The Truth is Unspeakable; American Sniper unloads on 'American Sniper'

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: bastion

I was raised by a WWII airforce Command pilot he taught me to shoot and indeed myself and my elder brother bonded with these ranges. He is a police detective in Nevada,I became ill with bad lungs shortly after Desert Storm,and failed to meet Physical standard(A1)
Does THAT render me an ignorant PHILISTINE or an American 2ndgen warrior?
The world WANTS cowboys from us repeatedly. Agressive,capable,motivated COWBOYS.
It's what the eastern force fear and liberals HATE as THAT is what we see expressed .
I would no more physically OPPRESS someone as a choice of action than YOU would (it's RUDE). I will not be insulted or have anyone I don't wish to touch me. Hence my resonses to those who would label myself or brother warriors as crazy by any measure. WE perform a function FOR the collective, ERRANT isolated incidents take place, not as a common practice and to think so is wrong.

Screaming in all caps fails to impress or convince us of your claims. How do you explain the My Lai Massacre? How do explain the torture in Abu Ghraib?

what profession are you in if you don't mind me asking?

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
ALSO SAS ,SBS ,SEALS, Rangers ARE not SUPPOSED to discuss their service work it hamstrings further efforts and can divulge secrets the command doesn't want to see realeased ...like how the US uses SAS for wet work and the like as our own forces TALK too much to use them for black ops killing. THAT can get our politicians IN JAIL so they USE others who can keep a secret and get away with what ever they please.

I'm more than aware of the firm, it's don't ask but don't tell stuff but they never breach the Official Secrets Act, which I've signed it myself and would be the last to put friends, missions, loved ones in jeopardy.

a reply to: sg1642

I am medically retired now, before that I was a loborer or a tech in electronics,the non math skills are hard to overcome and I worked until I was too I'll to do so.

a reply to: bastion

We American often fall prety to EGOIC responses to the world, I am not any exception. I am aware of it but I simply break it down to accuracy of the choice instead of values expressed.
Psychological assaults from progressive elements are RAMPANT in my country and my answers are agressive as a result.
Cavalry are not really KNOWN for humility and secrecy isn't neccesary.
Also I like Klingon things as well THAT is what that symbol is from by the way I once hosted a Klingon fan club and that was our insignia.
I designed it.

In which case I completely take back my words about you 'indulging/celebrating it - was completely unaware of the links to non-military stuff and had stupidly jumped to gun.

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: sg1642

I am medically retired now, before that I was a loborer or a tech in electronics,the non math skills are hard to overcome and I worked until I was too I'll to do so.

it was the other poster I was asking mate

originally posted by: sg1642

originally posted by: CloudsTasteMetallic
a reply to: sg1642

I couldn't care less what others think. All those poor paper targets out at my local range, may they rest in peace.

I think it was a comments section on a blog i found that link, but I know comedy gold when I see it. Went straight to bookmarks!

On topic: I do find it fishy that the OP's link claims that a 'sniper' made his first kill w/ an iron sight M4A1... Not exactly known as a high-precision platform.

It is possible. If he had started out as a rifleman and then trained as a sniper on a later tour an M4 would most likely have been his personal weapon at the time. Have a good one mate.

Ah, makes sense. Seemed like an M4 would be an unlikely secondary for a sniper team. Also, factor in that you have to make do with the tools you have at the time. Stories of squad mates sharing weapons systems aren't all that uncommon. "Hey, trade me your MP7 for this M39 EBR. I'm on entry this time."

I see what you're saying though. Start out basic infantry, someone realizes "Hey, he's a pretty good shot. Get him a better rifle so he can reach out and touch someone."

originally posted by: sg1642

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: bastion

I was raised by a WWII airforce Command pilot he taught me to shoot and indeed myself and my elder brother bonded with these ranges. He is a police detective in Nevada,I became ill with bad lungs shortly after Desert Storm,and failed to meet Physical standard(A1)
Does THAT render me an ignorant PHILISTINE or an American 2ndgen warrior?
The world WANTS cowboys from us repeatedly. Agressive,capable,motivated COWBOYS.
It's what the eastern force fear and liberals HATE as THAT is what we see expressed .
I would no more physically OPPRESS someone as a choice of action than YOU would (it's RUDE). I will not be insulted or have anyone I don't wish to touch me. Hence my resonses to those who would label myself or brother warriors as crazy by any measure. WE perform a function FOR the collective, ERRANT isolated incidents take place, not as a common practice and to think so is wrong.

Screaming in all caps fails to impress or convince us of your claims. How do you explain the My Lai Massacre? How do explain the torture in Abu Ghraib?

what profession are you in if you don't mind me asking?

I try to avoid revealing personal information online. Bu if you're implying that only someone in the military could understand what sociopaths are, that they do exist in the military as elsewhere, that simply isn't the case. How do you explain what happened at My Lai and Abu Ghraib?

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: sg1642

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: bastion

I was raised by a WWII airforce Command pilot he taught me to shoot and indeed myself and my elder brother bonded with these ranges. He is a police detective in Nevada,I became ill with bad lungs shortly after Desert Storm,and failed to meet Physical standard(A1)
Does THAT render me an ignorant PHILISTINE or an American 2ndgen warrior?
The world WANTS cowboys from us repeatedly. Agressive,capable,motivated COWBOYS.
It's what the eastern force fear and liberals HATE as THAT is what we see expressed .
I would no more physically OPPRESS someone as a choice of action than YOU would (it's RUDE). I will not be insulted or have anyone I don't wish to touch me. Hence my resonses to those who would label myself or brother warriors as crazy by any measure. WE perform a function FOR the collective, ERRANT isolated incidents take place, not as a common practice and to think so is wrong.

Screaming in all caps fails to impress or convince us of your claims. How do you explain the My Lai Massacre? How do explain the torture in Abu Ghraib?

what profession are you in if you don't mind me asking?

I try to avoid revealing personal information online. Bu if you're implying that only someone in the military could understand what sociopaths are, that they do exist in the military as elsewhere, that simply isn't the case. How do you explain what happened at My Lai and Abu Ghraib?

you are quick to focus on the negative points about military service. How do you explain the american personnel who saved civilian lives at My Lai? You can focus on the negative all you want but there are two sides to ever coin.

originally posted by: sg1642

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: sg1642

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: cavtrooper7
a reply to: bastion

I was raised by a WWII airforce Command pilot he taught me to shoot and indeed myself and my elder brother bonded with these ranges. He is a police detective in Nevada,I became ill with bad lungs shortly after Desert Storm,and failed to meet Physical standard(A1)
Does THAT render me an ignorant PHILISTINE or an American 2ndgen warrior?
The world WANTS cowboys from us repeatedly. Agressive,capable,motivated COWBOYS.
It's what the eastern force fear and liberals HATE as THAT is what we see expressed .
I would no more physically OPPRESS someone as a choice of action than YOU would (it's RUDE). I will not be insulted or have anyone I don't wish to touch me. Hence my resonses to those who would label myself or brother warriors as crazy by any measure. WE perform a function FOR the collective, ERRANT isolated incidents take place, not as a common practice and to think so is wrong.

Screaming in all caps fails to impress or convince us of your claims. How do you explain the My Lai Massacre? How do explain the torture in Abu Ghraib?

what profession are you in if you don't mind me asking?

I try to avoid revealing personal information online. Bu if you're implying that only someone in the military could understand what sociopaths are, that they do exist in the military as elsewhere, that simply isn't the case. How do you explain what happened at My Lai and Abu Ghraib?

you are quick to focus on the negative points about military service. How do you explain the american personnel who saved civilian lives at My Lai? You can focus on the negative all you want but there are two sides to ever coin.

The discussion is about a particular film and the blow-back about a particular sniper. If you don't think killing people is negative, I don't know what I can do to persuade you. The discussion evolved to include talk about whether some military personnel are sociopaths. Someone claimed that they weren't. I then asked him to explain how My Lai and Abu Ghraib happened. No one even suggested that some military personnel don't save people.

originally posted by: Forensick
a reply to: Answer

Has anyone actually read the book?

Answer me this Answer - what is humanity and who decides it?

If you ask me, my humanity is built on personal feelings, it bothers me not in the slightest if you think I am inhumane for eating bacon. Likewise, if you pigeon hole me as a sociopath because I fit that hole.

On the same level, I have never taken a human life, if I ever found myself in a situation where I had to or wanted to, would I take the life of the person, I would do whatever I felt like.

Chris Kyle was very religions, he said in his book God first, USA second and he could face his god with a clear conscious, was that because he was fed BS by his government? No, it was because for every person he shot, his brother in the Marines had a better chance of living. Was that marine worth saving more than the person trying to kill the marine who had invaded their country....what you gonna do.

The Armed Forces do not represent the majority of voters, I put it this way, if you voted for Bush or Blair or you didnt vote, you created the American Sniper, be it Chris Kyle or any other, you allowed and are still allowing this. The soldier is just going to protect his own.

I'm not sure which of my posts you're replying to but I've read the book and have more knowledge of this particular subject than most.

I agree with what you're saying so I'm not sure why you're addressing me.

originally posted by: bastion



As for the film it's obvious war machine propaganda - no solider worth their salt would keep a kill count and profiteer from being a serial killer - they'd be ashamed they had take another life and want to make sure no one else was stupid enough o do the same.

Maybe you're not aware of this... but snipers have to file paperwork on every kill.

The sniper doesn't keep the kill-count record, the DOD keeps that record. When Kyle's count went up, word got out and he became a battlefield legend. This was not his doing.

His legend followed him home and some folks decided to write a book about him. He found out about it and decided to participate in the authorship of the book to make sure the stories written about him were legitimate.

He decided, against his wife's wishes, to donate all proceeds from the book sales to wounded veteran charities. His family has been criticized for that money not yet making it to the charities but they quickly found out that it's actually not easy to give away millions of dollars. They're still working on the best way to do it while also dealing with the Ventura lawsuit, the movie being made, and the company that Kyle helped form when he came home screwing his widow out of money.

The main thing that irks me about the criticism of Chris Kyle is that it always comes from a position of ignorance. People read a few things online and think they know the situation. The truth is, there have been many lies spread about Kyle by anti-war journalists and those lies have been repeated so many times that they're accepted as truth.

Some things that have been posted by one particular journalist that have no factual basis yet are repeated all over by sources trying to discredit Kyle:
-Chris Kyle said he killed looters during the rioting after Katrina. He never said it.
-Chris Kyle claims to have killed 2 carjackers trying to steal his truck. He never said it.
-Chris Kyle had many kills in combat that were questionable. No facts to back this up.
-Chris Kyle got his kill count because he was trigger happy. Not factual. He did 4 tours during some of the worst fighting in the worst parts of Iraq. It was a "target-rich environment."

Due to Ventura winning his defamation case, the Kyle-haters have jumped on that as proof that he's a liar. Firstly, the judge pressured the jury to make a decision even though they couldn't reach a verdict. Secondly, all of the eyewitnesses were drunk which led to conflicting accounts. It was a SEAL bar right after a SEAL funeral... of course they couldn't recall exactly what happened. Ventura's witnesses were all over the place in their recollection of events... they couldn't even agree on which night they were at the bar. At the end of the trial, there was really no way to determine if the story was true or not. If you read the court documents instead of skimming the headlines on the internet, the trial really didn't determine if the story was true or not because it all became a "he said, she said" case with no hard evidence.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: cavtrooper7

& I've never voted...
So no I didn't elect anybody.

*Never* voted

So in your armchair-hipster world individual soldiers are responsible for deciding to invade foreign nations (not elected polititians) and all the biggest problems you have will solve themselves if you post hate-filled diatribes on internet forums (no need to ever vote!)

^ all this energy spent on hating a symptom while showing ignorance of root cause

All the while showing your ass on a public forum

a reply to: Answer

Obviously, the jury did decide which story was true and which was not. Ventura won the lawsuit because the jury decided that a preponderance of the evidence was in his favor. Judges always pressure juries to reach decisions. It's standard practice.

You have no idea what Kyle did not say--that is unless you spent every minute of his life with him.

You have no idea whether he was trigger happy or enjoyed killing. Only he would have known whether he enjoyed killing.

a reply to: Justshrug

Well let's see...

I'm 27...

In my lifetime so far there has only been one General Election I could have possibly been allowed to vote in...

People I wouldn't have voted for won the Election and my one vote wouldn't have made a difference anyways...





But if we get to the meat of the issue...

Who are you, or anyone else, to decide if someone doesn't vote they can't have an opinion?

Nobody, exactly....



Your party line ideology of non-voter irrelevance is truly, astoundingly grandiose.




& added to he fact that I never blamed Soldiers for anything, I don't see what point you're trying to make.

a reply to: Strawberry88

Don't get all panty-wadded...I've already mentioned that I disagree with why we're over there, so you don't need to preach to the choir on that one.

But, having very good inside knowledge of things that have gone on over there, there are many villages and tribes who can't fight for themselves who appreciate the presence of coalition forces, regardless of your or my ideological viewpoints of us being over there. But, on the flip side, there are entire villages that despise our presence.

All I'm saying is that you can't generalize that all people in all villages consider us the enemy, or that we destroy families all the time (and that we're the only ones doing that--do you pay attention to what their own people do to their own???). For the most part, our forces are doing right by the innocent villages and families in that region. But it certainly is time that we get out of there...like, 12 years ago or so.

So, yes, I am proud of people like Chris Kyle and the service that they do for my country. War is a sh*tty, terrible thing, but if it has to happen because of national leaders dictating that our military is needed for battle, Chris Kyles will always be a necessary part of keeping our forces safe. "The enemy" is relative as to which side you're on, but there is always someone you view with a skeptical eye.

originally posted by: sg1642

originally posted by: CloudsTasteMetallic
a reply to: sg1642

I couldn't care less what others think. All those poor paper targets out at my local range, may they rest in peace.

I think it was a comments section on a blog i found that link, but I know comedy gold when I see it. Went straight to bookmarks!

On topic: I do find it fishy that the OP's link claims that a 'sniper' made his first kill w/ an iron sight M4A1... Not exactly known as a high-precision platform.

It is possible. If he had started out as a rifleman and then trained as a sniper on a later tour an M4 would most likely have been his personal weapon at the time. Have a good one mate.

It certainly is possible - but the fact it took 6 shots to kill his target makes the "Hey, I'm a good shot" angle a bit suspect - it's not entirely clear, but when people say they took 3 shots, they don't generally mean "I fired a 3-round burst on auto" - they mean three separate trigger pulls. Or 6, in this case.

Second, and more telling were his reactions - overwhelming joy, followed by overwhelming remorse. He doesn't sound like he had the psychological makeup to be a sniper, or qualify to attend sniper school. To attend sniper school, you have to volunteer, you have to pass a psych eval, and have a number of other characteristics. Snipers need to be able to work alone, under stress, for long periods of time - they need to be emotionally stable and controlled to the point of coldness.

His description of his reaction after shooting that first man tells me he wasn't psychologically well-suited for sniping. Nor does he sound like someone who'd volunteer for sniper school after that experience.

I mentioned this upthread - I don't know this guy's story - the author could well have muddled what the "sniper" told him to fit his own desired narrative. He could be decent and honorable, served in combat, even been a sniper. Or he could be some guy who served as a prison guard, who never experienced or saw combat, and exhibits signs of mental illness - like Kyle's killer. Whatever he did, he's entitled to his opinions - but when people decide to share stories, it's good to know if they're true or fictional.

I've encountered far too many people who claim military service and experiences whose stories fall apart at the lightest touch to just take their claims at face value.

a reply to: squittles

Yep. Just to be clear I'm not not claiming his story is true, I'm only pointing out it could be true.

He checks out. 19D in Diyala. Actually has records in DoD that confirm he was there, unlike Salon's last guy.