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| Chris Kyle - 1974 to 2013 |
Chris Kyle was a Texas boy. He was also America's most prolific sniper during the Iraq war. He holds the longest confirmed kill on record. A Shot of some 2100 yards. That's 21 football fields. That's almost a mile and a quarter. Lucky...maybe, phenomenal...absolutely. He also holds the record for confirmed kills at 160. On His first long range shot, he hesitated...then as ordered, took the shot. It was an Iraqi women approaching a group of Marines with a grenade in her hand.
Seems like a lot of death. And I am sure there will be opinions on both sides of the issue. But remember, he did not create the circumstance. He was just extremely well-trained to thrive in it. He was a US Serviceman, a Navy SEAL, a warrior defending our rights. Serving 4 tours of duty during Operation Iraqi Freedom, he survived being shot at repeatedly and hit twice, though his gear and good fortune saved his life. The enemy had as much as an $80,000 bounty on his head. They knew and feared him.
His platoon (sniper Element Charlie) wore the Punisher symbol as their own. It was a badge of pride for the group and it was theirs alone. This is the remembrance version of the symbol.
His book is pretty gripping material. Even though he states in the preface that the military had cleared all the information he used in the book, I kept finding it unbelievable that much of what I read that was disparaging to our military and government, was allowed to be published. I am glad it was. Give
American Sniper a read and get a look at the life of a man who gave his all for his country and incredibly kept his marriage together as he returned for tour after tour.
In the end (as happens with too much consistent irony) his life ended not on the battlefield but in his beloved state of Texas after he left the military. Not far from where I have a summer home some 40 miles or so south of Ft Worth, he and a friend had taken another veteran who was struggling with PTSD to a gun range in Glen Rose, TX for an afternoon of shooting. Chris worked with many soldiers who had returned from the war broken and fragile. Somehow on this day, February 2rd, 2013 it all went terribly wrong. Eddie Ray Routh, the other ex-soldier, shot and killed Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield. The entire state of Texas was stunned.
Chris Kyle's funeral was held in the new Cowboys stadium at midfield, his casket on the Star. A huge crowd was in attendance and the service was broadcast live on TV and the Internet. It was a moving ceremony. The funeral procession the next day to the burial site in Austin, TX stretched over 200 miles. It is said to have been the longest funeral procession in history. The travel route of I-35 was lined most all the way with many paying their last respects to a soldier, a father, an American.
~Semper Fi~
