Tag: American Sniper

‘American Sniper’: Clint Eastwood does Chris Kyle’s memory proud

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015by Douglas Ernst35 Comments

“American Sniper” Director Clint Eastwood was given a difficult task: he had to somehow squeeze Chris Kyle’s incredible life story into 132 minutes. What could have turned into an incredibly bloated mess had he tried to do too much was successfully streamlined in a way that stayed true to the autobiography while also teasing out the most important themes. Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller both give strong performances, and audiences across the U.S. have rewarded them for all the hard work: “American Sniper” made $105 million in its first four days of wide-release.

Clint Eastwood seemed to have two goals with “American Sniper”:

Show the audience what makes guys like Chris Kyle tick.
Demonstrate the destructive power of combat on the war fighter’s psyche, as well as the family unit.

A glimpse of what Mr. Eastwood was able to transfer from the page to the screen comes towards the end of Chris Kyle’s autobiography, where he writes:

“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 those 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 timely little problem wreck your life, or even your day. I’ve seen them. More: I’ve lived them,” (Chris Kyle, American Sniper. Harper Collins, 2012. Page 379.)

As I mentioned in my review of the book when it came out in 2012, Chris Kyle said that a guardian angel must have been looking over him on the battlefield on multiple occasions, yet he never really stopped to dwell on just how much of a guardian angel he was to his brothers-in-arms. The pressure he put upon himself to save everyone under his watch — an impossible task —would break any man. Yes, even Navy SEALs have a breaking point.

Families have breaking points, too. Again, Eastwood brings it home in a scene that takes place just before Chris Kyle’s fourth tour in Iraq:

Taya: Do you want to die? Is that what it is?

Chris: No.

Taya: Then just tell me. Tell me why you do it. I want to understand.

Chris: Baby, I do it for you. You know that I do it to protect you.

Taya: No you don’t.

Chris: Yes, I do.

Taya: I’m here. Your family is here. Your children have no father. […] You don’t know when to quit. You did your part. You sacrificed enough. You let somebody else go!

Chris: Let somebody else go?

Taya: Yeah.

Chris: Well, I couldn’t live with myself.

Taya: Well, you find a way. You have to. Okay? I need you — to be human again. I need you here. I need … you here. If you leave again, I don’t think we’ll be here when you get back.

Even to those who are closest to these very special men, it often seems like they have a death wish. But that is not the case. Even those who are supposed to understand what motivates a war fighter, can not. The question becomes: How do you dedicate your life to a man who has dedicated his own to ideas that are bigger than all of us?

At one point during “American Sniper,” Chris laments how obsessed civilians are with their cell phones, trips to the mall, and a variety of other seemingly-trivial things when he should be “over there.” But that’s the conundrum: Just as the principles a SEAL is willing to fight and die for make life worth living, it is also those little moments — a conversation on a lazy Sunday afternoon with your wife, or a quiet night alone with that very same woman — that make it special.

“American Sniper” is about one man’s attempt to successfully balance the desire to selflessly serve one’s country while also living up to the commitment to love and cherish his spouse with all his might.

Clint Eastwood may be an old man, but his latest movie shows that he can still direct better than most people who are half his age. If you get a chance, then you should check out “American Sniper” while it’s in theaters. It is one of the rare war movies within the past decade that is actually worth the price of admission.

Related: ‘American Sniper’ success prompts Michael Moore to take pot shots at deceased hero Chris Kyle

‘American Sniper’ success prompts Michael Moore to take pot shots at deceased hero Chris Kyle

January 19, 2015January 20, 2015by Douglas Ernst22 Comments

“American Sniper” is a box office hit. In four days of wide-release, it has pulled in $105 million. Audiences across the country have been moved by the Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Director Clint Eastwood did a marvelous job showing the kind of selfless service displayed by American war fighters while also not shying away from the psychological toll that combat takes on them and their loved ones. It’s a stellar film about an American hero, which is why Michael Moore and Seth Rogen responded just as the world expects Hollywood liberals to act: like pathetic men who deep down resent the fact that for all their fame and fortune they are still glorified clowns.

Chris Kyle was a real hero, and instead of just dealing with their envy and jealousy in the privacy of their own home, Michael Moore and Seth Rogen lashed out on Twitter so the world could see how truly petty they are.

Using Michael Moore’s logic, anyone who uses cover and concealment during the course of battle is a “coward.” Perhaps we should do away with camouflage and just wear bright red jackets with white pants in the middle of open fields, but I digress.
Once negative feedback came rolling in, Michael Moore decided to just make it abundantly clear that whenever he talks about cowards, he is really just projecting his own inner demons.

Translation: “What are you so upset about? I wasn’t disparaging Chris Kyle with my sniper comments, even though I made them on the very day millions of Americans were talking about him. Where would you get that idea?”

And then there is Seth Rogen, whose main achievement in life is that he made a dumb movie about North Korea (we all know why he didn’t target Iranian mullahs), which forced millions of Americans to confirm: yes, we will defend Hollywood actors’ right to the freedom of expression, even if they are classless imbeciles.

Seth Rogen’s tweet proves that he did not see “American Sniper,” or that he is a hate-filled buffoon (perhaps both?). The movie wasn’t a celebration of war or a piece of propaganda similar to faux-Nazi films created by Quentin Tarantino; if anything it was a clarion call to policy makers to think long and hard before sending men like Chris Kyle into war zones. Only a miserable person as defined by John Stuart Mill could watch Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper” and think “coward.”

“The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” — John Stuart Mill.

C.S. Lewis, who fought and almost died during World War I, puts it another way in his famous essay, “Why I am not a pacifist”:

“For let us make no mistake. All that we fear from all the kinds of adversity, severally, is collected together in the life of a soldier on active service. Like sickness, it threatens pain and death. Like poverty, it threatens ill lodging, cold, heat, thirst, and hunger. Like slavery, it threatens toil, humiliation, injustice, and arbitrary rule. Like exile, it separates you from all you love. Like the gallies, it imprisons you at close quarters with uncongenial companions. It threatens every temporal evil — every evil except dishonor and final perdition, and those who bear it like it no better than you would like it. On the other side, though it may not be your fault, it is certainly a fact that Pacifism threatens you with almost nothing. Some public opprobrium, yes, from people whose opinion you discount and whose society you do not frequent, soon recompensed by the warm mutual approval which exists, inevitably, in any minority group. For the rest it offers you a continuance of the life you know and love, among the people and in the surroundings you know and love.” — C.S. Lewis

Michael Moore and Seth Rogen are very much like the “miserable creatures” referenced in Mill’s “On Liberty.” On many levels they are not worth writing about; they run in social circles with like-minded fools who would never point out that maybe — just maybe — the dough-like man-boys disparaging Navy SEALs might have a few insecurities hiding in those rolls of skin. However, because of their Hollywood connections, men like Michael Moore and Seth Rogen do affect American culture. The bully pulpit they have access to almost demands that those who can push back against their attempts at character assassination, should.

Congratulations, Michael Moore and Seth Rogen: you’re the type of guys who take shots at deceased Navy SEALs and the creative works that respectfully honor their sacrifice. Try doing that outside Hollywood circles and see how much it endears you to the crowd.

Update: Seth Rogen is now backtracking with the incredibly lame “Apples remind me of oranges,” excuse. Next he’ll say that every once-in-awhile he sits down, bites into a banana, and thinks, “Zucchini.”

Eastwood’s ‘American Sniper’ trailer is out, and it looks like a movie Chris Kyle fans will appreciate

October 2, 2014October 3, 2014by Douglas Ernst14 Comments

When it was first announced that Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s life would be made into a movie by Steven Spielberg, my first thought was, “Ummm, how is that going to work? Did Spielberg even read the book? Knowing his politics, I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be a horrible movie.”

Interestingly enough, Mr. Spielberg dropped the project and Clint Eastwood was there to pick it up. “That makes much more sense,” I thought. Now that the trailer is out, it appears as though the world will get the Chris Kyle story it deserves.

“They fry you if you’re wrong.”

How do you win a war when the men responsible for securing victory are paranoid that any mistake they make will land them in prison for the rest of their lives? The answer: You probably don’t win. You lose. Or you wind up pulling out of that country for political reasons and then having to go back in when things spiral out of control…

Chris Kyle wrote in American Sniper:

“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.) The ROEs were specific, and in most cases the danger was obvious.

But there were times when it wasn’t exactly clear, when a person almost surely was an insurgent, probably was doing evil, but there was still some doubt because of the circumstances or the surroundings —the way he moved, for example, wasn’t toward an area where troops were. A lot of times a guy seemed to be acting macho for friends, completely unaware that I was watching him, or that there were American troops nearby.

Those shots I didn’t take.

You couldn’t — you had to worry about your own ass. 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.” — Chris Kyle, American Sniper. (Harper Collins, 2012), 149-150.

If you’re not familiar with Chris Kyle’s life, then check out American Sniper — the book. And then make sure to see Clint Eastwood’s cinematic take on the Navy SEAL’s life. I’d recommend seeing Angelina Jolie’s take on ‘Unbroken,’ but she apparently gutted one of the most crucial aspect’s of World War II hero Louie Zamperini’s life — his conversion to Christianity that kept his world from falling to pieces and allowed him to personally forgive the men who tortured him in Japanese POW camps. If you’re wondering why I feared Spielberg’s take on Chris Kyle’s life, just think about Ms. Jolie’s “Unbroken” for a few moments, but I digress.

I’m looking forward to seeing “American Sniper” when it opens in theaters December 25. If you are as well, then stop by here shortly after its release, check out my review, and let me know what you thought.

American Sniper: Chris Kyle, Guardian Angel who doesn’t know it.

January 17, 2012January 27, 2015by Douglas Ernst35 Comments

chris-kyle-american-sniper-1 — American Sniper’s Chris Kyle keeps returning to the idea of a guardian angel watching over him without ever acknowledging the extent to which he is one.

I gave American Sniper an abridged review upon its release, but it’s a book that deserves an extended version. Chris Kyle may be “the most lethal sniper in U.S. history, ” but he’s much more than that. Throughout the book, Kyle wrestles with the many roles he must play (i.e., husband, father, soldier) and the responsibilities he must balance with God, Family, and Country. We ask our soldiers to be killing machines, but then expect their humanity to remain unscathed. We order them to extinguish pure evil, but then give them Rules of Engagement better suited for a cricket match. If for no other reason, civilians should read this book just for a glimpse into the psychological ringer we put our war fighters through without ever giving it a second thought.

One of the other topics that comes up repeatedly throughout American Sniper is the idea of a guardian angel. Chris postulates that there must have been one looking over him on multiple occasions (as does his friend Marcus Luttrell in the fabulous book Lone Survivor). What’s interesting about both of these soldiers is that on some level they downplay the fact that THEY are guardian angels. Chris’ obsession becomes saving every solider in harm’s way—and impossible task that begins to take a psychological toll on him as the war moves on. After his battle buddy is shot, he blames himself:

I’d put him in the spot where he got hit. It was my fault he’d been shot…A hundred kills? Two hundred? What did they mean if my brother was dead? Why hadn’t I put myself there? Why hadn’t I been standing there? I could have gotten the bastard–I could have saved my boy. I was in a dark hole. Deep Down. How long I stayed there, head buried, tears flowing, I have no idea.”

Chris often observes the unpredictable nature of war, but when it comes to an injury or a death of a fellow soldier he seems to (unfairly) place full responsibility on his own shoulders. What Chris fails to realize is that even a guardian angel can not be all places at all times. His insatiable thirst to find and kill every last enemy is commendable, but readers will know long before he addresses the issue that yes, even Navy SEALS are human, and such a mentality lends itself to the kind of physiological problems (e.g., high blood pressure) he would experience later in his career. Luckily for Chris, this story has a happy ending.

The final aspect of the book that needs to be covered concerns how wars are won—something that is not taught in college classrooms, which might be the reason for the bongo-drumming anti-war protests I experienced years ago at USC:

YOU KNOW HOW RAMADI WAS WON? We went in and killed all the bad people we could find. When we started, the decent (or potentially decent) Iraqis didn’t fear the United States; they did fear the terrorists. The U.S. told them, “We’ll make it better for you.”

The terrorists said, “We’ll cut your head off.”

Who would you fear? Who would you listen to?

We went to Ramadi, we told the terrorists, “We’ll cut your head off. We will do whatever we have to and eliminate you.” Not only did we get the terrorists’ attention—we got everyone’s attention. We showed we were the force to be reckoned with. That’s where the so-called Great Awakening came from. It wasn’t from kissing up to the Iraqis. It was from kicking butt.

The tribal leaders saw that we were bad-asses, and they’d better get their act together, work together and stop accommodating the insurgents. Force moved that battle. We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table. That is how the world works.

Chris Kyle makes a compelling case, and it’s one that doesn’t get the attention it deserves among the civilian population, which is sad. Regardless, I’d like to narrow the scope of his argument: The United States “works” because guardian angels like Chris are willing to enter into a realms of pure evil and push back. They do so selflessly. They do so at the expense to family and loved ones.

In the late 90s I enlisted in a mechanized infantry unit. I wore a chain with the prayer to Saint Michael inscribed on it. Reading American Sniper made me realize that for a span of three years I lived and worked with guardian angels every day and I never adequately showed my appreciation to a great group of guys. Chris Kyle’s book will make you realize just how much we take the civilized world—and life—for granted. I highly recommend this book, for soldier and civilian alike.

Update: Please pray for the Kyle family. Chris was shot and murdered on February 2, 2013.

American Sniper: More Dead Terrorists Than Sales By Occupiers?

January 10, 2012February 3, 2013by Douglas Ernst5 Comments

Chris Kyle American Sniper — How odd is it that former Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle, has killed more terrorists than the number of “Occupy” protesters who will buy his book?

On Saturday I bought American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. On Sunday I started reading it. Tonight, I finished it. Needless to say, it was worth the $27.00 I laid down on the counter. If you’re a fan of Marcus Luttrell, you’ll want to add this one to your collection. If you’re a fan of Harry “surrender monkey” Reid, you might not. My full review will come in the near future, but there is one excerpt that I think sums up the essence of the book:

One night a little later on, we were in an exhausting firefight. Ten of us spent roughly forty-eight hours in the second story of an old, abandoned brick building, fighting in hundred-degree-plus heat wearing full armor. Bullets flew in, demolishing the walls around us practically nonstop. The only break we took was to reload.

Finally, as the sun came up in the morning, the sound of gunfire and bullets hitting brick stopped. The fight was over. It was eerily quiet.

When the Marines came in to relieve us , they found every man in the room either slumped against a wall or collapsed on the floor, dressing wounds or just soaking in the situation.

One of the Marines outside took an American flag and hoisted it over the position. Someone else played the National Anthem—I have no idea where the music came from, but the symbolism and the way it spoke to the soul was overwhelming; it remains one of my most powerful memories.

Every battle-weary man rose, went to the window, and saluted. The words of the music echoed in each of us as we watched the Stars and Stripes wave literally in dawn’s early light. The reminder of what we were fighting for caused tears as well as blood and sweat to run freely from all of us, (American Sniper, 84-85).

American Sniper is a very telling book. Patriots exist. But the patriotism displayed by Chris Kyle is not instilled in children today. It’s ironically very foreign to them, which is why Kyle’s run-in with anti-war protestors earlier in the book has such a profound effect on him. Once upon a time an overwhelming majority of Americans knew what it was the Chris Kyle’s of the world stood for, even if they could never know what it was like to be a SEAL. Once upon a time an overwhelming majority of Americans were rooted in the same love of country, even if military service wasn’t their calling.

Today, it’s different. It seems as though decades of moral and cultural relativism, taught in universities and reenforced through media, has taken its toll. The country is desperate for someone—anyone—who can articulate why the bedrock values the country was built on (e.g., limited government, free markets, and a strong national defense), are still relevant today. The Tea Party and the “Occupy” movements have charted two very different paths for Americans to walk down, and those in the middle are confused as to which road to take. American Sniper is a portrait of the type of American we should all aspire to be, and while Chris Kyle isn’t particularly political, the principles that guide him are deeply tied to our political discourse.

I highly suggest reading American Sniper. When you’re done you’ll have a deeper respect for the work that guys like Chris do, but you’ll also see why modern American conservatism is the last, best hope to preserving our great nation.

Update: Please pray for the Kyle family. Chris was murdered on February 2, 2013.