The other Marines said I saved his life. But it wasn’t just me. Getting all those guys to safety was a joint effort; we all worked together.
The Corps was grateful that I had helped rescue their people, and one of the officers put me in for a Silver Star.
According to the story I heard, the generals sitting at their desks decided that, since no Marines had gotten Silver Stars during the assault, they weren’t going to award one to a SEAL. I got a Bronze Star with a V (for valor in combat) instead.
Makes me smirk just to think about it.
Medals are all right, but they have a lot to do with politics, and I am not a fan of politics.
All told, I would end my career as a SEAL with two Silver Stars and five Bronze Medals, all for valor. I’m proud of my service, but I sure as hell didn’t do it for any medal. They don’t make me any better or less than any other guy who served. Medals never tell the whole story. And like I said, in the end they’ve become more political than accurate. I’ve seen men who deserved a lot more and men who deserved a lot less rewarded by higher-ups negotiating for whatever public cause they were working on at the time. For all these reasons, they are not on display at my house or in my office.
My wife is always encouraging me to organize or frame the paperwork on them and display the medals. Political or not, she still thinks they are part of the story of my service.
Maybe I’ll get around to it someday.
More likely, I won’t.
My uniform was covered with so much blood from the assault that the Marines got one of their own for me. From that point on, I looked like a Marine in digi cami.
It was a little weird to be wearing someone else’s uniform. But it was also an honor to be considered a member of the team to the point where they’d outfit me. Even better, they gave me a fleece jacket and a fleece beanie—it was cold out there.
Taya:
After one deployment, we were driving in the car and Chris said, just out of the blue, “Did you know there is a certain kind of smell when someone dies in a particular way?”
And I said, “No. I didn’t know that.”
And gradually I got the story.
It was suitably gruesome.
Stories would just come out. A lot of times, he said things to see what I could handle. I told him I really, truly did not care what he did in wartime. He had my unconditional support. Still, he needed to go slow, to test the waters. I think he needed to know I wouldn’t look at him differently, and perhaps more than that, he knew he would deploy again and he didn’t want to scare me.
As far as I can see it, anyone who has a problem with what guys do over there is incapable of empathy. People want America to have a certain image when we fight. Yet I would guess if someone were shooting at them and they had to hold their family members while they bled out against an enemy who hid behind their children, played dead only to throw a grenade as they got closer, and who had no qualms about sending their toddler to die from a grenade from which they personally pulled the pin—they would be less concerned with playing nicely.
Chris followed the ROEs because he had to. Some of the more broad-spectrum ROEs are fine. The problem with the ROEs covering minutiae is that terrorists really don’t give a shit about the Geneva Convention. So picking apart a soldier’s every move against a dark, twisted, rule-free enemy is more than ridiculous; it’s despicable.
I care about my husband and other Americans coming home alive. So other than being concerned for his safety, I truly wasn’t afraid to hear anything he wanted to share. Even before I heard the stories, I don’t think I was ever under illusions that war is pretty or nice.
When he told me the story about killing someone up close, all I thought was, Thank God he’s okay.
Then I thought, You’re kind of a bad-ass. Wow.
Mostly, we didn’t talk about killing, or the war. But then it would intrude.
Not always in a bad way: one day, Chris was getting his oil changed at a local shop. Some men were in the lobby with him. The guy behind the counter called Chris’s name. Chris paid his bill and sat back down.
One of the guys waiting for his own vehicle looked at him and said, “Are you Chris Kyle?”
And Chris said, “Yeah.”
“Were you in Fallujah?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy shit, you’re the guy who saved our ass.”
The guy’s father was there and he came over to thank Chris and shake his hand. They were all saying, “You were great. You got more kills than anyone.”
Chris got embarrassed and very humbly said, “Y’all saved my ass, too.”
And that was it.
