Chris Kyle 4 tours of duty and a lifetime of giving

Some may want to see the movie American Sniper about Chris Kyle, for the action but if you do, you need to know there was so much more to him and his life than his service as a sniper.


Final salute: Thousands pay respects to Chris Kyle at Cowboys Stadium

Dallas News
By JEFF MOSIER
Staff Writer
Published: 11 February 2013

ARLINGTON — Former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s autobiography introduced the public to the “most lethal sniper” in U.S. military history. But his public memorial service Monday at Cowboys Stadium reveled in the contrasts of the man called softhearted by family and the Devil of Ramadi by enemies in Iraq.

Kyle was a warrior who choked out countless friends as a gag, something they described as his hug. But one friend also spoke about how “that proud cowboy cried his eyes out” when one of his closest friends died.

Speaker after speaker — from family to military — described Kyle as a father who loved cuddling with his children, a passionate husband, the most devoted friend possible and a prankster with a “cackling” laugh. He was given the nickname The Legend by friends as a joke but eventually earned it with more than 150 confirmed kills, the most of any U.S. military sniper.

Taya Kyle, who spoke near the end of the two-hour ceremony, said she’ll need every bit of strength she learned from her husband.

“Chris always said, ‘The body will do whatever the mind tells it to,’” she said. “I’m counting on that now. I stand before you a broken woman, but I am now and always will be the wife of a man who was a warrior both on and off the battlefield.”
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Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper hit their marks in ‘American Sniper’
Toledo Blade
BY KIRK BAIRD
BLADE STAFF WRITER
January 16, 2015

As the country’s deadliest sniper, with more than 160 confirmed kills, Chris Kyle put his life on the line during the Iraq War and in the process saved hundreds of fellow U.S. soldiers’ lives.

Such legendary battlefield exploits have all the makings of a great war film.

And it does. But that’s only part of Kyle’s story — the easiest part for a film to cover.

But as we’ve seen in the course of Clint Eastwood’s directorial career, he’s not interested in easy.

In the filmmaker’s acclaimed Western Unforgiven, for example, Eastwood adds a twist to the good guys wear white and the bad guys wear black genre motif, with Eastwood as a murderous outlaw anti-hero and Gene Hackman as a morally corrupt sheriff.

It’s much the same with American Sniper, a film about a national hero that doesn’t succumb to hero worship. Rather, its thrust is the stark honesty of the price of wartime heroism.

As a soldier on the battlefield, Kyle was nearly flawless. But as a soldier at home with his wife, Kyle was flawed and damaged, the result of a war he could leave but that never really left him.

The film is based on Kyle’s New York Times best-selling autobiography, and Eastwood’s adaptation is equal measures stirring and thrilling in its depiction of harrowing battles in which death could be waiting behind every locked door. Yet American Sniper’s biggest asset is its ability to place audiences who have never experienced the horrors of war outside of a movie theater into the mind and body of someone who has.
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American Sniper - Official Trailer [HD]
Warner Bros. Pictures
American Sniper - Official Trailer 2 [HD]

Famous Navy SEAL Sniper Chris Kyle killed at Texas gun range

Ex-Navy SEAL died pursuing his passion
By JAMIE STENGLE AND CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
The Associated Press
Published: February 4, 2013

STEPHENVILLE, Texas — The former top Navy SEAL sniper who authorities say was killed at a Texas shooting range was devoted to maintaining camaraderie and helping his fellow veterans find their way after leaving active duty.

Chris Kyle, author of the best-selling book "American Sniper," and his friend Chad Littlefield apparently were doing just that Saturday when, officials say, they were shot and killed by former Marine Eddie Ray Routh.

Kyle, 38, had left the Navy in 2009 after four tours of duty in Iraq, where he earned a reputation as one of the military's most lethal snipers. But he quickly found a way to maintain contact with his fellow veterans and pass on what had helped him work through his own struggles. By late 2011, he filed the paperwork to establish the nonprofit FITCO Cares, which received its nonprofit status the following spring, said FITCO director Travis Cox.

"Chris struggled with some things," Cox said. "He'd been through a lot and he handled it with grace, but yeah he did struggle with some things. And he found a healthy outlet and was proactive in his approach to deal with those issues and wanted to help spread his healing, what worked for him, to others. And that's what he died doing."

For Kyle that healthy outlet was exercise. At the heart of FITCO was giving in-home fitness equipment to physically and emotionally wounded veterans, as well as families who had lost a veteran, Cox said.
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There was another sniper in the news. No, he didn't get a movie made. He got a headline instead.

Family of man who shot wife, himself pushes for PTSD awareness
My Meridian Press
Holly Beech
November 7, 2014

“It’s sad, the families have to go through this,” she said. “These issues are real and they need to be addressed so people don’t have tragedies.”

Family members of a 24-year-old Meridian man who shot his wife and then himself said he came back from war a changed man.

According to Meridian Police, Kevin Smith shot his wife, 32-year-old Kimberly Smith, on Sept. 20 in the garage of their home while her five children where in their rooms sleeping. The grandmother to three of the children was also in the home and called the police.

Kevin’s aunt, Diane Delvecchio, told Meridian Press in an email that Kevin suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury after serving two tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army.

“PTSD and TBI are horrific,” she said. “Kevin was a good, kindhearted man that loved his family very much.”

According to a memorial site set up by his family, Kevin was honorably discharged with PTSD after serving for five years, including as a sniper.
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This Marine sniper got a headline too.

Former Marine who shot deputy tormented, his ex says
Tampa Bay Times
Jessica Vander Velde
Times Staff Writer
Sunday, December 8, 2013

TAMPA — Matthew Buendia was a trained U.S. Marine Corps sniper. If he had wanted to kill the Hillsborough sheriff's deputy he shot at, he could have, his ex-girlfriend recently testified.

Jessica Gipson figured he was trying to commit suicide. She says that just before Buendia fired more than a dozen times at Hillsborough Deputy Lyonelle De Veaux on Sept. 30, 2011, he swallowed a handful of pills.

Gipson saw Buendia draw his gun and fire at close-range. Maybe the 24-year-old man wanted the deputy to shoot back, she thought.

"At this point, I don't know what his intentions were," Gipson testified three weeks ago.

Gipson's recent testimony provides new details about the troubled ex-Marine, who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and at one point was taking 17 pills a day prescribed by U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs doctors.

This is the defense's approach as they head toward trial in March. No one is denying Buendia fired the shots. But Tampa defense attorney Mark O'Brien is arguing the young man served his country and came back from three Middle East deployments broken.

Without warning, he would become mean and aggressive, Gipson testified. Sometimes his face would change, as he'd fly into "one of these moods," she said.

Buendia was frustrated with the VA doctors, who he thought were not communicating with one another. He self-medicated with marijuana, Gipson said, which helped him eat and sleep.

He carried a seat belt cutter in his car — a response to seeing some friends burned alive in a vehicle while deployed abroad. read more here

Some will remember him as a sniper. Some will remember him as a veteran reaching out to make the lives of other veterans better. When you see the movie remember the price paid is not over when they come home.