Unrepentant Sinner: The Autobiography of Col. Charles Askins Paperback – January 1, 1991

Interesting glimpse into a man and an era which are both bygone but live in the memories of my youth. This book is unabashedly not politically correct and to many, probably openly offensive. However it brillinatly caputres an age and a generation of men. While I never met Charles Askins, I knew many men like him.The book is full of proof reading errors and the last chapter is a confusing jumble that reads like it was added in haste. Nonetheless, a very enjoyable read. Without a doubt, I enjoyed this book the most of any I read last year.

Interesting character. He lived an exciting life. If your sensitive you probably better pass. Mr Askins lived at a different time and he doesn’t hold back on his thoughts and opinions.

If you’re seeking this fairly hard to find volume in the first place, then you probably know at least the broad strokes of who Charles Askins was and what he did during the long, turbulent and exciting life that he led.To put it simply, his autobiography does the legend justice. It covers all the major events of his life, from childhood escapades in rural Oklahoma to border patrol gun battles, to adventures in WWII Europe and North Africa, hunting in war-torn Vietnam and course his long career in shooting sports and as a writer for various firearms magazines. Almost as important, it does this without coming across as self-aggrandizing or exaggerated. Askins is unapologetic and not big on humility, but he makes no attempt to gloss over the darker events of his life or inflate his own achievements or place in history.Askins has an undeservedly negative reputation today, mostly owing to the fact that he didn’t agonize over every gun-totting rum runner or enemy soldier that he killed and was honest about his enjoyment of gun fights. In my opinion, this makes him no different from contemporaries like Delph Bryce or any of the celebrated gunslingers and lawmen of the old west, from whom Askins’ generation were not that far distant. Although it doesn’t need to be, this refreshingly premodern view of life and death is also tempered in the book by the window we’re given into Charles Askins as a loyal friend, dutiful son and loving father/husband.In sum, if you’re interested in hearing his story in his own voice, this is the end all be all. This is also the sort of book that is unlikely to ever be reprinted, so if you see it for sale here or elsewhere, my recommendation is to grab a copy while you still can.

Fantastic narration. Askins is an excellent storyteller, whatever his other faults. It's worth noting that had he been charged with his youthful attempted homicide (during armed robbery), his life would have taken a drastically different course.

It could be said that Charles Askins was the last real "gunfighter" or in the very least one of the last if grouped with friends like Bill Jordan and Skeeter Skelton. His book, "Unrepentant Sinner" is remarkable and I have rated it five stars not for its literary quality, but for the simple fact that its a rare thing to see someone open up so honestly on paper about themselves. Critics of Colonel Askins book are correct, it is "self-serving" and often bigoted. Askins who has now been deceased since the 1990s was very much a product of the early 1900s, even a throw back to a time even earlier than that. His career as a professional gun handler, both in Law Enforcement and in the US Army spans the end of the "Wild West" to Vietnam, during which time he worked for the USFS, fought Prohibition era smugglers with the Border Patrol, won dozens of professional shooting matches, served in North Africa, Sicily and in the ETO during WWII, became a Paratrooper and later served in a number of post-war occupations with the Army in Spain and Vietnam. Throughout these chapters of his life he was also considered one of the country's foremost "gun-writers" and wrote numerous books and articles on guns and shooting.But he was also controversial, and will probably remain so. In addition to racially charged comments which are sure to offend many modern readers, Askins also appears to have bent the rules (and some laws) in more than one instance. Several of his Border Patrol gunfights would probably make international news today and that's probably putting it mildly. He also seems to have enjoyed pushing the limits during his competitive shooting career. Its worth noting that his resignation from the BP resulted from his use of unconventional pistol during one of his later matches.Nevertheless the story of Askins' life is fascinating. Proceed with caution though, if anything the book suffers from poor editing and his overt bigotry may get old quick for many readers.

Charles Askins memoirs are a fun and interesting read - provided you can get past the sloppy production values of Palladin Press. It appears that they, or someone, scanned the book and imported it directly into e-book format without so much as reading through it to replace the scanning errors. This makes it terribly annoying to constantly translate erroneous words properly e.g. from "hid" to "hill." Also, the book ends rather abruptly -- leaving one to wonder if that's just where Col. Askins left off or if the folks who converted it to an ebook just left out a portion at the end.If you enjoy military and hunting memoirs, this is a good story and you'll enjoy it. Askins and his father were both well known writers for most of the major sporting magazines over the course of the 20th century.I'd recommend that the editors of Palladin fix the errors in this edition which would generate more like a 4 star rating. But Askins was touchy about editors - terrifically proud of his writing as it came from the pen. There are redundant passages in several places that a good editor would have cleaned up. But perhaps (s)he'd have been shot trying. You'll understand that after reading the last chapter contained in this edition.