The weekend with his friends had planted a seed of doubt in his mind. In eight years he had anchored many roots in the Corps and now, as he rode down the bumpy street to a house that his boss had contracted to rewire, he thought of what he missed. The daily practice on the firing ranges, the daily jokes between friends, the competition, and the chance to win another national championship.
Before he had shipped out to Vietnam, Hathcock had begun shooting international small-bore competition.
A Marine major named Bill MacMillan had won two Olympic gold medals. That accomplishment by a fellow teammate had made Carlos realize that making the 1968 Olympic shooting team was a goal he could attain.
His mastery of small-bore shooting, however, ceased when he shipped out to war. And today he had almost forgotten that dream until he went to Camp Lejeune and had watched his buddies shoot.
The night that he returned home from the Stone Bay ranges, Carlos told Jo that he missed the Marine Corps already. From the tone of his voice, she knew that the odds of him remaining a civilian and staying out of the war had grown slim.
By nine o’clock in the morning, Carlos had already shed his shirt in the sweltering house. The shrill whine of a circular saw cutting through pine boards drowned out the country music blasting on a portable radio that one of the workers had set in the window. Sawdust filled the air and Carlos already felt gritty from the minute wood particles settling on his sweaty skin.
He sat on the floor and fed stiff copper wires through aluminum conduit. Across the room, another electrician screwed tight the bare ends of wires onto the plugs on the side of an electrical receptacle. Carlos watched a carpenter connect the power cord of his saw to a wall outlet near where the electrician worked. It looked funny to him. Didn’t the man know that the circuits were dead, that he would have to use one of the heavy black extension cables from another part of the house?
When the saw started turning and the carpenter began cutting wood, Carlos became alarmed. So did the electrician as he looked up from his work.
Later that night, as Carlos sat on his front step with Jo and Sonny, he told her how lucky he had been to look across the room just as the carpenter plugged in his saw.
When the electrician looked up, he had allowed his screwdriver to touch the outside of the outlet box and grounded the hot wire to it. The sudden shock caused the electrician’s muscles to contract. As a result, the screwdriver came hurling straight at Carlos’s head. He ducked and the heavy tool slammed into the wall, missing him by inches.
“I think I was safer in Vietnam,” Carlos said to his wife as he held his son on his knee and bounced him up and down, playing horsey.
“What does that mean?” Jo responded. “You want to go back into the Marine Corps?”
Carlos sat silent for a moment, looking at his son bounce. He felt a tightness in his stomach wrench into a hard knot with her response.
“Would that be so bad?” he asked. “I’m a competitive marksman and marksmanship instructor. I’m sure not volunteering to go back to Vietnam.”
Jo was not surprised and readily accepted her husband’s logic. He would always be a Marine, she knew it the day he came home from the rifle matches at Camp Lejeune. And she knew it was only a matter of time before he would confront her with his wish.
“Carlos, I knew what you were when I married you. I have never liked the Marine Corps that much, but I accept it. You are a Marine and you always will be a Marine. Don’t feel like you’re doing me and Sonny a favor by staying out and being miserable. I want you to be happy because that’s what makes me happy.”
BY JUNE HE and his family had moved from New Bern to Quantico where he was assigned to the Marksmanship Training Unit and the Marine Corps’ national champion rifle team.
Carlos continued shooting the .300 Winchester magnum rifle at 1,000 yards as well as the M-14 on the National Match Course,1 but he also began pursuing the international small-bore (.22 caliber) competition as well, hoping for a chance at the Olympics.
When he arrived at Quantico the Marine Corps matches had already ended. His only chance at making the cut to go to the National Championship Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio, would require his finishing with a medal in the most competitive military shooting contests of all: the Interservice Rifle Championships during July.
It was the first practice day after the July 4th holidays when Carlos came home following an exhausting workout on the 1,000 yard line of the blistering hot range they called “Death Valley,” at Quantico’s Calvin A. Lloyd Rifle Ranges, and met Jo waiting at the door, holding a letter with a Massachusetts postmark.
“Honey, you got a letter from Captain Land,” she called to Carlos as he stepped out of his car.
Hathcock trotted across the lawn to the door, smiling. He had not heard from his friend since he left Vietnam, and he was anxious to read how Land was doing. He tore the envelope open as he walked in the door, stopping for a moment to pick up his little son and give him a bear hug.
He sat in an easy chair and listened to the six P.M. television news. A reporter spoke from atop the Continental Hotel in Saigon. During that portion of the news, he watched intently, hoping to hear of the 1st Marine Division and the war in I Corps.
Because he left so many friends behind, still fighting in that conflict, he felt an inkling of the anguish that his wife must have had to endure while he served there.
Carlos’s eyes and ears were fixed on the television news as he held the unfolded letter, unread, in his left hand. The reporters spoke of escalation and greater numbers of Americans dying in a war that had turned several U.S. college campuses into fields of encounter between protesting students and the “Establishment.”
During the commercial, Carlos looked at the letter that he now pressed flat on his lap.
The letter began:
Dear Carlos,
I’m glad to see that you made it out alive. At first I heard that you got out of the Marine Corps, but now I see that you have made it to the Big Team. You deserve it my friend. You earned it.
I can understand you leaving for a while, you were pretty well burned out I’m sure. I’m glad that you got back on your feet and reenlisted. The Marine Corps needs you.
I wish this letter could be all good, but I’m afraid that I have some bad news. I got a letter from Major Wight the other day. He said that the sniper program is really working well. Burke got promoted to corporal and went to 1st Battalion, 26th Marines, and took charge of a squad. He was really proud.
Burke and his men got assigned security duty up at Khe Sanh and ran into trouble. Carlos, Burke got killed.
I don’t know any more about it, but I feel sure that he died with valor and not from some dumb mistake. After all, you taught him well.
I know that you thought the world of him. I did too. Next to you, he was one of the best Marines I ever had. I feel a great deal of grief about him now,and I can imagine the sadness you must feel too. He was a good, good Marine. We will all miss him.
I hope you stay well, and keep on winning.
Semper Fi,
E. J. Land
Carlos looked up and his eyes flooded with so many tears that he could no longer read. He walked from the room and stepped into his backyard and looked as the setting sun glimmered through the tall hardwood trees that surrounded his home. He stared at the western sky and thought of his friend. The best partner he ever had. And as he stood, looking toward heaven through the deep green canopy of oak and maple trees, tears streamed down his cheeks. “What happened, Burke? What happened?”
12
The Valor of Corporal
John R. Burke
THE DAY THAT Carlos Hathcock left Hill 55 for Chu Lai and his flight home, he spoke to Lance Corporal John Burke last, saying good-bye to a man he loved as a brother.
He stood near the tailgate of a canvas covered six-by truck that would take him south. Several Marines rested on their sea bags inside the dark cavern formed by the dirty green cover stretched
over tall wooden ribs and anchored to the sides of the vehicle’s cargo bed. Sweat streamed down Hathcock’s face, and he did not look forward to sitting in the saunalike transport, bouncing down Highway 1 to Chu Lai. Therefore, he stood outside, in the breeze, waiting until the last minute to board.
Burke stood next to him, leaning against the tailgate, talking about the old times, the good times, their last six months together. Several other snipers stood in a small group around Carlos and John. They laughed and swore and spit tobacco juice on the dust at their feet. They slapped Carlos on the back and joked with him about going home, saying things like, “I wish you would hurry up and go. That way I won’t be short, I’ll be next.”
Remaining silent, Burke listened to the others rib Carlos. It was their way of saying good-bye without sounding sad.
“We’ll see you back in the World,” they would say. They always told their departing buddies that. Carlos knew that he would see them if he happened to cross one of their paths, but usually there was no concerted effort to connect later on. Eight years in the Marine Corps had taught him that.
“Some day we’ll all get together,” another said. But Carlos knew that odds were slim for that to happen.
“I’ll try to make it to the annual Distinguished Marksmen’s banquet at Quantico,” Carlos finally told his friends. “Most of you guys are already Distinguished, and I expect the rest of you will be Distinguished sooner or later. I’ll see you there.”
They all agreed that his idea made the most sense.
Burke looked at his sergeant and put out his hand, “I sure hate to see you go, Sergeant Hathcock. We were just now getting to be a tough team.”
“Burke,” Carlos said, taking his partner’s hand and shaking it, “now you take charge. Be the number one gun. Teach a promising, up-and-coming Marine, like I taught you. You’re the best sniper I know, and the best partner I’ve ever had. You’ll do well without me.”
Carlos shouldered his sea bag and turned toward Burke. “Remember. Every move, slow and deliberate. Don’t take any chances. Second place in this shootin’ match is a body bag!”
“Don’t you worry about that, Sergeant Hathcock,” the lance corporal said. “Charlie won’t outfox me. I had the best teacher.”
“You were the best pupil, Burke. Keep those other boys in line,” Hathcock said. “And you keep your head down! Ya hear?”
Burke smiled and his dark eyes twinkled beneath the shade of his floppy bush hat’s brim.
“Sure like to see you back in the World!” he said as Carlos climbed up the truck’s tailgate and swung himself inside.
Carlos shouted down, “You got my address in New Bern—1303 Bray. You get home, catch a hop to Cherry Point. I’m right there. I’ll treat you to a steak and a beer.”
“We’ll see, Sergeant Hathcock. We’ll see,” Burke shouted back as the loud diesel engine roared and the big truck lurched forward on its Rough Rider convoy to Chu Lai.
Carlos leaned out the back and put two fingers high in the air forming a V, a symbol meaning victory during World War II and meaning peace in this one.
As the truck rumbled down the hill, Burke waved his arm above his head, bidding farewell to his friend and teacher.
When Carlos dropped back inside the covered cargo bed, and disappeared from Burke’s view, the young Marine lance corporal walked back to his hooch where he lay on his cot, opened his Guidebook for Marines, and began reading and memorizing key lines.
He was up for promotion and now studied his Marine Corps “essential subjects” so that when he stood before his promotion board in a week he would not be caught without knowing all the answers.
Becoming an NCO was a major step for Burke. It was a rank that separated him from the troops, and gave him the right to wear the “Blood Stripe” on his dress blue trousers. But more important, as an NCO he would take charge as a sniper team leader, just as Sergeant Hathcock had done. As a corporal he could truly be the number one gun.
THE ABSENCE OF Carlos Hathcock had become commonplace at the sniper hooch at Hill 55, yet there continued to be the Hathcock stories—exaggerated with time and repeated tellings. Burke felt proud each time someone told a story that included him. The newbees sat wide-eyed as he agreed that the yarn they were hearing was true because he had been there with Carlos.
Now wearing corporal stripes, Burke walked with a tenderness in his step as he hauled a heavy pack and his rifle down the hill to the landing zone where he would fly north to Quang Tri Province. Both his arms and legs were bruised by his senior NCOs who “pinned” on his corporal stripes with sharp punches to his shoulders, and “pinned” on his blood stripes with equally hard knee jabs to the sides of his legs—a tough tradition practiced among Marine NCOs.
Burke accepted it for what it was—a kind of seal of approval by his superiors and new peers. He now stepped across the line that separated him from the “nonrates” or “snuffies.”
The traditional stripe-pinning was a prelude to the more enjoyable “wetting down”—a celebration of the promotion at which Burke treated his friends to a round of beers.
Now a few days since the promotion, the soreness had passed its peak and was leaving his arms and legs, but the bruises were still tender to touch and left him walking a little funny. He had many, many friends, and he wore the several round blemishes of black-and-blue with a certain amount of pride. A day earlier, as he nursed his sore arms and legs, though, he wondered if a Marine could have too many friends.
“You headed to Khe Sanh?” a sergeant asked as Corporal John Burke dropped his pack at the edge of the landing zone.
“Yes, I am. I’m taking charge of a sniper team there.”
“Oh yeah? Which one?”
“One with 1st Battalion, 26th Marines.”
“I hear they moved into a bad neighborhood up there at Khe Sanh.”
“I’ve been in the worst neighborhoods. Besides, that neighborhood’s gonna be a whole lot worse for Charlie.”
The sergeant laughed. “You fellas from Murder Incorporated are hot shit, huh?”
Burke looked at him, feeling the slight cut of his insult, but recalling his lessons learned from Carlos Hathcock and Captain Land. He dug deep inside himself and produced a friendly smile.
“No, Sergeant, I ain’t.” Burke shrugged, picked up his pack and walked to a small bunker that had a shelter half-stretched overhead to shade the two Marines who sat inside the dusty pit, wearing flak jackets over their bare backs and helmets with catchy phrases and nicknames inked on their ragged green camouflage covers.
“You boys doin’ okay?” Burke asked, squatting low and leaning his head beneath the canvas.
“Sure.”
“Mind if I squat in your shade?”
“Not at all.”
“You Shore Party Marines?”
“Yeah,” one Marine said, dusting the leg of his trousers, showing the small red patch sewn there to signify that he was a member of a helicopter support team from Company A, 1st Shore Party Battalion.
“You guys live in this hole?” Burke asked, noticing the personal gear and beds rolled in the corners of the bunker.
“Sure. We’re the bastard sons. Since we get salted throughout the division, there ain’t enough of us to have any sort of stakes to any one place so we find us a little place to set up housekeeping and stay out of everyone’s way. Bastard sons. Nobody claims us and we’re glad. No hassles. Do the job, kick back, nobody bugs us.”
Burke smiled. Suddenly he felt very much at home with these Marines.
“I know what you mean,” he said, kicking back in the dirt with them.
More than an hour passed as Burke waited in the shade of the bunker. The sergeant squatted in the sun and made no attempt to strike up any further conversation with Burke or the two snuffies in the bunker. It was hot and flying insects seemed to swarm near the grass and bushes surrounding the landing zone; Burke watched the sergeant swat impatiently at them.
“Sergeant!” Burke
shouted. The Marine turned his face toward the bunker to see the corporal waving for him to come and sit in the shade, away from the heavy swarm of bugs.
“Thanks,” he said. “Those flies were driving me nuts; they don’t seem so bad here.”
“We keep the place sprayed. They get really nasty at night, but we keep ’em killed out with this stuff,” one of the Shore Party Marines said, pointing to a large garden sprayer.
“What’s in that?”
“I’m not sure. We mixed up our own recipe from a bunch of stuff we com-shawed from the supply tent and the battalion aid station. Only bad thing is it smells like hell.”
Burke sniffed the sandbags where the Marines had sprayed the chemical and said, “Stuff that crop dusters spray on cotton fields back home smells just like that. You reckon it’s harmful to folks?”
“Naw. We eat and sleep around the stuff and it ain’t bothered us none. Besides, if it was bad, they wouldn’t just pass it out to us like that—especially the doc. He wouldn’t give us nothin’ that would really hurt us.”
“Guess you’re right,” Burke said leaning back again. “It does smell like that stuff they spray for weevils, though. But I guess it all pretty much smells the same.”
The sound of rotor blades beating the air roused the two Marines to their feet.
“Time to go to work,” one said as both Shore Party Marines bounded out of the bunker in a cloud of dust. Burke looked at the sergeant and then crawled out, looping his pack over his shoulders and taking his rifle by the upper sling and sliding that over his shoulder, too.
The sergeant pulled himself out of the bunker and stood with Burke as a large green twin-rotor helicopter settled to the ground. After several Marines ran down the helicopter’s rear ramp, a crewman wearing a white aviator’s helmet waved at Burke and the sergeant to come aboard.
As the chopper approached Khe Sanh, small-arms fire opened from the jungle below them. Bullets began popping holes in the thin metal skin of the helicopter, and Burke and the sergeant leaned forward, away from the wall, presenting as little of their bodies to the incoming fire as possible.
Silent Warrior Page 20