American Sniper

“Somewhere along the way I started sticking up for the younger kids who were getting picked on. I felt I had to look out for them. It became my duty.”

As a child, Chris developed protective instincts that would serve him well later in life. In Iraq, he is not afraid to look out for his comrades by being the first man in combat—and, indeed, he often uses his skills as a sniper to protect soldiers who are placing themselves in dangerous situations.

“It was the repetition and constant stress, the abuse that came with the exercises, that made BUD/S so tough. I guess it’s hard to explain if you haven’t lived through it.” 

Chris’s precise descriptions are designed to give the reader an on-the-ground view of what he went through during BUD/S. However, as he acknowledges here, there are emotional and psychological aspects of such training that remain beyond the full comprehension of any reader who has not endured exactly the same rigors.

“He hung around. I hung around. We were still there at last call. As I got up with the crowd to go, I was pushed against him. He was all hard and muscle-y and smelled good, so I gave him a little kiss on his neck.” 

Taya evokes a few events from her first meeting with Chris. Though attracted to Chris, she presents down-to-earth details in a manner that is immediate and blunt; it is not clear, from a play-by-play scenic description such as this alone, that Chris will be her future husband.

“I poured myself into my work. That night, with still no call I started to feel a little more anxious. . . . Then a little freaked out. I couldn’t sleep, though I was exhausted from working and holding back the tears that kept threatening to overtake any sense of calm I was faking.” 

Taya recalls a time when she was concerned for Chris’s safety, and afraid to watch the news. The anxieties that emerge at this early stage set the ground for the conflict—Chris’s divided duties to his family at home and his country at war—that sets the tone throughout much of the story.

“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.” 

Chris has few reservations about expressing his patriotism, which in his mind may seem “corny” to some readers. He does not simply take unqualified pride in being American, though, since he is willing to speak his mind when American values are disregarded, even in small ways.

“As a hunter, I knew how to shoot, how to make the bullet go from point A to point B. Sniper school taught me the science behind it all.” 

Chris’s time at sniper school gave him a refined, multi-level understanding of his combat role. The science of shooting is one area that Chris learned to appreciate, but other skills, such as moving stealthily through terrain, were points of similarly strong emphasis and importance.

“What always seemed interesting to me was how well we communicated without using words, even on an op. They’d turn around and wave me up or back, whatever. If you’re a professional, you don’t need to be told what to do. You read off each other and react.” 

“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.” 

A sniper’s role involves specific rules of engagement (ROEs) that, as Chris is well aware, must be followed for clear ethical reasons. If the ROEs allow a shot, a sniper must perform his duty without reservation; in fact, much of Chris’s excellence as a sniper stems from his willingness to shoot enemies without psychological qualms and with the safety of his fellow soldiers in mind.

“I thought about the casualties I’d seen, and the fact that I could be the next one carried out. But I wasn’t going to quit. I wasn’t going to stop going into houses or stop supporting them from the roofs. I couldn’t let down these young Marines I was with.” 

Death is constantly on Chris’s mind, whether he is dealing with the death of others, or considering his own likelihood of dying in combat. Part of the psychological conditioning essential to his role involves facing death as an ever-present reality, and carrying on the fight nonetheless.

“People think that snipers take such incredibly long shots all the time. While we do take longer shots than most guys on the battlefield, they’re probably a lot closer than most people think.” 

As a firsthand, and at times technical account, of a sniper’s life, American Sniper is well-suited to addressing misconceptions about how snipers operate. As Chris explains, long shots are one such mistaken notion; though possibly a proof of marksmanship, they are in fact uncommon.

“For a while, it didn’t seem to matter what I did, things would happen in front of me. I wasn’t inventing the incidents—I had witnesses or all my shots. Maybe I saw a little farther, maybe I anticipated trouble better than other people. Or, more likely, I was just lucky.” 

With this quotation, Chris both sums up the factors behind his high kill count as a sniper and expresses humility even in the face of achievements that made him a legendary SEAL sniper. Being in the right place at the right time—not being vastly superior to his comrades in arms—was the key to his performance.

“I never really believed the Iraqis would turn the country into a truly functioning democracy, but I thought at one point that there was a chance. I don’t know that I believe that now. It’s a pretty corrupt place.” 

Chris’s negative view of Iraq’s democratic prospects is by no means an impulsive or uninformed reaction; rather, such negativity was shaped by his direct experience of Iraqi society and indigenous Iraqi security efforts. His cynicism is also selective, a targeted criticism made by a man who is proud and optimistic where matters of family, American values, and Christianity are concerned.

“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.” 

The crusader tattoo that Chris chooses takes on a few different tones of meaning. This icon serves as an image of pride and confirms Chris’s identity, but serves just as much as a reminder of the losses that, as a self-identified Christian warrior, Chris has endured.

“It became so predictable, it seemed to happen according to a time schedule. Around about nine in the morning you’d have a fire-fight; things would slack off around midday. Then, around three or four in the afternoon, you’d have another. If the stakes weren’t life and death, it would have been funny.” 

While readers may believe that combat is the ultimate unpredictable experience—since combat can be swayed by surprise and suddenness—Chris points out that the truth of combat is quite different. His experiences of fighting in Iraq were often structured similarly, punctuated on occasion by moments of surreal violence.

“When he was deployed, he wrote letters to be delivered to the kids and me if he died. After the first deployment, I asked to read whatever he had written, and he said he didn’t have it anymore. After that he never offered them up and I never asked to see them.” 

The letters that Taya mentions are not quoted in American Sniper, and are not lingered over by Chris. As readers, we are thus kept at a distance from Chris—much as Taya, even after coming to understand so much about Chris and his life, is distanced from a few key elements of who Chris is.

“But at that moment at base, I was sure he was dead. I knew it in my stomach, in my heart, in every part of me. I’d put him in the spot where he got hit. It was my fault he’d been shot.” 

Though surrounded by death, Chris is by no means desensitized. Ryan Job’s wounding still stuns and upsets Chris, and prompts an intensity of reflection that proves that Chris—though firm in his duties and committed to exterminating his enemies—has not made himself fully indifferent to the carnage of combat.

“The worst thing that you could ever do for that war was having all these media people embedded in the units. Most Americans can’t take the reality of war, and the reports they sent back didn’t help us at all.” 

Chris voices a few opinions on social and cultural issues in the course of American Sniper, endorsing an unabashed version of patriotism and questioning the wisdom of relying on native Iraqi forces. Here, he weighs in on the idea of media coverage: he sees himself as a professional, and sees media intervention as a way of disrupting his work of saving lives.

“We were both right, from our perspectives. The problem was trying to see the other’s, and then live with it.” 

Taya acknowledges that, despite their love, she and her husband cannot fully empathize with one another, at least at the time of their conflicts. Fortunately, the entire autobiography is set up to avoid such limits in perspective and to give the reader the kind of larger view that Taya, here, finds so difficult to achieve.

“I was like a racing car, being repaired from the ground up.” 

Chris uses this quotation to explain the process of physical therapy that he underwent before returning to war. His accomplishments are driven by physical prowess—speed, endurance, and strength—and he needs to be “repaired” to bring these aptitudes back up to speed.

“Serving in the Teams is serving a greater good. As a civilian, I’d just be serving my own good. Being a SEAL wasn’t just what I did; it became who I was.”

Chris explains his difficulty accepting civilian life. He eventually finds a sense of purpose as a family man and as an entrepreneur, but as he confronts the possibility of leaving the SEALs, he cannot imagine other fulfilling or selfless options.

“As always, there were moments of high anxiety mixed with bizarre events and random comic relief.” 

“Part of it came down to the conflict we’d always had—where were our priorities: God, family, country (my version), or God, country, family (Chris’s)?” 

Here, Taya puts her own spin on the list of values that Chris sets out early in the text (page 7). She is well aware of her husband’s ideas and is in many ways in sympathy with him, but realizes that she does not fully share his priorities.

“ 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.” 

For Chris, veterans should be treated as dignified, independent men—even those veterans who have been shocked and wounded in combat. Chris’s friend Ryan Job, who goes on adventures and begins a family despite being blind, is simply one example of a veteran who has “tremendous value for society” despite apparent hardships.