Carlos hathcock biography

Carlos Norman Hathcock II
Gunnery Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps

Carlos Norman Hathcock II was born on 20 May 1942 in Little Rock, AR. He grew up in rural Arkansas, living with his grandmother after his parents separated. He took to shooting and hunting at an early age, partly out of necessity to help feed his poor family. He would go into the woods with his dog and pretend to be a soldier and hunt imaginary Nazis in his "own little Germany." He would hunt at that early age with a rifle that his father had brought back from Europe during World War II. Hathcock dreamed of being a Marine throughout his childhood, and so on 20 May 1959, at the age of 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Before deploying to Vietnam, Hathcock had won shooting championships, including matches at Camp Perry and the Wimbledon Cup. In 1966 Hathcock started his deployment in Vietnam as an MP and later became a sniper after Captain Edward James Land pushed the Marines into raising snipers in every platoon. Land later recruited Marines who had set their own records in sharpshooting; he quickly found Hathcock, who had won the Wimbledon Cup, the most prestigious prize for long-range shooting, at Camp Perry in 1965.

During the Vietnam War Hathcock had 93 confirmed kills of North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong personnel. (During the Vietnam War, kills had to be confirmed by an acting third party, who had to be an officer, besides the sniper's spotter. Snipers often did not have an acting third party present, making confirmation difficult, especially if the target was behind enemy lines, as was usually the case.) He is ranked fifth, behind U.S. Marine Corps snipers Eric R. England and Chuck Mawhinney and U.S. Army snipers Christopher S. Kyle and Adelbert Waldron, on the list of most confirmed kills for an American sniper.

Confrontations with NVA Snipers

The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) put a bounty of $30,000 on Hathcock's life for killing so many of their men. Rewards put on U.S. sni

At a young age, Carlos Norman Hathcock II would go into the woods with his dog and the Mauser his father brought back from World War II to pretend to be a soldier. Hathcock dreamed of being a Marine throughout his childhood, and on May 20, 1959, at the age of 17, he enlisted.

In 1966, Hathcock started his deployment in South Vietnam. He initially served as a military policeman and later, owing to his reputation as a skilled marksman, served as a sniper.

During the Vietnam War, Hathcock had 93 confirmed kills of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong personnel. However, kills had to be confirmed by an acting third party, who had to be an officer, besides the sniper’s spotter. Hathcock estimated that he actually killed between 300 and 400 enemy soldiers.

In one instance, Hathcock saw a glint reflecting off an enemy sniper’s scope. He fired at it, sending a round through the enemy’s own rifle scope, hitting him in the eye and killing him.

Hathcock’s notoriety grew among the Viet Cong and NVA, who reportedly referred to him Du kích Lông Trắng (“White Feather Sniper”) because of the white feather he kept tucked in a band on his bush hat. The enemy placed a bounty on his head. After a platoon of Vietnamese snipers tried to hunt him down, many Marines donned white feathers to deceive the enemy. Hathcock successfully fought off numerous enemy snipers during the remainder of his deployment.

Hathcock did once remove the white feather from his bush hat during a volunteer mission. The mission was so risky he was not informed of its details until he accepted it. Transported to a field by helicopter, Hathcock crawled over 1,500 yards in a span of four days and three nights, without sleep, to assassinate an NVA general. At times, Hathcock was only a few feet away from

United States Marine Corps sniper (1942–1999)

Carlos Norman Hathcock II (May 20, 1942 – February 22, 1999) was a United States Marine Corps (USMC) sniper with a service record of 93 confirmed kills. Hathcock's record and the extraordinary details of the missions he undertook made him a legend in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was honored by having a rifle named after him: a variant of the M21 dubbed the Springfield Armory M25 White Feather, for the nickname "White Feather" given to Hathcock by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).

Early life and education

Hathcock was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on May 20, 1942, to parents Carlos Norman Hathcock I (1919–1985) and Mae Thompson (1920–1989). He grew up in Wynne, Arkansas, living with his grandmother Myrtle (1900–2000) for the first 12 years of his life after his parents separated. While visiting relatives in Mississippi, he took to shooting and hunting at an early age, partly out of necessity to help feed his poor family. He would go into the woods with his dog and pretend to be a soldier and hunt imaginary Japanese soldiers with the German Mauser which his father, a veteran of two wars, brought back from World War II. He

Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Norman Hathcock II is believed to have attained the highest number of recorded kills in the history of the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Known to his fellow soldiers as “Gunny,” Hathcock had ninety-three confirmed kills as a sniper during the Vietnam War. Others have had more confirmed kills, but his actual total is estimated to be more than 300. He was also instrumental in establishing the Marine Corps Scout/Sniper School at Quantico, Virginia, and helped plan its syllabus.

Carlos Hathcock was born on May 20, 1942, in North Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Carlos and Agnes Hathcock. He was fond of firearms from an early age, playing with a non-operating war relic Mauser that his father had purchased in Europe and given to him when he was three, and later using a J. C. Higgins .22-caliber, single-shot rifle to hunt for food for his family when he was ten. His father was a railroad worker in North Little Rock and then became a welder in Memphis, Tennessee. After his parents separated, Hathcock was raised by his grandmother in Geyer Springs (Pulaski County). He dropped out of high school when he was fifteen and worked for a Little Rock (Pulaski County) concrete constructor until 1959.

Hathcock enlisted in the USMC in Little Rock on May 20, 1959, his seventeenth birthday, with his mother’s written permission. While at boot camp in San Diego, he qualified at the expert level in marksmanship. In 1962, after being transferred to USMC Air Station at Cherry Point, North Carolina, he set the record on the “A” range by shooting 248 out of a possible 250, a record that remained until the course was retired. In 1965, Hathcock reached the number of points necessary to be designated a Marine Corps Distinguished Sniper, and on August 26, 1965, he won the highly coveted 1,000-Yard National High-Power Rifle Championship, known as the Wimbledon Cup.

Hathcock married Josephine Bryan Winstead on November