The Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History
The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History
By Chris Kyle, with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
Morrow, $26.99, 400 pp.
As he writes in his No. 1 best-selling American Sniper:
The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. Everyone I shot in Iraq was trying to harm Americans or Iraqis loyal to the new government. I had a job to do as a SEAL. I killed the enemy — an enemy I saw day in and day out plotting to kill my fellow Americans. I’m haunted by the enemy’s successes. (emphasis mine) They were few, but even a single American life is one too many lost.
Chris Kyle’s autobiography, subtitled The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, may not be the best war memoir ever written, but it might be the most unapologetic since George S. Patton’s War as I Knew It.
For better or for worse, American Sniper has hit the bestseller list, not merely because of Kyle’s frank account of combat and his love for his job or because of his remarkable achievements. No, the book and its author have gained a considerable amount of notoriety because Kyle reports he punched out Jesse Ventura (identified only as “Scruff” in the book, but confirmed in media interviews) at the funeral wake for one of his fellow SEALs when Scruff told the SEALs they “deserved” to lose a few guys.
Hooah!
Kyle opens his book in a similar fashion to the most famous sniper biography of all, Marine Sniper, Charles Henderson’s telling of the story of Vietnam War sniper Carlos Hathcock — with a story about the need to shoot a female combatant.
In Kyle’s case, the woman approached a Marine patrol surrounded by children with a grenade hidden in her clothes. Kyle was still in training as a sniper and was merely spelling his chief on the long gun when the decision had to be made.
It was the first time I’d killed anyone while I was on the sniper rifle. And the first time in Iraq —and the only time — I killed anyone other than a male combatant. It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it. The woman was already dead. I was just making sure she didn’t take any Marines with her.
It was clear that not only did she want to kill them, but she didn’t care about anybody else nearby who would have been blown up by the grenade or killed in the firefight. Children on the street, people in the houses, maybe her child. . . . She was too blinded by evil to consider them. She just wanted Americans dead, no matter what.
My shots saved several Americans, whose lives were clearly worth more than that woman’s twisted soul. I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job. But I truly, deeply hated the evil that woman possessed. I hate it to this day.
Kyle makes no bones about the fact that he feels — whatever the wisdom of the overall mission or the merits of America’s Iraqi allies — that the fight in Iraq was against evil, and protecting innocents and American combatants against that evil gave him a deep satisfaction:
Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy “savages.” There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there.
Kyle does not put himself in the category of Carlos Hathcock — who, after all, battled a far more skilled foe in a far more difficult terrain. In fact, he is quite modest about his own abilities, saying he wasn’t even the best shot in his own SEAL sniper training class. But like an infielder with an instinct for where the next ground ball is going, Kyle was “lucky enough to be positioned directly in the action.”
“Lucky?” He made his own luck.
Unlike the Hathcock book and Shooter, Marine sniper Jack Coughlin’s memoir of being at the top of the Marine kill list in Iraq, Kyle doesn’t spend a lot of time on sniper tactics. Shooting geeks will have to look elsewhere for those details.
And, unlike most SEAL memoirs, his book doesn’t detail his training and how hard “Hell Week” was. This is more a work about the warrior ethos and — surprisingly and poignantly — the toll his constant deployment takes on Kyle’s wife Taya, who contributes her own first-person perspective at various points in the narrative.
The closest Kyle comes to the kind of tactical talk that fills most sniper volumes is when he tells the one way SEAL snipers operate differently than those in the other services. According to Kyle, SEALs often would attract attention so that he and his colleagues could kill the bad guys that came running.
Nor was Kyle the kind of guy who took comfort in the fact that he usually could kill from a very long distance and not get into the mix of things. When he was deployed with Marines in Fallujah, for instance, he figured he should be helping the Marines kick down doors. After all, he was a SEAL before he was a sniper, and that was specifically something he was better trained for than they were. He writes:
I also knew that I would be in a s***load of trouble if I did get hurt — going down on the streets was not what I was supposed to be doing, at least from an official point of view. It was definitely right—what I felt I had to do — but it would severely p**s the top brass off. But that would be the least of my problems if I got shot, wouldn’t it?
The combat stories in American Sniper range from first-hand accounts of heavy fighting to the poignant stories of victims and brutality, to the macabrely humorous. One time, Kyle recounts, foreign insurgents in body armor tried to cross a river paddling behind brightly colored large beach balls. He foiled their scheme by shooting the balls one at a time.
A debate about counter-insurgency operations vs. anti-terror operations rages among military leaders and military thinkers. One school thinks the mission should focus on winning the population’s hearts and minds, while the second focuses mainly on putting down the bad guys. Bing West, one of the prominent thinkers, is convinced the first approach worked well in Iraq but is a miserable failure in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Kyle doesn’t quite refute the benefit of winning over the people in Iraq, but he thinks a lot of the smart people are putting the cart before the horse:
You know how Ramadi was won?
We went in and killed all the bad people we could find.
When we started, the decent (or potentially decent) Iraqis didn’t fear the United States; they did fear the terrorists. The U.S. told them, “We’ll make it better for you.”
The terrorists said, “We’ll cut your head off.”
Who would you fear? Who would you listen to?
When we went into Ramadi, we told the terrorists, “We’ll cut your head off. We will do whatever we have to and eliminate you.”
Not only did we get the terrorists’ attention — we got everyone’s attention. We showed we were the force to be reckoned with.
That’s where the so-called Great Awakening came. It wasn’t from kissing up to the Iraqis. It was from kicking butt.
The tribal leaders saw that we were bad-asses, and they’d better get their act together, work together, and stop accommodating the insurgents. Force moved that battle. We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table.
That is how the world works.
Finally, however, Kyle worked himself into the ground, having ignored and covered up his injuries like an athlete playing hurt. When he returned stateside, he found his marriage was on almost as shaky ground as his health and needed healing, too.
However, when the Navy shrinks examined him, they found out a peculiar thing. It wasn’t combat that bothered Chris Kyle and made his blood pressure rise — combat situations actually calmed him. It was having to sit by and watch bad people hurt good people that put his nerves into orbit.
He sums up his attitude:
There’s another question people ask a lot: Did it bother you killing so many people in Iraq?
I tell them, “No.”
And I mean it. The first time you shoot someone, you get a little nervous. You think, can I really shoot this guy? Is it really okay? But after you kill your enemy, you see it’s okay. You say, Great.
You do it again. And again. You do it so the enemy won’t kill you or your countrymen. You do it until there’s no one left for you to kill.
That’s what war is.
I loved what I did. I still do. If circumstances were different — if my family didn’t need me — I’d be back in a heartbeat. I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun. I had the time of my life being a SEAL.
American Sniper is apt to stay in the news for awhile, thanks to Ventura’s recently filed defamation lawsuit against the author. Even with all of Kyle’s exploits, if he can actually “defame” the ex-pro wrestler and failed Minnesota governor, that could be his most amazing feat.
He is an American hero who stands alongside others, like Sgt.York of WW1 fame. He also did not enjoy killing, but understood the harsh reality that to protect the good, the evil must be destroyed.
May there be MANY more like him.
I salute this brave, unapologetic patriot.
Besides, not one war was EVER won by being nice to the enemy!
I think that this story is a part of a large, lethal point of view in the USA. When our ancestors and close relatives fought in wars, they did so, for one reason, to ensure the freedom of their family members and the citizens of our greatest nation. Throughout our history men and women had the mindset to do what it took to pas on our birth right of freedom. If a nation was belligerent or in the way, the USA was not going stop in it’s tracks to make sure the lazy, communist, savage nations could keep up. That is not true anymore. The clown stated in his campaign, “We can not eat what we want to eat, drive our SUVs, or keep our house at optimum temperature year around. What is the rest of the world going to think?” What percent of the population voted for him after she made such absurd statements? I will not even get into other details such as rules of engagement (Did Generals such “Howlin’ Mad Krulak or Patton enforce such rules). Thankfully, for our Republic, there is still a large segment of our population that has the mindset that this Navy Seal has. Chris Kyle is an American hero and he was not even a Marine Sniper. Thank You.
Semper fi
“Keep our house at optimum temperature”… which is why he raised the thermostat in the White House to sub-tropical levels as soon as he moved in. Not sure if that was before or after he threw the bust of Winston Churchill out the window.
From the beginning in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we should’ve sent in sharp, smart snipers and strike teams focused on getting rid of the bad guys and then getting out.
Fewer American lives lost. Fewer innocent civilian lives lost. Less devastation. Less overall cost.
Have to say, this book sounds like an interesting read.
“… the book and its author have gained a considerable amount of notoriety because Kyle reports he punched out Jesse Ventura (identified only as “Scruff” in the book, but confirmed in media interviews) at the funeral wake for one of his fellow SEALs when Scruff told the SEALs they “deserved” to lose a few guys.”
Moments after reading this anecdote in an earlier review, I ordered this book. It is currently in a tall stack on the night stand, and after reading this, I’ll be moving it to the top.
We need nothing short of a massive turn-out in November, so it’s especially encouraging to know the book has made the NYT best sellers list.
Maybe if enough Americans read it, alone before the court of their own conscience, they will be forced to confront the stark contrast between the raw courage and indomitable patriotism of men like the Seals, and the position of their CIC, among whose many utterly heinous pronouncements about America include the expressed belief that “we can absorb another terrorist attack.”
Jesse Ventura, a plastic man whose only danger was what happened in his wrestling environment, never put his life on the line for anything other than a big, fat paycheck. Kyle, on the other hand, personifies integrity, duty and dedication to an ideal that is bigger than some Saturday night freak-show on TV.
I would personally like to thank Kyle.
Ventura? Not so much.
I’m no fan of Ventura, but if I’m not mistaken, he was a SEAL at one point.
I read the book a month ago. I’m always pleased to find writing that actually reflects true knowledge of weapons and tactics, and more importantly, the mentality necessary to properly function in such situations.
Kyle is indeed right. We should all be bothered not by the necessity of killing those who would be delighted to kill each and every one of us in the most barbaric manner possible, but by those among us that give them aid and comfort and that deny their nature and existence.
America has always produced men and women like Kyle I pray she always does.
Kyle was married with a couple of kids.
His long deployments played hell on his family and his marriage.
I am grateful to both the Iraq/Afghan Veterans as well as their families.
If you can do something for the family of a deployed soldier — mow their lawn, fix their car, do their income tax, repair their roof — please do it.
They will appreciate it and you will feel like $1 million bucks.
If you know anybody who is hiring, find a veteran to apply for the job.
Ventura joined the Navy after high school and was on active duty during the Vietnam era. He served in the US military for a total of six years – four on active duty (1969-1973), and two in the Reserves (1973-1975) with the Navy UDT – Underwater Demolition Team 12. In the Naval Reserves, Ventura was assigned to SEAL Team One. He would later describe SEAL training as the toughest experience of his life. Ventura is still entitled to use the title of Navy “SEAL,” for his service in the UDT and SEAL teams, and his successful graduation from UDT.
-military hub.com
Bill Salisbury thinks otherwise :http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1999/dec/02/jesse-great-pretender-ventura/ (about Ventura being a bon fide SEAL that is.)
Ventura was never a SEAL. He never graduated from SEAL school. He lied about it to the press who was sucking up to him at the time.
Revised and extended remarks.
Jesse graduated BUD/S. Not a SEAL.
Good for Kyle! Tell it like it is!
Not an American–but the world’s best sniper, Simo Haya, would probably be impressed.
After the Viet Nam War one could hardly go into a bar without hearing some loud-mouthed braggart talking about how his heroism saved his platoon, how tough it was, blah blah blah. I’m old enough to remember when the military came home after WWII. One didn’t hear about battles from those in the combat arms, including my uncle and my cousin. They simply didn’t want to talk about it, and didn’t talk about it until years later.
Call me names if you want to, but I have a skepticism about people who write books about how brave they are, what trials they went through, how many savages they killed under difficult conditions, etc.
Am I saying this SEAL is a liar? Hell no. But it would be good for us and for him too if somebody trained in the process would vet this book.
Remember heroic[???] John Kerry playing the war hero after Viet Nam.
The times are different. Back in WWII, some 16 million American men (and thousands of women) served in the military. That’s roughly 1 out of every 5-7 men alive at the time. Military service was so common that a lot of men felt describing their services was undignified. A lot of them were pretty traumatized, too. My uncle Paul enlisted in WWII but wasn’t sent overseas. He was a front-line medic in 1950 when he was captured and spend 30 months as a POW. In all the years I knew him (he died two years ago), I only heard him talk about what happened in Korea twice. Once was in person and the other time on an NBC News “Profiles in Courage” segment. He just found it very difficult and painful to discuss what happened except with other former POWs. No one who wasn’t there is likely to understand what they endured.
Since 9/11, there is a saying that “The military went to war, America went to the mall.” This generation of warriors has, in general, been treated with far more respect than those who served in Korea and Vietnam. In today’s Internet age, I don’t find it at all surprising that many of these warriors have less trouble talking about their experiences than those of previous generations.
I had an uncle (died a few months ago) that was taken by the Nazis from Holland and put in a camp. 18 months later he met the allied forces after escaping with some fellow prisoners. That was the extent of the story from him until he died and at his funeral some of the details were filled in. Although not complete by any means, he mentioned to a relative once that they hid in a cave for a number of days and some got impatient and tried running the German lines and were shot. The survivors stayed in the cave until it was safe. No food and licked the walls of the cave for water. Apparently when he got back to Holland, his mother didn’t recognize him he had aged so much.
I wish he had been more willing to talk about his experiences. History lost for ever.
He is right about the way the world works. Most of the rest of the world understands that, and that’s why we are in such deep trouble, because of the namby-pamby crew we have running this country.
Just a side note on the name Ventura. The name Ventura stems from Hebrew meaning son of Torah (Ven coming from the word Ben which means son, and tura which is Torah). In all likelyhood Jesse had a Jewish ancestor probably in Spain who was in a family of Jewish scholars.
Andy;
Ventura is only a stage name. His real last name is Janos- his father was of Slovak descent.
I hate to ask, but wasn’t it quite common for emigrants to English speaking countries to “Anglicize” their names upon arrival? Many willingly, some, too many actually, at the whim of the immigration officer they were processed by.
I think Kyle was an outstanding warrior. Many on the far left don’t seem to understand that we need men like Kyle to fight our wars and to keep us safe. They wish that men like Kyle didn’t exist, or that in some ideal utopian world there wouldn’t be a need for them. But we not only need them, but we need a lot more of them if we continue going into places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And if we keep downsizing our armed forces the way we are doing right now, we will need even more experts like this man. Kyle and men like him are the ultimate warriors. I just wonder if peace will destroy him.
Many on the far left resent Kyle because they ‘severely’ resemble his targets.
Kyle is a true American hero – putting his fellow soldiers and Americans above all else: his own well-being and, to some degree, his family. Spot on Libertship46 – we need more men like Chris Kyle. I’m sure he has his personal shortcomings (who doesn’t) but the attitude of his only regret being that he didn’t kill more bad guys (savages) is, to me, inspiring. The savages he killed aren’t living to fight us (for being us & nothing else) another day.
Btw, the book is excellent.
“It was having to sit by and watch bad people hurt good people that put his nerves into orbit.”
This perfectly describes a real man, not a brute, not effeminate, nothing to do with how much schooling he may or may not have or how much money he makes … this is the essence of manliness. A thousand thanks to this man and all the others out there like him.
You are 100% right, I wish you posted your name so I could address you properly…
My Father was that kind of guy, tough but fair, with an unshakeable sense of a Proper Mans Duty….
I’m trying to teach my son to be that way too.
Its the ultimate responsibility of every Man to understand, and pass to their Sons, the ability to recognize (and employ) “righteous violence” when the time calls for it. It is a very complex moral trait to fully comprehend.
But if your boys get it, they will be fine doctors, lawyers, engineers, soldiers, policemen, teachers or whatever career choices they settle upon….in addition to good neighbors, citizens, husbands and fathers.
A brave and competent character will deliver the “career” and ensure the “success” every time without a hitch….
not the other way around.
“Righteous Violence”….Sir that is a very proper expression here…WW2 was a righteous War…WW1….And so many other wars have been to put down evil and uphold decency…That is all most good people want in this world is decency…I fear what is coming to England and America, and many EU countries, are going to call for the use of Righteous Violence….I also fear this is coming soon, and will be Horrific….jb
From my background: engineer, a student of the technologies of weapons, marksman/hunter, a black belt, and a daily Communicant, I offer the following viewpoints. Most importantly I extend my profound gratitude for the service, and infinite sacrifices of Chris Kyle and the patriots who serve(d) with him. I, and my loved ones would not be alive and free without these disciplined warriors.
I have never taken a human life; to me this is a gift for which I give thanks daily. But it is necessary, a bitter duty. Both religious people, and warriors fight evil, albeit in different ways. Some kneel in church, with folded hands, some kneel and squeeze a trigger. Neither is easy, indeed, to do it right, is most difficult. It requires suffering and sacrifice, for the good of others. That is the definition of love, as defined by a genius, St. Thomas Aquinas.
There are two sweeping judgments I make, without any personal knowledge of Mr. Kyle’s situation. What he did in foreign lands was both honorable, and hideously painful, if he is sane. He should spent the rest of his life healing from these self inflicted hurts. He should now use his enormous strength, and laser focus, to save his family. This takes a different skill set; he may be a rookie, but he, and his family deserve the effort.
My last judgment is that his top brass, in the Pentagon, simply do not deserve the loyalty of Chris Kyle. The officers chew people up for very mendacious reasons, e.g. another star, a window office, a luscious retirement package. The officers knuckle under to politicians, and together create rules of engagement which twist combat into a career, a never ending slaughter, requiring endless deployments of Chris Kyle, with no hope of victory. In our revolutionary war, generals were shot out of the saddle, in battle. Today, they expire on the tenth green, trying not to lose too badly to some Congressman. Neither have the guts, and brains, to do Chris Kyle’s job.
“What he did in foreign lands was both honorable, and hideously painful, if he is sane. He should spent the rest of his life healing from these self inflicted hurts”
I appreciate your wonderful human concern, (and that is NOT sarcasm on my part), but for some “sane” people (myself included) these are not “self inflicted hurts” that require healing…
They are mere experiences, logged into our memories.
I have suffered more “hurts” from vintage motorcycle racing than from combat, and I’ve never killed anyone on a racetrack. I cant say that about some other places I’ve been.
I lose more sleep over a ruined paint job (why did I spend that much?) and suffer more moral angst over the appropriateness of obliterating Rare Italian “unobtainium” than I ever do over the elimination of several cretins who CHOSE to be evil, and threatened myself and others.
Yes, memories of that existential fear can be unpleasant, but its the same (for me) as waking suddenly to that gut-wrenching dream (memory) of losing my front tire in turn three, or having a sliding bike dead in front of mine…I wake up with a gasp
These carry the same impact as the one where I’m re-living “..Hurry up and get that next mag in place, here comes another one..”
Except the ones with the bike crashes happen MORE often.
And they are MORE upsetting to me, because they cost me MONEY.
Greetings:
Back during my all-expense-paid tour of sunny Southeast Asia, my favorite Platoon Sergeant told me the following. The infantry game is a lot like basketball. In basketball, there are two basic plays; you can drive to the hoop or shoot the jump shot. In infantry, there’s “Find ‘em, fix ‘em, and finish ‘em” and there’s “Let them find you, fix ‘em, and finish ‘em”.
Following his mode of “Keep it simple, stupid” instruction, I came up with this parable for my new soldiers.
Two young riflemen were having the age-old philosophical discussion about where to shoot those who would oppose them. One was a “head-shooter”; the other preferred the “center-mass” (torso). The head-shooter asserted that if you hit him, he’s done. The center-mass guy liked the larger target area. As they were going back and forth, their Platoon Sergeant came by. “Hey, Sarge,” called out the head-shooter, “where do you like to shoot the bad guys?”
“In the back,” he replied.
As many as you can, as often as you can, anywhere and any way you can.
“Hey, Sarge,” called out the head-shooter, “where do you like to shoot the bad guys?” “In the back,” he replied. “As many as you can, as often as you can, anywhere and any way you can.”
That sums it up. In 1966 I was a 1331 – Combat Engineer Troop Leader (read platoon leader) and airborne qualified (prefix 7). What does / did an 11 bravo 40 do?
As a dear friend of mine, a Vietnam era marine warrant officer helicopter pilot whom I used to work for at Stars Guitars in San Francisco, Ca. said many times, “Rule number one, there are no rules. Rule number two, see ‘Rule number one’ “.
National Take Your Daughter to the Range Day Inaugural Event June 9, 2012
http://nationaltakeyourdaughtertotherangeday.com/
Absolutely. My father taught me to shoot when I was about 16, taught me gun safety and not to hesitate to pull the trigger if I felt danger from a wild animal or another person. Both of my sisters-in-law shoot as well, taught by their fathers. Now that I think about it, it’s time to make sure the next generation gets to the range soon, June 9 sounds like as good a day as any. Thanks for the link, Washington76.
Anytime! VIVA LA REPUBLIC!
I thought that Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War II, was the champion sniper, He wrote a book, To Hell and Back.
Audie Murphy was a great great soldier, but not a sniper. Maybe you were thinking of Sergeant York?
York was not a sniper, either. Maybe you’re both thinking of Carlos Hathcock? He was (incorrectly) thought to be America’s top shot for years. Charles Henderson published a book about him back in the 1980s that sold a lot of copies…
True, York was “just” an infantryman. But in WWI did we even HAVE specially designated snipers? He acted like one, whereas a good deal of Murhpy’s damage for his MOH was conducted with a 50cal.
Snipers were very active on both sides in WWI but I don’t know for sure if the US had designated snipers. Odds are they did but I have no confirmation. Sergeant(then Corporal) York was a soldier who stepped up in a single extraordinary act of valor and became a hero. Audie Murphy was involved in much more combat action in WWII. While he was awarded the MOH for a single act of valor, he became such a highly decorated soldier due to countless acts of valor in extended combat action.
In Vietnam, Carlos Hathcock scored some of his longest range kills using a Browning M-2 0.50 cal with the cyclic rate dialed down to a very low rate. IIRC from the book, he used this setup to score a first shot kill over 1500 yards away.
Reply to below….There has been Expert snipers since rifling was designed…Some of the best marksman could kill at 1500 yards during the War between the states, some call it “the civil war”….But it took a special Rifle to do the job, like i said the ‘rifling’ inside the barell..
Good book. Chris Kyle is a true American hero, although he’d never say that. His wife Taya is a hero too for getting through his deployments as well as she did, although it was difficult sometimes. Ventura, on the other hand, is someone I’ve not got much respect for based on his actions.
I recently finished Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. Most of the book was about the build up to Hell Week and then the training afterwards. Very little was of the intense battle where three of his fellow SEALS were killed in what should have been an aborted mission. And then the terrible rescue mission where many other Spec Ops soldiers and SEALS were killed; an incident very reminiscent of the death of members of SEAL team Six after OBL was killed.
SEALS are great at what they do. But each branch has its Spec Ops and we should hear more from them. And when it comes to actual fire fights, I wonder if the Rangers are more active and see more action than the SEALS. So while it is great to give the SEALS their due, how about the other special forces groups. After all it was the Rangers who eventually saved Luttrell.
Ever heard of force recon..Boys White Feither..what ever..
Heck of a book. Really. Great read.
Sadly, the present war won’t be decided by men like Kyle, it’ll be won or more likely lost by the political class, who labor under the delusion that the best way to fight a war is to make GIs drive daily through minefields, and hurt as few of the enemy as possible. After all, the bad guys might get mad.
Sorry folks, they’re already mad. They’ve been mad for over forty years. And it’s not got much to do with what the U.S. has done or not done. We built their countries, we fought their wars, we doubled their lifespan, we feed them, we cloth them, we tried to educate them. What else do they want? Our women?
Contrary to fools like Mike Scheuer, the jihad’s grievances and demands are irrational. They are as little based in reality as the Egyptians’ firm conviction that Mossad has a special troop of Arab-hating sharks.
Politicians prefer to fight their wars slowly and covertly, as they’re cowards. And besides, they value their offices more than the lives of citizens. And just so as we’ll not notice their cowardice, they now give medals for NOT killing the enemy. Heroic restraint, they call it.
There was a time when the laws of armed combat meant something, even though we’ve never fought an enemy who followed them. If you don’t wear clothing with a distinguish mark, are not subject to a chain of command, and do not carry arms openly, you’re a saboteur, or as we now say, an enemy combatant.
Time was, we didn’t reward saboteurs with a condo in Cuban. We gave ‘em a few minutes in front of the tribunal before their hanging.
The cowards can stop their whining … we weren’t any more merciful to GIs. Look at the lists: we were executing a few of them every week during WWII — usually for matters far less grievous.
Beginning with the murder of Robert Kennedy for the Palestinian cause, we’ve suffered from the barbarous pathologies of the enemy. Civilized people just don’t behave in this manner. We’d not excuse it if a cell of Texas Baptist suicide bombers infiltrated Mecca during the Hajj, would we? Why do we continue to excuse it in the present case.
If victory is being able to live our lives without being bothered by the barbarians, or by taxes for fighting them and protecting against them, the solution is simple: the barbarians need to stop attacking us.
From everything I know about the world, they’ll only stop when they either chose to do so or are dead. Until that happens, we won’t be able to take an airliner with as little inconvenience as we ride the bus — as we used to be able to do, as recently as Nixon’s administration. (You can thank the Palestinians for the change, a consequence of their years of Friday-night hijacking.)
And what of our politicians? They’re afraid of the self-appointed representatives of 0.6% of the U.S. population. For these cowards, it’s easier to take naked pictures of their mom, and to use the Marine Corps to install plumbing — under fire — in a stone-age village, whose inhabitants much prefer the bushes and their left hand. Of course, the politicians also make the Marines come back the next day to install it again, when it’s been blown up — driving there and back a second time, through the same minefield. It’s sickening.
If our current politicians are to scared to fight a war, we might want hire some who do — men who have not forgotten the lessons of earlier generations, that war is “a bloody, killing business”, or as Patton would put it:
“We’re not going to just shoot the s**s-*f-b***es, we’re going to rip out their living G*dd**n*d guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun c***s**k*rs by the bushel-f**k**g-basket. War is a bloody, killing business.”
That’s a COIN the jihad can respect.
One of my favorite parts of the book is where Kyle tells of Pentagon brass asking him about his equipment – i.e. which was good, which was not-so-good, which stuff worked, etc., and he just looked at them like, ‘You stupid idiots – if you knew what we do, which you should but obviously don’t, you would know that.’
I interpret of that part of the book as saying that the Pentagon is made up of a bunch of ivory-tower, egg-headed military theorists who don’t know what really goes on in the trenches, yet they’re nonetheless making decisions, that impact our soldiers, and thus, the security of our nation.
I have admired the Seals, more that any other Elite Unit in the SP.War group of the USA…And below I followed a URL to read about Jesse Ventura, A real eye opener….But to get to this article, this is the only mentality to have when you are fighting evil….and just about every thing related to the word MUSLEM, is Pure Evil, Vile, Satanic, Hellish, and should be dealt with with Extreme Hostility, No quarter given, send these satan filled vermin straight to paradise,..I pray that this young man can bear up under this, as a lot of us VNVets thought we could carry our nightmares all by ourselves, doesn`t work….We need to keep in mind that we are at war against EVIL Powers of Hell…and i pray that there is a great Christian Revival will sweep the Muslem world, That will defeat the evil, and that only….
To add to this great story…I will be buying the book asap, just to support this young man, and say THANK YOU SIR….
If I remember correctly, Ventura was UDT, not SEAL. At the time he was in service, the two were separate. They were later merged-after he got out. I just finished reading American Sniper. Like! These are the men who make us the great nation we are–Not the preening metrosexuals in the White House.
A comment about that “female combatant” that Mr. Kyle had to shoot.
The insurgents “recruited” women and girls for suicide operations by raping them, then telling them that they were “defiled”, but could “atone” by “martyrdom” for the “jihad”.
I don’t know that that is what happened to that woman – but it is quite possible that the evil was not in her, but those who used her.
Well then, all I can say is “sucks to be a follower of Mohammad”
Anyone who buys into the nonesense that a RAPIST can defile YOU, has a hopelessly twisted view of the world, like a rabid dog that needs to be put down.
Some things are just common sense (or as we say “self evident”) and if you cant get your puny cave-person brain around simple things like what is evil (like mohammad) and what is good (like, ignoring/rejecting his teachings, smile and nod to stay safe maybe, but not actually FOLLOW any edicts of his) then I have simply no sympathy for you when youre in an American Snipers Cross Hairs.
Their are certain minimum standards of human conduct you need to meet (all on your own) before I’ll TREAT you like a human being.
Otherwise, its simply “range, wind, dope the scope & squeeze easy”
Brave soldier and a hero. No apologizing, hand wrinkling platitudes about the job a soldier has to do. By the way, the massive military intervention in Iraq should have been much more limited. After the first heavy strikes at important sites and structures, the strategy should have been small killer units operating.
rotflmao…you believe this liver lilied liar? Shame on you.
This guy is nothing but a psychopath and a baby killer.
This guy is nothing but a psychopath and a baby killer.
Having some regrets over the “One-Child Policy”, are we?
Are you people serious? You’re applauding a glory seeking murderer sent to a foreign country where we murdered 100,000 civilians, by a president that is guilty of war crimes against humanity? And then you buy a book so he can PROFIT from it?
You are all disgusting.
You’re applauding a glory seeking murderer sent to a foreign country where we murdered 100,000 civilians, by a president that is guilty of war crimes against humanity?
Jeremy Lin’s folks are actually from Taiwan, by the way.;-)