Inside the Crosshairs

by Michael Lee Lanning

  Spector adds the important point that, unlike the paperwork from previous American conflicts, documentation of the Vietnam War is also extremely one-sided. At the conclusion of World War II, U.S. historians had access to masses of captured enemy archives as well as the opportunity to interview high-ranking military and political officials to determine their decision-making processes and the impact of American weapons and tactics. Nothing remotely similar exists from the Vietnam War.

  Another difficulty in record keeping of the Vietnam conflict that Spector does not cover is the loss of records due to combat operations. Despite elaborate security measures, no area in the war zone was completely safe from enemy attack. Unit headquarters and their administrative records were on occasion, especially during the Tet Offensive of 1968, destroyed by enemy attack. Still other records remained in Vietnam when Saigon surrendered in 1975 and fell into the hands of the North Vietnamese.

  From what information is available, it is apparent that in most ways the American sniper volunteers mirrored the profile of other soldier and Marine infantrymen in Vietnam. Of the 2.7 million Americans who served in Vietnam, 79 percent were high school graduates. Fully 75 percent were volunteers while 25 percent were draftees.[37]

  While the average age of army and Marine infantrymen in Vietnam was nineteen and a half, sniper cadre tended to select candidates who were a year older because they sought the more mature and experienced. Many volunteers from the ranks already had been in-country for several months, adding a bit to their age.

  Common characteristics of potential snipers mentioned by their instructors and field commanders were familiarity with weapons and experience in the outdoors. An article on the selection of snipers in the May–June 1972 issue of Infantry says, “He must be an outdoorsman acting as a trapper and forest ranger with the cunning of a wild animal—all at the same time.”

  Some of the volunteers closely resembled that profile. Powell recalls that one of his best sniper students was a former big-game hunter and guide from Alaska. Many of the snipers grew up with weapons and as boys provided much of the meat for their family table through their marksmanship. A majority of the sniper volunteers were from the South, the Southwest, and the far West. Most came from rural areas and towns of less than 50,000 population.

  Of course, there were exceptions. Sometimes prior experience with hunting rifles had instilled more bad habits (such as improper holds and sighting problems) than good in a marksman and retraining was more difficult. Soldiers and Marines who had learned to shoot, and shoot well, in basic training were often the easiest to train. As a result, the ranks of snipers, although dominated by men from small towns or rural-route addresses, also contained shooters from New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and other metropolitan areas.

  Most of the enlisted men selected for sniper training were from the lower ranks. The senior enlisted instructors in the sniper schools and the NCOs in charge of sniper units, particularly in the Marine Corps sniper platoons, came mostly from the ranks of the competition shooting teams. Later in the war some of those positions were filled by NCOs who had earned their stripes, either in Vietnam units or back in the States between tours of combat duty. Still other snipers volunteered to extend their tours in six-month increments and advanced from shooters to supervisors.

  Sniper school officers, like the senior NCOs, generally had prewar experience on their service’s competition shooting teams. Yet the officers involved in sniper positions faced a unique problem. To advance in rank, combat officers must command platoons, companies, and battalions. Leading sniper teams and instructing marksmanship do not enhance qualifications in front of a promotion board. Thus the officers had to make a choice between advancement potential on the one hand and their convictions about the importance of the sniper’s contribution on the other.

  Generally, officers attracted to sniper duty were drawn to it by their love of shooting and the personal job satisfaction it offered. Many, such as Russell and Powell, were “mustangs” who had lengthy service in the enlisted ranks before receiving their commissions. They were well aware that sniper service might prove detrimental to their careers, but they welcomed the opportunity nevertheless.

  While “prior service” officers with competition shooting experience established and initially administered the sniper training and operations in Vietnam, the program also attracted junior officers. Marine sniper platoons each had a lieutenant in command who usually served several months in an infantry unit before joining the shooters. Other than a few lieutenants in the 9th Infantry Division who took charge of their battalion’s teams and those officers assigned to the USAMTU, few army officers served with sniper units in Vietnam. In nearly every case, these lieutenants had already determined that they were not remaining in uniform after their initial tours of duty and sought sniper duty knowing that they had no future military careers.

  Unlike most units in Vietnam, where African Americans composed about 13 percent of the ranks and other minorities reflected about the same percentage as did their ethnic groups in the civilian population, Marine and army sniper teams were mostly white. Neither the Marines nor the army maintained exact figures on the race of snipers, but available evidence indicates only a small number of black and other minority snipers. Based on a study of morning reports and unit rosters, the memory of the participants, and other sources,[38] it appears that only 3 or 4 percent of army and Marine Vietnam snipers were black. The numbers of Hispanic and Asia-Pacific Americans also amounted to only one fourth to one third of their overall percentage of servicemen.

  The army and Marine Corps, with no official doctrine on racial composition of snipers, seemed unconcerned with the imbalances. When asked about the discrepancies, some officials shrug it off as a mathematical probability that some specialties would attract fewer minorities while others attracted more. Other officials say that there was no reason for the statistics—they just happened. A third school of thought suggests that minorities as a whole were reluctant to volunteer for any aspect of what they considered the “white man’s war.”

  The first two explanations may indicate a lack of conscious effort to analyze the situation, but the third rationalization is blatantly invalid. In fact, blacks and other minorities volunteered in numbers far above their population averages for other elite units such as the army’s paratroopers and the Marine Corps as a whole.

  The only other units in Vietnam with similarly small percentages of minorities were the army’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) companies[39] and the Marine Force Reconnaissance companies. The reconnaissance units and the snipers both sought volunteers with “out-in-the-woods” experience, a prerequisite that automatically eliminated many minorities from densely populated urban areas.

  The best explanation may lie in the sociological traits of blacks and Hispanics as a whole. African Americans and Latino cultures typically provide gregarious homes and neighborhoods where there is extensive interaction between individuals. Sniper operations, like those of the reconnaissance units, required extreme individualism where the “loner” type was much more comfortable than men who valued peer interaction.[40]

  Ultimately, it was the man and his ability to shoot that made the difference, not the color of his skin or his background. From the time he joined the ranks of the most highly trained marksmen, each man found his life dominated by being a sniper. His friends and family were his fellow shooters, and with his counterparts he developed a camaraderie and empathy that only those few who peer through the scope at a living human target truly understand.

  Snipers, like other warriors in Vietnam, came from all kinds of religious backgrounds. Battle has a way of driving some men to seek divine protection and others to give up on religion altogether. Still others, especially after surviving extended combat, begin to believe that they themselves are more powerful than any allegedly superior being. There is no evidence that, as a result of the unusual nature of their “business,” snipers responded differently from the
ir infantry contemporaries when it came to an increase or decrease of religious zeal.

  Despite the fact that relatively few men passed through the narrow gates of selection and that those who did were dedicated and effective, recognition of the performance of Marine and army snipers in Vietnam remained extremely low-key during and after the war. The success of snipers depended upon their ability to be invisible to the enemy; advertising their existence in any manner threatened their survival.

  The snipers themselves wanted no publicity that could endanger their lives or their missions. Simultaneously, the military deflected media attention away from sniper activity because of their controversial image. By 1969 many in the United States were actively opposed to American involvement in the war, labeling any unusual weapons or tactics, including the work of snipers, as an atrocity.

  Snipers rarely talked to the press, and the unofficial policy of the army and Marine Corps was not to encourage news stories about the marksmen. Events proved the wisdom of that approach when in July 1968, the Associated Press acquired a draft copy of FMFM 1-3B, “Sniping.” The resulting story, which ran in newspapers across the country, including the San Francisco Chronicle (on July 18) and the Milwaukee Journal (on July 22), began, “The ability to go for a long period without food or water, to control emotions and to kill ‘calmly and deliberately’ and without remorse are the main qualifications of a good sniper.” In a later paragraph, the AP story repeated the lead, adding, “A sniper must kill calmly and deliberately, shooting carefully selected targets.”

  While the AP story accurately credited Bob Russell for writing much of the manual and reported its contents in a fairly straightforward manner, the sensational lead paragraph upset many readers, who, far from the war zone, either could not or would not understand the fact that young Americans were being taught to kill “calmly and deliberately.”

  Letters to the editors of the papers began arriving immediately, most specifically condemning the snipers and expressing the writers’ general distaste for the war. The commandant of the Marine Corps received similar letters. It was a no-win situation for the military because even the few writers who concurred with the concept of snipers condemned the corps for allowing the content of the field manual to be made public.

  Snipers in Vietnam were also criticized by a portion of the American public during and after the war for their “keeping score.” In a war of attrition like the Vietnam conflict, where successes were measured by body count rather than by territory gained, it should be no surprise that snipers—who had the best position and equipment to confirm kills—also kept count of their individual records.

  Unfortunately, a double standard prevailed. Fighter pilots, who painted a flag or a silhouette on the fuselage of their aircraft for each “killed” enemy plane, continued to be viewed as heroes while few Americans wanted to acknowledge, much less praise, men who looked their quarry in the eyes before pulling the trigger.

  After the brief blitz of publicity in 1968, little more appeared in print about Marine or army snipers for the remainder of the war. Other than a few articles in professional journals and in the various “gun” magazines, the snipers went about their business with little or no fanfare.

  Even the official records mostly ignored the accomplishments of snipers. With the exception of the official manuals, the several studies conducted by the army to determine the need for the special marksmen, and a few Marine division orders on sniper training, few written materials survived the war. Sniper numbers were small and military commanders in combat were more interested in neutralizing the enemy than in recording details on paper. Various brigade, regimental, and division quarterly operational reports include a sentence or, at most, a paragraph on sniper training, occasionally mentioning the number of kills for a certain period.

  Initially, recognition of snipers in each Marine and army division closely paralleled the particular commander’s interest and investment in the program. Both Marine divisions supported sniper training, and the corps developed the best organized system of sniper unit organization and deployment. Yet the corps’s lengthy series of studies about the war, U.S. Marines in Vietnam, includes fewer than 200 words about sniper operations in the conflict.

  Few outside the corps’s small sniper and marksmanship community had ever heard of Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock before the civilian publication of Charles Henderson’s Marine Sniper in 1986, which details Hathcock’s 93 kills in Vietnam. When Joseph T. Ward wrote in Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam about 5th Marine sniper Chuck Mawhinney and his 103 confirmed kills, even several “old hands” in the competitive shooting community expressed doubts about the story until eyewitnesses and the few existing official documents supported the account.

  Although Hathcock, a career Marine with years of competitive shooting experience, has received far more acclaim than Mawhinney, the latter, a three-year-enlistment Marine, had the highest confirmed body count of any Marine sniper in the Vietnam War. His story is also more representative of the typical American who volunteered to become a long-range marksman during the conflict.

  Charles B. Mawhinney hunted extensively as a boy for sport and to put meat on the table, but he never fired in a marksmanship competition. He entered the Marine Corps on October 10, 1967, and upon completion of infantry training, volunteered for the scout-sniper school at Camp Pendleton, California. Shortly after graduation he joined the 5th Marine Regiment in Vietnam, where he soon became a member of the regiment’s scout-sniper platoon. Mawhinney served as a sniper for the rest of his thirteen-month tour and then extended for six more months to perform the same duties. He extended once again for a final six months to become a helicopter door gunner before returning to the States for discharge as a sergeant in 1970.

  Most of Mawhinney’s sniper missions occurred in the area of An Hoa, including Liberty Bridge, Arizona Territory, and Go Noi Island. During his tour he teamed with more than half a dozen other marines. Joe Ward was among them. Mawhinney accomplished most of his kills with the M700 Remington and a Redfield scope, but he also used .50-caliber machine guns as sniper weapons from fixed base camp positions. For night shots, he sometimes used a Starlight scope mounted on an M14. Upon completion of his sniper tours, Mawhinney had 216 probables in addition to his 103 confirmed kills of enemy soldiers. That is, he personally accounted for the equivalent of about three NVA infantry companies.

  With the exception of the brief mention in Ward’s book, little appeared in print about the Marine Corps’s top sniper in Vietnam until Peter R. Senich interviewed Mawhinney for the December 1996 issue of Precision Shooting. Senich quotes Mawhinney as attributing his success to his previous hunting experience, to the excellent training he received in sniper school, and to “learning Oriental habits and adapting to Charlie’s domain.”

  After his discharge, Mawhinney returned home to the Pacific Northwest. In the 1996 interview with Senich, the Marine sniper reflected, “It was over.… I just wanted to forget about it and get on with my life. I don’t spend much time thinking about Vietnam, but the memories that come to mind are mostly positive. I remember my friends and the camaraderie in our unit.”

  For nearly three decades since the war Mawhinney has worked for the Forest Service. According to Senich, the former sniper reports, “I trap and hunt in the winter, fish in the summer, and I try to keep up with my family.”

  Overall, the army recorded even less information on its snipers than did the Marines. Only General Ewell’s 9th Infantry Division maintained any significant amount of information on its snipers, and even its documentation is woefully lacking in providing sufficient information to completely describe and document the program.

  In Sharpening the Combat Edge, Ewell does mention the war’s most successful sniper, Sergeant Adelbert F. Waldron III, who had 109 confirmed kills. Ewell notes, “Sergeant Waldron earned two Distinguished Service Crosses for his outstanding skill and bravery.”[41]

  Waldron proved to be the exception in receiving medals
in recognition of his shooting prowess. Marine and army snipers were awarded the usual “I was there” campaign ribbons and most were awarded an end-of-tour meritorious medal. Generally, however, snipers did not receive the number of valor medals awarded to those in the regular line units. Few snipers seemed to care. Bits of metal and colored ribbon did not compare with the satisfaction of the hunt.

  Snipers in Vietnam shared many of the same talents and characteristics of the army LRRP/Rangers and the Marine Force and Battalion Recon units. Within the army and Marine Corps in Vietnam there were many units and groups that considered themselves a bit above the rest. In addition to the reconnaissance units, various air mobile, airborne, demolitions, and medical evacuation units took extreme pride in their special accomplishments. Yet, all, including the snipers, recognized that the bulk of the war and the brunt of the casualties were sustained by the infantry. The vast majority of the snipers came from the infantry’s ranks and performed most of their missions accompanying the line units, with which they felt a special bond and loyalty.

  Army and Marine infantrymen consider themselves to be at the center of everything that occurs in the armed forces, the more so in a combat zone. Without their muddy boots to occupy territory, no battle or war can be won. They do the bulk of the work, shed the most blood, and determine the success or failure of every conflict. Snipers not only shared those distinctions of the infantry but also felt that their special training and talents made them an elite within the infantry.

  One characteristic of any elite group or organization is its small numbers. The army and Marine snipers in Vietnam certainly met that criterion. They were so few that neither the army nor the Marines maintained records of who had qualified as snipers. No complete list of sniper school graduates for any service exists in any official or unofficial archive. The only way to estimate the number of the war’s snipers is to study the few surviving documents, the official personnel authorizations, the recollections of the school cadres, and the marksmen themselves.