The demonization of Chris Kyle

[hunter]

63. My father-in-law was a medic.

He told the Navy straight-up he wasn't going to shoot anybody. So they sent him out to be a guinea pig in nuclear weapons testing.

My dad was a Army clerk, similar to "Radar" of Hollywood's MASH I imagine, but taller. He just missed service in Korea.

Neither of my grandfathers shot anyone in World War II. One was an Army Air Force officer who didn't fly (and he was later an engineer for the Apollo Moon landings, which is curious in some ways related to German rocket science...) and my other grandfather was a Conscientious Objector who was given a choice of prison or building Liberty and Victory ships, so he built ships.

My brother has a young in-law who was sent to Iraq. He didn't want to shoot anyone either, so they put him to work recovering dead U.S. servicemen, many of them ripped to pieces by improvised explosive devices. The kid is one of the most messed up veterans I've ever met, and he was ejected from service with a dishonorable discharge before his third tour for smoking pot, which was his way of dealing with the PTSD.

I guess they were all warriors of some use to the U.S. military machine, but imagine a world where everyone on both sides pushes back against the war machines as best they can.

Yeah, you do what you do in rough situations, when you have no choice, but it's pretty clear to me the U.S. military tapped into something that was already there in Chris Kyle and he thoroughly enjoyed the notoriety, so much so as to fabricate stories.

I have another in-law, and also a former employer, who both did wretched and horrible things in Korea and Viet Nam, but they don't talk about it and they are both now anti-war activists who were very vocal in their opposition to war in Iraq.

Some "players" in these "games" are worthy of derision, especially those who do not leave the "game" when they are no longer obligated in any way to "play."