James Rogers Bush · Follow · Top Commenter Left, Right, or Center, we are all Americans and have a right, under the First Amendment, to speak our piece. My ancestors settled in Texas in 1836. My great great grandfather was on the committee to name Bonham and Fannin County, Texas. Both mine and my wifes ancestors owned slaves and fought for the South in the Civil War. My father was on the Bataan Death March and survived over three years in a Japanese prison camp. My wifes grandfather was in the Meuse Argonne Offensive during WW1. Her father was part of the Red Ball Express during WW2. My stepson served in Iraq. I served during the Viet Nam War. Chris Kyle reflects an attitude that comes straight out of Texas. Its an attitude that I consider to be twisted, or broken, if you will. Why do I feel this way? I feel this way because this attitude, which is so often bragged about by Texans as being a positive thing, a manly thing, a patriotic thing, is, in fact, a self-destructive thing. From the Alamo to Iraq, Texas has exulted in having an attitude of stubborn meanness. That meanness may have helped Texas to survive the harsh conditions of its birth, but now it only serves to retard Texas from moving forward with the rest of the country. Chris Kyle was raised with guns, the Bible, and an attitude that Texans are more patriotic and godly than the rest of the country, and certainly more godly than the people of Iraq. He went to Iraq with his gun, Bible, and this attitude, which enabled him to kill, without compunction, and with a deep animosity and resentment for the people, not just the enemy, of the country that we were supposed to liberate. In the end, he was broken by the war - a war that was wrong in the first place. In my opinion his wrong attitude and the wrong war that he was engaged in destroyed him, and may, ultimately, destroy all of us. When Chris Kyle was killed by a fellow veteran, with PTSD, whom he was trying to help, the very way that he tried to help is indicative of the flawed attitude that he carried with him to Iraq, brought home from Iraq, and took with him into that shooting range the day he was killed. Kyle thought that with the help of God and a gun, he could heal a veteran whose very illness was the result of guns. No one in their right mind would take a veteran suffering from PTSD into a shooting range. Chris Kyle was twisted when he left Texas with a cross tattooed on one arm and a sniper rifle carried under the other. He was twisted when he killed dozens, with malice, in Iraq. And he was twisted when he came home and took a broken veteran to a shooting range, thinking it would help. Chris Kyles story is a sad one, and it deserves to be told, but honestly, and not as if he were a hero to be admired or even as a wounded veteran to be sympathized with. Chris Kyles story should be told as a cautionary one - one that warns us what happens when a country invades another under false pretenses and then turns its young men into sociopathic killers to validate that invasion. The Iraq War was a terrible mistake, one which the whole world will be paying for, for quite some time. We have created a monster, and now that monster is coming home to roost; and now we must kill that monster in any way we can; but we should never idolize killing, or the men who do that killing for us. Instead we should do what needs to be done, with humility, knowing what damage will be done, and knowing that there is no glory in being a Chris Kyle.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 22:36:21 +0000
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