Multiple sclerosis support - Goodbye To A Legend

Author

Goodbye To A Legend

GT Tick

2005-04-26, 10:56 pm

I'm not posting this to glorify a man, a legend or an era. There really
was no glory. Well, maybe just a 'little' individual glory at times.

This was not the passing of a legend that made headlines...I learned
about it from an email when Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock passed away
from complications of kidney disease brought on by his MS back in 1999.

I just happened upon an article about Gunney today and thought maybe a
few might be interested in just one more type of person that suffered
MS.

Tick
--
--
Carlos N. Hathcock II, Marine sniper, icon of the Vietnam War, champion
marksman, and under-recognized war-hero... died at 5:45 am on February
23, 1999.

His vanity license plates in Virginia read SNIPER, and during the
Vietnam War he was just that, the bearer of a surprising, sudden death
to enemy soldiers. But when Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos N. Hathcock II
died last week at the age of 57, the enemy that ultimately felled him
was the slow, patient progression of multiple sclerosis.

No Marine sniper was more effective than Hathcock at killing North
Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The number 93 reflects his confirmed
kills, but his actual total is believed to be well over 100. As a
testament to his effectiveness, North Vietnam once put a bounty of
$30,000.00 on his head.

The Viet Cong knew him as well and called him "Long Trang," the white
feather, because he often wore one in his bush hat. Hathcock remains a
legend in the Marines. The Carlos Hathcock Award is presented annually
to the Marine who does the most to promote marksmanship. And there is a
sniper range named for Hathcock at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Late in his life, he was awarded a Silver Star, the third-highest
military honor, for an incident that happened nearly 30 years earlier,
when he pulled seven comrades off a burning armored personnel carrier
that had struck a mine. That act bravery left Hathcock badly burned and
effectively ended his career as a rifleman.

Hathcock, a native of Arkansas, was a slight, unassuming man with a
self-contained temperament that made him perfect for a job that involved
infiltrating deep into enemy-held territory and waiting, often for days,
to take one shot at his target.

He once said that he survived in his work because of an ability to "get
in the bubble," to put himself into a state of "utter, complete,
absolute concentration," first on his equipment, then on his environment
in which every breeze and every leaf meant something, and finally on his
quarry.

His work demanded steady nerves and was exhausting. During one pursuit
of an enemy general, he had to cover more than 1,000 meters of open
terrain during three days and nights of constant crawling an inch at a
time. Enemy patrols came within 20 feet of Hathcock, who lay camouflaged
with grass and vegetation in the open.

During two 13-month tours of duty in Vietnam, Hathcock volunteered for
so many missions that his commanding officer once had to restrict him to
quarters to make him rest. At the time the 5-foot, 10-inch Hathcock
weighed only 120 pounds.

"It was the stalk that I enjoyed," he once told a reporter for the
Washington Post. "Pitting yourself against another human being. There
was no second place in Vietnam-second place was a body bag. Everybody
was scared and those that weren't are liars. But you can let that work
for you. It makes you more alert, keener, and that's how it got for me.
It made me be the best."

Raised outside Little Rock, Hathcock lived with his grandmother after
his parents divorced. He loved the outdoors and taught himself to hunt
in the woods as a young boy. He knew where the rabbits and squirrels
ran. "As a young'n, I'd go sit in the woods and wait a spell," he once
said. "I'd just wait for the rabbits and squirrels 'cause sooner or
later a squirrel would be in that very tree or a rabbit would be coming
by that very log. I just knew it. Don't know why, just did."

By age 10, he was bringing meat home to the table regularly. As soon as
he turned 17 in 1959, Hathcock enlisted in the Marines. It didn't take
him long to make his mark. He qualified immediately at boot camp in San
Diego as an expert shot.
Over the next several years, he won many shooting championships,
including the prestigious Wimbledon cup-long-range shooting's most
prestigious prize-in 1965.

A year later he was sent to Vietnam. His first job in Vietnam was as a
military policeman, but he wanted more action. He volunteered for
regular reconnasissance patrols but felt uneasy with Marines who did not
have the woodcraft skills that he possessed. He wanted to hunt on his
own.
At first, his fellow Marines questioned the usefulness of a lone sniper,
but after six months-and 14 confirmed kills-Hathcock's methods won
acceptance. He once said that Vietnam was "just right" for him. Although
he once told a fellow Marine that he never looked at his work "as a
shooting match, where the man with the most kills wins the gold medal,"
he told the Post reporter that he "did enjoy it once. And it scared me.
Bad."

Hathcock's career as a sniper came to sudden end outside Queson in 1969,
when the amphibious tractor he was riding on was ambushed and hit a
500-pound box mine. Hathcock pulled seven marines off the flame-engulfed
vehicle before jumping to safety. As was his way, he rejected any
commendation for his bravery.

He came out of the attack with second- and third-degree burns over more
than 40% of his body and was evacuated to Brooke Army Medical Center in
Texas, where he underwent 13 skin graft operations. The nature of the
injuries left him unable to perform effectively again with a rifle.

After returning to active duty, he helped establish a scout and sniper
school at the Marine base in Quantico, Va. "He emphasized snipers could
not be John Wayne, that we shoud be reserved," said Sgt. William
Bartholomew, a sniper in the Baltimore Police Department who trained
under hathcock.

"If you didn't apply when he taught you, if you made an absentminded
error, he could stare right through you," Bartholomew told the Baltimore
Sun. "He could chew you out without ever raising his voice."

In 1975, Hathcock's health was deteriorating and he was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis, in incurable degenerative nerve disorder. He stayed
in the Corps but continued to decline in health and was forced to retire
just 55 days short of the 20 years that would have made him eligible for
full retirement pay.
During his retirement ceremony, he was presented a plaque by his
commanding officer. It read: "There have been many Marines. And there
have been many Marine marksmen. But there is only one Marine
Sniper-Gunnery Sgt. Carlos N. Hathcock II. One Shot-One Kill." Despite
the sentiment on the plaque, Hathcock left the service an embittered
man. He lived in Virginia Beach, Va., with his wife of 35 years,
Josephine, but his health declined to the point where he was confined to
a wheelchair.

Eventually, he came out of his depression and was hired by police
departments to lecture on the art of sniping. Two books were written
about his exploits and a movie called "Sniper," which was loosely based
on his career, was released.

His disease, however, was relentless. His death came two weeks after he
helped pin a promotion on his only child, 34-year-old Gunnery Sgt.
Carlos Hathcock III, during a ceremony the Marines moved from North
Carolina to the Hathcocks' Virginia Beach home.

After the war, a friend showed Hathcock a pasage written by Ernest
Hemingway: "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and
those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really
care for anything else thereafter." Hathcock copied Hemingway's words
on a piece of paper. "He got that right," Hathcock said. "It was the
hunt, not the killing."

*****Don't Cry Because It's Over...Smile Because It Happened.*****

Visit Me At Tick's Place...
http://community-2.webtv.net/OLTICK/TICKSPLACE/

jils

2005-04-26, 10:56 pm

i can't imagine the grief that man has suffered after killing a hundred
or so other people.
other people's husbands, wives, children, lovers. how would you sleep?
and i know that the other people would have killed him in a second.
war is filthy.

GT Tick wrote:
> I'm not posting this to glorify a man, a legend or an era. There really
> was no glory. Well, maybe just a 'little' individual glory at times.
>
> This was not the passing of a legend that made headlines...I learned
> about it from an email when Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock passed away
> from complications of kidney disease brought on by his MS back in 1999.
>
> I just happened upon an article about Gunney today and thought maybe a
> few might be interested in just one more type of person that suffered
> MS.
>
> Tick
> --
> --
> Carlos N. Hathcock II, Marine sniper, icon of the Vietnam War, champion
> marksman, and under-recognized war-hero... died at 5:45 am on February
> 23, 1999.
>
> His vanity license plates in Virginia read SNIPER, and during the
> Vietnam War he was just that, the bearer of a surprising, sudden death
> to enemy soldiers. But when Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos N. Hathcock II
> died last week at the age of 57, the enemy that ultimately felled him
> was the slow, patient progression of multiple sclerosis.
>
> No Marine sniper was more effective than Hathcock at killing North
> Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The number 93 reflects his confirmed
> kills, but his actual total is believed to be well over 100. As a
> testament to his effectiveness, North Vietnam once put a bounty of
> $30,000.00 on his head.
>
> The Viet Cong knew him as well and called him "Long Trang," the white
> feather, because he often wore one in his bush hat. Hathcock remains a
> legend in the Marines. The Carlos Hathcock Award is presented annually
> to the Marine who does the most to promote marksmanship. And there is a
> sniper range named for Hathcock at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
>
> Late in his life, he was awarded a Silver Star, the third-highest
> military honor, for an incident that happened nearly 30 years earlier,
> when he pulled seven comrades off a burning armored personnel carrier
> that had struck a mine. That act bravery left Hathcock badly burned and
> effectively ended his career as a rifleman.
>
> Hathcock, a native of Arkansas, was a slight, unassuming man with a
> self-contained temperament that made him perfect for a job that involved
> infiltrating deep into enemy-held territory and waiting, often for days,
> to take one shot at his target.
>
> He once said that he survived in his work because of an ability to "get
> in the bubble," to put himself into a state of "utter, complete,
> absolute concentration," first on his equipment, then on his environment
> in which every breeze and every leaf meant something, and finally on his
> quarry.
>
> His work demanded steady nerves and was exhausting. During one pursuit
> of an enemy general, he had to cover more than 1,000 meters of open
> terrain during three days and nights of constant crawling an inch at a
> time. Enemy patrols came within 20 feet of Hathcock, who lay camouflaged
> with grass and vegetation in the open.
>
> During two 13-month tours of duty in Vietnam, Hathcock volunteered for
> so many missions that his commanding officer once had to restrict him to
> quarters to make him rest. At the time the 5-foot, 10-inch Hathcock
> weighed only 120 pounds.
>
> "It was the stalk that I enjoyed," he once told a reporter for the
> Washington Post. "Pitting yourself against another human being. There
> was no second place in Vietnam-second place was a body bag. Everybody
> was scared and those that weren't are liars. But you can let that work
> for you. It makes you more alert, keener, and that's how it got for me.
> It made me be the best."
>
> Raised outside Little Rock, Hathcock lived with his grandmother after
> his parents divorced. He loved the outdoors and taught himself to hunt
> in the woods as a young boy. He knew where the rabbits and squirrels
> ran. "As a young'n, I'd go sit in the woods and wait a spell," he once
> said. "I'd just wait for the rabbits and squirrels 'cause sooner or
> later a squirrel would be in that very tree or a rabbit would be coming
> by that very log. I just knew it. Don't know why, just did."
>
> By age 10, he was bringing meat home to the table regularly. As soon as
> he turned 17 in 1959, Hathcock enlisted in the Marines. It didn't take
> him long to make his mark. He qualified immediately at boot camp in San
> Diego as an expert shot.
> Over the next several years, he won many shooting championships,
> including the prestigious Wimbledon cup-long-range shooting's most
> prestigious prize-in 1965.
>
> A year later he was sent to Vietnam. His first job in Vietnam was as a
> military policeman, but he wanted more action. He volunteered for
> regular reconnasissance patrols but felt uneasy with Marines who did not
> have the woodcraft skills that he possessed. He wanted to hunt on his
> own.
> At first, his fellow Marines questioned the usefulness of a lone sniper,
> but after six months-and 14 confirmed kills-Hathcock's methods won
> acceptance. He once said that Vietnam was "just right" for him. Although
> he once told a fellow Marine that he never looked at his work "as a
> shooting match, where the man with the most kills wins the gold medal,"
> he told the Post reporter that he "did enjoy it once. And it scared me.
> Bad."
>
> Hathcock's career as a sniper came to sudden end outside Queson in 1969,
> when the amphibious tractor he was riding on was ambushed and hit a
> 500-pound box mine. Hathcock pulled seven marines off the flame-engulfed
> vehicle before jumping to safety. As was his way, he rejected any
> commendation for his bravery.
>
> He came out of the attack with second- and third-degree burns over more
> than 40% of his body and was evacuated to Brooke Army Medical Center in
> Texas, where he underwent 13 skin graft operations. The nature of the
> injuries left him unable to perform effectively again with a rifle.
>
> After returning to active duty, he helped establish a scout and sniper
> school at the Marine base in Quantico, Va. "He emphasized snipers could
> not be John Wayne, that we shoud be reserved," said Sgt. William
> Bartholomew, a sniper in the Baltimore Police Department who trained
> under hathcock.
>
> "If you didn't apply when he taught you, if you made an absentminded
> error, he could stare right through you," Bartholomew told the Baltimore
> Sun. "He could chew you out without ever raising his voice."
>
> In 1975, Hathcock's health was deteriorating and he was diagnosed with
> multiple sclerosis, in incurable degenerative nerve disorder. He stayed
> in the Corps but continued to decline in health and was forced to retire
> just 55 days short of the 20 years that would have made him eligible for
> full retirement pay.
> During his retirement ceremony, he was presented a plaque by his
> commanding officer. It read: "There have been many Marines. And there
> have been many Marine marksmen. But there is only one Marine
> Sniper-Gunnery Sgt. Carlos N. Hathcock II. One Shot-One Kill." Despite
> the sentiment on the plaque, Hathcock left the service an embittered
> man. He lived in Virginia Beach, Va., with his wife of 35 years,
> Josephine, but his health declined to the point where he was confined to
> a wheelchair.
>
> Eventually, he came out of his depression and was hired by police
> departments to lecture on the art of sniping. Two books were written
> about his exploits and a movie called "Sniper," which was loosely based
> on his career, was released.
>
> His disease, however, was relentless. His death came two weeks after he
> helped pin a promotion on his only child, 34-year-old Gunnery Sgt.
> Carlos Hathcock III, during a ceremony the Marines moved from North
> Carolina to the Hathcocks' Virginia Beach home.
>
> After the war, a friend showed Hathcock a pasage written by Ernest
> Hemingway: "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and
> those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really
> care for anything else thereafter." Hathcock copied Hemingway's words
> on a piece of paper. "He got that right," Hathcock said. "It was the
> hunt, not the killing."
>
>
> *****Don't Cry Because It's Over...Smile Because It Happened.*****
>
> Visit Me At Tick's Place...
> http://community-2.webtv.net/OLTICK/TICKSPLACE/
>

QQQte@webtv.net

2005-04-26, 10:56 pm

i took a semester at the university i went to on how best to work with
vets.... i cried my eyes out during every class as did some others....
and i learned things that were almost inconceivable to imagine. and that
was the hidden feelings of vets whom's memory would be for ever
tortured.... and then this poor mser is left with one more war to battle
and that's ms ..... my bonnets off to him.... dory

........" There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in
the best of us that its rather hard to discern which of us ought to
reform the rest of us"...........
.........Alain Fournier.........

Dove 1

2005-04-27, 8:52 am

Thank you Tick for posting this story -
this soldier's life and struggle and ultimate death is a tale worth the
telling ---

On my special transport bus - I have had the privledge of getting to
know many soldiers from the Daytona VA hospital -
They are generous in sharing their stories with others during our long
rides ---
Each is unique ---

abdi

2005-04-28, 10:52 pm

Well there is some hope too
http://www.conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=2281

--
Quaecomque sunt vera ----
"jils" <jils@spambegone.com> wrote in message
news:426ee6f8$0$10303$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...[vbcol=seagreen]
>i can't imagine the grief that man has suffered after killing a hundred or
>so other people.
> other people's husbands, wives, children, lovers. how would you sleep?
> and i know that the other people would have killed him in a second.
> war is filthy.
>
> GT Tick wrote: