American Sniper

by Chris Kyle

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. People ask me all the time, “How many people have you killed?” My standard response is, “Does the answer make me less, or more, of a man?” 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.

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 don’t care how much money you get,” my dad used to tell me. “It’s not worth it if you’re not happy.”

You hear guys talking about getting kicked out of BUD/S because they got into a fight with the instructor and beat the crap out of him. They’re lying sacks of shit. No one fights with the instructors. You just don’t. Believe me, if you did, they’d come together and whip your ass so fast you wouldn’t ever walk again.

When you go into a bar, you’ll always have someone who will poke a shoulder into you or otherwise imply you should fuck off. Happens in every bar across the world. Most people just ignore things like that. If someone does that to a SEAL, we’re going to turn and knock you out.

Shooting the big machine gun was fun!

AS JANUARY NEARED ITS END, WE STARTED GETTING WORRIED, not that the war was going to break out, but that it would start without us. The usual SEAL deployment at the time was six months. We’d shipped out in September, and were due to rotate back to the States within a few weeks. I wanted to fight. I wanted to do what I’d been trained for. American taxpayers had invested considerable dollars in my education as a SEAL. I wanted to defend my country, do my duty, and do my job. I wanted, more than anything, to experience the thrill of battle.

In the military, “Special Forces” refers to Army special-operations troops, but the newscasters had a tendency to use the term for SEALs. Immediately, I jumped to conclusions. I didn’t hear from him that day, even though he had promised he’d call.

The phone rang. I jumped to answer it. “Hey, babe!” he said, as cheerful as ever. I started bawling. Chris kept asking what was wrong. I couldn’t even choke out the words to explain. My fear and relief came out as unintelligible sobs. After that, I vowed to stop watching the news.

The Iraqis weren’t sending boats our way, and the Iranians would only fire a single shot then duck and wait for us to react. About the most entertaining thing we could do was wade into the water and piss in their direction.

In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Every one of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.

I’ve lived the literal meaning of the “land of the free” and “home of the brave.” It’s not corny for me. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my chest. Even at a ball game, when someone talks during the anthem or doesn’t take off his hat, it pisses me off. I’m not one to be quiet about it, either.

We might have saved some of their lives.

They wanted to kill us, even though we’d just booted out their dictator, because we practiced a different religion than they did. Isn’t religion supposed to teach tolerance?

AT ANOTHER LOCATION, WE FOUND BARRELS OF CHEMICAL material that was intended for use as biochemical weapons. Everyone talks about there being no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they seem to be referring to completed nuclear bombs, not the many deadly chemical weapons or precursors that Saddam had stockpiled.

The first time Chris came home, he was really disgusted with everything. With America, especially. In the car on the way back to our house, we listened to the radio. People weren’t talking about the war; life went on as if nothing was happening in Iraq. “People are talking about bullshit,” he said. “We’re fighting for the country, and no one gives a shit.”

They had signs about baby killers and murderers and whatever, protesting the troops who were going over to fight. They were protesting the wrong people. We didn’t vote in Congress; we didn’t vote to go to war. I signed up to protect this country. I do not choose the wars.

Decades of Saddam’s rule made what could have been a fairly rich country, due to its oil reserves, into a very poor one.

“Just tell him to get some payback,” they said.

Man, this is going to be good, I thought. We are going to kill massive amounts of bad guys. And I’m going to be in the middle of it.

Political considerations, mostly driven by wildly distorted media reports and a lot of Arab propaganda, caused the Marines to back off their offensive soon after it was begun, and well before it achieved its aim of kicking the insurgents out of the city. In place of the Marines, Iraqis loyal to the interim government were supposed to take control and run the city. That didn’t work. Pretty much the moment the Marines pulled back, the insurgents completely took over Fallujah. Civilians who were not connected with the insurgency were killed, or fled the city. Anyone who wanted peace—anyone with any sense—left as soon as they could, or ended up dead.

Saddam considered them to be an inferior people; during one political suppression, he ordered chemical weapons used and waged a despicable ethnic-cleansing campaign.)

THE ENEMIES WE WERE FIGHTING WERE SAVAGE AND WELL-ARMED. In just one house, the Marines found roughly two dozen guns, including machine guns and sniper rifles, along with homemade rocket stands and a mortar base. That was just one house on a long block. It was a nice house, in fact—it had air conditioning, elaborate chandeliers, and fancy Western furniture. It made a good place to rest while we took a break one afternoon.

A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THE BATTLES IN Fallujah mention how fanatical the insurgents were. They were fanatical, but it wasn’t just religion that was driving them. A good many were pretty doped up. Later on in the campaign, we took a hospital they’d been using at the outskirts of the city. There we found cooked spoons, drug works, and other evidence of how they prepared themselves. I’m not an expert, but it looked to me that they would cook up heroin and inject it before a battle.

It felt like an old western duel—whoever got to their pistol the quickest was going to live. I grabbed mine and started shooting. My buddy did the same. We hit them, but the slugs didn’t drop them. They turned the corner and ran through the house where they’d been, then cut out into the street. As soon as they cleared the house, the Marines pulling security on the road shot them down.

I didn’t go to a doctor. You go to a doctor and you get pulled out. I knew I could get by.

YOU CANNOT BE AFRAID TO TAKE YOUR SHOT. WHEN YOU SEE someone with an IED or a rifle maneuvering toward your men, you have clear reason to fire. (The fact that an Iraqi had a gun would not necessarily mean he could be shot.)

Make an unjustified shot and you could be charged with murder. I often would sit there and think, “I know this motherfucker is bad; I saw him doing such and such down the street the other day, but here he’s not doing anything, and if I shoot him, I won’t be able to justify it for the lawyers. I’ll fry.” Like I said, there is paperwork for everything. Every confirmed kill had documentation, supporting evidence, and a witness. So I wouldn’t shoot. There weren’t a lot of those, especially in Fallujah, but I was always extremely aware of the fact that every killing might have to be justified to the lawyers. My attitude was: if my justification is I thought my target would do something bad, then I wasn’t justified. He had to be doing something bad.

Medals never tell the whole story.

MY UNIFORM WAS COVERED WITH SO MUCH BLOOD FROM THE assault that the Marines got one of their own for me. From that point on, I looked like a Marine in digi cami. It was a little weird to be wearing someone else’s uniform. But it was also an honor to be considered a member of the team to the point where they’d outfit me.

As far as I can see it, anyone who has a problem with what guys do over there is incapable of empathy. People want America to have a certain image when we fight. Yet I would guess if someone were shooting at them and they had to hold their family members while they bled out against an enemy who hid behind their children, played dead only to throw a grenade as they got closer, and who had no qualms about sending their toddler to die from a grenade from which they personally pulled the pin—they would be less concerned with playing nicely.

I love the Marines, but the truth is these guys had never been taught to do room clearances like I had. It’s not a Marine specialty.

“Look, I’m a SEAL, you’re Marines,” I told the boys. “I’m no better than you are. The only difference between you and me is I’ve spent more time specializing and training in this than you did. Let me help you.”

But that’s the thing with Marines—you beat them down and they come back for more.

He lit a few, and a cherry scent mingled with the heavy stench that always hung over Iraq, a smell of sewage and sweat and death.

I have no idea how big the bomb he dropped was, but the explosion rattled the walls. My buddy later reported it had taken out over thirty insurgents—as much an indication of how many people were trying to kill us as how important the air support was. I have to say that all of the pilots we had overhead were pretty accurate. In a lot of situations, we were asking for bombs and missiles to hit within a few hundred yards. That’s pretty damn close when you’re talking about a thousand or more pounds of destruction. But we didn’t have any incidents, and I was also pretty confident that they could handle the job.

No one did. When we made it to the top, we saw why. The sniper, alone in the building, had been decapitated by the bomb as it flew through the window. But that wasn’t all the bomb did. By chance, the alley where it landed had been filled with insurgents; we found their bodies and weapons a short time later. I think it was the best sniper shot I ever saw.

I couldn’t let down these young Marines I was with.

I took the shot. The moon, Earth, and stars aligned. God blew on the bullet, and I gut-shot the jackass. His two buddies hauled ass out of there. “Get ’em, get ’em!” yelled the Marines. “Shoot ’em.”

American soldiers dubbed it Purple Heart Boulevard.

But I didn’t risk my life to bring democracy to Iraq. I risked my life for my buddies, to protect my friends and fellow countrymen. I went to war for my country, not Iraq. My country sent me out there so that bullshit wouldn’t make its way back to our shores.

Knowing that the Americans would bring a suspect in, people were using tips to settle grievances or feuds. They’d talk to the Army or some other authority, making claims about a person helping the insurgency or committing some other crime. It sucked for the person we arrested, but I didn’t get all that worked up about it. It was just one more example of how screwed up the country was.

“Yes, yes,” said the woman, who, of course, had no idea where the shot had come from, since she hadn’t been anywhere nearby. “I know he’s Army, because he’s wearing an Army uniform.” Now, I was two rooms deep, with a screen in front of me, wearing a gray jacket over my SEAL camis. Maybe she hallucinated in her grief, or maybe she just said whatever she thought would give me grief.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

We wanted people to know, We’re here and we want to fuck with you. It was our version of psyops. You see us? We’re the people kicking your ass. Fear us. Because we will kill you, motherfucker. You are bad. We are badder. We are bad-ass.