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Summary: A Scholarly Review of Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills
Review: Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed Kills. Charles Henderson. (New York: The Berkley Publishing Group: 1986.)Charles Henderson is a veteran of more than twenty-three years in the United States Marine Corps, with a distinguished career spanning from tours in Vietnam to the Gulf War, after which he retired as a Chief Warrant Officer. He has also written three other non-fictional works exploring aspects of the American military. Marine Sniper 93 Confirmed Kills explores the mind of a trained killer, Carlos Hathcock. Henderson explains that it takes a special kind of courage to be alone: to be alone with your thoughts; to be alone with your fears; to be alone with your doubts. Throughout the book, he shows that Carlos Hathcock has that courage: a courage born of honor.
Earnest Hemmingway once said, "There is no hunting like the hunting of a man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else after" (Hemingway 132). Carlos Hathcock hunted men. Growing up in the small city of Little Rock, Arkansas, Carlos wanted no more than to escape the financial deficiency that encompassed every aspect of his life. On his seventeenth birthday, Carlos joined the Marines.
Carlos possessed the exceptional skill of marksmanship and had an uncanny understanding of sniper warfare. His superiors were the first to realize that "Hathcock was the best shot in the Corps" (76). After winning several marksmanship awards including the coveted Wimbledon Cup, Hathcock was deployed to Vietnam. He was stationed in an unnamed camp that was located off of Hill 55. This was a "Charlie hunting" hot spot because "every little hamburger bringin' something in or taking somethin' out of NVA land passed right below us" (56).
The Marine Corps did not always have a sniper program; rather, Hathcock's commanding officers, after noticing his inherent talent as a marksman, let Carlos run the first sniper school. With Captain Land, his company commander, Hathcock made a sniper/scout school in the battlefields of Vietnam, not teaching his "lectures" in the conventional classroom, but in the chaotic atmosphere of war. This led to dangerous situations where untrained and inexperienced "students" were forced to utilize their instructor's guidance or be killed.
Notably, the most interesting aspects of the book have nothing to do with statistics, habits of the soldiers, or the places; rather, they revolve around the daring, bold, and courageous actions leading to Hathcock's 93 kills. Each story is documented in a manner that keeps the reader bound to the book, sweating and fidgeting, as if they too are lying in the marsh with the Private and his scout. Experiencing the joy and the sorrow, the anger and the frustration, the book demands a certain level of intellectual thinking from the reader that, if met, will undoubtedly lead him or her to a deeper understanding of sniper combat.
For those who are truly interested in the detailed life of a soldier who served two tours in Vietnam, this book is a must read. Henderson goes into great depth describing every aspect of Marine life, from shining boots to drinking beer. However, most importantly, Henderson explores the subconscious, lesser known, niche of the sniper. A firm understanding of this uncanny mentality of the Vietnam sniper is what the reader will profit from the novel. It certainly takes a inimitable man to murder a child who is transporting munitions on the back of his bicycle and after reading this novel, the reader will know exactly what kind of man that is.
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Summary: Understanding Components of Limited Warfare.
Review: For most history buffs, Marine Sniper, fills another "piece of the pie" in trying to understand the Vietnam war and how it was fought. Carlos Hathcock became a legend to those who knew him and a myth of the "White Feather" for those Viet Cong/NVA that didn''t, and never would.
The vision of a "force reduction agent", that of the sniper, inspired Capt. E.J. Land to advocate the scout/sniper into the theater of this war. Just as The Special Forces added a "force multiplier, the scout/sniper teams were designed as a flip side of the coin to tie down combatants wondering "who's next?" Where did the shot come from? Who are attacking us? How many? You get the idea I'm sure, and Henderson leads us through these applied concepts to show what could be done with the right men at the right time. Emjoy this book, as it becomes the corner stone of a concept that worked. One of the very few things that did in that sweathole. Celebrate Carlos and those other men who made us feel just a little more comfortable knowing that Charlie didn't know.
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Summary: Very Interesting Book
Review: This is a very interesting book detailing the life of Carlos Hathcock II. I read this one fast because I didn't want to put it down.
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Summary: best sniper ever?
Review: Hedersons book covers Hathcocks life in the marines largely focussing on his time in vietnam and his personal life before and after that.
He was probably the greatest sniper who lived to tell the tale. He combined a native woodsman's understanding for the hunting environment with an awesome shot-placement skill and a cool focus on his role as a sniper when in battle. For instance he once held a company of green NVAs down with a sniper rifle and a machine-gunning spotter for four days, perhaps exaggerated, but definitly a high-risk judgement given his lack of any back-up.
He hunts down a sadistic VC officer, which will bring out mixed emotions in the reader, and shoots what is shown as a typically pompous foreign general. He also survives a dual with an enemy sniper leader turned his would-be killer with what was near a fluke ending. His second tour end tracially with an ambush.
He is shown quite well as a human person, and a marine, and we get to hear a few of his thoughts on leadership and what motivated him.
In terms of him being the best sniper ever. He did win national shooting competitions in the US pre-vietnam. However I also get the feeling he got both damned lucky and had the fortue to be fighting a poorly trained and frankly often disorganised gurilla type enemy, and in an environment conducive to good camouflage and sniping. I think that had he been a sniper in WW2 the chances are he would have died before he got his confirmed kill ratio as high as he did. Nevertheless he was oviously a dedicated and highly talented scout-sniper and played a role in giving the marines additional back-up which was often highly successful.
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Summary: Interesting Read
Review: This book was a very interesting read. It recounts the storied marine corps career of the top sniper in Vietnam. Carlos Hathcock AKA "Long Trang" was a one man killing machine in the Vietnam War. The book is chock full of several great and somber stories from the War. The most interesting part of the book deals with the Elephant Valley Massacre. I don't want to ruin that part but let's just say he killed alot of people! Very good read for the Vietnam War buffs. WARNING: Do not read "One Shot, One Kill" until after this book. "One Shot, One Kill" deals with snipers from every major war and the stroy of Hathcock is repeated in several chapters.
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Summary: Man! Now this is a book!
Review: I couldn't put this bad boy down. I loved the way Henderson got into Hathcock's life and made it seem so compelling. I also loved the way he explained everything as if the reader does not know too much about the military like Tom Clancy likes to do. He makes it easy to read but exciting at the same time. My favorite part was where Hathcock was dispatched to 'hunt' down the Apache, the notorious Viet Cong torturer. I can tell that Henderson talked to Hathcock A LOT to get all the indeph and the thoughts of both Hathcock and his fellow marines. This book also got into th minds of the marines and marine snipers and I thought that was very interesting. I always wondered what was in the mind of a sniper as he waited for his target. All in all a great book. The only thing I wish was that the book was longer.
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Summary: Amazing Book, If you like military books, READ THIS
Review: If you at all like books about military actions, this is a book that should be read without hesitation. I have read many of Stephen Ambrose's books about WW2 and this ranks with them all. While its my first read about the Vietnam War, it is an amazingly detailed account of just what Carlos Hathcock and his fellow Marines went through. Henderson's use of such "explainitory" words, make you understand without question, every aspect of what is going on. This is a truly great book, and I will read it again (at least once) in my lifetime!
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Summary: What A Great Movie This Book Would Make
Review: Yes, I know we've already had Tom Berringer in "Sniper" on the screen but this book would blow that away. Carlos Hathcock was a super-human sniper in the Vietnam war. The only sniper to have a bounty placed on his head by the NVA and still he evaded and killed the enemy, from awesome distances and through very tight enemy security. Sgt. Hathcock was the U.S. long range rifle champion before entering Vietnam and helped set up the US Marine Corps Sniper School after the war. This book shows what this great soldier went through. This book is on par with David Hackworth's "About Face". With soldiers like these it can only be deduced that the war was lost by politicians. Read this book and be amazed!
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Summary: Marine Sniper, A Fabulous YOU ARE THERE book
Review: This is a MUST-BUY book for those who enjoy true-life, military books which make you both feel you are there, and teach you about how it was. As the book progresses, you feel the sweat dripping down your own back as he awaits his next prey. You are awed by the distance of his shots as he calmly takes out enemy after enemy as others stand in amazement.
The chapter on trapping a large group of the enemy in the open is incredible, as you feel for both sides....you want our man to protect our troops from the invading force, but at the same time you feel the helplessness of the trapped enemy as they are picked off one-by-one. At the end of this book my admiration and understand of Snipers and LRPs was tremendously enhanced.
I just wish Carlos Hathcock was still here for us to finally say .....thank you.....as he deserved.
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Summary: THIS GUY WAS A NUT!
Review: I knew when I first picked up a book about a sniper in Vietnam that I was in for rude awakening. Up until now, all of my military reading has been on squad or bigger sized units taking on Nazis or Yankees and so I was anticipating finding out what it was like for one man, alone, in the bush of Vietnam. I was not too be disappointed. Most of this book is action packed, but not just regular war book type action...This is one man (or 2) alone in the deep, dark jungles of Vietnam, literally surrounded by NVA troops! The missions that our hero, Carlos Hathcock, undertakes are unbelievable. If you buy the book for no other reason than reading about these missions you will not be disappointed. Carlos takes on the 'Apache Women' who routinely tortured, castrated, and killed Americans...He takes on, in a long creeping match, the NVA's best sniper...and in his final big mission, crawls deep into an enemy headquarters to take out one of their big boys. All of these missions, and many more, are described in nerve-wracking narration that leaves you reading page after page, late into the night. You simply will not be disappointed in the telling of these adventures. What you may be disappointed in is that the story is slightly biased...but in reading a book about a Marine hero, written by a Marine, this was not surprising. You may also be confused, especially at the start, by the way the narration jumps around from the states to different operations in Vietnam, leaving you often times confused as to where you at and what is going on. You may also be a little shocked at the nonchalant killing of dozens upon dozens of Vietnamese, each kill being described in rather vivid detail...but once again by picking up a book on Snipers you should be ready for this.
Other than these small complaints, I found this a highly informative and adrenaline pumping book that is a VERY quick read...
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