American Sniper

opportunities for flights. There were no helos in or out. Even the convoys were still getting hit by insurgent attacks. Worried about me and knowing I couldn’t afford to wait too long, my boys loaded up the Humvees. They set me in the middle, and drove me out of the city to TQ airfield.

When we got there, I nearly choked up handing over my body armor and my M-4.

My guys were going back to war and I was flying home. That sucked. I felt like I was letting them down, shirking my duty.

It was a conflict—family and country, family and brothers in arms—that I never really resolved. I’d had even more kills in Ramadi than in Fallujah. Not only did I finish with more kills than anyone else on that deployment, but my overall total made me the most prolific American sniper of all time—to use the fancy official language.

And yet I still felt like a quitter, a guy who didn’t do enough.

12. HARD TIMES

Home

I caught a military charter, first to Kuwait, then to the States. I was in civilian clothes, and with my longer hair and beard, I got hassled a bit, since no one could figure out why someone on active duty was authorized to travel in civilian clothes.

Which, looking back, is kind of amusing.

I got off the plane in Atlanta, then had to go back through security to continue on. It had taken me a few days to make it this far, and when I took my boots off, I swear half a dozen people in line nearby keeled over. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten through security quite as fast.

Taya:

He would never tell me how dangerous things were, but I got to the point where I felt like I could read him. And when he told me that his guys were taking him out in a convoy, just the way he told me about it made me fear not only for them but for him. I asked a couple questions and the careful responses told me how dangerous his extract was going to be.

I felt very strongly that the more people I had praying for him, the better his chances. So I asked if I could tell his parents to pray for him.

He said yes.

Then I asked if I could tell them why, about the fact that he was coming home and the danger in the city, and he said no.

So, I didn’t.

I asked people for prayer, alluded to danger, and gave no further details other than to ask them to trust me. I knew it would be a tough pill to swallow for those few I was asking. But I felt strongly that people needed to pray—and at the same time that I had to adhere to my husband’s desires about what was to be shared. I know it wasn’t popular, but I felt the need for prayer overrode my need for popularity.

When he got home, it seemed to me Chris was so stressed he was numb to everything.

It was hard for him to pinpoint how he felt about anything. He was just wiped out and overwhelmed.

I felt sad for everything he’d been through. And I felt terribly torn about needing him. I did need him, tremendously. But at the same time, I had to get along without him so much that I developed an attitude that I didn’t need him, or at least that I shouldn’t need him.

I guess it may not make any sense to anyone else, but I felt this strange mixture of feelings, all across the spectrum. I was so mad at him for leaving the kids and me on our own. I wanted him home but I was mad, too.

I was coming off months of anxiety for his safety and frustration that he chose to keep going back. I wanted to count on him, but I couldn’t. His Team could, and total strangers who happened to be in the military could, but the kids and I certainly could not.

It wasn’t his fault. He would have been in two places at once if he could have been, but he couldn’t. But when he had to choose, he didn’t choose us.

All the while, I loved him and I tried to support him and show him love in every way possible. I felt five hundred emotions, all at the same time.

I guess I had had an undercurrent of anger that whole deployment. We’d have conversations where we talked and he realized something was wrong. He’d ask what was bothering me and I’d deny it. And then finally he’d press and I would say, “I’m mad at you for going back. But I don’t want to hate you, and I don’t want to be mad. I know you could be killed tomorrow. I don’t want you to be distracted by this. I don’t want to have this conversation.”

Now finally he was back, and all of my emotions just exploded inside me, happiness and anger all mixed together.

Getting Better

The doctors performed all sorts of tests on my little girl. Some of them really pissed me off.

I remember especially when they took blood, which they had to do a lot. They’d hold her upside down and prick her foot; a lot of times it wouldn’t bleed and they’d have to do it again and again. She’d be crying the whole time.

These were long days, but eventually the docs figured out that my daughter didn’t have leukemia. While there was jaundice and some other complications, they were able to get control of the infections that had made her sick. She got better.

One of the things that was incredibly frustrating was her reaction to me. She seemed to cry every time I held her. She wanted Mommy. Taya said that she reacted that way to all men—whenever she heard a male voice, she would cry.

Whatever the reason, it hurt me badly. Here I had come all this way and truly loved her, and she rejected me.

Things were better with my son, who remembered me and now was older and more ready to play. But once again, the normal troubles that parents have with their kids and with each other were compounded by the separation and stress we’d all just gone through.

Little things could really be annoying. I expected my son to look me in the eye when I was scolding him. Taya was bothered by this, because she felt he wasn’t accustomed to me or my tone and it was too much to ask a two-year-old to look me in the eye in that situation. But my feeling was just the opposite. It was the right thing for him to do. He wasn’t being corrected by a stranger. He was being disciplined by someone who loved him. There’s a certain two-way road of respect there. You look me in the eye, I look you in the eye—we understand each other.

Taya would say, “Wait a minute. You’ve been gone for how long? And now you want to come home and be part of this family and make the rules? No sir, because you’re leaving again in another month to go back on training.”