Carlos Hathcock

"It was the hunt, not the killing."

- Carlos Hathcock

Carlos Hathcock was a US Marine sniper who fought during the Vietnam War. Prior to his deployment in Southeast Asia Hathcock had won marksmanship championships, including the Wimbledon Cup and competitions at Camp Perry, Ohio. He had 93 confirmed kills of NVA and VC personnel, but Hathcock put a personal estimate of around 300 total kills. He killed an enemy sniper known only as "the Cobra" who was deployed directly to kill Hathcock - the Cobra was killed by a bullet that travelled through his own scope and into his eye. Hathcock also killed a high-ranking NVA general in a 4-day grueling crawl through enemy lines and a daring escape immediately afterward, and went on to kill a female Viet Cong known as the Apache, who had been terrorizing US Marines in a nearby firebase. Hathcock was severly burned after an amtrack he was riding on struck a land mine, but he saved seven Marines in the process, an action that would later earn him the Silver Star. However, this incident brought his career as a sniper to an end, where he taught snipers in the US and took up shark fishing as a hobby.