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In the steaming jungles of Vietnam, there was a ghost. The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) called him Long Tr'ang—"White Feather." They put a bounty of $30,000 on his head. (The bounty for a normal American sniper was $8). They sent their best marksmen to hunt him. His real name was Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock. He was a U.S. Marine who wore a white feather in his bush hat—not as a fashion statement, but as a taunt. He wanted them to know he was there. He wanted them to come for him.The Duel Hathcock’s legend is filled with impossible shots, but the most famous is the duel with "The Cobra." The Cobra was a top NVA sniper sent specifically to kill the White Feather. He began by killing Marines in Hathcock’s unit, trying to draw him out. Hathcock took the bait. He and his spotter, John Burke, went into the jungle. For days, the two snipers hunted each other. They moved inches at a time. They were shadows. Finally, Hathcock saw a glint of light in the brush. A reflection. It was the sun hitting the lens of the enemy's scope. Hathcock fired immediately. His bullet flew through the air, smashed through the glass of the NVA sniper's scope, traveled down the tube, and entered the enemy's eye, killing him instantly. Ballistics experts later analyzed the shot. They concluded that for the bullet to pass through the scope like that, the enemy sniper had to be looking directly at Hathcock at the exact same moment, with his finger on the trigger. Hathcock had fired a fraction of a second faster.The Crawl But Hathcock's greatest feat wasn't a shot; it was a crawl. He was given a mission to kill an NVA General. The General was deep in enemy territory, surrounded by hundreds of guards. Hathcock didn't walk in. He crawled. He dropped into a field of tall grass about 1,500 yards from the enemy base. For three days and three nights, he crawled on his belly. He moved inch by inch. He didn't sleep. He barely ate. He had to move so slowly that he wouldn't disturb the grass and give away his position. At one point, a bamboo viper—one of the deadliest snakes in the world—slithered over his back. Hathcock knew that if he flinched, he would be spotted and killed. If he moved, the snake might bite him. He lay statue-still for hours until the snake moved on. Later, an NVA patrol walked within feet of him. One soldier nearly stepped on his hand. Hathcock didn't breathe. He was practically invisible.On the third day, the General finally walked out of his command bunker. Hathcock was ready. He fired a single shot from 700 yards. The General fell. The base erupted in chaos. Soldiers sprayed the tree line with machine-gun fire. They searched everywhere. But they couldn't find the shooter. Hathcock had already begun his three-day crawl back home.The Fire Ironically, the White Feather wasn't taken out by a bullet. In 1969, the amphibious assault vehicle (Amtrac) he was riding in struck a massive anti-tank mine. The vehicle was engulfed in flames. Hathcock was sprayed with burning gasoline. He was blinded and on fire. He could have jumped to safety. Instead, he ran back into the burning vehicle. He pulled seven Marines out of the inferno. He dragged them away from the wreck, his own skin melting off his body. He suffered third-degree burns over 40% of his body. His sniping career was over. He received the Silver Star for the rescue (upgraded to the Silver Star 30 years later; the Marines had originally tried to give him a lower award because he wasn't "in combat" when it happened).Hathcock helped establish the Marine Corps Sniper School. His "93 confirmed kills" are legendary, but he always said, "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."