American Sniper

by Chris Kyle

  He’d been really disappointed when the war began. He was back in Kuwait and had seen something on television that was negative about the troops. He called and said, “You know what? If that’s what they think, fuck them. I’m out here ready to give my life and they’re doing bullshit.”

  I had to tell him there were a lot of people who cared, not just for the troops in general, but for him. He had me, he had friends in San Diego and Texas, and family.

  But the adjustment to being home was hard. He’d wake up punching. He’d always been jumpy, but now, when I got up in the middle of the night, I’d stop and say his name before I got back into bed. I had to wake him up before coming back to bed to ensure I wasn’t hit with his basic reflex.

  One time I woke up to him grabbing my arm with both of his hands. One hand was on the forearm and one just slightly above my elbow. He was sound asleep and appeared to be ready to snap my arm in half. I stayed as still as possible and kept repeating his name, getting louder each time so as not to startle him, but also to stop the impending damage to my arm. Finally, he woke and let go.

  Slowly, we settled into some new habits, and adjusted.

  SCARES

  I DIDN’T QUIT THE SEALS.

  I might have, if my contract hadn’t still had a lot of time to run. Maybe I would have gone to the Marines. But it wasn’t an option.

  I had some reason for hope. When you come home and the Team returns from a deployment, there’s a reshuffling at the top and you get new leadership. There was always a chance our new head shed would be better.

  I talked to Taya and told her how pissed off I was. Of course, she had a different perspective: she was just happy that I was alive and home in one piece. Meanwhile, the brass got huge promotions and congratulations for their part in the war. They got the glory.

  Bullshit glory.

  Bullshit glory for a war they didn’t fight and the cowardly stance they took. Their cowardice ended lives we could have saved if they would have let us do our jobs. But that’s politics for you: a bunch of game-players sitting around congratulating each other in safety while real lives are getting screwed up.

  EVERY TIME I RETURNED HOME FROM DEPLOYMENT, STARTING then, I wouldn’t leave the house for about a week. I’d just stay there. Generally, we’d get about a month off after unloading and sorting our gear and stuff. That first week I’d always stay home with Taya and keep to myself. Only after that would I start seeing family and friends.

  I didn’t have flashbacks of battle or anything dramatic like that; I just needed to be alone.

  I do remember once, after the first deployment, when I had something like a flashback, though it only lasted a few seconds. I was sitting in the room we used as an office in our house in Alpine near San Diego. We had a burglar alarm system, and for some reason, Taya set it off accidentally when she came home.

  It scared the ever-living shit out of me. I just immediately went right back to Kuwait. I dove under the desk. I thought it was a Scud attack.

  We laugh about it now—but for those few seconds I was truly scared, more scared even than I had been in Kuwait when the Scuds actually did fly over.

  I’VE HAD MORE FUN WITH BURGLAR ALARMS THAN I CAN RECOUNT. One day I woke up after Taya had left for work. As soon as I got out of bed, the alarm went off. This one was in voice mode, so it alerted me with a computerized voice:

  “Intruder alert! Intruder in the house! Intruder alert!”

  I grabbed my pistol and went to confront the criminal. No son of a bitch was breaking into my house and living to tell about it.

  “Intruder: living room!”

  I carefully proceeded to the living room and used all of my SEAL skills to clear the living room.

  Vacant. Smart criminal.

  I moved down the hall.

  “Intruder: kitchen!”

  The kitchen was also clear. The son of a bitch was running from me.

  “Intruder: hall!”

  Motherfucker!

  I can’t tell you how long it took before I realized I was the intruder: the system was tracking me. Taya had set the alarm to a setting that assumed the house was vacant, turning on the motion detectors.

  Y’all feel free to laugh. With me, not at me, right?

  I ALWAYS SEEMED MORE VULNERABLE AT HOME. AFTER EVERY deployment, something would happen to me, usually during training. I broke a toe, a finger, all sorts of little injuries. Overseas, on deployment, in the war, I seemed invincible.

  “You take your superhero cape off every time you come home from deployment,” Taya used to joke.

  After a while, I figured it was true.

  MY PARENTS HAD BEEN NERVOUS THE ENTIRE TIME I WAS AWAY. They wanted to see me as soon as I got home, and I think my need to keep to myself at first probably hurt them more than they’ll say. When we finally did get together, though, it was a pretty happy day.

  My dad took my deployment especially hard, outwardly showing his anxiousness a lot more than my mother. It’s funny—sometimes the strongest individuals feel the worst when events are out of their control, and they can’t really be there for the people they love. I’ve felt it myself.

  It was a pattern that would repeat itself every time I went overseas. My mom carried on like the stoic one; my otherwise stoic dad became the family worrier.

  SCHOOLED

  I GAVE UP PART OF MY VACATION AND CAME BACK FROM LEAVE a week early to go to sniper school. I would have given up much more than that for the chance.

  Marine snipers have justifiably gotten a lot of attention over the years, and their training program is still regarded as one of the world’s best. In fact, SEAL snipers used to be trained there. But we’ve gone ahead and started our own school, adapting a lot of what the Marines do but adding a number of things to prepare SEAL snipers for our mission. The SEAL school takes a little more than twice as long to complete because of that.

  Next to BUD/S, sniper training was the hardest school I ever went through. They were constantly messing with our heads. We had late nights and early mornings. We were always running or being stressed in some way.

  That was a key part of the instruction. Since they can’t shoot at you, they put as much pressure on you as they can manage in every other way. From what I’ve heard, only 50 percent of the SEALs who take the school make it through. I can believe it.

  The first classes teach SEALs how to use the computers and cameras that are part of our job. SEAL snipers aren’t just shooters. In fact, shooting is only a small part of the job. It’s an important, vital part, but it’s far from everything.

  A SEAL sniper is trained to observe. It’s a foundation skill. He may find himself out ahead of a main force, tasked to discover everything he can about the enemy. Even if he’s assigned to get into position to take out a high-value target, the first thing he has to be able to do is observe the area. He needs to be able to use modern navigational skills and tools like GPS, and at the same time present the information he’s gathered. So that’s where we start.

  The next part of the course, and in a lot of ways the hardest, is stalking. That’s the part where most guys fall out. Stalking means sneaking into a position without being seen: easier said than done. It’s moving slowly and carefully to the exact right spot for the mission. It’s not patience, or at least that’s not all it is. It’s professional discipline.

  I’m not a patient person, but I learned that to succeed as a stalker I need to take my time. If I know I’m going to kill someone, I will wait a day, a week, two weeks.

  Make that, I have waited.

  I will do whatever it takes. And let’s just say there are no bathroom breaks, either.

  For one of the exercises, we had to sneak through a hay field. I took hours arranging the grass and hay in my ghillie suit. The ghillie suit is made of burlap and is a kind of camouflage base for a sniper on a stalking mission. The suit allows you to add hay or grass or whatever, so you can blend in with your surroundings. The burlap adds depth, so it doesn’t look
like a guy with hay sticking out of your butt as you cross a field. You look like a bush.

  But the suits are hot and sweaty. And they don’t make you invisible. When you come to another piece of terrain, you have to stop and rearrange your camouflage. You have to look like whatever it is you’re crossing.

  I remember one time I was making my way s-l-o-w-l-y across a field when I heard the distinct rattle of a snake nearby. A rattler had taken a particular liking to the piece of real estate I had to cross. Willing it away didn’t work. Not wanting to give away my position to the instructor grading me, I crept slowly to the side, altering my course. Some enemies aren’t worth fighting.

  DURING THE STALKING PORTION OF OUR TRAINING, YOU’RE not graded on your first shot. You’re graded on your second. In other words, once you’ve fired, can you be seen?

  Hopefully, no. Because not only is there a good possibility you’ll have to take more shots, but you have to get out of there, too. And it would be nice to do that alive.

  It’s important to remember that perfect circles do not exist in nature, and that means you have to do what you can to camouflage your scope and rifle barrel. I would take tape and put it over my barrel, then spray-paint the tape up to camouflage it further. I’d keep some vegetation in front of my scope as well as my barrel—you don’t need to see everything, just your target.

  For me, stalking was the hardest part of the course. I nearly failed because of a lack of patience.

  It was only after we mastered stalking that we moved on to shooting.

  GUNS

  PEOPLE ASK A LOT ABOUT WEAPONS, WHAT I USED AS A SNIPER, what I learned on, what I prefer. In the field, I matched the weapon to the job and the situation. At sniper school, I learned the basics of a range of weapons, so I was prepared not only to use them all, but also to choose the right one for the job.

  I used four basic weapons at sniper school. Two were magazine-fed semiautomatics: the Mk-12, a 5.56 sniper rifle; and the Mk-11, a 7.62 sniper rifle. (When I talk about a gun, I often just mention the caliber, so the Mk-12 is the 5.56. Oh, and there’s no “point” in front of the numbers; it’s understood.)

  Then there was my .300 Win Mag. That was magazine-fed, but it was bolt-action. Like the other two, it was suppressed. Which means that it has a device on the end of the barrel that suppresses muzzle flash and reduces the sound of bullet as it leaves the gun, much like a muffler on a car. (It’s not actually a silencer, though some think of it that way. Without getting too technical, the suppressor works by letting gas out of the barrel as the bullet discharges. Generally speaking, there are two types, one that attaches to the barrel of the weapon and another that’s integrated with the barrel itself. Among the practical effects of the suppressor on a sniper rifle is that it tends to reduce the amount of “kick” the shooter experiences. This helps make it more accurate.)

  I also had a .50 caliber, which was not suppressed.

  Let’s talk about each weapon individually.

  MK-12

  Officially, the United States Navy Mk-12 Special Purpose Rifle, this gun has a sixteen-inch barrel, but is otherwise the same platform as an M-4. It fires a 5.56 × 45 mm round from a thirty-round magazine. (It can also be fitted with a twenty-round box.)

  Derived from what became known as the .223 cartridge and therefore smaller and lighter than most earlier military rounds, the 5.56 is not a preferred bullet to shoot someone with. It can take a few shots to put someone down, especially the drugged-up crazies we were dealing with in Iraq, unless you hit him in the head. And contrary to what you’re probably thinking, not all sniper shots, certainly not mine, take the bad guys in the head. Usually I went for center mass—a nice fat target somewhere in the middle of the body, giving me plenty of room to work with.

  The gun was super-easy to handle, and was virtually interchangeable with the M-4, which, though not a sniper weapon, is still a valuable combat tool. As a matter of fact, when I got back to my platoon, I took the lower receiver off my M-4 and put it on the upper receiver of my Mk-12. That gave me a collapsible stock and allowed me to go full-auto. (I see now that some Mk-12s are being equipped with the collapsible stock.)

  On patrol, I like to use a shorter stock. It’s quicker to get up to my shoulder and get a bead on somebody. It’s also better for working inside and in tight quarters.

  Another note on my personal configuration: I never used full auto on the rifle. The only time you really want full auto is to keep someone’s head down—spewing bullets doesn’t make for an accurate course of fire. But since there might be a circumstance where it would come in handy, I always wanted to have that option in case I needed it.

  MK-11

  Officially called the Mk-11 Mod X Special Purpose Rifle and also known as the SR25, this is an extremely versatile weapon. I particularly like the idea of the Mk-11 because I could patrol with it (in place of an M-4) and still use it as a sniper rifle. It didn’t have a collapsible stock, but that was its only drawback. I would tie the suppressor onto my kit, leaving it off during the start of a patrol. If I needed to take a sniper shot, I would put it on. But if I was on the street or moving on foot, I could shoot back right away. It was semiautomatic, so I could get a lot of bullets on a target, and it fired 7.62 × .51 mm bullets from a twenty-round box. Those had more stopping power than the smaller 5.56 NATO rounds. I could shoot a guy once and put him down.

  Our rounds were match-grade ammo bought from Black Hills, which makes probably the best sniper ammo around.

  The Mk-11 had a bad reputation in the field because it would often jam. We wouldn’t have jams that much in training, but overseas was a different story. We eventually figured out that something to do with the dust cover on the rifle was causing a double feed; we solved a lot of the problem by leaving the dustcover down. There were other issues with the weapon, however, and personally it was never one of my favorites.

  .300 WIN MAG

  The .300 is in another class entirely.

  As I’m sure many readers know, .300 Win Mag (pronounced “three hundred win mag”) refers to the bullet the rifle fires, the .300 Winchester Magnum round (7.62 × 67 mm). It’s an excellent all-around cartridge, whose performance allows for superb accuracy as well as stopping power.

  Other services fire the round from different (or slightly different) guns; arguably, the most famous is the Army’s M-24 Sniper Weapon System, which is based on the Remington 700 rifle. (Yes, that is the same rifle civilians can purchase for hunting.) In our case, we started out with MacMillan stocks, customized the barrels, and used 700 action. These were nice rifles.

  In my third platoon—the one that went to Ramadi—we got all new .300s. These used Accuracy International stocks, with a brand-new barrel and action. The AI version had a shorter barrel and a folding stock. They were bad-ass.

  The .300 is a little heavier gun by design. It shoots like a laser. Anything from a thousand yards and out, you’re just plain nailing it. And on closer targets, you don’t have to worry about too much correction for your come-ups. You can dial in your five-hundred-yard dope and still hit a target from one hundred to seven hundred yards without worrying too much about making minute adjustments.

  I used a .300 Win Mag for most of my kills.

  .50 CALIBER

  The fifty is huge, extremely heavy, and I just don’t like it. I never used one in Iraq.

  There’s a certain amount of hype and even romance for these weapons, which shoot a 12.7 × 99 mm round. There are a few different specific rifles and variations in service with the U.S. military and other armies around the world. You’ve probably heard of the Barrett M-82 or the M-107, developed by Barrett Firearms Manufacturing. They have enormous ranges and in the right application are certainly good weapons. I just didn’t like them all that much. (The one .50 I do like is the Accuracy International model, which has a more compact, collapsible stock and a little more accuracy; it wasn’t available to us at the time.)

  Everyone says that the .50 is a perfect anti-
vehicle gun. But the truth is that if you shoot the .50 through a vehicle’s engine block, you’re not actually going to stop the vehicle. Not right away. The fluids will leak out and eventually it will stop moving. But it’s not instant by any means. A .338 and even a .300 will do the same thing. No, the best way to stop a vehicle is to shoot the driver. And that you can do with a number of weapons.

  .338

  We didn’t have .338s in training; we started getting them later on during the war. Again, the name refers to the bullet; there are a number of different manufacturers, including MacMillan and Accuracy International. The bullet shoots farther and flatter than a .50 caliber, weighs less, costs less, and will do just as much damage. They are awesome weapons.

  I used a .338 on my last deployment. I would have used it more if I’d had it. The only drawback for me was my model’s lack of a suppressor. When you’re shooting inside a building, the concussion is strong enough that it’s a pain—literally. My ears would hurt after a few shots.

  SINCE I’M TALKING ABOUT GUNS, I’LL MENTION THAT MY CURRENT favorites are the weapons systems made by GA Precision, a very small company started in 1999 by George Gardner. He and his staff pay close attention to every detail, and his weapons are just awesome. I didn’t get a chance to try one until I got out of the service, but now they’re what I use.

  SCOPES ARE AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE WEAPON SYSTEM. Overseas, I used a 32-power scope. (The powers on a scope refer to the magnification of the focal length. Without getting too technical, the higher the power, the better a shooter can see at a distance. But there are tradeoffs, depending on the situation and the scope. Scopes should be chosen with a mind toward the situation they’ll be used in; to give an obvious example, a 32-power scope would be wildly inappropriate on a shotgun.) Additionally, depending on the circumstances, I had an infrared and visible red laser, as well as night vision for the scope.