Modern American Snipers (2 page)

Even snipers in the more modern sense of the word brought dread to their enemies long enough ago to seem downright prehistoric. Snipers have acted as force multipliers in every major conflict dating back to the Revolutionary War. Their exact role, along with their tactics and composition, have altered with time, matching technology with the particulars of environment and engagement.

However, even with the celebrated rescue of Captain Phillips—a rescue followed by millions as it happened, re-created for millions more by way of a blockbuster motion picture that received a slew of Academy Award nominations, and compounded by the latter-day celebrity status of Navy SEALs—the popular image of the sniper had already been permanently seared into the collective consciousness.

The word “sniper” evokes images of the silent hunter stalking his prey through the jungle. He is utterly unshakable in his concentration, and relentless, deliberate, and precise in his actions. Fearless and unstoppable, he is Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock II.

Hathcock's exploits during the Vietnam War not only established him as a legendary figure bordering on the mythical, but also elevated the very concept of the sniper in the process. That impact has been spread equally to the public at large, his successors who continue to follow in his footsteps to this very day, and the military leaders who employ them.

Carlos Hathcock grew up with his grandmother, but in many ways, he was raised by the Arkansas woods. There he developed an innate sense and natural affinity for fieldcraft.

He also proved to be an unusually gifted marksman. Hathcock was actually a decorated competitive shooter prior to his experience as a sniper. In fact, he won the prestigious Wimbledon Cup in 1965 as a young Marine, which directly led him to the profession he would soon embark upon—and revolutionize.

His Wimbledon Cup success led to his recruitment by Captain Edward James Land, who sought to rapidly muster an elevated sniper presence for the USMC during the Vietnam War.

Even among the rest of Land's “Murder Inc.” at the 1st Marine Division, Hathcock proved to be an exceptionally adept sniper, far outstripping even what his competition-proven accuracy predicted. Not merely a Mozart of the Model 70, Hathcock's mental makeup made him the ideal specimen for what may be deemed by many to be a rather disagreeable discipline.

Utilizing prodigious skills and an ingenious mind, Hathcock silently haunted the rainforest near Hill 55. He racked up a remarkable number of confirmed kills—ninety-three—which are widely thought to be less than a third of the genuine tally.

And for every kill, there seemed to be an associated tale of note. Routinely on the hunt for days at a time with just his spotter at his side, Hathcock assembled a division's worth of war stories all on his own.

Legend has it that he once volunteered for a “suicide mission” before he himself was made aware of the particulars. Having been given his orders, Hathcock crept into position. He had imperceptibly eased his body across a mile of terrain out over the course of four long days to pull the trigger on this North Vietnamese general. Surrounded by enemy patrols some seven hundred yards from the heart of the encampment, Hathcock went unnoticed in the brush. Camouflaged by an improvised proto-ghillie suit of sticks and vegetation, he was nearly stepped on by an NVA (North Vietnamese Army) troop before he finally caught sight of his target.

Hathcock put the general down with a direct shot to the heart and then made a measured retreat in the same manner in which he had come even as the compound exploded with the confused frenetic activity of a disturbed anthill.

And then there's the one about the time the Marine sniper eliminated the sadistic Viet Cong guerrilla leader, Apache. A sniper, interrogator, and torturer of inhuman note, Apache skinned alive a captured Marine within screaming distance of Hill 55. Those shrieks served as Hathcock's new mission orders and he tracked Apache down to end her reign of terror with precise finality.

And for more than three decades his name was etched in the record books, laying claim to the longest recorded sniper kill. Showing every bit as much ingenuity as accuracy, Hathcock is credited with a twenty-five-hundred-yard kill, accomplished by using a Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun fit with a customized scope mount.

The legend grew on both sides of the lines during the course of his two tours as a sniper. In what must be considered the ultimate sign of respect, his petrified adversaries tagged him with the nickname “Long Tr'ang”—“White Feather”—after the adornment on his boonie hat.

That notoriety was followed by scores of countersnipers who flooded the region, including one known only as Cobra. A worthy opponent, the predator-prey balance continually shifted as the two snipers sought the upper hand in a dual destined to be decided by a single round. Hathcock caught a glint of light reflecting off the lens of his nemesis's optics, prompting the Marine to fire a headshot directly down through his enemy's scope moments before a lethal round could be sent in his direction.

Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock had been blessed with the innate tools to become the prototypical sniper. He could “dope” (read and adjust accordingly to) the wind with uncanny accuracy. He also boasted rare focus: when necessary Hathcock was able to go into single-minded bubble. It wasn't only his rifle and bullet that seemed to become an extension of himself, but the environment itself.

He also had rare charisma about him and a cult of personality gradually took shape. White Feather became the subject of endless books while inspiring numerous films and television programs. He remains a near-religious figure in the sniper community.

“I think I was one of many, many snipers who grew up reading the books about him,” said Jack Murphy, who himself later became a sniper who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment and 5th Army Special Forces Group.

“I read that as a teenager—and I thought that was cool as hell. I really liked the idea that this guy was doing operations with just one other guy … and he was even going out by himself sometimes. They really were a force multiplier. They were harassing and killing the enemy. There was one point where Carlos Hathcock and his spotter pinned down an NDA company in the Elephant Valley for, like, six days and kept calling in artillery strikes on them. When I read that I was like, ‘Damn, that's cool.'”

Following the war, Hathcock put that profile—along with his refined skills and years of accumulated knowledge—to good use.

“Look historically at snipers as a tradecraft and you'll see it would get stood up—like during World War II—and then after the war there would be this decline in training and focus,” explained Brandon Webb, former U.S. Navy SEAL Sniper Course Manager. “And then Vietnam comes around and all of a sudden we had to revive the tradecraft again. Only since Vietnam has there really been continuity among the training programs.”

Hathcock took an active role in ensuring that subsequent generations of snipers would be shaped in his image. He was a driving force behind the establishment of a permanent sniper presence for the Corps, rather than waiting and only raising specialized sniper units in times of need. GySgt Hathcock leveraged his knowledge and influence to develop the USMC's Scout Sniper Basic Course in Quantico, Virginia.

For decades, the Scout Sniper Basic Course secured the Corps's leadership in the field. The course became recognized as the gold standard and served as
the
template that other leading courses throughout the world would subsequently follow.

Hathcock's individual accomplishments and the legacy he left behind transformed him into a symbol. Although he died in 1999, his impact still reverberates loudly in the sniper community.

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Although the lessons learned by Hathcock and his ilk are still passed along to aspiring snipers and the popular image of the craft he forged remains ubiquitous, the modern-day special operations sniper has evolved into a new species—one that comes in a variety of lethal breeds.

The SOF (special operations forces) sniper has emerged the dominant hunter in a war without distinct boundaries. This new generation of sniper retains that edge that has always been granted a stealthy marksman capable of delivering precision fire at great distances. But bleeding-edge technology multiples that capability; it's not only rifles that serve as an extension of today's elite snipers, but fleets of tightly integrated aerial and satellite platforms as well.

Wielding the combined power of highly specialized SOF training, ballistics mastery, unblinking surveillance, close air support, and a team of dozens of subject-matter experts lending aid from afar, in the eyes of his adversaries the post-9/11 SOF sniper is nothing short of a technologically-enhanced warfighting demigod.

These are the men who turn the tide of battles both large and small. They do so with shots delivered across valleys, shots fired across rooms, and shots never fired at all.

They implement foreign policy at the ground level with their wits, skills, and technology. The world is subtly shaped from the shadows by men in MultiCam who exert more real-world influence than your average senator.

These are the virtuosos of precision warfare and reconnaissance. Tasked with the impossible, they are the ones who penetrate behind enemy lines, across borders, execute their orders, and escape unseen.

“If you ask any general who has commanded special operations forces on live operations, they will give great credit to the snipers—there is no more efficient mechanism,” said Craig Sawyer, a former DEVGRU sniper. “It's a capability that is very, very valuable and effective. They carry out several functions for any special operations mission and it's always a vital one. They play a huge role.”

They also come in a variety of forms. Some of today's spec ops snipers are clearly derived from the Hathcock line, simply remade for the modern world. Others are so far removed from that representation that their traditional sniper lineage is nearly unrecognizable.

Utilizing stacked skill sets to drive forward a truly revolutionary era of special operations, the new legends are every bit as epic as the old.

 

2

Set the Conditions

The wider impression made by America's special operations forces in Vietnam was nearly as indelible as that of the sniper, although the mammoth and high-profile role spec ops have played throughout the Global War on Terror has done much to alter this.

The idea of bandana-and-bandolier-adorned Green Berets and Navy SEALs sneaking through the jungle deep behind enemy lines remains a popular one. But it's been joined in the collective consciousness by the veiled operator decked out with insectoid panoramic night-vision goggles (NVGs) and suppressed weaponry moving through urban strongholds in the dead of night.

The rise of terrorism in the modern sense during the 1970s forced the United States to reconceptualize its approach to SOF. Actually, “forced” is perhaps a bit strong, but it did crack the door open wide enough to allow an indomitable Special Forces officer by the name of Charlie Beckwith to eventually smash through the established order. Despite facing numerous stumbling blocks along the way, Beckwith ultimately triumphed in his campaign to provide the nation with a specialized and exceedingly well-trained counterterrorism (CT) component to combat this new threat.

Closely patterned after the British Special Air Service—a fabled unit in which Beckwith served as an exchange officer—1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta was stood up in the late 1970s.

Delta Force soon faced its trial by fire in the attempted rescue of more than fifty Americans held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran.

The unfortunate reality of counterterrorism units of this sort—tasked with the most politically sensitive, highest priority, or, frankly, impossible missions (and quite often all three at once)—is that their triumphs typically take place out of sight while their failures are flooded by the spotlight of national catastrophe.

And the unfortunate reality for Delta Force was that Operation Eagle Claw proved to be a leading example of this fate. The audacious rescue plan was overly ambitious in its construction and it devolved into an embarrassment of global proportions. The already aborted operation turned to tragedy when a Marine Corps RH-53 helicopter collided with an Air Force EC-130 transport plane during the attempt to exfiltrate Iran.

The incident not only struck a blow to the United States' reputation, it also tarnished Delta—who only became publicly known as a result—despite its operators being powerless victims.

Danny Coulson, who would later found the Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), the FBI's civilian equivalent to Delta Force, compared the reaction to blaming a quarterback for losing the Super Bowl if the team's bus had crashed on the way to the game.

Nevertheless, the development served to make leaders gun shy when presented with the option of calling into action an elite force whose missions—which often straddled the line between traditional military and law enforcement activities—could have vast political consequences.

The debacle also forced the nation to further redefine the command structure of its special operations forces. In Eagle Claw's wake, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was founded to coordinate high-priority, national-level missions—a decision that would have massive implications decades down the line.

It also provided yet another crack of the door, this time spotted by another enterprising Vietnam-era officer by the name of Richard Marcinko, who sought to create Delta's Naval equivalent.

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In other quarters of the military, Delta Force—internally referred to simply as “the Unit”—was viewed with equal portions of awe and suspicion. Its operators had undeniable skills—practical marksmanship and rigorous training not found elsewhere—and organizationally it was scientifically adept and forward thinking.