American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History
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I’ve gotten together with some people I know around Texas who have ranches and asked if they could donate their places for a few days at a time. They’ve been more than generous. We’ve had small groups of servicemen disabled in the war come in and spend time there hunting, shooting guns on a range, or just hanging out. The idea is to have a good time.
I should mention that my friend Kyle—the same guy who was a driving force behind getting Craft afloat—is also extremely patriotic and supportive of the troops. He graciously allows us to use his beautiful Barefoot Ranch for many of our retreats for the wounded troops. Rick Kell and David Feherty’s organization, Troops First, also works with Craft to help as many wounded guys as we can.
Hell, I’ve had a bunch of fun myself. We go hunting a couple of times a day, shoot a few rounds on the range, then at night trade stories and beers.
It’s not so much the war stories as the funny stories that you remember. Those are the ones that affect you. They underline the resilience of these guys—they were warriors in the war, and they take that same warrior attitude into dealing with their disabilities.
As you’d expect if I’m involved, there’s a lot of bustin’ going on back and forth, giving each other hell. I don’t always get the last laugh, but I do take my shots. The first time I had some of them out to one of the ranches, I took them out on the back porch before we started shooting and gave them a little orientation.
“All right,” I told them, picking up my rifle, “since none of you are SEALs, I better give you some background. This here is a trigger.”
“Screw you, Squid!” they shouted, and we had a good time from there on out, pushing each other and making fun.
What wounded veterans don’t need is sympathy. They need to be treated like the men they are: equals, heroes, and people who still have tremendous value for society.
If you want to help them, start there.
In a funny way, bustin’ back and forth shows more respect than asking “Are you okay?” in a sickly sweet voice.
We’ve only just begun, but we’ve had good enough success that the hospitals are very cooperative. We’ve been able to expand the program to include couples. We’re aiming to do maybe two retreats a month going forward.
Our work has gotten me thinking bigger and bigger. I wouldn’t mind doing a reality hunting show with these guys—I think it could inspire a lot of other Americans to really give back to their veterans and their present military families.
Helping each other out—that’s America.
I think America does a lot to support people. That’s great for those truly in need. But I also think we create dependency by giving money to those who don’t want to work, both in other countries and our own. Help people help themselves—that’s the way it should be.
I’d like us to remember the suffering of those Americans who were injured serving this country before we dole out millions to slackers and moochers. Look at the homeless: a lot are vets. I think we owe them more than just our gratitude. They were willing to sign a blank check for America, with the cost right up to their life. If they were willing to do that, why shouldn’t we be taking care of them?
I’m not suggesting we give vets handouts; what people need are hand-ups—a little opportunity and strategic help.
One of the wounded vets I met at the ranch retreats has an idea to help homeless vets by helping build or renovate housing. I think it’s a great idea. Maybe this house won’t be where they live forever, but it’ll get them going.
Jobs, training—there’s an enormous amount that we can do.
I know some people will say that you’ll have a bunch just taking advantage. But you deal with that. You don’t let it ruin things for everyone.
There’s no reason someone who has fought for their country should be homeless or jobless.
WHO I AM
It’s taken a while, but I have gotten to a point where being a SEAL no longer defines me. I need to be a husband and a father. Those things, now, are my first calling.
Being a SEAL has been a huge part of me. I still feel the pull. I certainly would have preferred having the best of both worlds—the job and the family. But at least in my case, the job wouldn’t allow it.
I’m not sure I would have either. In a sense, I had to step away from the job to become the fuller man my family needed me to be.
I don’t know where or when the change came. It didn’t happen until I got out. I had to get through that resentment at first. I had to move through the good things and the bad things to reach a point where I could really move ahead.
Now I want to be a good dad and a good husband. Now I’ve rediscovered a real love for my wife. I genuinely miss her when I’m on a business trip. I want to be able to hug her and sleep next to her.
Taya:
What I loved about Chris in the beginning was the way he unabashedly wore his heart on his sleeve. He didn’t play games with my heart or my head. He was a straight shooter who seemed to back up his feelings in actions: spending an hour and a half to drive up to see me, then leaving in time for work at five a.m.; communicating; putting up with my moods.
His sense of fun balanced out my serious side and brought out the youthful side of me. He was up for anything and completely supportive of anything I wanted or dreamed of. He got along famously with my family and I did with his.
When our marriage reached a crisis, I said I wouldn’t love him the same if he reenlisted again. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, but I felt that his decision would confirm what I thought was becoming increasingly evident. In the beginning, I believed he loved me more than anything. Slowly the Teams started to become his first love. He continued to say the words and tell me what he felt I needed to hear and what he had always said in the past to express his love. The difference is, the words and actions were no longer meshing. He still loved me but it was different. He was consumed by the Teams.
When he was away, he would tell me things like “I would do anything to be home with you,” and “I miss you,” and “You are the most important thing in the world to me.” I knew if he joined up again that all of what he had been telling me over the past years were mostly words or feelings in theory, rather than feelings expressed in actions.
How could I love with the same reckless abandon if I knew I was not what he said I was? I was second fiddle at best.
He would die for strangers and country. My challenges and pain seemed to be mine alone. He wanted to live his life and have a happy wife to come home to.
At the time, it meant everything I loved in the beginning was changing and I would have to love him differently. I thought it might be less, but it turns out it was just different.
Just like in any relationship, things changed. We changed. We both made mistakes and we both learned a lot. We may love each other differently, but maybe that is a good thing. Maybe it is more forgiving and more mature, or maybe it is just different.
It is still really good. We still have each other’s backs and we’ve learned that even through the tough times, we don’t want to lose each other or the family we’ve built.
The more time that goes by the more we are each able to show each other love in ways the other one understands and feels.
I feel like my love for my wife has gotten deeper over the past few years. Taya bought me a new wedding ring made of tungsten steel—I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the hardest metal she could find.
It has crusader crosses on it, too. She jokes that it’s because marriage is like a crusade.
Maybe for us it has been.
Taya:
I feel something coming from him that I hadn’t felt before.
He’s definitely not the person he was before the war, but there are a lot of the same qualities. His sense of humor, his kindness, his warmth, his courage, and a sense of responsibility. His quiet confidence inspires me.
Like any couple, we still have our day-to-day life things we have to work through, but most i
mportantly, I feel loved. And I feel the kids and I are important.
WAR
I’m not the same guy I was when I first went to war.
No one is. Before you’re in combat, you have this innocence about you. Then, all of a sudden, you see this whole other side of life.
I don’t regret any of it. I’d do it again. At the same time, war definitely changes you.
You embrace death.
As a SEAL, you go to the Dark Side. You’re immersed in it. Continually going to war, you gravitate to the blackest parts of existence. Your psyche builds up its defenses—that’s why you laugh at gruesome things like heads being blown apart, and worse.
Growing up, I wanted to be military. But I wondered, how would I feel about killing someone?
Now I know. It’s no big deal.
I did it a lot more than I’d ever thought I would—or, for that matter, more than any American sniper before me. But I also witnessed the evil my targets committed and wanted to commit, and by killing them, I protected the lives of many fellow soldiers.
I don’t spend a lot of time philosophizing about killing people. I have a clear conscience about my role in the war.
I am a strong Christian. Not a perfect one—not close. But I strongly believe in God, Jesus, and the Bible. When I die, God is going to hold me accountable for everything I’ve done on earth.
He may hold me back until last and run everybody else through the line, because it will take so long to go over all my sins.
“Mr. Kyle, let’s go into the backroom. . . .”
Honestly, I don’t know what will really happen on Judgment Day. But what I lean toward is that you know all of your sins, and God knows them all, and shame comes over you at the reality that He knows. I believe the fact that I’ve accepted Jesus as my savior will be my salvation.
But in that backroom or whatever it is when God confronts me with my sins, I do not believe any of the kills I had during the war will be among them. Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die.
My regrets are about the people I couldn’t save—Marines, soldiers, my buddies.
I still feel their loss. I still ache for my failure to protect them.
I’m not naive and I’m beyond romanticizing war and what I had to do there. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. Losing my buddies. Having a kid die on me.
I’m sure some of the things I went through pale in comparison to what some of the guys went through in World War II and other conflicts. On top of all the shit they went through in Vietnam, they had to come home to a country that spat on them.
When people ask me how the war changed me, I tell them that the biggest thing has to do with my perspective.
You know all the everyday things that stress you here?
I don’t give a shit about them. There are bigger and worse things that could happen than to have this tiny little problem wreck your life, or even your day. I’ve seen them.
More: I’ve lived them.
Acknowledgments
This book would never have been possible without my brother SEALs, who supported me in battle and throughout my career in the Navy. And I wouldn’t be here without the SEALs, sailors, Marines, airmen, and soldiers who had my back during the war.
I’d also like to thank my wife, Taya, for helping me write this book and making her own contributions. My brother and my parents supplied their memories as well as their support. Several of my friends also kindly provided information that was invaluable. Among those who were especially helpful were one of my lieutenants and a fellow sniper who appear as LT and Dauber in this book, respectively. Marc Lee’s mom also helped with some key insights.
Special thanks and appreciation go to Jim DeFelice for his patience, wit, understanding, and writing ability. Without his help, this book would not be what it is today. I also want to express my sincere appreciation to Jim’s wife and son for opening their home to Taya and me as this book developed.
We worked on this book in a variety of places. None matched the comfort of Marc Myers’s ranch, which he very generously allowed us to use while we worked.
Scott McEwen recognized the value of my story before I did, and played a critical role in bringing it to print.
I’d like to thank my editor, Peter Hubbard, who contacted me directly about writing this book and connected us with Jim DeFelice. Thanks also to the entire staff at William Morrow/HarperCollins.
About the Authors
SEAL TEAM 3 CHIEF CHRIS KYLE served four combat tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom and elsewhere. For his bravery in battle, he was awarded two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and one Navy and Marine Corps Commendation. Additionally, he received the Grateful Nation Award, given by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Following his combat deployments, he became chief instructor for training Naval Special Warfare Sniper and Counter-Sniper teams, and he authored the Naval Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine, the first Navy SEAL sniper manual. Today, he is president of Craft International (www.craftintl.com), a world-class leader in training and security. He lives with his family in Texas, where he devotes much of his spare time to helping disabled veterans.
SCOTT MCEWEN is a trial lawyer in San Diego, California. An Eagle Scout, he grew up hunting with long-range rifles in Oregon.
JIM DEFELICE is the author of Omar Bradley: General at War, the first in-depth critical biography of America’s last five-star general. He also writes a number of acclaimed military thrillers, including the Rogue Warrior series from Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team 6, and the novels in the Dreamland series with Dale Brown.
www.AmericanSniperBook.com
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Credits
Cover design by James Iacobelli
Front cover background photograph © by Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel Images
Front cover gun photograph courtesy of the author
Map of Iraq courtesy of the UN Cartographic Section
Copyright
AMERICAN SNIPER. Copyright © 2012 by Chris Kyle and Scott McEwen. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 9780062082350
EPub Edition January 2011 ISBN: 9780062082374
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hy of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History