THE SNIPER

A by-the-numbers account of a Marine sniper’s years in combat during the Vietnam War.

With 103 confirmed kills, Chuck Mahwinney is “the US Marine Corps’ deadliest sniper.” Raised in rural Oregon and used to hunting rabbits and deer, he scored at the top of his boot camp class. Early on in his account of Mahwinney’s training, Lindsay telegraphs his main point: “Little did Chuck know that the rifle he held in his hands was a copy of the rifle he would use to outscore all marine snipers before and after that moment.” Mahwinney was thoroughly trained as a sniper before landing in Vietnam, where he was made a machine gunner, a thankless and statistically dangerous specialty. Finally talking himself into posts as a spotter and then a sniper, he did three tours, “averaging six kills a week” by the end of the first. Lindsay describes Mahwinney’s landing for home leave in San Francisco and being accosted by flower children calling him a “baby killer,” a trope that has no documented basis in fact (it comes from the Rambo film franchise). More believably, Mahwinney figures in a number of unpleasant but realistic combat scenes that end poorly for the people at the receiving end of his Remington: “A hole appeared in the man’s forehead as bloody brain matter burst from the back of his skull.” After rotating back to the civilian world, Mahwinney struggled with PTSD and self-medication while working as a forest ranger, his fame catching up to him via commerce, with a branded knife and special-edition rifle. Though it deals with a different war and a different era, Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead is a superior look inside the mind of a Marine sniper.

Of some interest to students of gun aficionados and those interested in the Vietnam War as it was fought on the ground.