Carlos Hathcock Carlos Norman Hathcock II ( 20 May 194223 February 23 1999 ) was a United States Marine Corps sniper with a service record of 93 confirmed kills . Hathcock ' s record and the extraordinary details of the missions he undertook made him a legend in the Marine Corps . His fame as a sniper and his dedication to long - distance shooting led him to become a major developer of the United States Marine Corps Sniper training program . He was honored by having a rifle named after him : a variant of the M21 dubbed the Springfield Armory M25 White Feather . Early life and education . Hathcock was born in Little Rock , Arkansas on May 20 , 1942 . He grew up in rural Arkansas , living with his grandmother after his parents separated . While visiting relatives in Mississippi , he took to shooting and hunting at an early age , partly out of necessity to help feed his poor family . He would go into the woods with his dog and pretend to be a soldier and hunt imaginary Japanese with the old Mauser his father brought back from World War One . He hunted at that early age with a . 22 - caliber J . C . Higgins single - shot rifle . Hathcock dreamed of being a Marine throughout his childhood , and so on May 20 , 1959 , at the age of 17 , he enlisted in the Marine Corps . Hathcock married Jo Winstead on the date of the Marine Corps birthday , on November 10 , 1962 . Jo gave birth to a son , whom they named Carlos Norman Hathcock III . Career . Before deploying to Vietnam , Hathcock had won shooting championships , including matches at Camp Perry and the Wimbledon Cup . In 1966 Hathcock started his deployment in Vietnam as an MP and later became a sniper after Captain Edward James Land pushed the Marines into raising snipers in every platoon . Land later recruited Marines who had set their own records in sharpshooting ; he quickly found Hathcock , who had won the Wimbledon Cup , the most prestigious prize for long - range shooting , at Camp Perry in 1965 . Confirmed kills . During the Vietnam War Hathcock had 93 confirmed kills of North Vietnamese Army and Viet - Cong personnel . During the Vietnam War , kills had to be confirmed by an acting third party , who had to be an officer , besides the sniper ' s spotter . Snipers often did not have an acting third party present , making confirmation difficult , especially if the target was behind enemy lines , as was usually the case . Hathcock himself estimated that he had killed 300 or more enemy personnel during his time in Vietnam . Confrontations with NVA snipers . The North Vietnamese Army placed a bounty of $ 30 , 000 on Hathcock ' s life for killing so many of their men . Rewards put on U . S . snipers by the N . V . A . typically ranged from $ 8 to $ 2 , 000 . Hathcock held the record for highest bounty and killed every Vietnamese marksman who sought it . The Viet Cong and NVA called Hathcock " Lông Trắng " , translated as " White Feather " , because of the white feather he kept in a band on his bush hat . After a platoon of Vietnamese snipers was sent to hunt down " White Feather " , many Marines in the same area donned white feathers to deceive the enemy . These Marines were aware of the impact Hathcock ' s death would have and took it upon themselves to make themselves targets in order to confuse the counter - sniper s . One of Hathcock ' s most famous accomplishments was shooting an enemy sniper through the enemy ' s own rifle scope , hitting him in the eye and killing him . Hathcock and John Roland Burke , his spotter , were stalking the enemy sniper in the jungle near Hill 55 , the firebase from which Hathcock was operating . The sniper , known only as the ' Cobra , ' had already killed several Marines and was believed to have been sent specifically to kill Hathcock . When Hathcock saw a flash of light ( light reflecting off the enemy sniper ' s scope ) in the bushes , he fired at it , shooting through the scope and killing the sniper . Surveying the situation , Hathcock concluded that the only feasible way he could have put the bullet straight down the enemy ' s scope and through his eye would have been if both snipers were zeroing in on each other at the same time and Hathcock fired first , which gave him only a few seconds to act . Given the flight time of rounds at long ranges , the snipers could have simultaneously killed one another . Hathcock took possession of the dead sniper ' s rifle , hoping to bring it home as a " trophy " but , after he turned it in and tagged it , it was stolen from the armory . A female Viet Cong sniper , platoon commander , and interrogator known as " Apache , " because of her methods of torturing US Marines and ARVN troops and letting them bleed to death , was killed by Hathcock . This was a major morale victory as " Apache " was terrorizing the troops around Hill 55 . Assassination of an NVA Commanding General . Hathcock only once removed the white feather from his bush hat while deployed in Vietnam . During a volunteer mission days before the end of his first deployment , he crawled over 1 , 500 yards of field to shoot an NVA commanding general . He was not informed of the details of the mission until he accepted it . This effort took four days and three nights , without sleep , of constant inch - by - inch crawling . Hathcock said he was almost stepped on as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow shortly after sunset . At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper but had the presence of mind to avoid moving and giving up his position . As the general exited his encampment , Hathcock fired a single shot that struck the general in the chest , killing him . He had to crawl back instead of run when soldiers started searching , and later regretted taking the mission , for in the aftermath of the assassination the NVA doubled their attacks in the area , apparently in retaliation for their general being killed and leading to an increase in American casualties . After the arduous mission of killing the general , Hathcock returned to the United States in 1967 . However , he missed the Marine Corps and returned to Vietnam in 1969 , where he took command of a platoon of snipers . Medical evacuation . Hathcock ' s career as a sniper came to a sudden end along Route 1 , north of LZ Baldy in September 1969 , when the amtrack he was riding on , an LVT - 5 , struck an anti - tank mine . Hathcock pulled seven Marines off the flame - engulfed vehicle and was severely burned before jumping to safety . While recovering , Hathcock received the Purple Heart . Nearly 30 years later , he would receive the Silver Star for this action . All eight injured Marines were evacuated by helicopter to the USS Repose ( AH - 16 ) , then to a Naval Hospital in Tokyo , and ultimately to the burn center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio , Texas . After the Vietnam War . After returning to active duty , Hathcock helped establish the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School , at the Marine base in Quantico , Virginia . Due to his extreme injuries suffered in Vietnam , he was in nearly constant pain , but he continued to dedicate himself to teaching snipers . In 1975 , Hathcock ' s health began to deteriorate , and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis . He stayed in the Corps , but his health continued to decline , and was forced to retire just 55 days short of the 20 years that would have made him eligible for full retirement pay . Being medically retired , he received 100 % disability . He would have received only 50 % of his final pay grade had he retired after 20 years . He fell into a state of depression when he was forced out of the Marines , because he felt as if the service had kicked him out . During this depression , his wife Jo nearly left him , but decided to stay . Hathcock eventually picked up the hobby of shark fishing , which helped him overcome his depression . Hathcock provided sniper instruction to police departments and select military units , such as SEAL Team Six . Hathcock had one expressed wish , to make the award presentation of the Carlos . N Hathcock Award to one recipient at Quantico . ( One worthy individual from each graduating sniper class receives the award , not to be confused with the annual award from the National Defense Industrial Association . This award may be presented to members of any service branch . ) The naming of an award after a living person was unprecedented for the Marine Corps . Despite receiving letters requesting that Hathcock ' s wish be fulfilled , the Commandant of the Marine Corps did not grant it . Later life and death . Hathcock 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 with his equipment , then his environment , in which every breeze and every leaf meant something , and finally on his quarry . After the war , a friend showed Hathcock a passage 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 . " He copied Hemingway ' s words on a piece of paper . " He got that right , " Hathcock said . " It was the hunt , not the killing . " Hathcock said in a book written about his career as a sniper : " I like shooting , and I love hunting . But I never did enjoy killing anybody . It ' s my job . If I don ' t get those bastards , then they ' re gonna kill a lot of these kids dressed up like Marines . That ' s the way I look at it . " Hathcock ' s son , Carlos Hathcock III , later enlisted in the Marine Corps ; he retired from the Marine Corps as a Gunnery Sergeant after following in his father ' s footsteps as a shooter and became a member of the Board of Governors of the Marine Corps Distinguished Shooters Association . Carlos Hathcock died on February 23 , 1999 , in Virginia Beach , Virginia , from complications resulting from multiple sclerosis . Legacy . Hathcock remains a legend in the U . S . Marine Corps . The Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock Award is presented annually by the National Defense Industrial Association to the soldier , sailor , airman or marine who does the most to promote marksmanship training . A sniper range named for Hathcock is at Camp Lejeune , North Carolina . In 1967 Hathcock set the record for the longest sniper kill . He used a M2 . 50 Cal Browning machine gun mounting a telescopic sight at a range of , taking down a single Vietcong guerrilla . This record was broken in 2002 , by Canadian snipers ( Rob Furlong and Arron Perry ) from the 3rd Bn . PPCLI during the War in Afghanistan . Hathcock was one of several individuals to utilize the M2 Browning machine gun in the sniping role . This success led to the adoption of the . 50 BMG cartridge as a viable sniper round . Sniper rifles have since been designed around and chambered in this caliber since the 1970s . The Canadian Forces snipers from the PPCLI also used the . 50 BMG round in their record - breaking shots . Springfield Armory designed a highly accurized version of their M1A Supermatch rifle with a McMillan Stock and match grade barrel and dubbed it the " M - 25 White Feather " . The rifle had a likeness of Hathcock ' s signature and his " white feather logo " marked on the receiver . Turner Saddlery similarly honored Hathcock by producing a line of leather rifle slings based on his design . The slings are embossed with Hathcock ' s signature . On March 9 , 2007 the rifle and pistol complex at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar was officially renamed the Carlos Hathcock Range Complex . Books . Hathcock was the subject of a number of books including : Weaponry . Hathcock generally used the standard sniper rifle : the Winchester Model 70 . 30 - 06 caliber rifle with the standard 8 - power Unertl scope . On some occasions , however , he used a different weapon : the M2 Browning machine gun , on which he mounted a 10X Unertl scope , using a bracket of his own design . Hathcock made a number of kills with this weapon in excess of 1 , 000 yards , including his record for the longest confirmed kill at 2 , 500 yards . Hathcock carried a Colt M1911A1 pistol as a sidearm . In popular culture . Hathcock ' s career as a sniper has been used as a basis for a variety of fictional snipers from the " shooting through the scope incident " to the number of kills he made . In the criminal procedural series " NCIS " , Hathcock was mentioned in the episode " One Shot , One Kill " when a white feather was found at two crime scenes in which the victims were shot and killed by a sniper . The series protagonist Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs , a former Marine scout sniper , realized the significance of the feather as the perpetrator ' s " calling card " , referencing Hathcock ' s nickname during the Vietnam War ( " White Feather Sniper " ) . He credits Hathcock with " 39 confirmed kills , " apparently having transposed the digits of Hathcock ' s actual 93 confirmed kills . The protagonist of Stephen Hunter ' s " Bob Lee Swagger Series " consisting of the novels " Point of Impact , " " Black Light , " " Time to Hunt " and " I , Sniper " is loosely based on Carlos Hathcock ( Hathcock is alluded to in the book as " Gunny Sgt Carl Hitchcock " ) . The 1993 movie " Sniper , " featuring actor Tom Berenger , is loosely based on some of Hathcock ' s exploits in Vietnam . In " JAG , " Season 1 , Episode 16 ( " High Ground " ) , Gunnery Sergeant Ray Crockett ( portrayed by Stephen McHattie ) is based on Hathcock . Crockett is a sniper instructor at Quantico , Virginia , who believes that he is being " forced out of the service " short of his retirement . He makes the statement that he " wrote most of the book " on sniper operations . The character Rabb refers to an incident where Crockett pinned down an NVA unit by killing their officer with the first shot . In Beirut , Crockett used a Browning . 50 to take down an enemy sniper at about 2 , 500 meters . Lastly , Gunny Crockett is a winner of The Wimbledon Cup . In the fourth episode of the first season of the CBS show " , " the criminal being chased by the Behavioral Analysis Unit ' s red cell team is a long - distance sniper killer , played by Noel Fisher . Fisher sends Mick Rawson ( played by Matt Ryan ) of the BAU team a package containing a pager which he uses to notify Rawson of his next kills ; he signs the package " Carlos Hathcock , " which Rawson explains by sharing the tale of Hathcock ' s 93 kills and an incident during the Vietnam War in which he was put up against the best sniper of the NVA , known only as ' Cobra ' ( thus mimicking the incident , since Rawson is also a skilled sniper shooter ) . In Barry Eisler ' s fictional series based on his character John Rain , the third installment ( " Rain Storm " ) contains a scene between Rain and fellow Vietnam veteran Dox . Dox was a marine sniper who had difficulties with a superior who was suspicious of his unsniper - like demeanor . He tells Rain of several kills of over a thousand yards and states : " Not bad for someone temperamentally unsuited , I ' d say . Carlos Hathcock would be proud . " Rain informs Dox he met Hathcock in Vietnam , to which Dox exclaims : " No ! You met the man ! " The popular Discovery Channel series MythBusters tested the question of shooting another sniper through the telescope . Episode 67 , entitled Firearms Folklore , aired on November 29 , 2006 . Myths tested included , ' Can a bullet travel through a sniper ' s scope and kill him ? ' . Using a police industry standard SWAT sniper rifle and standard police match ammunition , the MythBusters fired several shots at a scoped rifle mounted on a ballistics gel dummy . The bullet was unable to hit the dummy : it was either stopped or deflected by the multiple layers of lenses in the scope , leaving the dummy relatively unharmed . Without any clear evidence that a bullet can penetrate a sniper scope , the MythBusters decided to label the myth as " busted " . But due to much debate by viewers it was revisited in episode 75 . Using a period - accurate scope ( this story originates from reports of Carlos Hathcock in the Vietnam War , and the scope used by Hathcock ' s opponent did not have the numerous internal optical elements of the scopes tested ) , it was found to be plausible .