Chuck Mawhinney, 74, deceased; Deadliest sniper in Marine Corps history
Chuck Mawhinney, whose ability to crawl through the dense jungle and looming elephant grass of South Vietnam and then wait for hours with his aiming rifle to pick off an enemy soldier made him the deadliest sniper in Marine Corps history made, died February 18. 12 in Baker City, a city in the northeastern corner of Oregon. He was 74.
His death was announced by Coles Funeral Home in Baker City. No further details were available.
Mr. Mawhinney, who served in Vietnam from May 1968 to March 1970, had 106 confirmed kills and another 216 probable kills, an average of about four per week — more than the average company, which consisted of about 150 soldiers.
US military snipers included only Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and had 160 confirmed kills, and Adelbert Waldronan Army sniper during the Vietnam War with 109 kills, had higher numbers than Mr. Mawhinney.
As a sniper, Mr Mawhinney fulfilled a number of roles. He stayed awake all night with his rifle and night vision goggles, scanning the area around an encampment for raids. He would go on patrol with other Marines, ready to support them if a firefight broke out. But most of the time, he and his spotter, a novice sniper who helped him identify targets, would go out alone, looking for individual targets to kill as a way to undermine enemy morale.
Most of his kills came slowly, a single shot from his bolt-action M40 after hours of waiting. But some came in bursts: On the night of February 14, 1969, Mr. Mawhinney watched as a column of North Vietnamese soldiers crossed a shallow river near Da Nang on their way to a Marine camp. He began firing quickly but methodically and within 30 seconds he had killed sixteen. The rest withdrew.
He claimed no special talent as a sniper, only a willingness to practice endless hours. But he also demonstrated an unusual ability to endure grueling hours of silence, hidden in the jungle, alert to targets as insects and snakes crawled over him.
He said he had a resting heart rate of just 50 beats per minute, and he used the pumping of his heart and the rise and fall of his breathing to time his shots.
Mr. Mawhinney grew up in rural eastern Oregon and learned to shoot from his maternal grandfather. He was an advocate of deer hunting, and he spent days in the woods, camping and following his prey until he got one. It was unintentionally perfect training for his wartime future.
He was neither boastful nor shy about his task. He didn’t like killing, he said, but he accepted it as an important part of keeping his fellow Marines safe.
“I was just doing what I was trained to do,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. ‘I was in the country for a long time in a very hot area. I didn’t do anything special.”
When one of his commanders installed a sniper scoreboard in their camp, ranking each man by his kill count, Mr. Mawhinney protested. It was distasteful, he said – and worse, it could encourage people to take fatal risks in the name of competition. The sign came down.
“You are at war with another country, and these people are your enemy,” he told Vietnam magazine in 2003. “I don’t think I hated the enemy at all. I did respect them. But my job was to demoralize them.”
Charles Benjamin Mawhinney was born on February 23, 1949 in Lakeview, Oregon, the son of Charles and Beulah (Franz) Mawhinney. His father had served in the Marines during World War II and fought in the Pacific theater.
After graduating high school in 1967, Chuck wanted to become a Navy pilot. But a Marine Corps recruiter convinced him by promising he could delay his enlistment by four months, until the end of deer season.
The Marines had not had dedicated snipers since World War II, but by 1967 the Corps had changed its mind. Mr. Mawhinney was among the first to complete the new Scout Sniper School at Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps installation in Southern California. He graduated at the top of his class.
Despite his credentials, he was initially assigned to the regular infantry. Eager to be in a sniper platoon, he feigned a toothache to be sent to the rear, where he found a unit in need of a sniper. He lobbied for a transfer and got one.
Mr. Mawhinney returned to the United States in the spring of 1970 and was discharged in August. He returned to Oregon, where he worked for the United States Forest Service. He retired in 1997.
He married Robin Hood in 1970. Survivors include their three sons, Cody, Dennis and Don.
Mr. Mawhinney was silent about his years as a sniper; most of his friends in Oregon didn’t know the details. He didn’t even tell his wife.
For decades, another Vietnam-era Marine Corps sniper has Carlos Hathcockwas credited with the most murders, with 93 confirmed – a distinction Mr Mawhinney declined to dispute.
But in 1991 a friend and former sniper came along Joseph T. Wardpublished “Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam,” in which he revealed Mr. Mawhinney’s kill count.
As his reputation became known, Mr. Mawhinney found himself increasingly in demand as a speaker, consultant and adjudicator. “The Sniper: The Untold Story of the Marine Corps’ Greatest Marksman of All Time, a biography of Mr. Mawhinney by Jim Lindsay, was published last year.
At one point, a Marine Corps admirer managed to track down Mr. Mawhinney’s M40 sniper rifle. It has been renovated and is now on display at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia.