Trial by fire: Marine snipers beat the odds to win at AFSAM

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va.(Jan. 15, 2004) -- For one Marine Corps sniper, the easy part of sweeping the 2003 Armed Forces Skill-at-Arms Meeting sniper competition was picking off the most highly trained and best-equipped marksmen from the United States armed services and those of our closest military allies. The real challenge was just getting there.

With more than a decade of experience and training as a Marine sniper, Marine Corps Rifle Team assistant head coach and competitor, Gunnery Sgt. Rodney L. Abbott, was looking forward to a strong showing at the AFSAM sniper competition held Oct. 11 to 17 at the Army National Guard Marksmanship Training Center at Camp Robinson, Ark., when an unexpected twist of fate cast serious doubt on whether the Corps' two-man sniper team would even appear at all. With a week of training left before the competition, Abbott's aspirations for success were shaken as his teammate suddenly became unavailable for the match.

Determined to find a last minute replacement, Abbott paid a visit to the Quantico Sniper Instructor School, the Corps' lead sniper school where the curriculum is developed for the sniper programs at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Marine Corps Base Hawaii; and is also host of the only Marine Corps Advanced Sniper Course. As chance would have it, an advanced course was about to graduate and it was there that Abbott would find his best chance for a win at AFSAM, Sgt. Anthony E. Mauro.

"I piggybacked at the Advanced Sniper Course," said Abbott, who quickly picked out his new partner from among the crowd. "[Mauro] was awesome, so I asked him if he wanted to do it. It was all voluntary."

During his five years in the Marine sniper community, Mauro had never been offered a chance to test his skills in competition, and jumped at the opportunity to represent the Marine Corps at the 2003 AFSAM.

"To come to Weapons Training Battalion and to get picked to do something this big, you don't get that opportunity often; I was really excited," said Mauro, who also considered Abbott's offer to be the highest form of compliment. "[Abbott] has a lot more years of experience. For him to trust me was a confidence booster."

In less than a week, Mauro, a West Coast sniper trained at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and Abbott, an East Coast sniper who learned the ropes at Camp Lejeune, N.C., would prove the interoperability of the two Marine sniper communities by joining forces to defeat the most lethal marksmanship teams from the U.S., Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom at Camp Robinson.

"We trained together during the final week of the Sniper Advanced Course," said Mauro. "We worked on our sniper/observer dialogue, that's the meat of sniper team marksmanship. I graduated on Wednesday and we left for AFSAM on Friday. I find it amazing in the [Marine] sniper community that we could come from opposite coasts, not knowing how each other works and still be able to come together and perform well." For Abbott, the duo's compatibility was as much about Esprit de Corps as it was training.

"For two people who have never worked together, it was amazing," said Abbott. "It goes back to having the will, the passion to be a Marine Corps sniper. I could tell he had the same passion for the sniper community that I did."

Gunnery Sgt. Robert Reidsma, Sniper Instructor School staff noncommissioned officer in charge, knows both Abbott and Mauro well, and was not at all surprised by their dominating performance at the Armed Forces Skill-at-Arms Meeting where the duo posted the high aggregate scores in every sniper competition catgory: Sniper Team Marksmanship, Sniper Team Field Craft and the Sniper Team Championship.

"Sgt. Mauro is a phenomenal shooter, a great leader, just awesome," said Reidsma. "Both those guys are phenomenal, like mini Gunny Hathcocks. They're just laid-back, modest, the definition of a Marine sniper. I knew they would place well, but to have them go down and clean house was just awesome."

Reidsma said the few days Abbott and Mauro spent training together and getting to know one another before the competition was critical to their success as a team.

"As a sniper team, it is absolutely essential that they click and understand each other," said Reidsma. "They have to be like two twin brothers who know what the other is thinking. They have to communicate and out think the enemy while being stealthy and quick. It's not every day you can make something like that happen."

Reidsma also said the team's performance reflects not only their training, but their character as well.

"The training they get at the schools is essentially the same," said Reidsma. "It says something about the schools, but also says something about the individuals: maturity, professionalism, willingness to get the job done and to give it all they've got."

Once at AFSAM, Abbott and Mauro's training and experience took over as the two excelled in each event, ultimately outperforming all 26 competing teams.

The AFSAM Sniper Competition tested every aspect of the craft including known distance marksmanship during both day and evening operations, target range estimation, observation and concealment, stalking, land navigation and even endurance with a six mile hike while carrying upwards of 65 pounds of gear in addition to the M40-A3 sniper rifle which the Marines completed in 1 hour and 10 minutes. For many of the events, the Marines were awarded the maximum allowable points, and complimented each other's performance in marksmanship with Abbott clearing the day course while Mauro received a perfect score his night firing.

After capping his two-year Marine Corps Rifle Team tour with a championship performance at the AFSAM, Abbott hopes to share his knowledge with other Marines as an instructor next.

"I would like to go to Camp Lejeune or stay at Quantico as a sniper school instructor," said Abbott. "I want to go back to the schools to pass on my stuff, teach what I've learned."

Mauro has declined an offer from the team to continue competing, opting instead to further develop his Marine Corps career by moving on to the reconnaissance community.

"I had the opportunity to stay [on the Rifle Team] but I declined. It's not me; I'd rather be out operating," said Mauro. "I will spend about one year with Raids and Reconnaissance [at Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico] before returning to the fleet. I'm going to get some schooling opportunities and get my foot in the door of the reconnaissance community."

While further competitions may not be in Mauro's immediate future, his experience with Abbott will always follow him. "We learned a lot from each other, and relearned a lot of the small things that you forget," said Mauro. "You can take that East Coast and West Coast stuff and throw it right out the window. We really came together as a team."

Chuck seen here in nam 1969 and today 2000

"I just did what I was trained to do," he says in a tone that is neither defensive nor boastful. "I was in-country a long time in a very hot area. I didn't do anything special."

By all accounts other than his own, Mawhinney is a master of one of the military's most dangerous, deadly and misunderstood roles.

In 16 months as a Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, he killed 103 of the enemy. An additional 216 kills were listed only as probables because it was too risky to take time to search the bodies.

No other Marine sniper in Vietnam had more confirmed kills of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army regulars than Mawhinney.

Yet for more than two decades after he left the Marines in 1970, only a few fellow Marines knew of his assignment. At home in Oregon, he never told even his closest friends.

But a tell-all paperback by a friend and fellow Marine sniper - "Dear Mom: A Sniper's Vietnam," by Joseph Ward - flushed him out.

Even in an age of million-dollar, computer-driven missiles, the ability of one man to kill another with a 20-cent bullet is a much-prized skill among military forces.

Mawhinney is now in heavy demand within military circles to describe his techniques, his emotions and his assessment of what he accomplished from ambush.

At first embarrassed and annoyed at losing his privacy, Mawhinney reluctantly decided to tell a cold tale of killing in service to country.

"Once I had a Charlie (slang for Viet Cong) in my scope, it was my job to kill him before he killed me," said Mawhinney, 51 and retired from a desk job with the U.S. Forest Service. "I never looked in their eyes, I never stopped to think about whether the guy had a wife or kids."

He was routinely deadly from 300 to 800 yards - and had confirmed kills at more than 1,000 yards.

"It was the ultimate hunting trip: a man hunting another man who was hunting me," he said. "Don't talk to me about hunting lions or elephants; they don't fight back with rifles and scopes. I just loved it. I ate it up."

He would much rather be talking sports or deer hunting with friends. But for two years in a row he has been the top speaker at an international symposium on sniping, near Washington, D.C.

So what changed his mind about never rehashing Vietnam?

First, anonymity no longer was an option, so he decided he could help change the public image of snipers as bloodthirsty assassins. A good sniper, Mawhinney said, saves more lives than he takes because he undercuts the enemy's will or ability to fight.

On the wall of the Marine sniper school at Camp Pendleton is a Chinese proverb: "Kill one man, terrorize a thousand."

Second, going public offered a chance to say something that might help some other scared serviceman stay alive someday.

Most combat is fought with automatic or semi-automatic weapons. Snipers generally fire one shot at a time from bolt-action weapons that provide greater accuracy and distance but leave them virtually defenseless against automatic weapons at close range.

In Vietnam, the enemy put a bounty on the head of U.S. snipers. Mawhinney carried a sidearm with a round to fire into his temple rather than be captured.

He shipped out to Vietnam during heavy fighting that followed the Tet Offensive in early 1968. As a sniper, Mawhinney had an uncanny ability to gauge distance, moisture, weather and terrain - factors that determine how much a bullet will rise or drop during flight. He had the patience to wait hours for the right shot. He was scared but exhilarated.

"Normally I would shoot and run, but if I had them at a (long) distance, I wasn't worried," Mawhinney said. "I would shoot and then lay there and wait and wait and wait, and pretty soon somebody else would start moving toward the body. Then I would shoot again.

"When you fire, your senses start going into overtime: eyes, ears, smell, everything," he said. "Your vision widens out so you see everything, and you can smell things like you can't at other times. My rules of engagement were simple: If they had a weapon, they were going down. Except for an NVA paymaster I hit at 900 yards, everyone I killed had a weapon."

Near the An Hoa base outside Da Nang, he caught a platoon of North Vietnamese army regulars crossing a stream. He hit 16 with head shots with an M-14, which he often carried in addition to his bolt-action.

The 16 were listed only as probable kills because no officer was there to see their lifeless bodies float by.

He retains an intimate knowledge of what people look like in the throes of death.

"Sometimes, depending on where they're hit, they'll just drop and not move," Mawhinney said. "Nobody dies the same, and I've seen it all. I did a lot of mercy-shooting. I wounded people and then cranked another round into them. I didn't want them crawling around out there."

He eventually became disillusioned with American objectives in Vietnam. Still, he extended his tour of duty twice to help keep fellow Marines alive.

After 16 months as a sniper, a chaplain thought he was suffering combat fatigue. His days of killing were over.

Assigned as a rifle instructor at Camp Pendleton, he had nightmares of being back in Vietnam, trapped in a foxhole and unable to return fire with his bolt-action as enemy rounds poured in. "I could feel the bullets hitting me," Mawhinney said.

He left the Corps and returned to rural Oregon. Within three days of returning, he had a job with the Forest Service. After a while, the nightmares went away.

"I felt I was finally home, not like when I would come home on leave from Vietnam and knew I had to go back to that hell," he said. "I'm not a guy who looks back. Vietnam was something I had to do in that part of my life. I try to do everything 100 percent. If you're a sniper, that's the only way to do it, if you want to stay alive."

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