Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Peter Hathaway Capstick

Tink Nathan’s tale of PHC serving as a “Green Beret Officer” in Vietnam is chronologically impossible. First, he would need to be commissioned as a 2LT. The quickest route would be OCS which would take at least 3 months. Next he would have to attend Infantry Officer Basic at Ft Benning GA, which is another 3 months. I know because I went through IOBC in 1970. Next would be Jump School at Benning, another 3 weeks. Next would be Special Forces training which takes a minimum of 3 months. Last but not least would be Jungle School in Panama for an additional 3 weeks. Each of these training components would require PHC to wait for the next available class to open up before he could attend, and they had to be completed in the sequence I’ve described. The Army wouldn’t invest all the time and money to train a young officer without at least a 3 or 4 year commitment. PHC just didn’t have the time to have gone through all the necessary training and still live the fascinating life he lived as a writer and PH.

The dissonance of PHC’s legacy continues.

I think that a lot of writers see themselves as performance artists, as well as chroniclers. And for those who write for the entertainment of others, I can't find much to fault with this approach.

I read, some years back, some feature articles by Capstick. Also read a couple of Hemingway's books. I didn't care for Hemingway's style of writing, but I get it that so many do. Even at that, i could still live in the story, as it was written.
I have had older friends, now gone on, who talked kinda like Hemingway wrote. Literary influence is a big thing in many lives.
And if Capstick wrote, or tried to write, like some of his literary influences, so what?

As to the alcohol and drug use of prominent people in the public eye? Nothing new, and I doubt that it will end. How are those in the public eye substantially better, or more perfect than the rest of us? Looking at the mirror as I write this.

And often, those who live large lives fail in large ways. Google "happy valley set" for an alternative view of 20th century life in East Africa.

While living near Miami in the early 80s, I met both Margaux, and Mariel. Both seemed to be pretty cool and charming gals.

But a testament, maybe, to my above comment about "large lives"...

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Peter Capstick's legendary exploits and Mark Sullivan's charge stopping videos. Good or bad or questionable hunting adventures, they kept me on the edge of my seat and are fun to venture into. Even if I don't totally agree with them.

It's interesting to me how this thread has been slowly percolating on the back burner for 15 years now... I guess I've done my part to keep it on life support, so mea culpa...

I think your comment about prominent people and public eye is very true. Anyone who dares to raise himself/herself above the general population in one form or another becomes "fair game" for those who choose to criticize or call them out. I know a couple of authors in the guns and hunting field fairly well, and they have commented to me about the unpleasant fact that anonymous critics are a constant bother to them. People seem to think that tearing down someone else, whether justified or not, raises themselves up. It's an incredibly juvenile attitude, but a very common human behavior.

As you say, when we look in the mirror we see someone as fallible, more or less, as these literary persons. We all have feet of clay. Some of the people who post on this board are bigger drunks than Hemingway or Capstick. Some are more seriously depressed. Most of the people who post on here are pretty confident about their own goodness, but some fail to look in the mirror before they hit "Enter". I know I've been guilty of this more than once.

I have been held Hemingway's writing in very high regard for most of my life. In my younger years I devoured everything he wrote that I could get my hands on, and read much of the secondary source material about his writing as well. I wrote papers on Hemingway for my English Lit classes (I double-minored, in History and English). I read several of his biographies, which saddened me at the time because I had built up a mental profile of the man based on his fiction that did not correlate at all with his actual life story. No matter. The man's work stands on its own, and I'm fine with that now. I re-read For Whom The Bell Tolls about a year ago and enjoyed it almost as much as the first reading more than 40 years ago.

I could say the same thing about my regard for Capstick's writing. I reread Death in the Long Grass again a year or two ago, and enjoyed it very much, just as I did more than 40 years ago.

Celebrity is a harsh mistress, regardless of how it presents itself to us.

Peter Hathaway Capstick is the finest modern hunting writer I have ever read. He knows how to tell a story well. My favorite fishing writer is John Gierach. It amazes me that all these people seem to "know" PHC told little white lies in his books. Who are they and were they there in the bush with him? I not only believe his stories, hell, I even believe the cover is real leather. I think I know who is lying here!!

I have read Hemingway and I know I am supposed to be impressed and love his writing, but, to me, it's just ok.

Capstick took me to africa, got me to love africa, and i’d say was responsible for my 3 trips to africa (so far). I have a very very wonderful friend and patient that has done more hinting in africa than most ive heard of. Heck he has shot over 160 elephants in his day. I asked once at his house what he had ever heard or thought of capstick and his response was that capsticks writings embodied his adventures in africa better than anything he could ever weite or tell me in stories. I asked what he thought of the accuracies of his writings and he laughed and said, “who cares!, anyone who does is just being petty. He was an african ph and onviously a great writer.” I just nodded and agreed and only think of it when one of these threads comes up.

Very good post. Sums things up well.

i have watch many video`s of Capstick and enjoyed them all , over the 2022 New Years weekend i read my Christmas present the book Death in the Long Grass was a very good read Peter Capstick in my eyes was a great writer and PH , wished i would have met this great man. if you have not read this book yet you should its a very good read ,its one of those books its had to put down till you have finished reading the entire book. have a great read,Pete53

There are numerous African countries with numerous way$ of obtaining a PH license.
If you ask almost any PH who actually makes a living hunting you will find almost universal opinions about Capstick, and one is that he was instrumental in reviving the safari industry.

Then credit where credit is due and be done with it. After all everyone has a place in the telling.