Authors: Charles Henderson
"Captain," the colonel said, "you've done an impressive job with the snipers. General Nickerson is extremely happy with the program and sad to see you go. But you need to go home. I want you to stop in and see the G-2. He'll show you one good reason why you should not consider extending in-country." What the intelligence officer showed Land shocked him a little and concerned him a lot. "God damn it, Hathcock!" he roared.
A newspaper story that had appeared in the Sea Tiger* extolling the greatness of "Hathcock and company" had fed the enemy vital information about the 1st Marine Division's sniper school, its officer in charge, and the sniper with the most scalps-the one who wore the white feather-Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. The Viet Cong had issued a leaflet based on the story.
Land stared at the black-and-white leaflet, written in the Vietnamese language, to which the intelligence officer had attached a translation. A pen-and-ink sketch on the left half of the front page depicted a perfect likeness of Hathcock, complete with bush hat and white feather, and on the right, a perfect likeness of himself, square-jawed and steely eyed.
The translation stated that the two Americans were wanted by the People of Vietnam for the murder of hundreds of innocent women and children. They offered the pay that a middle-class city worker would make in a period of three years as a reward for either man-dead or alive.
Captain Land handed the leaflet back to the captain who had custody of it.
"You know, Charlie has a standing reward of eight dollars a head on any sniper. What you're looking at is several thousand bucks for each of you two. If I were you-and I thank God I'm not-I would get in the bunker in the center of the compound and not come out until the Freedom Bird took me back to the world."
Land smiled. "I've got work to do, Captain. Good day."
Seeing the leaflet made Land feel naked. He wondered who might be watching even now and walked near cover, consciously avoiding the open.
Hathcock must be warned. He had no way of knowing that Charlie wanted him bad enough to pay literally a king's ransom for his head.
"God damn that Hathcock!" the captain swore. He walked to a pickup point, where he could catch a truck from Hill 327 back to Hill 55.
A helicopter rushed Hathcock to a debriefing at the 7th Marines command post, while Captain Land bounced and jarred in the back of a "six-by" truck headed south. Several officers crowded around as the sniper read from the notes that he had jotted in his log book during the night.
"Are you certain he was Chinese?" a lieutenant asked. "Could he have been North Vietnamese or Laotian?"
"Could have been any kind of Oriental Communist, Sir," Hathcock said. "But he looked to me like he was wearing a Chinese uniform. It was gray, or light brown-I couldn't be certain because of the color of the early morning light. However, he had that big red star on his hat and those big red and gold tabs on his collar. I have no doubts about that."
A husky gunnery sergeant, with a bulldog wearing a Marine campaign cover tattooed on his forearm, said, "Sir, what the sergeant described is a Chinese officer. Probably about like our field grade-perhaps a colonel. From an intelligence standpoint, I'd like to examine that body and what he had in his pockets."
"I want that body," a major said, taking a pipe from his mouth and blowing a cloud of cherry-scented smoke through die command post tent, where they grouped around Hathcock. "Call for some helicopters to sweep the river. Put out a reward to anyone who can lead us to where that body may be snagged up."
"Odds are the VC already got him," another major said. "We can offer twenty thousand piasters. Those gooners will turn in their mothers for that. But I wouldn't hold my breath."
"Sergeant, good job. We'll write this up as two probable kills and send your report to division with trie sitrep."
The Marines walked outside. Hathcock was already planning another mission.
Late that afternoon, Captain Land climbed down from the bed of the dirty truck in which he had ridden to Hill 55. His body ached and his head throbbed from the long, rough ride, but throughout the whole trip back he had thought only of
what to do about his sniper who had spent the past month walking patrol after patrol, working himself to physical exhaustion hunting the Viet Cong, and now who had been billed as one of the Communist enemy's most-wanted men.
"Gunny Wilson!" the captain bellowed as he walked toward the snipers' headquarters. The angry shout echoed through the compound, sending heads turning and wide-eyed faces peering from behind screen doors. The captain never broke his stride as he walked inside the sniper hooch and slammed the screen door behind him.
Gunnery Sergeant Wilson hurried into the small building. Captain Land was rummaging through the large file drawer, looking for a bottle of aspirin.
"Gunny, what's the latest on Hathcock?" Land said.
"Sir, the last report in on him is two probable kills this morning. He claims one was a high-ranking Chinese officer -possibly a colonel."
Wilson hesitated and then added, "He's patrolled daily since the other snipers came home. The gunny 1 talked to told me that Hathcock will come in with one squad and catch another going out and fall right in with them, without even taking his pack off. That gunny's concerned."
"Me too. Did you know that the NVA and Charlie both have a bounty out on Hathcock and me? A big one? Several grand?"
"No, Sir."
"I think it's time for our Sergeant Hathcock to pack up and come home. I want you to go and get him-put him under arrest, if you have to-but bring him home. I want him standing tall in front of my desk by tomorrow afternoon."
"You want me to arrest him, Sir?"
"That's right, gunny. I want you to hog-tie the little shit, if you have to. He'll kill himself out there, I'm certain. The dummy won't stop unless I lock him up or Charlie puts a bullet in his head. I'll be go-to-hell if I'm gonna lose him now. You go and make your travel plans right away. See if you can get air-maybe a *Marlog flight."
At daylight Wilson sat staring out the open door of a CH-46 helicopter, looking over the shoulders of an air crewman who stood behind a .50-caliber machine gun, gripping the two wooden handles and swinging it from side to side as the aircraft shuddered its way to Hill 263.
This daily matt and logistics flight would sit on the ground there only long enough for the crew to unload a few sacks of mail and some boxes of resupply items. Wilson hoped that the gunny in the operations shop there had been able to reach Hathcock before the sniper departed for the day. If Hathcock was waiting at the landing zone, according to instructions, they could fly back on this helicopter. If the gunny had missed Hathcock, it might mean remaining there an extra day.
Hathcock was waiting when the helicopter landed. He had known that the clock had run out from the way the gunny in the operations tent talked.
"Hathcock!" Wilson yelled inaudibly, beneath the whine and roar of the two gigantic rotors that churned through the air above him, as he walked down the rear ramp. He saw Hathcock standing and waving, his baggy uniform whipping in the wind.
Waving him aboard, Wilson turned and disappeared inside die belly of the huge bird. Grabbing his pack and clutching his bush hat in his right hand, Hathcock trotted up the ramp after him.
Wilson tried to talk to Hathcock, but the engines' loud roar drowned out his attempts, and he sat silent for the rest of die trip.
"Gunny, what's going on?" Hathcock asked, as die two Marines walked from die landing zone at Hill 55.
"Sergeant Hathcock, you're under arrest. That's all I can tell you. The captain came back from Colonel Poggemeyer's mad as hell."
The gunnery sergeant's words knotted Hathcock's stomach. "What have I done?" he thought. "Did I lull somebody I shouldn't have?" He thought of the Frenchman. Perhaps die captain. Burke, and he had fallen into a well-planned scheme of murder, where they were left holding die bag.
The two Marines walked toward finger four where their captain stood behind a sandbag wall, scanning die fields and hills below.
Hathcock remembered presenting himself to his battalion commander for nonjudicial punishment seven years before in Hawaii. In that case, he lost a stripe for slugging a lieutenant in a bar. They were both drunk, and the officer started it. But striking an officer is striking an officer-drunk or sober. Hathcock clearly understood why he got busted then.
But diis. What had he done now?
"Sir. Sergeant Hathcock reporting as ordered, sir!" Hathcock barked, as he stood at rigid attention before the captain.
Land eyed his sergeant and felt a sharp pain-Hathcock looked worse than he had imagined. The 24-year old Marine almost looked like an old man, gaunt and hollow. He had shrunk so much that his camouflage uniform bagged off his shoulders and hips. His boots were scuffed white, and his dark red eyes had sunk deep in their sockets.
"God damn you, Hathcock!" Land said, "What am 1 going to do with you?"
"Sir. I don't understand what I've done wrong. I have done my best to support that operation, and they are real sold on snipers now."
"I left you down there with thirty-two kills to your name, and you come home with what? Sixty-two or sixty-three confirmed! That's thirty more on your own. You did one hell of a job. But you did something stupid."
"Sir?"
"You forgot one of die most important aspects of leadership that I know. You totally neglected the welfare of your men."
"I sent those men home after two weeks. Sir. I went out on patrol for diem when they looked too tired to work. I didn't neglect diem. Sir."
"You neglected one."
After a silent pause, Hathcock concluded, "Me?"
"That's right-you. Hathcock, you don't know when to quit. You put yourself into situations that are impossible. You hang your life out on die ragged edge and gamble against all the odds. You overload your ass and men won't stop. What the hell you weigh now?"
"Sir, about a hundred forty-five or fifty."
"Maybe when I left you there. I don't think you could tip the scales at more than a hundred twenty-five pounds now. You're out there living on a can of peanut butter and a handful of John Wayne crackers."
Hathcock half smiled, "Sir, it keeps the buzzards off my back."
"Shit yeah! for a day or two, but not for a month. The buzzards wouldn't waste their time with you now!"
Land folded his arms and looked up and down at his sergeant, who remained at attention, and then the captain shook his head. "Hathcock, 1 put you under arrest because that was the only way 1 could be sure to get you back here. You look like hell. You probably haven't slept more than a couple of hours a night in the past month. You've lost so much weight that your clothes are falling off you. How can you do that to yourself?
"If I hadn't pulled you out, how long would it have taken before you fucked up and let Charlie kill you? Hathcock, I'll be damned if I'm gonna write Jo a letter, telling how you got yourself killed!"
Hathcock's face betrayed his disappointment. He hadn't realized that the chances he took would wound the captain as deeply as he now realized they had, and he spoke up strongly: "I'm as sorry as I can be, Sir, and I feel awful that I destroyed your confidence in me. I was trying to do the best job I could, and I just totally forgot about myself. I ain't making any excuses. I'll take whatever punishment you order, but I want you to know I'm sorry."
"Sergeant Hathcock," the captain said, with official sternness, "You are restricted until further orders. You may go only to the head, the mess hall, and to chapel services. You step outside this wire, and I'll have a stripe. That clear?"
"Yes, Sir."
"That starts now! Get to the hooch. Square away your gear. And get some sleep!"