A Historical Operator Feature: Carlos Hathcock

The United States Marine Corps' history is rife with legendary heroics and superhuman feats in combat, which means the branch has a lot of heroes. From the first day of boot camp, you are taught about the escapades of Dan Daly, who led a charge against the Germans in World War I after refusing orders from the French to withdraw, or of Chesty Puller, a veteran of the Banana Wars, World War Two, and Korea who was awarded five Navy Crosses over his 40-year career, or more recently of Kyle Carpenter, who at the age of twenty jumped on a grenade and saved his best friend's life during a mission in Afghanistan in 2010. 

One of the most hallowed heroes in the annals of Marine Corps history is Carlos Norman Hathcock II (May 20, 1942 - February 22, 1999).

Hathcock was born and raised in rural Arkansas, and lived with his grandmother through most of his childhood after his parents divorced.  He was introduced to shooting at a young age, and became quite adept at shooting his .22-caliber rifle mostly out of necessity, since hunting was his primary way of bringing good to the table of his poor family.  Like most boys of the time, he spent his free time taking his dad's WWI-era Mauser rifle into the woods, where he played soldier and hunted imaginary Japanese troops.

Hathcock held a lifelong goal of becoming a US Marine, so on the day of his 17th birthday, he enlisted in the Marine Corps.  From his entry in 1959, Hathcock became a military policeman and became involved in Marine Corps shooting events, including winning the Wimbledon Cup in 1965 and several other events aboard Camp Perry before that.

Hathcock deployed to Vietnam for the first time in 1966, where he was noticed by Captain Edward James Land.  Captain Land is well-known within the Marine Corps for initiating the Scout Sniper program, because he advocated having a sniper in every Marine platoon.  Land noted that Hathcock was an expert shot with a rifle, and recruited him as one of his many snipers, whom Land trained and groomed for long missions.

As a scout sniper, Hathcock favored the Winchester Model 70, an early bolt action rifle that would pave the way for the Remington 700, which was adopted by the Marine Corps as the M40A1 sniper rifle later in the Vietnam War, and eventually by the Army as the M24 in 1987. Hathcock also tested a Browning M2 .50-caliber machine gun that was fitted with a scope, as the first anti-materiel rifle, where he killed a Vietnamese soldier at a range of 1.40 miles in 1967. This distance held the world record for longest range sniper kill in history until 2002.

During his time in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese called Hathcock the "White Feather Sniper" because he wore a white feather in the band of his jungle hat during missions.  The North put a $30,000 bounty on Hathcock, the highest ever on any American sniper in the war; every known Vietnamese marksman that went after Hathcock was subsequently killed by him.  Other Marine snipers also put white feathers in their hats to confuse the enemy because they knew if Hathcock was killed it would effect their morale, so they purposefully made themselves targets for enemy snipers.

Hathcock would attain 93 confirmed kills during the Vietnam War, although unofficial records indicate he may have killed upwards of 300-400 enemy. Hathcock holds the distinction of having the second highest kill count of any Marine sniper, and fourth highest kill count of any American sniper.

Missions

-During a patrol in 1967, Hathcock was fired upon by a Viet Cong sniper who was downhill from Hathcock and his spotter.  Hathcock reflexively fired back, and eventually located the sniper's body. The Vietnamese sniper had been armed with a Russian-made Mosin-Nagant rifle fitted with a PU-1 scope; Hathcock had unwittingly shot the enemy sniper through his scope, killing him.  It is the only time this is known to have happened in warfare, and it was copied during a scene in the 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan."

-Hathcock was tasked with killing a North Vietnamese general, so he crawled more than 2,000 feet armed only with his rifle and five shots, and camouflaged with his ghilly suit, which took him three days because he crawled inches at a time.  Once in position, Hathcock fired and killed the NVA general with a shot to the heart; Hathcock took his time crawling back from his firing position, often coming within inches of being stepped on by Vietnamese soldiers who were looking for him.

Post-Vietnam

After the war, Hathcock remained in the Marine Corps, where he became involved in the Marine Corps Scout Sniper Program.  Hathcock was one of the first official instructors in the program, and he used his experiences in Vietnam to teach prospective Marine snipers tradecraft and other skills.  Hathcock left the Marine Corps in 1979 after twenty years of service.

Later in his life, Hathcock was diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis) and he became confined to a wheelchair in the last decade of his life.  In 1996, he was awarded a Silver Star for pulling several fellow Marines from a burning vehicle after it rolled over a landmine in 1969.  Other than the Silver Star, Hathcock was also awarded a Purple Heart and a Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal during his service.

Hathcock died in 1999 from MS complications.  His son, Carlos Hathcock III, served in the Marine Corps and retired as a gunnery sergeant just like his father; his grandson joined the Marine Corps in 2010.