Norm Hooten is an unlikely pop culture icon but, thanks to a minor difference in weapons clearing procedures, a snapshot of him has been immortalized in the popular canon. However, like all good one-liners, there’s so much more to not only that story but to Hoot’s story. While Hollywood is happy to play the highlight reel on repeat, we wanted to give Hoot a chance to tell his story his way — not just about Mogadishu, but about his journey to what would become the forefront of special operations history, and the trajectory beyond that which would put him at the helm of a booming whiskey and cigar business …
RECOIL: Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and what your childhood was like.
Norm Hooten: I grew up in a little ranching and farming community called Brackettville in Texas. I think the population was around 800 when I was there. They may be close to double that now. I think they put in a border patrol station since I left. But really humble beginnings — ranching family, middle class, hardworking family. You were either working on a ranch or you were working in oil fields out there in West Texas. I think my family moved to Texas in 1840 from Sevierville, Tennessee. I spent most of my childhood there. Then, when I was in high school, I moved. My last two years of high school were spent in Houston, Texas. But my family had been generations of just ranch workers.
RECOIL: Was military service something that you had decided on early on in your life, or was it something that kind of just came by happenstance later?
It played a really important role in my childhood, being around veterans and learning about military service. I remember when I was a child, I’d go into the barbershop every weekend to get my haircut, and I was surrounded by guys who had served in World War II, Korea, and were currently serving in Vietnam because I grew up in the ’60s. I remember the young guys that were coming in to get their haircut, getting ready to go off and serve in Vietnam, and I remember the advice they were getting from the guys who had served before them.
