A gunnery sergeant read names off a long roll call list. As each man answered, “Here,” he announced the unit’s name to which he should report.
“Corporal Hathcock, Carlos N.,” he said.
“Here,” Carlos responded.
“1st Military Police Battalion.”
“That’s about right,” Carlos mumbled as he picked up his seabag and joined a group of three other Marines also assigned MP duty. None of them had a clue about his new job.
“CORPORAL HATHCOCK,” MAJOR George E. Bartlett, the military police commander, said as Carlos stood before his desk. “Good to see you again.”
Carlos recognized his new commanding officer from the firing lines at Quantico. He had competed against the senior Marine on several occasions. Marines called Bartlett hard. He shot a good group.
As the officer glanced through Hathcock’s Service Record Book, Carlos felt an immediate sense of belonging.
“I see you are due for sergeant,” the major said.
“Yes, sir,” Carlos responded.
“We’ll have to take care of that on the next quota,” Bartlett said. “You are well into the cutting score, and we need sergeants here.”
If reporting to a fellow marksman wasn’t good enough, making sergeant right off the bat went beyond Carlos’s expectations. He had thought that he would have to go through promotion boards, and those Marines who had more time in the unit would get the stripe. With such a positive welcome, Carlos thought that life could not get much better.
MILITARY POLICE DUTY around the Chu Lai Airfield and 1st Division headquarters compound became a monotonous chore for Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. As watch commander and desk sergeant, he toured all MP posts and ensured that his subordinates followed orders. Glorified guard duty. But, instead of four weeks or six weeks of a detail, he had an entire year.
Whenever he could, Carlos would duck out of desk sergeant duty to honcho security on the truck convoys that moved from the supply warehouses in Chu Lai to the various outposts and fire support bases that lay to the north, west, and south.
The young sergeant would position himself in one of the middle trucks, usually behind an M-2 .50-caliber machine gun. At that station he could see the front and the rear of the column well, and direct his men’s fire, if they came under attack.
During the entire month of May, Carlos had not fired a shot in anger. The motorized patrols had gone with few incidents. Most of the action came from either the lead truck or the rear truck, when a lone VC gunman or sometimes a pair took potshots and then fled. The Marines riding shotgun on those trucks lit up the brush with machine-gun and rifle fire, but had yet to claim a Victor Charlie life.
CARLOS HATHCOCK HAD just pulled off his boots and lay back on his cot when the shooting at the flight line started. The sun had dropped behind the mountains, leaving the grayness before dark. Under its cover, the saboteur had sneaked through the coils of German tape and barbed wire that covered the airfield perimeter. Beyond that, he had carefully stepped through the crisscrossed barbed wire that the Marines had stretched six inches above the ground and extended out fifty feet. Along the coiled wire fence, claymore mines guarded the low avenues where a VC sapper might try to hide.
Inside the wire, Marines watched from fighting holes. They held rifles, .30-caliber and .50-caliber machine guns. They had radios and the trigger controls to the claymores. From each hole the Marines held fields of fire that crossed into the field of fire of the next hole. To Carlos, it seemed virtually impossible for a human being to negotiate the tangle-foot wire, work through the several layers of concertina wire, and avoid being shot by a Marine sentry or dusted by a claymore mine.
Sergeant Hathcock ran from his hooch, shirtless, his untied boots flopping on his feet.
“What’s all the shooting?” he called to a staff sergeant named Cooper who jogged just ahead.
“Charlie slipped through the wire and emptied a magazine into a Huey,” the staff sergeant said.
“They get him?” Carlos asked.
“Don’t think so,” Cooper answered, stopping for a moment so that Carlos could catch up.
“You mean he got in, shot a helicopter, and got out with nobody seeing him?” Carlos said in a tone that was more an exclamation than a question.
“That’s about the size of it,” Cooper responded.
Ahead of them the flashing red lights of crash trucks and police vehicles flickered in the evening. The crews pointed floodlights at the damaged helicopter, and Carlos could see Major Bartlett tracing his hand along the pattern of bullet holes.
Flight line crewmen and other curious Marines gathered in a growing crowd at the side of a hangar less than 100 yards from the shot helicopter.
Carlos stopped short and said, “Looks to me like they got her under control. I’m heading back.”
“Go ahead, but I am going to take a look where this hotdog might have come through,” Cooper said as he walked on.
AT THREE O’CLOCK the next afternoon, Carlos sat at his desk, finishing his daily report. His shift relief had already arrived, and he sat in a chair reading Mad Magazine. On the wall over their heads an oscillating fan did its best to stir the hot, damp air.
“We located that gunman,” Staff Sergeant Cooper called inside the police hut to Carlos. “One of our ARVN translators found a woman who saw the guy running from the base. We located his village and have spotters there now, looking for him. You got anybody willing to pop this guy?”
Carlos looked up.
“None of our guys wants to do it,” Cooper said.
“You ready?” Carlos said to his relief sergeant as he stood.
“Sure, go ahead,” the relief answered.
“I suppose I could do it,” Carlos said as he walked at Cooper’s side. “I had two weeks of sniper training at 1st Brigade, and I shot on the Cherry Point team for the past three years. I imagine it would be me or Major Bartlett who would be best to do the job.”
The jeep wound its way westward, crossing Highway 1 and following a narrow trace that led to a knoll overlooking a hamlet of thatched huts. Surrounding the small village were rice fields and farther back a line of trees. Staff Sergeant Cooper parked his vehicle on the road behind two other jeeps, where two Marines with rifles stood watch.
As the two sergeants climbed the knoll, Carlos could see four other armed Marines lying on their bellies, looking toward the hamlet with binoculars.
“This our sharpshooter?” a lieutenant said, looking over his shoulder at Hathcock and Cooper, who low-crawled next to the officer.
“Good evening, sir,” Carlos said, offering an appropriate greeting, and avoiding an exchange of salutes.
“Sergeant Hathcock is an MP desk sergeant,” Cooper said. “He also had sniper training, and he won the 1000-yard shooting championship last year.”
“Then this should be no trouble, Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “I guess that old boy’s neighborhood isn’t much more than 500 yards.”
Carlos Hathcock moved ahead of the other Marines and found a flat spot where he could take a solid, prone position. He put his M-14 rifle to his shoulder and sighted at a hut.
“Breeze coming in off the ocean gives me a little left to right wind,” Carlos said as he began turning clicks on a knob at the side of his rear sight. “Shooting downhill increases the challenge.”
While the four other enlisted Marines lay on the backside of the knoll, smoking cigarettes, swigging water, and discussing the latest news from rumor control, Carlos and the lieutenant studied the village.
During the hours that they waited, several villagers had walked along the trails that followed the tops of the rice paddy dikes. Each time a villager appeared, Carlos whispered, “That him?”
“Nope,” the lieutenant would respond.
By seven o’clock the grayness of evening had begun to darken the countryside. The air felt cool now, and the sweat that had beaded and dripped from their faces dried.
“Don’t suppose we’re
gonna see him,” Cooper whispered to Carlos as he moved back to his side.
For a moment Carlos did not answer as he studied some movement with his binoculars.
“You give up too easy,” he answered. “Take a look at that tree line that comes from behind those hooches and out yonder past those rice paddies.”
“What is it?” the lieutenant asked.
“Keep watching along the bottoms of the trees,” Carlos said.
“I see it now,” the lieutenant said as he picked up the flash between trees of a man hurrying toward the village.
“That him?” Carlos asked.
“Can’t tell,” the lieutenant said.
Hathcock laid his front sight post at the midsection of the man as he moved from tree to tree, stopping behind cover for a moment and then hurrying to the next tree.
“He sure acts guilty,” Carlos commented as he kept his sights on the man.
Just as he stepped from the tree line and hurried toward the hut nearest to the trees, Carlos said, “He’s got a rifle.”
“That’s him,” the lieutenant said.
Carlos shot.
The man fell backward, the impact of the bullet lifting him off his feet. He never moved again.
Carlos lay quietly, looking at the dead man through his binoculars. The finality of the shot left Hathcock fighting a knot that drew tight in his stomach. His heart beat rapidly and he felt his legs and arms begin to shake with nervousness. It was the first time he had ever shot at another human being. It was the first time Carlos Hathcock had ever killed a man.
By ten o’clock, Carlos lay on his cot wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts. In the darkness he could hear the snoring of the other sergeants and corporals who shared his hooch. He felt extremely tired, but could not sleep. The vision of the man falling backward, almost as if he had jumped, kept replaying in Hathcock’s mind.
He reminded himself of what Jim Land had told his class in Hawaii five years ago: “When a sniper shoots the enemy it is an intimate thing. A good sniper values life, and does not take one casually. But he cannot allow it to eat at him. It is important to remember that when you kill the enemy, you have prevented him from killing your fellow Marines.”
Carlos turned the philosophy over and over in his mind. All he knew about this man was that he had shot a few holes in a helicopter. However, he did have a rifle. Tonight it might have been a Marine.
NO RAIN HAD fallen around Chu Lai in six weeks. June had ended hot and dry, and the first half of July offered nothing better. On this July 14th, as French expatriates across Vietnam celebrated Bastille Day, Carlos Hathcock started another watch as desk sergeant.
“If the wind would just come in off the ocean, I think it would be cooler,” he said as he set the black briefcase next to his desk. The Marine Carlos had relieved finished tucking paperwork into his own black briefcase and now walked toward the duty hut’s open door.
“Yup,” the Marine responded to Carlos. “That wind coming out of the southwest is hot as an oven, and dryer than a popcorn fart.”
Carlos chuckled at the analogy. “Keep your head down and your powder dry,” he said to the departing sergeant.
The Marine turned and smiled at Carlos. “Not hard to keep anything dry with this weather, but I will keep my head down.”
Ten minutes had not passed when Carlos heard the sound of a grenade exploding, and then the chop of several automatic rifles. He kicked back his chair, threw on his flak jacket, and was about to run outside when the duty phone rang.
“Military police desk sergeant,” Carlos said quickly, “Sergeant Hathcock speaking, sir.”
“You need to get your react squad and get over to the Highway 1 intersection,” an anxious voice commanded.
“Who am I speaking to, sir?” Carlos asked, turning his logbook and jotting down the time in a left column and beginning to identify the phone call in the wider right-hand column.
“Captain Smith, division officer of the day,” the voice responded.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Carlos answered. “Can you give me some information about what has happened? I heard an explosion and automatic weapons fire a minute ago.”
“Five females with BAR’s [Browning Automatic Rifles] ambushed the afternoon logistics- and mail-run to Da Nang,” Captain Smith said. “We are mustering a rifle platoon from 7th Marines to pursue these ladies, but your squad needs to get a jump on them to see if you can find a trail.”
Carlos hastily wrote the information in his logbook, and then sat down at a two-way radio where he ordered his corporal of the guard to report to the duty hut with the reaction team. He again noted the time and entered that information in his duty log.
The phone rang again. Carlos rattled off the prescribed greeting, and then responded, “Oh, yes sir, Major Bartlett. I just got through talking to the officer of the day, and ordered Corporal Henry and the react squad to report here.”
“I am on my way out there now,” Bartlett said. “Put a duty at that desk and meet me with the react squad ASAP.”
“Where?” Carlos asked, scrawling information in the logbook.
“Catch up with me at the front gate,” Bartlett said, and hung up before Carlos could answer.
Carlos stood behind the M-2 .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a ring above the canvas-covered cab of the six-by truck that also carried the eighteen-man reaction squad. As they sped out of Chu Lai’s main gate, he could see a jeep and driver with Major Bartlett riding in the right seat and a third Marine seated backward, resting an M-60 .30-caliber machine gun over the jeep’s spare tire.
Peasants along the roadside scurried away from the truck as it sped westward toward Highway 1. Carlos fastened the chin strap on his helmet and pulled down the goggles that he had strapped around the steel hat. Gripping the handles of the machine gun he swung it to the right as the truck bounded around the corner where the Chu Lai road intersected with Highway 1. Less than a half mile ahead, he could see Major Bartlett’s jeep and three trucks parked at the roadside.
Dust still filled the air from the jeep skidding to a stop when the truck pulled in behind it. Before the driver could shut off the engine, the reaction squad began bailing over the tailgate. Carlos grabbed a lance corporal by his canteen belt and pulled him back.
“You know how to operate this gun?” Carlos asked.
“Sure,” the lance corporal said.
“Stand watch here while I go report to the major.”
Jogging alongside the three mail-run trucks, Carlos could see metal parts and oil scattered beneath the lead truck.
“These women tossed a grenade under that truck,” Bartlett told Carlos, pointing to the mess. “It took out the transfer case and drive shafts, and sent shrapnel up through the floorboard, wounding the driver.”
“Anybody else hurt, sir?” Carlos said, now looking at the rows of bullet holes sprayed along the sides of all three trucks.
“Two other Marines,” the major said, “hit by flying metal from the bullets. Nobody really serious except the driver. He got some pretty good blast wounds and shrapnel in his legs.
“They ambushed the trucks from the right side,” Bartlett continued, “and then fell back into the brush, trying to draw out the Marines riding shotgun. Then they circled around and crossed the road at that little bend up ahead. Looks like they headed back west.”
“My guess is that they live out yonder,” Carlos said, pointing across the road where rice fields lay checkered between hedgerows at the foot of jungle-covered mountains. “Where do you want me to deploy this squad?”
“Sergeant,” Bartlett said, looking across the green fields and the thickly grown trees and brush that spread across the overlooking hills, “I need your Marines to fan out around these trucks so we can have some kind of defense while we get this mail-run reorganized and headed to Da Nang.”
Just inside the tree line, Carlos found dozens of empty shell casings scattered in circular bunches. Farther back he found more empty cartridges, but inste
ad of lying in bunches, they lay randomly scattered in threes and fours.
“BAR’s all right, every one of them,” Carlos told a corporal from his squad who had joined him. “They were all on the ground up there when they opened up on the convoy. All their empties were pretty close together and in five bunches. Five women. They were shooting on the run back here, because the casings went every which way.”
In the next three weeks the same five women firing Browning Automatic Rifles hit four other convoys. They killed one Marine and wounded ten others. Marines at Chu Lai had begun calling them the BAR Team.
DURING AUGUST, CARLOS had begun riding along with every motorized patrol that he could. Many days, he took a morning patrol and assumed his duties at the Military Police desk the same afternoon, working until after midnight. After four or five hours of sleep, he was up again, reporting as a machine gunner for another morning patrol.
Sitting in a duty hut, getting out only to check sentries bored him. Carlos wanted action. Most of all, he wanted a shot at the BAR Team.
Rather than riding atop a truck at the center of the convoy, Carlos took a position behind the machine gun on the lead vehicle. Goggles strapped on his helmet and binoculars around his neck, some of the Marines on his patrol began calling him Field Marshall. But Carlos laughed it off. In his years of competitive marksmanship, he had learned to value eye protection. He had seen more than one receiver blow up in a shooter’s face. Although they had cuts and metal embedded in their cheeks and foreheads, shooting glasses had kept the shrapnel out of their eyes. Carlos knew that good eyesight was critical for a marksman. He knew that losing his would cost him his dream of one day competing in the Olympics.
The trucks had just turned west off Highway 1 and had began a dusty journey toward a firebase when Carlos noticed a flash of movement behind the brush on the left side of the narrow dirt road.
“Whoa!” he shouted, slapping his hand on the canvas above the driver. “Stop! Stop!”
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