New Yorker story on "American Sniper" Chris Kyle

Read them both to make up for the last two Memorial Days.

 

I think Kyle was a bullshitter about his postwar exploits and had some asshole in him.
But it's hard to bust his balls when the official record of his military service backs up his story.
I am amazed and saddened by the venom shown the man for doing what he was sent to a foreign theatre of war to do.

 

Except that "official record" depended in large part on the military accepting on his word kills that he "self-reported." Given that the guy proved himself in other areas of his life to be a serial embellisher--if not outright pathological liar--I think it not unreasonable to suspect some of those self reports may've also been bullshit.

I've no doubt he killed a lot of people, but probably not the extraordinary number for which he's officially credited.

 

Librarians have it tough, too.

 

Stony-
I am not nearly cynical enough to believe a man, and especially a Navy SEAL, has cause to lie about his confirmed kills. SEALs don't need to brag.
I think the vitriol that has been directed at him is more about people's hatred of the war itself.
Whatever Kyle did after his time in the service, what he did in uniform was gallant.

 

Seriously? Do you believe a Navy Seal would have cause to blatantly lie about his military record and the number of honors and medals of valor the military bestowed upon him? Because it's just a fact that he did that.

Jesus, it's already well established that the guy was willing to lie and embellish in print about his military record, as well as making up cockamamie half-assed stories about shit like supposedly beating up Jesse Ventura. He was even willing to do so about things that could easily be disproven, yet you somehow think it inconceivable that he'd embellish about something that couldn't be easily disproven such as self-reported kills? You can't be that naïve.

Liars lie. It's what they do. Even ones that are Seals.

 

Oh, he's a big fat liar. Eh, vets tell war stories. It's weird, though, that there seems to be discrepancies within the Navy's own files.

 

Oh? There was an unheralded Finnish marksman in WWII who was credited with 500-plus kills. Was he lying just for shits and grins, too?

Simo Häyhä - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Stoney, damn few snipers work alone. Generally they have a spotter who also guards their back while they are tunnel focused down a scope. Could the numbers have been inflated? Sure, but it would not have been easy, between the partner and grunts on the ground who watched the areas he worked or walked the ground later.

Some vets tell war stories. Some of them refuse to, it's like pulling teeth to get them to talk about what they did and saw.

 

Anybody who has ever interviewed a vet or talked with one at length knows this. They are not forthcoming about what they saw or did.
My mama told me when I was a young boy never to ask an oldtimer about WWII or Vietnam unless that vet specifically said I could ask questions about it.
Why did Kyle write a book? Who the fuck knows. He had a rare talent (not his pen, either).
Aside from all of this, it is wrong to equate a discrepancy with a lie.

 

Not sure if that's the case, @3_Octave_Fart. I don't go around writing books or telling stories in the corner at the bar, but I'm certainly willing to discuss anything that happened on any of my four deployments. I used a thread here as sort of a diary in 2010, detailing some of our missions in southern Afghanistan. Most others I know will talk about their experiences, too, most of which are far more significant than mine. Most like to tell stories of bad days to remember how good their friends were. I tell the story of CW2 Jonah McClellan, who died in a crash on 21 September 2010, to remember that he was a lot like me. He joined early, for the college money, had two young kids, and he wanted to get his commission and become a MEDEVAC officer. Flashy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, he was a good looking dude, who left behind a beautiful family.

 

One thing I have learned in this business is that people will lie. Even when it seems there is no reason to lie.

Athletic feats and military exploits are the top 2 categories for fiction. (Often by people who had neither.)