though he would throw up. “Oh God!” he moaned as he walked down the aisle between the rows of racks and wall lockers in the squad bay, heading toward the showers. An hour later he stood at the brink of the confrontation that he had dreaded all night.

  “Gunny Yeager, Jo and I are
getting married,” Hathcock told his NCO-in-charge.

  “No you’re not,” Yeager told Hathcock in a matter-of-fact voice.

  “Yes I am. I’ve already made all the plans. She’s got a good job and I love her.”

  The gunny looked at Hathcock and shook his head. “You will get married anyway, won’t you. It’s just like that car. I gotta know this. Is she in trouble.”

  Hathcock looked angrily at the gunny. “No. And why would you think such a thing? She’s a nice girl.”

  “Back off! I have to see the captain, and he will ask.” The gunny looked at him appraisingly. “How you going to live? On her pay? You gonna sell your car? Where you going to live? And what if she does get pregnant? What then? You better think of all this too. You know that bank won’t let her work pregnant! If she loses that job, you’re shit out of luck.”

  Hathcock looked at the gunny and said in a calm, low voice, “I’m getting married. You’re invited to the wedding. It’s November 10.”

  The next year, Jo became pregnant and had to quit her job, and Hathcock managed to make meritorious corporal.

  ONCE SAFELY ON THE GROUND, HATHCOCK HEADED FOR HIS bunker. He was thinking about the past and the future. He knew his wife would be happier if he left the Marines and put down roots somewhere—got a job and a house. But he loved the Marines, and he had already given a lot of his life to it.

  “Eight years already,” he said aloud as he walked down a path that led to a waist-high ring of sandbags that surrounded the plywood-and-screen-sided, tin-roofed building the Marines called a hooch, which housed 1st Marine Division’s scout/sniper instructors.

  Lance Corporal John Roland Burke lay on a cot. Carlos Hathcock regarded him as the best spotter with whom he had ever worked. The young Alabama Marine looked up and said, “Sergeant Hathcock, you say something?”