a long shot

Following some odd lead, I wound up Googling Carlos Norman Hathcock, one of the most successful snipers in U.S. military history.  He managed to dispatch at least 93 enemy soldiers – those were "confirmed kills"; he estimated the actual toll was three or four times that many.

His most strange success was hitting an enemy sniper in the riflescope; an instant later, the man would have probably squeezed the trigger and, perhaps, killed him first.

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 2,500 yd (2,286 m), killing a Vietcong guerrilla.  The record stood until 1992.

The North Vietnamese army reportedly had a $30,000 bounty on his head.

The antepenultimate paragraph of the article linked Hathcock's military career to mine:

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.

We might have shared the same unlovely hill.  I was in and out of a place called LZ Baldy for a few months in 1968, when my platoon was attached to the 175th Engineers.  (I think; we were swapped around a lot.)  Here's a picture that looks familiar, for people on LiveJournal.

Following some odd lead, I wound up Googling Carlos Norman Hathcock, one of the most successful snipers in U.S. military history.  He managed to dispatch at least 93 enemy soldiers – those were "confirmed kills"; he estimated the actual toll was three or four times that many.

His most strange success was hitting an enemy sniper in the riflescope; an instant later, the man would have probably squeezed the trigger and, perhaps, killed him first.

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 2,500 yd (2,286 m), killing a Vietcong guerrilla.  The record stood until 1992.

The North Vietnamese army reportedly had a $30,000 bounty on his head.

The antepenultimate paragraph of the article linked Hathcock's military career to mine:

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.

We might have shared the same unlovely hill.  I was in and out of a place called LZ Baldy for a few months in 1968, when my platoon was attached to the 175th Engineers.  (I think; we were swapped around a lot.)  Here's a picture that looks familiar, for people on LiveJournal.

[image error]

http://www.donutdolly.com/575

Ah, memories.  Can't say I miss the place.

Joe