Growing up, he dreamed of becoming a cowboy. He fell under the spell of a naval officer who promised him a completely different life in the Navy Seals. In March 2003, he went to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which he left for good only six years later. He is credited with at least 160 defeated goals, although he counted more than 200 in his autobiography. Chris Kyle has earned himself the title of the Devil (Al-Shaitan) among Iraqis due to his lethal effectiveness in his missions. His death was valued at $ 80,000, but she did not receive him until he returned home on February 2, 2013.
He was born on April 8, 1974 in Odessa, Texas. Due to his father's work, he often changed his place of residence, but he quickly got used to weapons, taking part in hunting. He received his first weapon at the age of eight and it was a Springfield 30-06 ammunition rifle . They hunted often and with the whole family. He was passionate about baseball and American football, but he devoted most of his time to rodeo. After many adventures, he finally enlisted in the military in 1999 for training in the Navy Seals.
How to survive hell week ?
Each member of the elite Navy Seals division must undergo training known as BUD / S, i.e. the Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL course. It is one of the most demanding military training in the world. Its key moment is the so-called hell week, or "marathon" of exercises lasting 132 hours, during which the highest percentage of candidates drop out.
Chris Kyle in navy uniform in 1999
For each candidate, hell week began with a wake-up call in the middle of the night, accompanied by explosions of stun grenades and a dozen or so series of the M-60 rifle. Then the candidates practice more over the next few days. The soldier's body is then brought to the limit of its endurance. Many people go hypothermic by lying in the water for long hours at night. The instructors "reward" each failure with a series of push-ups. In his autobiography, Kyle admitted:
Either I was too stubborn to quit or too lazy to get up. I don't know (…) I had all sorts of reasons not to give up. I remembered all those who said I was going to get fired from BUD / S. To persevere was to show them that they were wrong
Iraq
In 2001, Kyle received his first assignment:it was SEAL Team Three. Before taking part in the operation "Iraqi Freedom", at the turn of 2002/2000, his unit carried out missions in the waters of the Persian Gulf, which consisted in verifying vessels departing from Iraqi ports for violating economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
There, among others, SEALs collaborated with the Polish unit GROM, about which Chris Kyle expressed himself in superlatives.
On March 20, 2003, the US army and international coalition forces entered Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. Chris Kyle was also there. His branch was tasked with taking over the Al-Fau refinery. At the time, he was still an M-60 rifle gunner. After the capture of the Al-Fau refinery, the unit was tasked with patrolling the Shatt al-Arab River on the Iranian border.
A fleeting romance with GROM
In September, SEALs with Kyle returned to Iraq, where they were assigned to tasks performed by the Polish GROM in Baghdad . As a navigator, he is said to have quickly mastered some Polish phrases, such as "right, left". He really liked flashbangs, which, unlike the American ones, triggered a series of loud explosions instead of one powerful bang. The American soldier liked not only Polish grenades.
In the missions in the Persian Gulf, Chris Kyle cooperated with the Polish unit GROM
In his memories of cooperation with GROM, he often mentioned żubrówka. Since American soldiers were forbidden to buy and consume alcohol, he used his cooperation with Poles to taste Polish vodka. This collaboration also resulted in an interest in sniper rifles.
Fallujah
In November 2004, the "Phantom Fury" offensive was launched to recapture the city of Al-Fallujah, the stronghold of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqvi.
The task of the SEALs snipers was to provide protection for the army. Although the allies took the city after nine days, the occasional skirmishes continued until December 23. The SEALsw sniper took an active part in them. Iraqi rebels were hiding with their arsenals in civilian apartments, so "cleansing ”The city has become a tedious process, especially for snipers.
He was no longer the second Simo Häyhä whose main goal was to eliminate the enemy. Snipers in Fallujah (and not only) aimed to protect the lives of allied troops by navigating operations, detecting dangers, securing operations, guiding targets for artillery and aviation, informing about possible "thugs" (IED - Improvise explosive device; Improvised Load) Explosive) and finally the elimination of "bandits".
Chris Kyle in January 2012 at the premiere of the book "American Sniper"
The snipers felt enormous pressure in connection with these tasks, and therefore each of the victims of an attack or shooting was considered a failure by them. Kyle mentions that one of the most difficult things was making the decision to take down the target. There are strict decision-making procedures among snipers. It was not difficult to find ambiguous situations during the operations in Iraq:
Such a doubt could have resulted, for example, from the fact that the suspect is not heading towards the American troops. I have seen many times that a guy behaves like a macho and shows off in front of my friends, completely unaware that I was watching him (...) then it was impossible to shoot (...) It was enough to take an unjustified shot and you could be accused of murder
For his mission in Fallujah, Kyle was awarded one of his five Bronze Stars, although he was initially presented for the Silver Star Award.
Golden hit
Longest-range hit statistics have been kept since at least the Vietnam War, but one of the oldest of its kind is the December 5, 1864 hit by an unknown Confederate soldier who did so at 1,271 meters using a Whitworth Rifle .451 .
During four turns, Kyle dealt with rifles such as: SR-25 (the so-called Mk-11), Mk-12, .300 Winchester Magnum and .338 Lapua Magnum . Of the latter, he made the longest (confirmed) shot in his career.
.338 Lapua Magnum Sniper Rifle. With such a weapon, Kyle made the longest accurate shot in his career
In August 2008, he secured the fights for al-Sadr (near Baghdad). Taking advantage of his relative peace of mind, he watched the neighboring village where he spotted a potential threat to the marines operating in the city.
It was some 2,100 yards away, so even through a scope with 25x magnification, I could only see the outline of the figure (…) I assumed he was suspect, but he wasn't doing anything dangerous, so I took no action. Soon a convoy of land forces appeared on the road behind the second village (…) As the vehicles approached, the man on the roof raised his weapon on his shoulder. Now I saw a clear shape:the guy was holding a grenade launcher [RPG] and was aiming at the Americans.
Most sniper rifles come with an amendment table from the manufacturer (usually placed on the weapon itself). Kyle fired a shot at a distance of 1920 meters which did not fit the recommended scale, so the corrections had to be made "by eye". As he claims, he was very lucky, because at the last moment he tugged the trigger slightly, which probably made him hit his opponent and thus probably saved the lives of at least a few soldiers.
"War never ends for those who fought"
The quote by Curzio Malaparte fits both the protagonist of this article and any soldier serving on the fronts of modern wars.
Chris Kyle left Iraq in 2009. One of the reasons he never returned to Iraq was to save the marriage.
In Iraq he was shot twice, suffered six times as a result of an "Iaidik" explosion, and one as a result of part of a building collapsing on him after an RPG missile. The Pentagon has confirmed 160 "passes" (kills). He was awarded two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars and over a dozen other decorations.
In January 2012, he published an autobiography whose purpose, as he himself claimed, was not to try to make himself a modern deity, but to add faith in combat to American (and not only) soldiers fighting around the world. He also started working with veterans who, like him, had several rounds in foreign missions and had problems adapting to normal life. In 2011, he created the Fitco Cares foundation to look after veterans. Sam must have suffered because, as he admitted, panic attacks most often occurred to him when the burglar alarm was suddenly triggered.
On February 2, 2013, he and another veteran visited the Rough Creek shooting range. There he also met Eddie Ray Routh, whom he had been helping with the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for some time. Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, Routh shot Kyle and Chad Littlefield with him. The shots were fatal.
Chris Kyle's Tombstone
Routh was arrested hours later and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015. Kyle's funeral was held on February 12, who in the pouring rain was accompanied by a long column of police and military vehicles, as well as a crowd of people who wanted to give a part to the hero.
In 2015, Texas Governor Greg Abbott decreed that February 2 would be Chris Kyle's day.
He orphaned two children and his wife, Taya.
The 2014 film "Sniper" by Clint Eastwood refers to this extraordinary story.
Bibliography:
- Kyle Chris, Scott McEwen, Sniper's target. The story of the most dangerous sniper in the history of the American army , trans. M. Romanek, Krakow 2012.
- Kruszyński Bartosz, The participation of the US armed forces in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan - the biggest wars at the turn of the 20th / 21st century , Poznań 2011
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8990552/The-Devil-of-Ramadi-named-Americas-deadliest-sniper.html
- https://www.thehistoryreader.com/military-history/chris-kyle-al-shaitan-iraq/