“Let’s see the same thing with your left arm,” the doctor asked.
Carlos could barely get his left arm to extend straight from his shoulder. Then, as he tried to touch his nose with his left index finger, his arm would fall. He sweated more.
“Okay, Gunny,” the doctor said. “Stand up and tap your right toe on the floor.”
Carlos did.
“Now tap your left,” the doctor said, fully expecting the result.
Carlos’s left foot only dragged. When he tried to tap his toe, the entire foot struck the tile floor. The gunny bowed his head and sat back on the exam table. The doctor sat on the stool at the side of the table and looked Hathcock squarely in his eyes.
“No more talking, Gunny Hathcock,” the doctor said. “This is it. You’re going out of the Marine Corps. Otherwise it will kill you.”
Carlos wanted to argue, but he could see the doctor stood his ground. No getting past this one.
All the way back to Quantico Carlos thought about what he would do. Clearly the doctor was right. It had been a long fight, but it was time to accept life and quit fighting it. He thought of Jo, and of Sonny, and how much he really wanted to live and enjoy their company.
ON APRIL 20, 1979, Gunnery Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock II brought his active duty Marine Corps career to a close. Weapons Training Battalion’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel David J. Willis, himself choking back tears, presented Carlos with an M-40A1 Marine Corps sniper rifle, complete with a 10-power Unertl scope, and a walnut and brass plaque that simply said:
“There have been many Marines, and there have been many marksmen, but there has been only one sniper—Gunnery Sergeant Carlos N. Hathcock.
One Shot—One Kill.”
16
Marine Sniper
CARLOS HATHCOCK HAD just returned from the Bait Barn and a morning-long shark-fishing excursion when the telephone rang. Jo was not home, and Sonny was at Parris Island going through Marine Corps Recruit Training, so Carlos answered.
“Gunny!” Colonel David J. Willis said. He was still the commanding officer of Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico. The majority of the Marine Corps’ marksmanship, competition-in-arms, and scout/sniper programs operated under his direction.
“I have a friend here I want you to meet,” he said.
Carlos smiled. He was always happy to see anyone from the Marine Corps, especially someone Colonel Willis had introduced.
During the four years since his retirement, Hathcock had seen the extremes of depression. Like so many other men and women whose life was the Marine Corps and suddenly it was not, severe depression spread its black cloak over his life. He hid himself in a back room of his home—“The Bunker”—and there, surrounded by mementos of his entire adult lifetime as a Marine, he grieved for more than two of those four years.
He spoke to hardly anyone. Not even Jo or Sonny.
In those low depths, men consider the value of their lives. They think of what life has left for them. Quite often, the depth of their melancholy is so far below anyone’s understanding that they put guns in their mouths and pull the triggers.
Jo saw it coming. She tried every means of coaxing him into a new life that she could imagine. Cutting grass, taking walks. The strain often left Carlos collapsed in the yard. Yet, he still fell back to the dark room with its walls covered with Marine Corps pictures, plaques, and gun racks, and its depressing solitary confinement.
Finally, pushed to her limits, Jo Hathcock started packing.
Carlos asked her where she was going, and she told him she would not remain married to a dead man. She was serious.
The emotional charge raised Carlos’s better side and he began to fight the depression. He began to make himself live.
Then one day he discovered the Bait Barn, shark fishing, Steve McCarver, and Steve’s boat, the Shark Buster, a small open craft with a layer of stainless steel sandwiched in its fiberglass hull.
For the past year, Carlos had begun to live and smile, and drive himself, in his old pickup truck, to the Bait Barn. There he teamed up with his friend Steve, and hunted a new kind of quarry. Not nearly as hazardous as hunting men, but plenty dangerous in its own right.
Sharks often attacked the small fishing boats, biting holes in their nonarmored hulls, tearing pieces from their gunwales. Some of the deadly fishes would even thrust themselves out of the water and inside the boats, snapping and trying to maul the fisherman who had attacked them.
On one occasion, a lemon shark had lunged over the top of the Shark Buster’s outboard motor, just behind Hathcock.
Carlos loved every second of it.
In his first tournament, the Marine sniper hauled in a 277-pound lemon shark, winning second place. Steve’s daughter took third with a 236-pound lemon shark. But these great fish were like minnows compared to Old Scar-Face.
A legend of the Virginia Beach bait shops, several fishermen told of hooking into the great white shark that had to weigh 1,200 to 1,500 pounds. Each time anyone challenged the big fish with rod and reel, he easily turned and swam away, stripping off all the line from their reels, and then breaking the heavy monofilament as if it were cotton floss.
“Hell, you could pull a truck with that fishing line,” Carlos would say, “but it’s nothing for Old Scar-Face.” Then he would break into his typical throaty “he-he-he” laugh.
When Carlos answered the telephone, his hands and clothes smelled of fish chum. Chicken blood stained his jeans and white sneakers. His face and neck were dark tan, and his cheeks filled with color.
“Yes, sir, Colonel Willis,” Carlos said. “Who is he?”
“He’s a trigger puller like you,” Willis continued. “Only he can write, too.”
Carlos hesitated. Many times since Vietnam, and especially since he retired from the Marine Corps, writers had approached him. They wanted to interview the man who wore the white feather, quite often for mercenary-oriented magazines.
Hathcock wanted nothing to do, ever, with anyone who wrote for publication. He reminded Colonel Willis that it had been a Marine who wrote the story in Vietnam that appeared in the Sea Tiger, and that provided his and Jim Land’s names and likenesses to the Viet Cong. That had turned Carlos Hathcock against the press and anyone who reported for any sort of media, even in the Marine Corps.
“Carlos,” Colonel Willis said, “I can tell him you would rather not. But listen to me for a minute. This man is one of us. He knows the program. I know him, and he’s a good man. You know, if he writes a good story about you, it could be worth a few points for us. It could help the sniper program.”
THREE DAYS LATER, the writer, himself a career Marine, knocked at Carlos Hathcock’s front door. He spent the next two days in the Hathcock home, and the two Marines became friends.
The writer spent the next several months driving from Quantico to Virginia Beach, staying weekends with Hathcock, taking notes and tape-recording the Marine sniper’s story.
What began as a speculative feature that the writer might sell to a Sunday magazine quickly became a book. Stein and Day published the first hardcover edition of Marine Sniper in 1986, and Berkley followed with a paperback edition the next year.
The Chicago Tribune called it a sleeper, a silent best-seller. It came from nowhere and in a matter of days sold out its first hardcover printing.
However, Stein and Day owed unpaid bills to its printers and binders. They refused to manufacture or release to distributors any further copies of Marine Sniper until they were paid.
Stein and Day kept all earnings, royalties, and license advances, refusing to pay the writer. He filed suit, and Stein and Day filed bankruptcy.
The writer had to pay the bankruptcy court $5,000 to return the rights for Marine Sniper back to him. Stein and Day kept all the money that Marine Sniper initially earned, and failed to fulfill the tremendous market demand for the book.
With the limited number of Stein and Day hardcover books in circulation, collectors began
selling single, unsigned, first-edition copies of Marine Sniper for as much as $350 at gun shows and trade fairs. An autographed copy drew even more money.
It was not until Berkley released the paperback edition in the spring of 1987 that Marine Sniper became a book read around the world.
The costly lawsuit and the gross injustice shown the writer angered Carlos.
The two Marines sat at a coffee shop one morning in 1987, eating breakfast before meeting with 2nd Division snipers and marksmen at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Carlos expressed his dismay.
The writer looked at his friend and said, responding to Carlos’s anger, “It’s really not about money. I actually had never considered it until after the book came out.
“I wrote your story because it needed to be told. Young Marines needed it because the legendary Marine Chesty Puller died years ago. Our competition-in-arms and sniper programs needed it, too.
“I wrote Marine Sniper for the lance corporals sitting in the barracks. They needed a living Marine hero. I wrote it for the green lieutenant sitting in his room at The Basic School. They, too, needed a living hero. Plus it just might help them to more greatly appreciate and respect enlisted Marines.
“We succeeded in reaching those goals, my friend. Look where we are this morning. They know about Carlos Hathcock. They know that marksmanship, competition-in-arms and scout/snipers are important for our Corps’ future.
“I even heard that a Marine Corps major cited parts of the book in his thesis at the Command and Staff College. That’s a serious mark, and quite a tribute for snipers.”
From 1987 forward, Carlos Hathcock was the Marine everyone wanted to meet. He became the living legend—White Feather.
Each year following Marine Sniper’s publication, Carlos traveled as a guest of Marines and former Marines, security forces, police departments, and state and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The FBI/Marine Corps Association paid tribute to him at their annual Marine Corps Birthday weekend celebration in October 1988 at Peekskill, New York. There, Carlos received honors as the reviewing officer for the annual parade of Marines and former Marines, along with U.S. Marine Color Guard, Silent Drill Platoon, and Drum and Bugle Corps. He stood next to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alfred M. Gray, and FBI Director William Sessions.
The National Rifle Association paid tribute to Carlos Hathcock, issuing a resolution recognizing him at their national convention. Organizations named scholarships for him. He was the guest of honor at Marine Corps birthday balls at every major Marine Corps installation in the United States.
President Ronald Reagan even wrote Carlos a personal letter praising his patriotism and the example he set, and sent him an autographed picture.
In the midst of the swelling numbers of Hathcock fans, an increasing number of ardent supporters emerged. They recognized the great sacrifice that Carlos had made, standing in the fire in 1969, suffering severe disabilities while saving the lives of seven other Marines with total disregard for his own life. They were disgruntled that a grateful nation had not paid appropriate tribute to their hero. Carlos had not even received a Meritorious Mast for his heroism.
Captain Edward Hyland, who lost an arm in the fire and retired to Arizona, came forward and wrote a formal summary of action and medal recommendation. He cited what Carlos had done September 16, 1969, saving his and six other Marines’ lives.
Hathcock had told Hyland in the hospital in San Antonio that he did not want recognition. When Hyland said he wanted to recommend him for a medal, Carlos said that if he did he would refuse it. Now, twenty years later, because of the desires of so many people, he reluctantly agreed to accept one if it came.
Petitions went to the United States House of Representatives and the Senate, pleading that Congress pass an exception to a statute of limitations imposed on awarding the Medal of Honor. No recommendations for the nation’s highest tribute for heroism could be issued by any branch of the armed forces so long after the fact, unless Congress approved the action.
It took two years, but the approval finally came. An awards panel at Headquarters Marine Corps reviewed the recommendation, and downgraded the recommendation to the Silver Star. Since Carlos’s action had not directly affected the tide of a battle, his heroism on the amtrac that day did not warrant the Medal of Honor or Navy Cross. However, they agreed that he had earned the nation’s third highest medal for heroism that day.
Many people believed that the Medal of Freedom would have been an appropriate additional tribute for the United States to pay Carlos for his career of dedication. He had made significant contributions to America’s defense through his pioneering of modern sniper warfare and its applications for police and security agents as well as for the modern soldier.
The mementos and plaques meant a great deal to Carlos, but what meant most to him was the tribute that young Marines paid him each time he stood before a group of them. For him, these new faces in both the enlisted and officer ranks, these Marines who revered him, gave the Marine sniper his greatest award—their love and respect.
For the writer, his greatest tribute came from Carlos Hathcock himself.
“It’s like you were there with me,” Carlos told him.
However, the writer’s most significant and humbling moment came one afternoon in late October 1995 when he retrieved a handful of letters from his mailbox at his home in Lawton, Oklahoma. A brown envelope lay among the stack. From his publisher. Forwarding mail to him from readers.
Inside the envelope was a letter from Palm Harbor, Florida. Clearly, the handwriting on the front was from a woman. Unusual fan letter for Marine Sniper, he thought.
The woman wrote:
Dear Mr. Henderson,
I would like to introduce myself—I’m Jerry Ann Burke Bouchard, sister of John Roland Burke, Lance Corporal, USMC.
Your book, Marine Sniper, was picked up by my cousin in Miami (ever since John was killed he—my cousin—has been an avid reader about Viet Nam). Before he even read it he called to tell me he had found a book about John. I went that very night to get a copy for my brother Bill and me (there were only two copies at “Book Stop” and since I wanted a copy for all seven of our children I ordered more).
John was an “Oops-I-thought-I-couldn’t-have-any-more” child for my mother. I’m 13 years older, my brother 15 years older. John was a delight, if ever there was a “perfect” child, he qualified. When I married he was only five. My husband, Roger, and I lived across the street from my parents, and John was like our first child. You can imagine the devastation we felt when we were notified of his death!
I really never knew (or didn’t want to know) what a sniper did until I read your book. It was very hard reading about John, and I could only read a little at a time. But you did a wonderful job telling the story. I have never heard of Carlos Hathcock, but feel as if I know him, and would love to meet him and talk to him about John. He knew a boy that we never knew.
I would be very grateful if you could call or write to me, we would like Mr. Hathcock’s and Mr. Land’s address also.
Thank you for your time and effort that went into this book. Your literary skill made it a success and finally made me understand why John did what he did.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Jerry Burke Bouchard
The writer called her that night.
17
Shark Bait and the Mustard King
“BILL,” CARLOS SAID on the telephone to the writer who sat at his home in Staten Island, New York. Although his name was Charles, his close friends called him Bill—from his middle name of William—a throwback to his childhood. “I’m not sure what is going on, but I can’t get into either airport in New York City, or into Newark, but I can get to Islip, Long Island.”
“Take it, Carlos,” the writer said. “Ray Doner lives close to the Islip airport and can very easily pick you up there. Oh, and we have a thirty-five-foot Hatteras called the Sundowner chartere
d for day after tomorrow. Twin-turbo diesel. Gonna be some deepwater fishing. We’re gonna hunt Jaws. Also, I have our rooms locked on at Montauk Point, too. So you just get your butt here.”
“Okay,” Hathcock said cheerfully and then told the agent at the American Airlines counter in Norfolk to go ahead and switch his ticket to their next available flight to Islip’s MacArthur Airport.
At two o’clock that afternoon, Ray Doner, a retired police detective from the Nassau County force, a man who looked like he had just stepped out of central casting—slightly wind-tossed silver hair, a nose scarred and broken from bare-knuckle conflicts with New York gangsters, and Robert Mitchum eyes—wheeled his two-tone blue Buick into a parking slot next to the chain-link fence at the Islip airport. A half-smoked cigarette dangled from his lips as he slammed the car door shut and stepped onto the sidewalk where he could watch the tarmac and runways, and see Carlos’s plane arrive.
Doner, a former Marine and member of the FBI/Marine Corps Association, had met Carlos in October at Peekskill. His close friend, Charles Henderson, the writer, had introduced the two men. They had immediately formed a friendship.
Ray and Jim Kallstrom, a supervising special agent at the FBI’s New York Bureau, fascinated Carlos. Both men had spent careers going after organized crime figures. They, too, knew what Ernest Hemingway meant when he said, “There is no hunting like the hunting of man . . .”
Rumor had it that Kallstrom had crawled through Gambino family boss John Gotti’s window to bug his office at the godfather’s infamous Queens, New York, social club.
Doner, like Kallstrom, had crawled through his share of windows, too. La Cosa Nostra had his respect, but constant attention. Like Kallstrom, too, Ray down-played the seriousness and great risk involved in his work. Carlos liked that kind of humility. He appreciated what it meant. Their work gave the three Marines a kinship that only they and men like them truly understood.
Silent Warrior Page 28