American Sniper

by Chris Kyle

  TO THAT POINT, LOSING A FRIEND IN COMBAT SEEMED IF NOT impossible, at least distant and unlikely. It may seem strange to say, given everything I’d been through, but at that point we were feeling pretty sure of ourselves. Cocky, maybe. You just get to a point where you think you’re such a superior fighter that you can’t be hurt.

  Our platoon had come through the war without any serious injuries. In some respects, training seemed more dangerous.

  There had been accidents in training. Not long before, we were doing ship takedowns when one of our platoon members fell while going up the side. He landed on two other guys in the boat. All three had to go to the hospital; one of the men he landed on broke his neck.

  We don’t focus on the dangers. The families, though, are a different story. They’re always very aware of the dangers. The wives and girlfriends often take turns sitting in the hospital with the families of people who are injured. Inevitably, they realize they could be sitting there for their own husband or boyfriend.

  I REMAINED TORN UP ABOUT MARCUS FOR THE REST OF THE night, in my own private black hole. I stayed there for a few days.

  Work, of course, continued. One day, my chief popped his head into the room and signaled me to join him outside.

  “Hey, they found Marcus,” he said as soon as we were alone.

  “Great.”

  “He’s fucked up.”

  “So what? He’s going to make it.” Anyone who knew Marcus knew that was true. The man cannot be kept down.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” said my chief. “But he’s pretty tore up, beat up. It’ll be hard.”

  It was hard, but Marcus was up to it. In fact, despite health issues that continue to dog him, he would deploy again not long after leaving the hospital.

  EXPERT, SO-CALLED

  BECAUSE OF WHAT I’D DONE IN FALLUJAH, I WAS PULLED OUT a few times to talk to head shed types about how I thought snipers should be deployed. I was now a Subject Matter Expert—an SME in militarese.

  I hated it.

  Some people might find it flattering to be talking to a bunch of high-ranking officers, but I just wanted to do my job. It was torture sitting in the room, trying to explain what the war was like.

  They’d ask me questions like, “What kind of gear should we have?” Not unreasonable, I guess, but all I could think of was: God, you guys are really all pretty stupid. This is basic stuff you should have figured out long ago.

  I would tell them what I thought, how we should train up snipers, how we should use them. I suggested more training about urban overwatches and creating hides in buildings, things I’d learned more or less as I went. I gave them ideas about sending snipers into an area before the assault, so they could provide intel to the assault teams before they arrived. I made suggestions on how to make snipers more active and aggressive. I suggested that snipers take shots over the heads of an assault team during training, so the teams could get used to working with them.

  I told the brass about gear issues—the dust cover of the M-11, for example, and suppressors that jiggled at the end of the barrel, hurting the accuracy of the rifle.

  It was all extremely obvious to me, but not to them.

  Asked for my opinion, I’d give it. But most times they didn’t really want it. They wanted me to validate some decision they’d already made or some thought they’d already had. I’d tell them about a given piece of gear I thought we should have; they’d answer that they’d already bought a thousand of something else. I’d offer them a strategy I’d used successfully in Fallujah; they’d quote me chapter and verse on why it wouldn’t work.

  TAYA:

  We had a lot of confrontations while he was home. His enlistment was coming up, and I didn’t want him to re-up.

  I felt he had done his duty to the country, even more than anyone could ask. And I felt that we needed him.

  I’ve always believed that your responsibility is to God, family, and country—in that order. He disagreed—he put country ahead of family.

  And yet he wasn’t completely obstinate. He always said, “If you tell me not to reenlist, I won’t.”

  But I couldn’t do that. I told him, “I can’t tell you what to do. You’ll just hate me and resent me all your life.

  “But I will tell you this,” I said. “If you do reenlist, then I will know exactly where we stand. It will change things. I won’t want it to, but I know in my heart it will.”

  When he reenlisted anyway, I thought, Okay. Now I know. Being a SEAL is more important to him than being a father or a husband.

  NEW GUYS

  WHILE WE WERE TRAINING UP FOR OUR NEXT DEPLOYMENT, the platoon got a group of new guys. A few of them stood out—Dauber and Tommy, for example, who were both snipers and corpsmen. But I think the new guy who made the biggest impression was Ryan Job. And the reason was that he did not look like a SEAL; on the contrary, Ryan looked like a big lump.

  I was floored that they let this guy come to the Team. Here we all were, buff, in great shape. And here was a round, soft-looking guy.

  I went up to Ryan and got in his face. “What’s your problem, fat fuck? You think you’re a SEAL?”

  We all gave him shit. One of my officers—we’ll call him LT—knew him from BUD/S and stuck up for him, but LT was a new guy himself, so that didn’t carry too much weight. Being a new guy, we would have beat Ryan’s ass anyway, but his weight made things a lot worse for him. We actively tried to make him quit.

  But Ryan (whose last name was pronounced “jobe,” rhyming with “ear lobe”) wasn’t a quitter. You couldn’t compare his determination with anyone else’s. That kid started working out like a maniac. He lost weight and got into better shape.

  More importantly, anything we told him to do, he did. He was such a hard worker, so sincere, and so damn funny, that at some point we just went, I love you. You are the man. Because no matter how he looked, he truly was a SEAL. And a damn good one.

  We tested him, believe me. We’d find the biggest man in the platoon and make him carry him. He did it. We’d have him take the hardest jobs in training; he did them without complaint. And he’d crack us up in the process. He had these great facial expressions. He could point his upper lip, screw his eyes around and then twist in a certain way, and you’d lose it.

  Naturally, this ability led to a certain amount of fun. For us, at least.

  One time we told him to go do the face to our chief.

  “B-but . . .” he stammered.

  “Do it,” I told him. “Go get in his face. You’re the new guy. Do it.”

  He did. Thinking Ryan was trying to be a jerk, the chief grabbed him by the throat and tossed him to the ground.

  That only encouraged us. Ryan had to show the face a lot. Every time, he’d go and get his ass beat. Finally, we had him do it to one of our officers—a huge guy, definitely not someone to be messed with, even by another SEAL.

  “Go do it to him,” one of us said.

  “Oh God, no,” he protested.

  “If you don’t do it right now, we’re going to choke you out,” I warned.

  “Can you please just choke me out right now?”

  “Go do it,” we all said.

  He went and did it to the officer. He reacted about how you would expect. After a little while, Ryan tried to tap out.

  “There’s no tapping out,” he snarled, continuing his pounding.

  Ryan survived, but that was the last time we made him do the face.

  EVERYBODY GOT HAZED WHEN THEY JOINED THE PLATOON. We were equal-opportunity ballbusters—officers got it just as bad as enlisted men.

  At the time, new guys didn’t receive their Tridents—and thus weren’t really SEALs—until after they had passed a series of tests with the team. We had our own little ritual that involved a mock boxing match against their whole platoon. Each new guy had to get through three rounds—once you’re knocked down, that’s a round—before being formally pinned and welcomed to the brotherhood.

  I was Ryan’s safety
officer, making sure he didn’t get too busted up. He had a head guard and everyone wore boxing gloves, but the hazing can get kind of enthusiastic, and the safety officer is there to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.

  Ryan wasn’t satisfied with three rounds. He wanted more. I think he thought if he fought long enough, he’d beat them all.

  Not that he lasted too much longer. I had warned him that I was his safety and whatever he did, he was not to hit me. In the confusion of his head being bounced off the platoon’s gloves, he swung and hit me.

  I did what I had to do.

  MARC LEE

  WITH OUR DEPLOYMENT RAPIDLY APPROACHING, OUR PLATOON was beefed up. Command brought a young SEAL named Marc Lee over from another unit to help round us out. He immediately fit in.

  Marc was an athletic guy, in some ways exactly the sort of tough physical specimen you expect to be a SEAL. Before joining the Navy, he had played soccer well enough to be given a tryout with a professional team, and may very well have been a pro if a leg injury hadn’t cut short his career.

  But there was a lot more to Marc than just physical prowess. He’d studied for the ministry, and while he left because of what he saw as hypocrisy among the seminary students, he was still very religious. Later on during our deployment, he led a small group in prayer before every op. As you’d expect, he was very knowledgeable about the Bible and religion in general. He didn’t push it on you, but if you needed or wanted to talk about faith or God, he was always willing.

  Not that he was a saint, or even above the horseplay that is part of being a SEAL.

  Soon after he joined us, we went on a training mission in Nevada. At the end of the day, a group of us piled into a four-door truck and headed back to the base to get to bed. Marc was in the back with me and a SEAL we’ll call Bob. For some reason, Bob and I started talking about being choked out.

  With new-guy enthusiasm—and maybe naiveté—Marc said, “I’ve never been choked out.”

  “ ’Scuse me?” I said, leaning over to get a good look at this virgin. Being choked out is a mandatory SEAL occupation.

  Marc looked at me. I looked at him.

  “Bring it on,” he said.

  As Bob leaned over, I dove and choked Marc out. My work completed, I leaned back.

  “You mother,” said Bob, straightening. “I wanted to do it.”

  “I thought you were leaning over to let me get him,” I told him.

  “Hell no. I was just handing my watch up front so it wouldn’t get broken.”

  “Well, okay,” I said. “He’ll wake up, then you get him.”

  He did. I think half the platoon had a shot at him before the night was out. Marc took it well. Of course, as a new guy, he had no choice.

  COMMAND

  I LOVED OUR NEW CO. HE WAS OUTSTANDING, AGGRESSIVE, and stayed out of our hair. He not only knew each one of us by name and face, he knew our wives and girlfriends. He took it personally when he lost people, and yet was able to stay aggressive at the same time. He never held us back in training, and, in fact, approved extra training for snipers.

  My command master chief, whom I’ll call Primo, was another top-notch commander. He didn’t give a flying fuck about promotions, about looking good, or covering his butt: he was all about successful missions and getting the job done. And he was a Texan—as you can tell, I’m a little partial—which meant he was a bad-ass.

  His briefs always started the same way: “What are you sons of bitches doing?” he’d snarl. “Are you gonna get out there and kick some ass?”

  Primo was all about getting into battle. He knew what SEALs are supposed to do, and he wanted us to do it.

  He was also a good ol’ boy off the battlefield.

  You always have team guys getting in trouble during off-time and training. Bar fights are a big problem. I remember him pulling us aside when he came on.

  “Listen, I know you’re going to get into fights,” he told us. “So here’s what you do. You hit fast, you hit hard, and you run. If you don’t get caught, I don’t care. Because when you get caught is when I have to get involved.”

  I took that advice to heart, though it wasn’t always possible to follow.

  Maybe because he was from Texas, or maybe because he had the soul of a brawler himself, he took a liking to me and another Texan, whom we called Pepper. We became his golden boys; he’d cover our asses when we got in trouble. There were times when I may have told off an officer or two; Chief Primo took care of it. He might chew me out himself, but he always smoothed the way with head shed. On the other side of things, he knew he could count on Pepper and me to get a job done if it needed doing.

  TATS

  WHILE I WAS HOME, I HAD A PAIR OF NEW TATTOOS ADDED TO my arm. One was a Trident. Now that I felt like a real SEAL, I felt I had earned it. I had it put on the inside of my arm where not everyone would see, but I knew it was there. I didn’t want it to be out there bragging.

  On the front of my arm, I had a crusader cross inked in. I wanted everyone to know I was a Christian. I had it put in in red, for blood. I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting. I always will. They’ve taken so much from me.

  EVEN THE TATTOOS BECAME A CAUSE FOR STRESS BETWEEN MY wife and myself. She didn’t like tattoos in general, and the way I got these—staying out late one evening when she was expecting me home, surprising her with them—added to our friction.

  Taya saw it as one more sign that I was changing, becoming somebody she didn’t know.

  I didn’t think of it that way at all, though I admit I knew she wouldn’t like it. But it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

  Actually, I had wanted full sleeves, so, in my mind, it was a compromise.

  GETTING READY TO GO

  WHILE I WAS HOME, TAYA BECAME PREGNANT WITH OUR SECOND child. Again, that was a lot of strain for my wife.

  My father told Taya that he was sure once I saw my son and spent time with him, I wouldn’t want to reenlist or go back to war.

  But while we talked a lot about it, in the end I didn’t feel there was much of a question about what to do. I was a SEAL. I was trained for war. I was made for it. My country was at war and it needed me.

  And I missed it. I missed the excitement and the thrill. I loved killing bad guys.

  “If you die, it will wreck all our lives,” Taya told me. “It pisses me off that you would not only willingly risk your life, but risk ours, too.”

  For the moment, we agreed to disagree.

  AS IT CAME UP TO THE TIME TO DEPLOY, OUR RELATIONSHIP became more distant. Taya would push me away emotionally, as if she were putting on armor for the coming months. I may have done the same thing.

  “It’s not intentional,” she told me, in one of the rare moments when we both could realize what was happening and actually talk about it.

  We still loved each other. It may sound strange—we were close and not close, needing each other and yet needing distance between us. Needing to do other things. At least in my case.

  I was anticipating leaving. I was excited about doing my job again.

  GIVING BIRTH

  A FEW DAYS BEFORE WE WERE SCHEDULED TO DEPLOY, I WENT to the doctor to see about getting a cyst in my neck removed. Inside his examining room, he numbed the area around it with a local anesthesia, then they stuck a needle in my neck to suction the material out.

  I think. I don’t actually know, because as soon as the needle went in, I passed out with a seizure. When I came to, I was out flat on the examining table, my feet where my head should have been.

  I had no other ill effects, not from the seizure or the procedure. No one really could figure out why I’d reacted the way I did. As far as anyone could tell, I was fine.

  But there was a problem—a seizure is grounds for being medically discharged from the Navy. Luckily, there was a corpsman whom I’d served with in the room. He persuaded the doctor not to include the seizure in his report, or to write what happened in a way that wouldn’t affect my
deployment or my career. (I’m not sure which.) I never heard anything about it again.

  BUT WHAT THE SEIZURE did DO WAS KEEP ME FROM GETTING to Taya. While I’d been passing out, she had been having a routine pregnancy checkup. It was about three weeks before our daughter was due and days before I was supposed to deploy. The checkup included an ultrasound, and when the technician looked away from the screen, my wife realized something was wrong.

  “I have a feeling you’re having this baby right away,” was the most the technician would say before getting up and fetching the doctor.

  The baby had her umbilical cord around her neck. She was also breached and the amount of amniotic fluid—liquid that nourishes and protects the developing infant—was low.

  “We’ll do a C-section,” said the doc. “Don’t worry. We’ll get this baby out tomorrow. You’ll be fine.”

  Taya had called me several times. By the time I came to, she was already at the hospital.

  We spent a nervous night together. The next morning, the doctors performed a C-section. As they were working, they hit some kind of artery and splashed blood all over the place. I was deathly afraid for my wife. I felt real fear. Worse.

  MAYBE IT WAS A TOUCH OF WHAT SHE’D GONE THROUGH EVERY moment of my deployment. It was a terrible hopelessness and despair.

  A hard thing to admit, let alone stomach.

  OUR DAUGHTER WAS FINE. I TOOK HER AND HELD HER. I’D been as distant toward her as I had been toward our son before he was born; now, holding her, I started to feel real warmth and love.

  Taya looked at me strangely when I tried to hand her the baby.

  “Don’t you want to hold her?” I asked.