Yesterday I joined the hordes and watched American Sniper. I had already read the book and so knew the plot line to start. I felt that the book dragged a lot as it spent an inordinate amount of time with Chris Kyle's life in East Texas as he grew up. The movie cut out most of that and moved very well into his SEAL and BUDS training then off to the middle east for four tours.
Don't get me wrong, I was born and raised not far from Chris and my family instilled a lot of the same values in me that Chris learned at an early age. As a kid, even before I started school, I would disappear in the woods with a 22 for most of the day. Typical in East Texas, we were a flag waving group fighting for mom and apple pie.
As a young man, I became disillusioned with America's almost pig headed desire to right everyone's wrong and make them march to our song. We should have learned in Vietnam but now after over 10 years in the middle east, things are just as fucked up as when we started.
It makes a good argument for the notion that we are now in more danger from terrorists than before. But now our politicians don't have the nerve to stand up and say, we made a mistake and need to get out of this mess. If the Russians could not win then how did we ever expect to win.
The movie is full of guys who are missing parts of their bodies due to explosions and gun fire. From the news reports, it doesn't appear that we are making an attempt to deal with our veterans. Once we've used them up, they are cast aside.
After watching American Sniper, I couldn't really say that the movie was pro-war or anti-war but it was stirring to say the least. If you like war stories, then I'd highly recommend that you see this movie.
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