Scout-Sniper Platoon

“We wanted a bunch of misfits,” Knuppel told. “If the men had any brig time – ‘office hours’ – for drunkenness or had a black mark on his record for brawling or being in fights, that showed he had spirit, that he’d been in trouble and could handle himself.  The guy that won the fight was thrown in the brig, the other guy went to the infirmary. The guy in the brig is the kind of man we wanted.”

“In the Marine Corps the preference was people 18 to 20 years old because we just didn’t have any sense,” said Smotts. “We thought we were invincible and would go anywhere we were told and do anything we were told. Anybody older than that would have had a little more sense and be more reserved. We was all young kids. We knew no fear.”

“The guys come from all over,” Smotts continued, “from the poor South, Pennsylvania steel mills, coal mines of West Virginia, Iowa farms and inner city ghettos. And those guys from the ghettos would be the meanest you ever saw. Throughout the Marine Corps it was that way. They just had a mean streak, a cruel streak. But that’s what was necessary. We had to fight fire with fire. We was a crazy bunch of kids, I’ll tell you that much for sure.

And you got to remember one thing, these was no Boy Scouts. Always bear that in mind. Some of them were the toughest guys you’d ever seen in your life—wild, reckless….we could give a damn.”

A portion of the 40 Thieves on Hawaii. Standing left to right: Knoll, Moynihan, Wheeless, Kenny, Causey, Malanga, Evans, Emerick and Jones. Seated: Hebel, Yunker, Zuziak, Jackson, Moore, Stevens, Clark and Knuppel.