8. Chuck Mawhinney
Not even his wife knew that Chuck Mawhinney (not pictured here) was one of the U.S. Marine Corps' top snipers in Vietnam, before a buddy wrote a book highlighting Mawhinney's service.
The book,
Dear Mom: A Sniper's Vietnam, brought to light Mawhinney's record of 103 confirmed kills in Vietnam, with 213 more unconfirmed. It's a gruesome record, one that Mawhinney was not in a hurry to claim, figuring that no one would be interested.
Mawhinney left Vietnam in 1969, after 16 months as a sniper, when a chaplain thought Mawhinney might have been suffering from combat fatigue. After a short stint as a rifle instructor at Camp Pendleton, Mawhinney left the Marines and returned home to rural Oregon.
"I just did what I was trained to do," he told
The Standard. "I was in-country a long time in a very hot area. I didn't do anything special."
Yeah, right. Thanks, Chuck. You're still on the top ten list.
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