When Carlos Hathcock returned from his second tour and finally retired from active duty, he became a bit of a fisherman. One of his fishing companions was Colonel Willis, an imposing Marine who served as Commanding Officer of the Marksmanship Unit at Quantico. I don't know what Hathcock's professional connection was with Willis, but I assume there was one. One weekend, during a Preliminary Olympic Tryout at the Quantico Skeet Range, our squad was test firing at station one before beginning a round. All International shooters test fire once or twice before each round, just something that is done by tradition. At my turn, I fired once into the air and once in the general direction of a blue jay flying in front of a field a great distance from me. To my astonishment, the blue jay dropped like a rock. I felt bad about the blue jay, but surely did not expect the the bird would be harmed. When the round was finished, I put my gun away and began walking toward the newly built multi hole, multi sex outhouse. Approaching me, coming from the outhouse was Colonel Willis in full fatigue uniform. I was surprised that the blue jay had recovered somewhat and was walking on the road about equidistant from me and the Colonel. I was fully expecting the Colonel had been told of my transgression and would be chewing me a "new one". I was quite relieved when he kept his gaze well above the level of the wounded blue jay and gave me a friendly greeting and inquired about my shooting. I returned his greeting and we both went on our way. I don't know, to this day, whether he saw the bird or not, but a blue jay on asphalt is hard to miss.
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