Jack potter
American Sniper Review
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ABOUT ME
I've been reading books for a long time. I can remember when I was in the first grade, and was just learning to read stories with some amount of structure. There was this big ladder of tiny books, just 3 to 5 pages or so, that each kid in the class had to read. When you successfully managed to read a book, the teacher would congratulate you and you could start working on the next one. At the time, this was always so much fun and definitely one of the highlights of my days. From that point, as I got older I retained my interest in and love for reading. Of course, I advanced in my abilities and I was reading actual chapter books. The first time that I read an entire Magic Tree House book by Mary Pope Osborne in one night is another reading milestone that sticks out to me. I knew at that point that it was probably time to find a more advanced series. At some point, I came across what is now a twelve part series called The Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan. They were my absolute favorite books when I was reading them, and I couldn't put them down. I might be a little old for them now, but they still remain high on my list of favorite books to this day and I highly recommend them to any middle school reader who is a fan of the fantasy genre.
If you were to ask me today what my favorite book is, I would probably tell you that it's The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I just finished reading American Sniper by Chris Kyle; I don't think that it belongs at the top of the list of my favorite books, but it was certainly a fascinating and thought-provoking read.
If you were to ask me today what my favorite book is, I would probably tell you that it's The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I just finished reading American Sniper by Chris Kyle; I don't think that it belongs at the top of the list of my favorite books, but it was certainly a fascinating and thought-provoking read.
About the author |
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About the book
The plot |
Recurring themes |
American Sniper is Chris Kyle's autobiography. Chris writes in it about his life from birth, but the book is most focused on the ten years that he spent serving as a Seal for the US Navy. He details memories, experiences, and thoughts that he had during his deployments to places like Fallujah, Ramadi, and Sadr City, where insurgent forces were large and violence was rampant. Chris also talks about his home life and tensions that he experienced while trying to balance that with his desire to serve the country that he loved. His wife, Taya, actually has some of her own writing in the book as well. She discusses some of the tension and worry that she experienced throughout Chris's deployments, and offers an interesting alternative view to the whole situation. In the book, Chris also discusses the period shortly after he decided to leave the military, and the Companies and organizations that he started. However, due to his horrible murder, the part of the book ends at that point in his life. Taya wrote a short afterword describing Chris' death and the production of the movie that is based off of the book.
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There are two major themes that I noticed in the book that I would like to talk about. The first is Chris' stance on taking someone's life, and how he feels about that. "There’s another question people ask a lot: Did it bother you killing so many people in Iraq? I tell them ‘No.’ And I mean it.” This is directly from American Sniper and it gives important insight into how Chris felt about this sensitive topic. Chris also stated that he doesn't "see too much gray". This is certainly one of the biggest themes that persists throughout his book, and probably the most controversial as well. Chris also struggles throughout the book with his priorities in life. He knows what the top three are - God, Family, and Country. But the persisting question was what order these three things went in. Throughout the book Chris puts God first, and he is certain that this is the right choice. But between family and country, Chris struggles. This causes tension, fighting, and worry between him and his wife when he puts country first by deciding to deploy again. Taya said herself in the book that she knew she couldn't force Chris to stay home, and that as their relationship continued this caused Taya and Chris' love for each other to evolve and change. In the end, after his four deployments, Chris decided it was time to put family before country and return home to be a father for his two children.
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While reading
American Sniper was an interesting read for me. While I enjoyed basking in the heroics of Chris Kyle and his frankly astonishing accomplishments, I felt like I was reading a very one sided account of the war the people who were fighting in it. To an extent, a biased opinion is to be expected when reading an autobiography. However, Chris' lackadaisical attitude when it came to killing these men (and woman) was somewhat distracting throughout the read. I often found myself contemplating the true nature of Chris and his potentially questionable motives. Every one of the 255 claimed kills that Chris racked up during his deployment had a name and person attached to them. Without a doubt, many of these people had families, jobs, lives, opinions, and desires just like we do. It seemed to me as though he was a little too quick to pass off his victims as blood thirsty "savages." Chris himself talked a little about why he felt the death he inflicted was justified.
“A teenager, I’d guess about fifteen, sixteen, appeared on the street and squared up with an AK-47 to fire at them. I dropped him. A minute or two later, an Iraqi woman came running up, saw him on the ground, and tore off her clothes. She was obviously his mother. I’d see the families of the insurgents display their grief, tear off clothes, even rub the blood on themselves. If you loved them, I thought, you should have kept them away from the war. You should have kept them from joining the insurgency.”
To be fair, I have never been in the middle of a vicious with bullets whizzing by my head, nor have I watched my friends be murdered before my eyes. I can only imagine the horrors of war, and the effects it has on a person's mind and body. This hasn't stopped many from speaking out against Chris and his actions. They largely discredit the war and blame the government for getting the United States involved, claiming that Iraq never threatened to harm the United States or its citizens. For this reason they argue that all of the insurgents that Chris killed were in fact not planning to harm the US or Chris' family, and therefore Chris should not be regarded as a hero. This article has more detail if you are interested. But perhaps we are not meant to be the judges of Chris Kyle and his actions in Iraq.
“A teenager, I’d guess about fifteen, sixteen, appeared on the street and squared up with an AK-47 to fire at them. I dropped him. A minute or two later, an Iraqi woman came running up, saw him on the ground, and tore off her clothes. She was obviously his mother. I’d see the families of the insurgents display their grief, tear off clothes, even rub the blood on themselves. If you loved them, I thought, you should have kept them away from the war. You should have kept them from joining the insurgency.”
To be fair, I have never been in the middle of a vicious with bullets whizzing by my head, nor have I watched my friends be murdered before my eyes. I can only imagine the horrors of war, and the effects it has on a person's mind and body. This hasn't stopped many from speaking out against Chris and his actions. They largely discredit the war and blame the government for getting the United States involved, claiming that Iraq never threatened to harm the United States or its citizens. For this reason they argue that all of the insurgents that Chris killed were in fact not planning to harm the US or Chris' family, and therefore Chris should not be regarded as a hero. This article has more detail if you are interested. But perhaps we are not meant to be the judges of Chris Kyle and his actions in Iraq.
Kyle, Chris, Scott McEwen, and Jim DeFelice. American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. New
York: W. Morrow, 2012. Print.
York: W. Morrow, 2012. Print.