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Charles “Chuck” Mawhinney, by many accounts the deadliest sniper in U.S. Marine Corps history, has died at 75. In Vietnam, Mawhinney recorded 103 confirmed kills and 216 probable kills. He typically fired from 300-1000 yards with a Remington M40 sniper rifle. One night the sniper took his M14 rifle, equipped with a Starlight scope, and positioned himself where an NVA (North Vietnamese Army) column crossed a river.

“As soon as the first one started up the bank on our side, I went to work,” Mawhinney recalled, “I got 16 rounds off that night as fast as I could fire the weapon, every one of them were headshots. They were dead center.” The NVA troops never cross the river and years later Mawhinney  still wondered “what their company commander’s report was of what happened to them.”

Mawhinney’s exploits were largely unknown until Joseph T. Ward published Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam in 1991. Last year more detail emerged in The Sniper: The Untold Story of the Marine Corps Greatest Marksman of All Time, by Jim Lindsay.

Safe to say, Charles Mawhinney never got the recognition he deserved. The war was unpopular and badly mismanaged, but to paraphrase Michael Corleone, don’t tell me American soldiers in Vietnam were not great fighters. It insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.

Brave warrior, rest in peace.