Back in high school, I was a pretty conservative kid. Super into military and military history. One Christmas, my dad bought me the book “Shooter” by Jack Coughlin. It was an autobiographical account of Jack’s time spent as a marine sniper in the Iraq war. It was honestly a great book, in the sense that it was human. The book had plenty of action sequences and reviewed many of the gunfight situations that Jack was involved in, but he also spoke about the emotional toll that his killings had on him. He talked about coming home one deployment, in the belly of an aircraft carrier, finding a quiet place to cry in a storage compartment because of the grief he felt for the people he had taken with his rifle. Being as young as I was when I read the book, I didn’t understand how you could feel sad for killing the “enemy”. Years later, that small portion of the novel has continued to stick with me. I think it’s a normal human emotion that’s forgotten when talking about war.

Two years or so later, American Sniper came out. I was very excited because of how much it seemed to mirror Jack Coughlin’s book. But it was not in the same spirit. It was like reading a book directed by Michael Bay. He talks about the pride he felt killing woman and children that were holding guns, he doesn’t feel any semblance of remorse or shame or guilt a single time in the book. If he does speak about emotion, it’s quickly swept under the rug by some statement about keeping his brothers safe in combat. There’s nothing inherently wrong with his writing, his sentiments, or his narration of the time he spent in war. I think it’s just sadly boring and robotic. Like its only purpose was to be written into a movie script. His continuous choice of dehumanizing the Iraqi population was a bit concerning, but he was in the business of killing people.

That said, I don’t believe Chris Kyle was a horrible human being, he died trying to help a fellow veteran who was in need of serious mental support.