deadliest sniper in us history

deadliest sniper in us history

Exploring the Legacy of the Deadliest Sniper in US History

1. Introduction to the Life and Career of the Deadliest Sniper

Chris served as a Navy SEAL and was the recipient of numerous awards, including two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars, and numerous other honors. Sadly, Chris Kyle was fatally shot by Eddie Ray Routh at a gun range in Glen Rose, Texas, on February 2, 2013.

In a sense, Kyle’s career trajectory has a natural and logical progression. He originated from a family skilled in firearms, and he frequently demonstrated accurate shooting from an early age. He served four tours of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and in that theater, thrived in a role that required stealth, valor, and marksmanship. After serving eight years in the Navy, it was clear that Chris Kyle’s competency had superseded that of any other sniper who had come before him.

During Jason Hall’s acceptance speech at the 2014 Oscars, he shared a profound, albeit brief sentiment. “To my father, who passed away: You are a true American Sniper.” The film writer and producer was, of course, referring to the most lethal Navy SEAL sniper in US history: Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle. Kyle’s career has been celebrated through the Clint Eastwood-directed movie American Sniper, released in 2014, which broke box office records around the world.

2. Analyzing the Impact of the Deadliest Sniper’s Achievements and Controversies

The life and death of this sniper raise questions about Martin Luther King Jr.’s maxim that the “content of our character” in our treatment of others should matter, “not the color of our skin” or whether we are Christian, Muslim, atheist, gay, or straight. In Kyle’s case, his character and candid expressions of racial bias injured the nation. I am certain he loved and the important cause to which he devoted his marriage. Experts must examine his case and write about him because we are still fighting in the Middle Eastern country that Kyle and thousands of the men and women in uniform who look like him sought to serve and protect. How would someone with Kyle’s views perform in multiethnic Iraq, or in preventing blowback when hundreds of thousands of his and fellow US soldiers return to reintegrate themselves into a multicultural society? The biography of any fallen service member deserves no less.

When the deadliest legend in US military history was killed, the nation lost a war hero. But Chris Kyle’s death did not end the controversy that arises from his racial prejudices, as voiced in his autobiography. Kyle might have been defending his fellow soldiers in battle with the enemy, but in this country, bigoted views are everyone’s enemy. They have injured us in the past, and they can again when nurtured and then carried on within society.

3. Understanding the Training and Skills Required to Become a Top Sniper

The equipment of a sniper and his vision are extremely critical. Because the sniper has to remain hidden at all times, not only from the victim he is targeting, but also from anyone else in the area. He must be able to observe, and to keep his target within his sights for an indefinite period of time. With basic instruments, this is impossible. Not only is the target hard to see but mirages make the correction of the sighting difficult. The field glasses to be used by a sniper must have a swinging prism that allows the viewer to see in mid-range, at close, long, or overhead distances to the right or left. The Soviet ARK-531 rifle scope installed has filters that reduce the clarity of the image, changing the sight picture diversely.

Separating the killing aspect from the political and historical aspect, what is involved in the shooting? The sniper team has to be trained and skilled in observation, research, stalking, and the use of various weapons. A five-week school is dedicated to training prospective sniper teams of the Marine Corps. It begins with a screening test that includes physical fitness, observation, and shooting tests, and only about half of those who begin the training graduate. Physical fitness is vital, as a sniper may have to crawl for a substantial distance to reach an observation point.

4. Examining the Psychological and Ethical Challenges Faced by Snipers in Combat

Our particular fascination with snipers comes in the questions they pose about the limits of human conscience and artifice. Investment in a sniper distracts from the humanitarian project of reducing the sum total of harm in warfare, and most, if not all, snipers are coached in the lineaments of a sniper’s moral code of accuracy, discrimination, and reconnaissance, contradicting this with a duty to exploit their targets’ awareness of their presence, playing with their fears and priming targets for annihilation. Such soldiers are undeniably victims of their societies’ inclination towards grievous action: they target to protect. Yet we find in the untrammeled celebration of the sniper a symptom of the world’s historical malaise, a contemporary nation’s exaggerated militarist persuasion of destruction as a prophylactic for existential angst, and the hollow nature of political discourse around committed troops.

In most training, the mechanics of the incapacitating brain stem shot and the skills of camouflage and cover come to the forefront of teaching. But psychological training also comes into play. In the United States, snipers are usually among the first soldiers sent for combat trauma treatment – not because they are disproportionately wounded but because of the ethical, psychological, and moral dilemma faced in spending days at a time – sometimes more – in waiting out vulnerable targets. Sniper instructors hope to inculcate a distinct morality of “kill wisely,” avoiding targets that are not critically important. News that Kyle had made a 2,100-meter shot (the longest in US military history) in Fallujah in 2008 earned him the nickname “The Legend” and was doubled down by a rumor that Iraqi insurgents had put an $80,000 bounty on his head.