Without a word, the Marine drill instructor plucked the cigarette from the recruit’s lips, dropped it on die black rubber mat mat ran down die aisle of the bus, and crushed it out with a single twist of his toe. Half a dozen other lit cigarettes suddenly dropped to die floor in silence as die broad-shouldered sergeant gazed toward die rear of the bus with his stern, dark eyes, almost hidden under die brim of his hat.
Hathcock was in awe. “This is it!” he said loudly.
The Marine looked at him. Hathcock was just about to rise to his feet when he caught the drill instructor’s cold stare.
“Ladies—you too, sweetheart,” he said in a loud voice and looked directly at Hathcock. “You will not utter a word from this moment on, unless you are addressed by your drill instructor. When that occurs, die first word out of your mouth will be Sir,” die DI growled emphatically, pausing for effect. “And die last word out of your mouth will be Sir. Is that dear?”
Only silence followed.
“When you are addressed by a drill instructor, and he asks you a question, you will respond with Sir, followed by the appropriate answer, and then finish with Sir. Is that clear?’
Again, only fearful silence met the DI’s ears. He looked at Hathcock. “Private!”
Hathcock swallowed and answered him in a low, Arkansas drawl, “Yes Sir?”
“What did I just say?”
Hathcock felt the blood rushing through his face. He rose to his feet and mumbled, “Sir… ah… you ain’t supposed to say nuthin…”
The Marine cut him off in mid-sentence. “You? You? Boy, do you know what a ewe is? That’s a female sheep! You’re a country boy, ain’t ya. You ought to know what country boys does to them female sheeps. They fucks ’em, don’t they—boooy. You want to fuck me?”
“Sir, no Sir,” Hathcock quickly responded.
“Sit down, boy,” the drill instructor barked.
“Sir, yes Sir,” Hathcock said, gladly shrinking to his seat.
“I can’t hear you, boy.”
Hathcock responded loudly, “Sir, yes Sir!”
“Okay, ass eyes,” the granite-faced sergeant said angrily. “When you answer me, you are on your feet, at the position of attention, and your asshole better pucker and your ears better pop. If they don’t you ain’t answering loud enough. You got that?”
Hathcock leaped to his feet, arching his back and jutting his chin straight up. He screamed with his eyes squeezed tightly shut and bis veins bulging on his neck, “Sir, yesss Sirrr!”
The Marine sergeant walked down the aisle, “Ladies, any time a drill instructor addresses you as a group, you will answer as a group. You will answer property and loudly. If you fail as a group, you will pay for your sins as a group. Is mat clear?”
Thirty young men chimed together, assholes puckering and ears popping, “Sir, yes Sir.”
“Very good.”
“When you speak to a drill instructor, you will address him in the third person. That means if you have a request, such as one of you ladies might need to go tinkle, you would request it in this fashion, ‘Sir, the private requests permission to make a head call, Sir.’
“Two words that will never be a part of your vocabulary are I or You. You will replace those words with The Private and The Drill Instructor, respectively. Is that clear?”
“Sir, yes Sir,” thirty voices yelled.
“Now, when I step off of this bus, I don’t want to hear the sound of anything but wind sucking in, filling the vacuum that you just left, and the thunder of your hooves hitting those yellow footprints painted out there on the concrete. You got that?”
“Sir, yes Sir.”
“I will not hear one word out there. Marines are sleeping in the barracks just down the road and we don’t want to disturb them, do we?”
“Sir, no Sir.”
The Marine turned his back and stepped off the bus, followed by the stampede of thirty frightened recruits, including Hathcock.
That night they gave him a web belt, a pair of tennis shoes, a green utility cap, jacket and trousers, a large white T-shirt, a large pair of white boxer shorts, green wool socks, a blue, plastic soap dish, a bar of Dial soap, a blue, plastic toothbrush holder, a can of Barbasol shaving cream, a razor, a tube of Crest toothpaste, a toothbrush, a pair of rubber thongs that the marines called shower shoes, a pair of gray shorts, a yellow sweatshirt with a red Marine Corps emblem emblazoned on the front, a green canvas seabag with a wide strap that clipped through a ring on the top, a bucket, two sheets, a pillow, and a blanket. He got to bed at 4:00 A.M., and an hour and a half later a drill instructor rousted the exhausted recruits and sent mem on the first day of their thirteen weeks of hell.
Hathcock chuckled as he recalled those unforgettable days. He gazed out the helicopter’s door at the emerald-and-orange jungle, watching treetops blur past just a few feet beneath the chopper as it raced toward Hill 55. He thought how that first day in the Marine Corps had to be his most memorable birthday.
He thought that he could have married Jo on a May 20 also, but choosing die Marine Corps’ birthday—November 10—seemed better, somehow. It balanced the year’s celebrations, and it was a date that he remembered easily. November 10, 1967, would mark his fifth wedding anniversary. These five years of marriage had passed quickly for Hathcock. They had been happy for the couple, but not easy.
Jo did not like being a “shooting-team widow.” However, when she married Carkw in 1962, she knew what lay ahead: He would be gone often, competing in regional, state, and national shooting matches throughout the United States. Carlos would leave Thursday and come home Sunday night. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday he worked from 5:00 A.M. until 6:00 P.M. at the rifle range. In the evenings, he lay on the floor in front of the television and practiced “getting into position”—the tightly contorted stances (standing, sitting, kneeling, and prone) from which he fired in the matches, From March through April he did nothing but shoot.
However, Jo had resigned herself to that life-style when she decided to become Mrs. Hathcock. Had someone asked her if she would ever make that decision when she first met him, she would have laughed in his face. Hathcock, on the other hand, had thought Jo was swell—nice looking and with a great personality. He formed that opinion the day that he walked into the bank in New Bern, North Carolina, where she worked as a teller. That was in January 1962.
Hathcock had just reported to the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point from the 1st Marine Brigade in Hawaii, where he had spent the past two years cruising the exotic ports of the Far East and South Pacific.
It had been a dramatic change for Hathcock, departing that tropical paradise, with its brown-skinned girls and wonderful liberty nights, for coastal North Carolina, with its tobacco-lined country roads and gas-station entertainment.
After boot camp and basic infantry training, Hathcock had left Camp Pendlton for the base at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, where he sailed on a troop ship to Hawaii. There he became a machine gunner in the weapons platoon of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. And he did his best to fnainfrin the image of the battalion’s nickname—The Magnificent Bastards—during his liberty stops in Taipei, Tokyo, Papeete, and other exotic ports, as well as at home port in Honolulu.
When Hathcock reported to the air station in North Carolina, the first problem that die personnel chief had to solve was how does an air station employ an infantry Marine? The nearest infantry regiments were forty miles south at Camp Lejeune. The personnel chief asked Hathcock if he would like to work in special services, sweeping out die gym and passing out basketballs. Hathcock swallowed a lump in his throat and tried not to show die repulsion he felt at that idea.