Carlos N. Hathcock II was born on this day in 1942. Those of you with time behind the glass know the name, know the legend, and have probably read MARINE SNIPER by Charles Henderson, the book that immortalized Gunnery Sgt. (Ret.) Carlos N. Hathcock II, USMC. I read MARINE SNIPER in those formative junior high years when I had already set my sights on serving my country in the SEAL Teams. I was reading everything I could on warfare, specifically on special operations, terrorism, insurgencies, and snipers. Vietnam was a watershed period in the history of both special operations and sniping, and MARINE SNIPER was a fascinating look at that period through a 10 power Unertl scope atop a .30-06 Winchester Model 70. My path was set. I was going to be a sniper. I still have my original copy of that book. The tone is set with the same Hemingway quote I use to set the tone for SAVAGE SON, which coincidently is also about the hunting of man, though it is done through the lens of a fictional narrative. Major E.J. Land writes in the foreword to Henderson’s book: “The sniper is the big-game hunter of the battlefield, and he needs all the skills of the woodsman, marksman, hunter, and poacher.” Future snipers take note. Hathcock’s Silver Star would be awarded almost three decades after his experience in Vietnam, not for one or all of his 93 confirmed kills, but for dragging seven wounded Marines out of the back of an APC after it hit a mine and burst into flames, the same action that ended his time in uniform. The citation reads: “with complete disregard for his own safety and while suffering an excruciating pain from his burns, he bravely ran back through the flames and exploding ammunition to ensure that no Marines had been left behind.” In Carlos Hathcock’s obituary for the Washington Post in 1999, Stephen Hunter wrote, “In two tours in the 1960s, he wandered through the big bad bush in the Republic of South Vietnam...with a rifle made by Winchester, a heart made by God and a discipline made by the Marine Corps.”