Marine Corps Sniper
He claimed no special talent as a military sniper, just the willingness to put in endless hours of practice. But he also demonstrated an unusual ability to tolerate grueling hours of stillness hiding in the jungle, alert for enemy targets while bugs and snakes crawled over him.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Charles (Chuck) Mawhinney (CM) was born in Lakeview, Oregon. His father had served in the Marines during World War II, fighting within the Pacific islands.
CHILDHOOD
CM grew up in rural eastern Oregon, learning to shoot from his maternal grandfather. He favored deer hunting, spending days in the woods, camping and following his prey until he got a kill. It was, unintentionally, perfect training for his wartime future.
EDUCATION
During his high school years, CM decided that his goal was not to pursue further formal education but instead, to join the military.
MILITARY RECRUITER HELPED TO CHANGE HIS GOAL
When CM graduated from high school, the U.S. was heavily involved in a land-based war in Asia, specifically Vietnam, to fight what U.S. political leaders had decided was a priority – defending against the spread of Communism, most recently manifest by North Vietnam’s invasion of South Vietnam’s democracy.
All 18-year-old males had to register for the military draft, which held periodic lottery drawings to fill the ranks of the various branches of U.S. military service: Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard – but not the ‘all volunteer’ Marine Corps.
CM registered for the draft with the hope of somehow becoming a Navy pilot, flying from aircraft carriers to intercept enemy planes or support our troops fighting on the ground. While heading toward a joint services enlistment office to speak to a Navy recruiter, a Marine Corps recruiter intercepted and won him over by promising that he could delay his enlistment by four months, until the end of deer hunting season.
Marine Corps ‘boot camp’ has well earned its reputation for transforming young, ‘soft’ civilians into ‘lean, mean (but disciplined) fighting machines’. Conventional wisdom holds that ‘country boys’ are better prepared for boot camp than their ‘city slicker’ brothers but in modern times, the Marine Corps, which accepts only volunteers – not drafted enlistees – welcomes both men and women into their ranks.
Upon enlistment, CM was a typical country boy.
A CREATIVE SOLDIER – NOT COWARDLY
Sometimes soldiers in combat are known to claim a physical injury – to the extreme of literally shooting themselves in a non-fatal way, such as in a foot or leg – to demonstrate their need to be promptly removed from the front lines to a rear support area for medical care. And sometimes soldiers under extreme stress actually experience a psychotic episode which may unintentionally subject themselves to greater danger, such as running from a covered position directly into the sight of the enemy.
In brief summary, CM faked a slight – nondisabling – injury to put himself in more danger. Go figure.
When CM was at first assigned to regular infantry, he was bored by the lack of combat action. (An old military adage is “Hurry up and wait!”). Eager to serve in a sniper platoon, CM faked a toothache to get himself sent to the rear, where he found a different Marine Corp unit in need of a marksman. He persuasively lobbied to be transferred. He would never be bored again.
SNIPER’S DUTIES
As a sniper, CM filled a number of roles. He would stay up all night with his rifle and night scope, watching the perimeter of an encampment for enemy incursions. Other days, he would join a Marine patrol, ready to support them if a firefight broke out. But mostly he and his spotter, a novice sniper who helped him identify targets, went out alone, looking for individual enemy soldiers to kill as a way of sapping enemy morale.
Most of CM’s kills came slowly – a single shot from his bolt-action M40 after hours of waiting. But some came in bursts: On the night of Feb. 14, 1969, CM watched silently, in seclusion, as a column of North Vietnamese soldiers crossed a shallow river near Da Nang, making their way toward a Marine encampment. He started firing, quickly, but methodically. In 30 seconds he had killed 16. The rest retreated.
While CM devoted much of his down-time to practice instead of rest, his skillful performances were also attributed to his resting heart rate of just 50 beats a minute. He would use the pumping of his heart and the rise and fall of his breath to time his shots.
CAREER SATISFACTION
CM’s ability to creep through the dense jungle and looming elephant grass in South Vietnam and then wait for hours with his scoped rifle to pick off an enemy soldier made him the deadliest sniper in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps.
He is credited with 103 ‘confirmed kills.’ Among American military snipers, only Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and had 160 confirmed kills plus Adelbert Waldron, an Army sniper during the Vietnam War with 109 kills, had higher numbers of confirmed kills than CM. But CM is also credited with another 216 ‘probable kills’, averaging about four a week during his active duty in Vietnam – more than the average company of enemy soldiers, which comprised about 150.
CM never engaged in any debate about numbers of kills. He was neither boastful nor bashful about his task. He did not relish killing, he said, but he accepted it as an important part of keeping his fellow Marines safe.
“I just did what I was trained to do,” CM told a news reporter later. “I was in-country a long time in a very hot area. I didn’t do anything special.”
When one of his commanders posted a sniper leaderboard in their camp, ranking each man on his kill county, CM protested. It was distasteful, he said – and worse, it might encourage fellow snipers to take fatal risks in the name of competition. The board came down.
“You’re in a war with another country, and these people are your enemy,” he told Vietnam magazine. “I don’t think I totally hated the enemy. I did have respect for them. But my job was to demoralize them.”
Long after concluding his time in Vietnam, CM kept quiet about his activities as a sniper; most of his friends in Oregon did not know the details. He didn’t even tell his wife.
For decades, another Vietnam-era Marine Corps sniper, Carlos Hathcock, was credited with the most confirmed kills: 93, a distinction CM had no desire to challenge. But in 1991, a friend and fellow sniper, Joe Ward, published “Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam,” in which he revealed CM’s kill count. As word of his record was spread, CM found himself increasingly in demand as a speaker, consultant and competition judge. The inevitable followed: a biography of CM, written by someone else (Jim Lindsay) “The Sniper: The Untold Story of the Marine Corps’ Greatest Marksman of All Time.”
Another admirer of CM managed to track down CM’s M40 sniper rifle. Refurbished, it now sits on display in the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.
EPILOGUE – FOREVER A COUNTRY BOY
Following his two years of military service, CM returned to Oregon, where he continued his passion for outdoor activities by working with the United States Forest Service until fully retired.
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This career story was based on an obituary written by Clay Risen, published by The New York Times on February 26, 2024 plus internet research.
