Unrepentant Sinner: The Autobiography Of Col. Charles Askins [Paperback]

Charles Askins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1991 | ISBN-10: 0873646193 | ISBN-13: 978-0873646192

Colonel Askins is an adventurer. Whether it be fighting his way out of an ambush, hunting tiger in Asia or sniping along the Rhine, Askins has done it with gusto. Here he recounts his early days as a forest ranger, his decade of slinging lead on the Mexican border, his astounding success as a competitive pistol shot, his combat participation in World War II, his adventures as a paratrooper in Vietnam and his career as one of the world's leading big-game hunters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Paladin Press (January 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873646193
• ISBN-13: 978-0873646192
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,287,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The unvarnished politically incorrect truth, June 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Unrepentant Sinner: The Autobiography Of Col. Charles Askins (Paperback)

Col. Askins is a man of a different era. His opinions on race, war, violence, and politics may offend you. If you can get past the anachronisms, you will find an exciting story of a man who embodies the ideal of the rugged American individualist. Askins is truly a "sinner" who never repents, even when he is confronted (in his later years) by a world with which he had no truck. He is also a very good writer who can spin a tale with great wit and insight. In an age when people conceal their unpleasant values and beliefs for the sake of remaining socially acceptable, Askins is a reminder that the law of the jungle remains intact.

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fascinating Story of Charle Askins, June 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Unrepentant Sinner: The Autobiography Of Col. Charles Askins (Paperback)

There is a tendancy in reading this book to judge Charles Askins on the basis of current political and cultural standards. This, I believe is a mistake and also unfair. Askins grew up in South Texas in the shadow of the old west. Gunfights were still not uncommon and crime was dealt with in a different way.

Askins knowledge of guns, his skill in their use, and his experience in using them is something that you will not encounter in people of this era. His writing is not half-bad for a man of limited education and often quite colorful. The stories are fascinating.

For all of his liabilites, upon reading this book, one often feels the world would be a better (and safer) place if men like Mr. Askins were still around and it is often worrisome, in this world of political correctness, how this nation would fare in a war of major proportions with a populace that is indocrinated against guns and violence and where boys are made to behave like girls.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Man of Action, July 22, 2006

By 

Nevada Storm "Nevada Storm" (New Mexico Territory) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unrepentant Sinner: The Autobiography Of Col. Charles Askins (Paperback)

An interesting read. It is the memoir of a man of action from a time when we, as a nation and as individuals, were more certain of our character and the rightness of our cause.

For all of the author's complaining about editors, this book surely could have used one, or at the very least, a competent proofreader. The fact that Paladin Press published the book is an indicator of its less than professional literary quality as well as its rejection by mainstream publishers.

The prose is often Victorian and the vagaries of age and memory are obvious at times. There is some redundancy in the book and it has been accused of being self-serving. The accusations of the book as self-serving should be taken cautiously. The book is admittedly the author's recollections and contain his viewpoints on race, bureaucracy, hunting, guns, and people. His style is not in vogue with the current obsession with victim and oppression memoirs. Men like Charles Askins scare the panties off of the effeminate, effete intellectuals of the publishing world.

The amount of detailed information regarding caliber, rounds fired, names and relationships is astounding. Keep in mind that this memoir was written when Charley was in his seventies.

Charles Askins was the product of the early years of the twentieth century and the place in which he was raised. The standards by which men were measured in those times were quite different from the feminized version of masculinity now upon us. Charles Askins, in many ways, was representative of the western male from that bygone time.

Charley's father was an extraordinary man and seems to have failed in some ways to pass along some of his qualities to Charley. The relationship between father and son was one of friendship rather than parental. Charley suffered for it. He was egotistical, incapable of accepting criticism from anyone other than himself, and lacked discipline in some ways.

For all of the bravado in his book, especially about his military career, he was not a ground soldier. He was a staff weenie and seemed to exhibit an extraordinary disregard for military discipline. His observation that paratroopers were a cut above regular army troops was an accurate observation, but he himself was not a leader of elite combat troops.

His obvious racism towards blacks, Mexicans, Indians, Arabs and the Vietnamese is a product of experience with these groups but he had high praise for the Montagnards and the Nungs in Viet Nam His opinions of Muslims today would be interesting to hear.

He often presented conflicting views. He could not abide suffering in animals, and yet he was obsessed with killing them, often simply as a means of testing the effectiveness of a particular caliber. I found his allowing wounded animals to escape to be particularly offensive. His casual, and seemingly admiring recounting of the accomplishments of several African professional game hunters that had individually killed over one thousand rhinos and other animals was a disappointment.

With the exception of George Parker, he seemed to place his loyalty on money rather than on persons or employers. He was self-centered and he did not tolerate fools or laggards. He was frustrated with the incompetent morons that seem to make up a disproportionate amount of the bureaucrats running business, politics and the military. It is interesting to read that the same sort of idiots making laws and running things then were as corrupt and incompetent as they are now. In today's age of blame, victimization and moral relativism, he was a man of conviction.

I appreciated his willingness to admit to poor performance in the field or in making poor shots. He was devoted to guns, dogs, horses and hunting. He was a tough hombre in the field and probably would have been a buffalo hunter in an earlier time.

Charles Askins was not afraid of controversy, and he stood up for his beliefs. He was not the sort of man everyone would like, but was certainly worthy of respect. Our culture would be a bit rougher if we had more like him, and we would be stronger and certainly our moral compass would be more stable.

I would have enjoyed sitting and talking with Charles Askins. When crisis situations arise and the enemy is at the gate, I would rather have Charles Askins at my side than the hand wringing social do-gooders that so despise all men of action, but who also depend upon them to guard the night.