By David Sefton
Do you remember seeing this movie for the first time? Do you remember the historical context? America was assailed on every side. Soviet aggression world wide, invasion of Afghanistan, threats of nuclear obliteration, Cuban imperialism across the Caribbean, the taking of the American Embassy in Tehran... This movie tapped into a culture nerve. American patriots doing something, fighting back. It was a message against the fears of 1980’s America - socialism, gun control, government regulation. Red Dawn inspired millions of Americans towards protecting the homeland. But, of course, this was Hollywood - this could never happen, right?
However, echoing in the minds of the audience was a singular day from childhood.
That day was December 7, 1941. The path to the American Heartland was completely open to the enemy. Yet, at a critical point at 1:00 p.m. Hawaiian time, the Japanese commanding admiral made a critical decision to turn back from an invasion of California. Instead, he commanded his forces to return home to Japan. Why? Why turn back when America was laid open before him? There was simply no army capable of stopping even a small Japanese invasion force from sweeping across the nation to the Mississippi River.
There’s a simple reason, though it takes reaching even further back into American history, 200 years in fact. The answer lies almost 200 years before the Pearl Harbor attacks in an obscure historical reference. Therein is found a young America, twenty-three years old.
That young American was faced with a critical decision, on an early cold morning of October 7, 1777. American forces were overwhelmingly out numbered. For several years the Revolutionary War had been uniformly going badly against the rebels. The English had begun a bloody campaign to divide the Continental states in two. British General John “Bloody Burgoyne” had conducted a brutal campaign of terror and the Continental forces were sorely wounded. The tide would soon turn. At the battle of Saratoga, that 23 year old American, young Timothy Murphy crawled into a tree with his rifle - his hunting rifle - his Pennsylvania Rifle.
On the opposite side of the field of battle from Murphy sat the Scottish aristocrat General Simon Fraser, massing troops for battle.
On that day, in the next 15 minutes, the world would hold its breath. The history of nations spun on a dime. A legacy was created and the history of the world changed, pivoted, and then turned upside down by a young hunter named Timothy Murphy and his trusty hunting rifle, waiting up in the top of that tree.
It’s important to note that at that time in military history, it was a war crime to target officers in a battle. Above that, it was poor form. It just was not proper. However, that was exactly Murphy’s job as one of Colonel Daniel Morgan’s Riflemen - to snipe British officers.
At his distance though, at 400 yards, it was impossible to hit a human target. Or so the British thought. They bet their lives that this “fact” was absolutely true. Remember, Britain fielded the greatest Army and Navy the world had ever seen. They rarely lost battles and most certainly not wars.
General Fraser, sitting on his horse, directed his troops to be ready to run the ragtag continental army into ground. From his treetop perch, young Timothy Murphy, seasoned hunter, took two shots. Each missed his prey by a slim margin. The third shot was spot on, killing General Fraser and shaking the mighty British Empire and the world at large in the process. Murphy’s shot caused the collapses of the British western flank, resulting in the critically important Victory of the famous battle of Saratoga. As the dominoes fell, it became clear this hunter’s hit was the turning point in the Revolutionary War, directly leading to France coming to the aid of the revolution. Finally, only ten (what? ) later, that fateful shot led directly to Burgoyne’s surrender of his Army. One of the largest in the field, defeating Burgoyne created the costliest defeat of the British Empire up to that time.
Think about the American hunter and his rifle. The American rifle and the American hunter, per a contemporary English officer, could shoot a British officer in the head at 200 yards and kill them at 300 yards, “unless it was a windy day.” It’s safe to assume the English prayed for a lot of windy days!
How could it be that the Americans had perfected their Pennsylvania rifles and accuracy to an unimaginable level, far superior to anything found across the rest of the world?
America’s founding fathers were a culture of hunters. Hunting in this new wonderful country was democratized in a way that was inconceivable to Europeans where only the nobles were allowed to hunt. It is not an overstatement to say that had it not been for American hunting culture we would still be part of Her Majesty’s Empire.
The Revolutionary War was a long time ago. Does such a legacy still exist? Is it even relevant today? Consider more recent times.
Ponder for a moment: which great World War II commander received a master’s degree from Harvard University, was an avid skeet shooter, and loved poker? This legendary leader also held as his personal hero Abraham Lincoln.
Hard to believe this commander would be Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. This studied military man found himself facing a critical decision at 1 p.m. Hawaii time, December 7, 1941. After a resounding victory from the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, he simply packed up and went home. The reason Admiral Yamamoto turned his fleet away from the US mainland after Pearl Harbor was because of his vast knowledge of American culture and, more importantly, the legacy of Timothy Murphy.
Yamamoto said after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve, and his wrath will be horrible to behold.”
In recorded history no commanding general ever lamented such a spectacular overwhelming victory... Why would the victor utter such devastated words? The reason, again, was his vast understanding of American culture. What irony that the enemy knew more about America’s legacy than her current leaders. Think back to young Timothy Murphy in that tree. Think about our culture and legacy of hunters. While not as famous as that previous quote, a more telling and revealing quote reveals the deep understanding of the hunter’s legacy by Admiral Yamamoto. “You cannot win a war against the United States unless you march to Washington D.C. and dictate terms... You cannot invade the mainland United States because there would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.”
Admiral Yamamoto, the author of America’s Day of Infamy and her greatest military defeat, understood what politicians today simply do not: the armed citizens in this country make a vast undefeatable army. Yamamoto’s actions in the aftermath of victory reveal that the feared, armed citizen hunter was a fortress on December 7, 1941. The mere thought of facing the citizen hunter deterred an armed invasion by the Japanese fleet.
Was this happenstance? Perhaps a generous exaggeration? Take a glance at history’s heroes.
Each of these men was a hunter first. Only later, after years of training against the deer, the dove, the quail, they became their generations’ greatest snipers. Each turned the tide of battle for their country.
They are:
Sergeant Alvin York, Medal of Honor winner.
Francis Pegahmagabow, Canadian - of the First Nations Tribe, Award Military Medal with Two Bars for Bravery.
Simon Häyhä - Finish - Awarded Medal of Liberty 1st Class.
Vasily Zaytsev - Soviet - Awarded Hero of the Soviet Union, and Order of Lenin.
Carlos Hathcock - American - Silver Star and Purple Heart
Chris Kyle - American - Two Silver Stars, Five Bronze Stars - Valor
Each of these great heroes, each defender of his nation, were hunters first. Each had a tremendous impact on war and, as such, on the course of history.
There are those that say rifles - and, to a degree, hunters - are outmoded. Certainly, it seems there is a liberal lurking behind every voter’s booth to rip a hunter’s guns from his hands; Constitution be damned.
In the clash of great nations, the HUNTER is still relevant. History provides context and insight into the citizen hunter’s legacy. At the dawn of World War II, reunification of Germans under the Third Reich was in full swing. Switzerland was understandably nervous as a small country squeezed in between antagonists. Hitler considered both Czechoslovakia and Switzerland as hereditarily German that should be part of the Reich; both countries were roughly the same size and population. SS troops were amassing on the Austro-Swiss border. The full invasion plans of Switzerland had already been drawn and formally named as Operation Tannenbaum.
Four Star General von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. On a fateful day in 1939, von Ribbentrop summoned Swiss Ambassador Hans Froelicher to his office. Von Ribbentrop posed a question, somewhat rhetorically, asking: “What would the Swiss do if we (the Germans) sent 25 divisions (roughly 500,000 men) across your border?” To which Swiss Ambassador Froelicher famously replied: “Send a quarter million soldiers to our passes, shoot twice and go home.”
Hitler was absolutely furious; he did not suffer such slights lightly. However, the military consensus of his seasoned generals was that such an invasion would result in staggering German casualties. Such deaths would come not from tanks, rockets, or aircraft, but solely due to citizen soldiers, hunters, armed with rifles.
The reason for this reply should not be underestimated. The marksmanship of the Swiss CITIZEN hunters was legendary. Their weapon, the Swiss K-31, was and is to this day the
most accurate infantry rifle ever made. History has long since recorded the vast difference in the outcomes of Switzerland and Czechoslovakia during and after World War II. That difference was solely attributable to a citizen army of hunters. So, a return to the question: does the hunter’s legacy make a difference? Is this story trite, stale and meaningless in a modern world?
While considering such questions, take into account the statistics wrought from the American legacy of citizen hunters:
Wisconsin, by itself, has over 600,000 licensed hunters - equivalent to the 8th largest army in the world. Wisconsin, land of cheese and Packers, has more soldiers than Iran. Put another way, this is more soldiers than France and Germany combined.
Pennsylvania has 750,000 licensed hunters.
Michigan, another 700,000 hunters.
When the aforementioned states are combined with a quarter million licensed hunters from tiny West Virginia, these four modest states (and these are not the largest hunting states) equal more armed citizenry than the largest standing army in the world!
Are hunters important? They are the fortress that guards these shores. They guard against foreign threats; they guard against domestic tyranny. Admiral Yamamoto, of the Imperial Japanese Navy understood the point completely. It’s unfortunate many of America’s leaders do not understand what one of her fiercest enemies so clearly did.
Consider this legacy:
Texas Hunters stood at the Alamo.
Texas Hunters stood at San Jacinto.
Texas Hunters were recruited from the heart of the Hill Country for Roosevelt’s Rough Riders and stood with him at San Juan Hill.
Texas Hunters as part of the famed Texas 36th Division were fed into the meat grinder of Monte Casino in Italy and virtually annihilated to the incompetency of General “Bloody Butcher Clark,” yet they never broke.
Texas Hunters stood their ground in the face of decimation.
Texas Hunters stood at the Ke Sanh in Vietnam.
Texas Hunters stood at Fallujah, Iraq and Karbula in Afghanistan.
Maybe, in retrospect, that movie Red Dawn was not so fanciful after all. Maybe that movie tapped into a subliminal cultural awareness regarding the Hunter’s Legacy. It is hard wired into the very essence of being American, from Timothy Murphy’s history-altering shot at Saratoga to Chris Kyle’s legendary shots in Fallujah. It’s a legacy hard wired into our DNA.
We are the Hunters - Hunters are the sheepdog that stands guard against the world’s ravenous wolves - protecting the sheep - the innocents that can’t protect themselves. Citizen hunters hold firm, standing united, so infamous that enemies dare not tread where a HUNTER stalks silently in the woods. As still as the night, the guardian hunter waits patiently, with steadfast resolve in the absolute cold certainty of retribution to those that would harm the flock.
A steady history gives glimpse toward a sure future: Texas Hunters will not run.
Hunters are the custodians of a sacred tradition and, with sure hands and steady aim, the legacy will live on.