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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder The Most Shocking
Speaker 3: Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, DTK. Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 3: journalist and author Dan Zufansky.
Speaker 4: Good Evening. This is your host Dan Zuvanski for the
Speaker 4: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime
Speaker 4: History and the authors that have written about them. American
Speaker 4: Sniper is the astonished, ushing autobiography of Seal Chief Chris Kyle,
Speaker 4: who is the record holder for most kills for a
Speaker 4: sniper in US military history. Kyle has more than one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty officially confirmed kills. The previous American record
Speaker 4: was one hundred and nine. Through his remarkable career, total
Speaker 4: has though his remarkable total has not been made official
Speaker 4: by the Pentagon. In this New York Times best selling memoir,
Speaker 4: Kyle shares the true story of his extraordinary decade long career,
Speaker 4: including his multiple combat tours in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom,
Speaker 4: and Elsewhere from nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and nine.
Speaker 4: Kyle's riveting first person account of how he went from
Speaker 4: Texas rodeo cowboy to expert marksmen in Feared Assassin offers
Speaker 4: a fascinating view of modern day warfare and one of
Speaker 4: the most in depth and illuminating looks into the secret
Speaker 4: world the special ops ever written. The book that we're
Speaker 4: featuring this evening is American Sniper, the Autobiography of the
Speaker 4: most lethal sniper in US military history, with my special
Speaker 4: guest author Jim D. Falice. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 4: thank you for greeing this interview. Jim D.
Speaker 5: Falice, Nice a lot, Dan, It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 4: Oh, it's my pleasure. This is quite a unique book,
Speaker 4: even for this program where we have our share of
Speaker 4: unique books. This is a fascinating memoir of a pretty
Speaker 4: fascinating guy. So congratulations. First off, give us a little
Speaker 4: bit of your background, Jim, because it's very interesting to
Speaker 4: know how you came to this story and tell us
Speaker 4: really how you came to be able to be the
Speaker 4: author of this American Sniper, why you wanted to do it,
Speaker 4: how you came to be involved with this tell us
Speaker 4: a little bit about your background and that story how
Speaker 4: you came to write American Sniper.
Speaker 5: Well, even though I'm primarily known as a novelist, I
Speaker 5: have actually done a number of nonfiction books and helped
Speaker 5: helped a couple of celebrities write their memoirs. Until American Sniper,
Speaker 5: though I had never helped a military person actually write
Speaker 5: a memoir. But I was very interested in, you know,
Speaker 5: getting that opportunity. And it happened that the publisher, excuse me,
Speaker 5: my publishers, HarperCollins, was interested in had heard about Chris
Speaker 5: and approached Chris about about doing a book, and when
Speaker 5: he indicated that he was interested, they contacted me and said, hey,
Speaker 5: we know that you've been looking for you know, we
Speaker 5: know you've been looking for a really good topic, really
Speaker 5: good subject. Would you be interested in, you know, talking
Speaker 5: to this seal. At the time, they didn't really know
Speaker 5: all that much about Chris, and they knew that he
Speaker 5: had the record or was was talked about as having
Speaker 5: the record of kills, but they didn't really know all
Speaker 5: that much about him, so they kind of they gave him,
Speaker 5: actually they gave his lawyer my phone number, and Chris
Speaker 5: and I had a conversation on the phone, and I
Speaker 5: still remember it because we I said, Chris, why you know,
Speaker 5: why do you why do you want to tell your story?
Speaker 5: Why was it? Why do you want to write a book?
Speaker 5: And he said, I want to honor the people I
Speaker 5: served with and I want to help the families of
Speaker 5: the two guys who I couldn't save. And I said,
Speaker 5: you know what, that's a that's a hell of a
Speaker 5: good reason to write a book, A really good reason
Speaker 5: to write a book. And I think from that moment on,
Speaker 5: I was I was hooked, and I would have you know,
Speaker 5: I knew, I knew it was going to be a
Speaker 5: great book.
Speaker 4: Now us a little bit of the background here. We're
Speaker 4: talking about Texas here in terms of where he was
Speaker 4: born and raised and and just for the record too,
Speaker 4: where are you originally from? And how much connection do
Speaker 4: you have the sort of this kind of the lifestyle
Speaker 4: that he or the upbringing that he had in Texas itself.
Speaker 4: But tell us then about a little bit about where
Speaker 4: he grew up specifically in Texas.
Speaker 5: Sure, And you know, it's it's kind of an amazing
Speaker 5: thing because I'm I don't know how much my accent
Speaker 5: gives me away. But I'm in New York kind of
Speaker 5: a New York city. I'm born in Bread although at
Speaker 5: I don't we live now, we live outside the city.
Speaker 5: Chris was Chris was a good old boy. Chris was
Speaker 5: was Texas born and bred and raised, and except while
Speaker 5: he was in the Navy and the seal, has had
Speaker 5: lived all his life in uh in Texas and still
Speaker 5: had quite a lot of uh the Texas twang in
Speaker 5: him and went to went to the length, you know,
Speaker 5: just to kind of preserve that heritage. He he had
Speaker 5: two kids, and when each of one of them was born,
Speaker 5: he was happened to be uh stationed out in California,
Speaker 5: and that's where obviously they had the the children. But
Speaker 5: he had his father ship him a little box of
Speaker 5: Texas dirt, and so that when each one of his
Speaker 5: children was born, the first thing that their feet stepped
Speaker 5: on was was Texas dirt. And uh so he was
Speaker 5: very much, very much, uh you know, a Texas character.
Speaker 5: He in high school, he started uh riding rodeo. He
Speaker 5: uh went through with a lot of different events and
Speaker 5: eventually got pretty good at buston broncos and went a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of a whole bunch of belt, which is
Speaker 5: you know, kind of the prize that you win when
Speaker 5: you're on the circuit, and you know, a lot of
Speaker 5: He couldn't couldn't survive on that for a long time,
Speaker 5: but it, you know, kept him in beer money through
Speaker 5: the first couple of years in college. And eventually he
Speaker 5: he when he got out of college, he became a
Speaker 5: cowboy and he loved he loved the life. They just
Speaker 5: loved it to death. But you can't get rich. You
Speaker 5: can't get rich being a cowboy. And eventually, eventually he
Speaker 5: decided he wanted to do something else, and he had
Speaker 5: always wanted to be he'd actually always wanted to be
Speaker 5: a marine. And so he went one day to the
Speaker 5: recruiting office and the marine recruiter happened to be out
Speaker 5: for lunch, and he was, you know, the kind of
Speaker 5: went to the door, door was closed, realized the guy
Speaker 5: was out for lunch, and you know, made a U turn,
Speaker 5: was on his way out of the building and the
Speaker 5: he heard a voice say, hey, hey, boy son, come here,
Speaker 5: come over here. So what do you what are you doing?
Speaker 5: What are you trying to sign up for? And you know,
Speaker 5: Chris told him I wanted to be a marine, and
Speaker 5: you know, he told him why, and the recruiters said, well,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm with the Navy. You ever hear the seals?
Speaker 5: And you know, from that little, short brief conversation, the
Speaker 5: whole career was born.
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit about the relationship that he
Speaker 4: had with his family growing up, Well, what kind of
Speaker 4: family life he really had, and initially he had, Well,
Speaker 4: like a lot of people in Texas and a lot
Speaker 4: of people in general, have hunting in terms of an
Speaker 4: experience when they're young, how important was hunting and how
Speaker 4: important was hunting with the family that he grew up
Speaker 4: with in Texas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that was, you know, just as you say,
Speaker 5: that was, you know, a really affirmative experience for him.
Speaker 5: He and his dad at a very early age, his
Speaker 5: dad took him out uh to learn to learn how
Speaker 5: to haunt UH, showed him and his he has he
Speaker 5: Chris has a younger brother, a few years younger, and
Speaker 5: both of them, you know, were taught from a very
Speaker 5: early age to respect respect guns, UH, to also to
Speaker 5: respect hunting. They would not basically they would eat anything
Speaker 5: they they killed. So you know, whether it was when
Speaker 5: they were little, you know, if they if they got
Speaker 5: a squirrel, they'd have squirrels too, and more often when
Speaker 5: as they they got a little older, hunting deer and
Speaker 5: you know, other other sorts of animals. He was Chris
Speaker 5: was a fairly decent shot from a young age, but
Speaker 5: not necessarily you know, a champion, but he he grew
Speaker 5: up around around guns and you know, in just the
Speaker 5: outdoor life, and he really liked He liked the life
Speaker 5: and he liked the skills that he developed as a
Speaker 5: young man.
Speaker 4: When was he born? What year was he born?
Speaker 5: Boy, you know, I'm gonna i'd actually, off the top
Speaker 5: of my head, I can't remember. I had to look
Speaker 5: it up.
Speaker 4: Well, we'll say roughly so that he was born roughly
Speaker 4: in the in the in the seventies, he was he
Speaker 4: was still a young man.
Speaker 5: Well he died, so you got me Dan, So you know, now.
Speaker 4: I just want to have a context because we're going
Speaker 4: to be talking about Iraq, but we're also going to
Speaker 4: be talking about obviously, Well, the question I want to
Speaker 4: ask was growing up and with his family's background, was
Speaker 4: there any military background and in terms of a teenager
Speaker 4: having an attitude and and certainly Chris had one, Uh,
Speaker 4: what was his what was his earliest opinion about war?
Speaker 5: I think that y you know, I think that y yuh,
Speaker 5: Chris wasn't particularly philosophical about a lot of things. He's
Speaker 5: very patriotic, uh he he very much you know, believed
Speaker 5: in America. And he he also one thing that was
Speaker 5: very important for him growing up was to stand up
Speaker 5: for other people. He he was egs, he was the
Speaker 5: epitome of the older brother. Uh. His his younger brother
Speaker 5: was I think three or four years younger than him.
Speaker 5: And there's a lot of stories uh, you know, among
Speaker 5: not only Chris, but among uh Chris's brother's friends, uh
Speaker 5: about you know how Chris you know, had st had
Speaker 5: stood up for younger kids and smaller kids who were
Speaker 5: being picked on. So he really had kind of that
Speaker 5: protective gene almost in him when he when he was
Speaker 5: a kid. I think that when he got into the
Speaker 5: the reason that he got into the military was a
Speaker 5: combination of you know, of patriotism and also and also adventure.
Speaker 5: I think, like a lot of young men, you know,
Speaker 5: he wanted he not only wanted to serve his country,
Speaker 5: but he also wanted to you know, to kind of
Speaker 5: you know, put himself, not to have put himself in
Speaker 5: kind of an action type you know, situation, and you know,
Speaker 5: test himself in different ways, and you know, being a
Speaker 5: seal was in a lot of ways the ultimate and
Speaker 5: the ultimate test for you know, for a young man,
Speaker 5: especially one that is not only patriotic, but is you
Speaker 5: know kind of thinks of themselves as a as kind
Speaker 5: of a tough fighter and or that kind of person.
Speaker 4: Right right now, tell us where Tea fits in here
Speaker 4: in terms of time timeline, in terms of when did
Speaker 4: he meet and is that the way pronounce Tella or yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely is his wife and actually they met. They met
Speaker 5: in the nineties when shortly after Chris had had qualified
Speaker 5: to become a seal and was still it was still
Speaker 5: though in his training. Seals have a kind of we
Speaker 5: think of a seal as someone who you know, has
Speaker 5: passed the basic requirements and buds and gone through the
Speaker 5: regular courses and now they've become a seal. Well to this,
Speaker 5: to the seals, that's just kind of the first that's
Speaker 5: kind of the first rung. You now have to go
Speaker 5: through all this training and prove yourself before the other
Speaker 5: people and the you know, the teams will really accept
Speaker 5: you as a as a seal, and Chris was in
Speaker 5: that stage where he had passed through kind of the
Speaker 5: preliminary all the preliminaries, and the world called him a seal,
Speaker 5: but he was still trying to prove himself to the
Speaker 5: you know, to the teams or to the to the
Speaker 5: seals themselves. And they were in Chris was in San Diego,
Speaker 5: and Taya one night came down with a friend and
Speaker 5: met him or was hanging out in a bar, and basically,
Speaker 5: depending on which one of them is telling the story,
Speaker 5: either she picked him up or he picked her up,
Speaker 5: and they started joking and drinking and joking, and Taya
Speaker 5: coin to Taya. At the end of the night, she
Speaker 5: had drunk so much unfortunately she threw up, and when
Speaker 5: he still called her the next I think it was
Speaker 5: the next day, and was still called her, she knew
Speaker 5: that it must be true love.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, interesting, yeah, so she was. She was obviously
Speaker 4: understanding how passionate he was about the military and especially
Speaker 4: or specifically the seals as well. And did she understand
Speaker 4: and or did he explain or did she somehow have
Speaker 4: some military history herself within her family? How did she
Speaker 4: come to accept everything that she felt she needed to
Speaker 4: accept in partnering up with Chris Kyle.
Speaker 5: I think it was a really a process, and a
Speaker 5: long process. I don't think that first of all, I
Speaker 5: don't think that anyone completely understands what it means to
Speaker 5: deploy into a combat situation. If you're a the soldier
Speaker 5: of that you know that's going there before you've actually
Speaker 5: done it, or be the you know, the spouse or
Speaker 5: the kids you know of the family. It's one thing
Speaker 5: to read a book about it, or see a movie
Speaker 5: about it, or even hears somebody that's been there, and
Speaker 5: quite another thing to actually emotionally experience it. And at
Speaker 5: the point when they met, not only had head you know,
Speaker 5: neither Chris nor Taya head you know head deployment or
Speaker 5: been through a deployment. And yeah, I think that Chris
Speaker 5: was still learning what it meant to be a seal
Speaker 5: and Taya was at that point anyway, learning what.
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Speaker 5: To be in love with a seal, and I think
Speaker 5: it was like a long process. It wasn't a smooth
Speaker 5: wasn't necessarily a smooth road. And we talk a little
Speaker 5: bit about actually we talk a lot about about kind
Speaker 5: of some of the trials and tribulations. They went through
Speaker 5: through it in the book.
Speaker 4: Now with this, what is the again, what is the
Speaker 4: timeline in terms of the Iraq War and the spring
Speaker 4: of two thousand and three and the initiative by the
Speaker 4: United States and Taya and their first born So sure
Speaker 4: of an idea.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Chris, Chris and Taya, you know, meet and their
Speaker 5: relationship starts getting you know, hot and heavy right before
Speaker 5: nine to eleven. As a matter of fact, on the
Speaker 5: morning of nine to eleven, they they wake up and
Speaker 5: they find that the towers that have been struck and Chris, uh,
Speaker 5: we have a funny story in the Book of Chris
Speaker 5: basically races to his base to report to the base,
Speaker 5: gets pulled over by a by one of the local policemen.
Speaker 5: Uh who you know. And Chris, being Chris, was always
Speaker 5: no matter what the situation was, no matter how much
Speaker 5: stress he was, he was always respectful, even to cops.
Speaker 5: As a police officer came up and Chris said, uh, uh,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I know you got to give me a ticket.
Speaker 5: Go hey, give me the ticket, but I gotta get
Speaker 5: to the base. And the the cop looked in the
Speaker 5: back and saw you know, I saw his gear and
Speaker 5: realized he was he was military, and so the cop said, well,
Speaker 5: you know, what's your unit and Chris said he was
Speaker 5: a CEL and the cop said, alright, up, follow me,
Speaker 5: I'm a cop pavement escort. Not quite as fast as
Speaker 5: Chris had been going uh to the base, but uh
Speaker 5: they went pretty fast. I As it happened, Uh, Chris
Speaker 5: was not actually needed uh to you know, to go
Speaker 5: to Afghanisty and after nine to eleven, but he started
Speaker 5: training up to go to to Iraq as the build
Speaker 5: up for Iraq happened.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: Chris and and Taya married in that in that same
Speaker 5: time period and they actually have their as it worked out,
Speaker 5: both of their children right before deployments that Chris and
Speaker 5: Chris went on, uh, which I'm sure was extremely stressful
Speaker 5: for for both of them, but uh especially for Tay
Speaker 5: as she was left uh the first time. You know,
Speaker 5: she was a first time mother with you know, a
Speaker 5: newborn and her husband. Suddenly you know, her husband was
Speaker 5: there one day and then the next day was you know,
Speaker 5: off on the other side of the world. Uh, you know,
Speaker 5: being shot at. So it was an extremely you know,
Speaker 5: extremely stressful experience, an experience I should should note that
Speaker 5: you know, the wives, you know, loved ones of service people,
Speaker 5: you know of literally hundreds of thousands of service people
Speaker 5: have gone through. It's just that we don't, you know,
Speaker 5: we don't necessarily think about, you know, about that side
Speaker 5: of the equation sometimes.
Speaker 4: Now you talk about the son being born just as
Speaker 4: he's being deployed through Iraq, Is that correct? Or Afghanistan?
Speaker 5: Not? Actually it's Iraq. That all the all the deployments
Speaker 5: in the book are in Iraq.
Speaker 4: Okay, now with with his deployment, Now, how we've kind
Speaker 4: of skipped over some real important stuff. Number One, we're
Speaker 4: not I certainly don't know, but our audience certainly doesn't
Speaker 4: know about what really a seal means in terms of
Speaker 4: what is their purpose in the military, you know, secretive.
Speaker 4: But tell us a little bit about the seals and
Speaker 4: and how does he rise to the and to the
Speaker 4: level that he is one of these again assassins? He's
Speaker 4: a sniper? How does that happen? You said he wasn't
Speaker 4: really a marksman when he was young. How does he
Speaker 4: get to this point? And and and how does he
Speaker 4: why do they pick him?
Speaker 5: Sure, let's let's just let's just hit on like kind
Speaker 5: of a common mis misconception. First, a lot of people
Speaker 5: when when we use the word sniper, a lot of
Speaker 5: people think of, you know, kind of a person stalking
Speaker 5: high value target, so to speak, for for days and
Speaker 5: days and days. And while that certainly is occasionally done
Speaker 5: in contemporary military, the role of snackers on the battlefield
Speaker 5: has you know, has evolved as everything else has evolved.
Speaker 5: And in the American military and actually in every pretty
Speaker 5: much most Western I I'll make a blanket statement say
Speaker 5: every other Western military. I may I may possibly be
Speaker 5: missing somebody, but most militaries use uh, snipers or really
Speaker 5: good marksmen to in situations where they need to be
Speaker 5: able to not kill civilians and they need precision. They
Speaker 5: want to have preci you know, precision shots where there's
Speaker 5: potentially people around who may get hurt and the and
Speaker 5: so the ability and the equipment to be able to
Speaker 5: you know, to strike a combatant or an enemy me
Speaker 5: at a thousand yards becomes kind of a premium in
Speaker 5: a war, especially in a place like Iraq, where all
Speaker 5: of the time you had you know, you had civilians
Speaker 5: all over the place. So it's kind of a misconception.
Speaker 5: And I think that you know that I certainly shared it, uh,
Speaker 5: you know before you know, beforehand, not not really knowing
Speaker 5: you know, anything about the you know, contemporary tactics and strategies,
Speaker 5: and the word sniper, you know, sounds sounds really cool.
Speaker 5: But the odd thing is that it comes out of
Speaker 5: a whole, you know, a whole movement to reduce collateral
Speaker 5: damage and and injuries. What happened with Chris. The Seals
Speaker 5: in American the American military, the Seals are an elite
Speaker 5: special operations unit that are they're trained to operate on
Speaker 5: the sea, in the air, and on the land, which
Speaker 5: is where they're you know, that nickname Seals comes from.
Speaker 5: There are a number of teams they're assigned in, you know,
Speaker 5: from different places, and you can think of them as
Speaker 5: the kind of the Navy equipment to equivalent excuse me,
Speaker 5: to other special operations units like the the American Special
Speaker 5: Forces or Rangers or the Air Commandos. So each have
Speaker 5: a slightly different, slightly different mission and somewhat different training,
Speaker 5: but they're all kind of elite, you know, elite units.
Speaker 5: In Iraq, the Seals were used initially for in the
Speaker 5: initial invasion, and Chris was part of this to seize
Speaker 5: oil fields that they were afraid that Saddam would blow
Speaker 5: up and pollute the Gulf with as he had done
Speaker 5: in the First Gulf War. And so Chris and the
Speaker 5: seal team that he was part of were assigned just
Speaker 5: at the very start of the ground war to go
Speaker 5: in and uh take over a an oil terminal and
Speaker 5: basically protect it from you know, from an ecological disaster.
Speaker 5: And that was really his first initiation. He was a
Speaker 5: a young man and uh, you know, kind of the
Speaker 5: young man on the the low, guy on the totem
Speaker 5: pole for for one of a better metaphor. And uh,
Speaker 5: even though he was in an elite unit and had
Speaker 5: proven himself, you know, one of the best you know
Speaker 5: soldiers around, he still had to prove himself to you know,
Speaker 5: to that to that team. He was a quote unquote
Speaker 5: new guy, and you know, that was kind of his
Speaker 5: first introduction into combat there. And he served he served
Speaker 5: in Iraq for I forget exactly how long the deployment is.
Speaker 5: Its several he they're actually only in combat for a
Speaker 5: few months. And then when he came back, he had
Speaker 5: proven himself to the point where he was recommended for
Speaker 5: sniper school and you know, from there he was trained,
Speaker 5: you know, to be a sniper. Marksmanship is certainly is
Speaker 5: absolutely critical and important. And Chris, I have to tell you,
Speaker 5: Chris was a hell of a shot, although he he
Speaker 5: always claimed that he wasn't. He always said he was
Speaker 5: just a good shot. I've shot with him. He's it
Speaker 5: was an incredible shot. But I guess I take his
Speaker 5: word for it that there were guys that were that
Speaker 5: were better. But he he was. Besides being a really
Speaker 5: really good shot on the rifle, he was extremely patient
Speaker 5: and he had the sort of skills that are necessary
Speaker 5: for for snipers today, and that includes being able to
Speaker 5: go out in the field, to be able to scout
Speaker 5: different areas, but also to anticipate where you know, where
Speaker 5: an enemy would be making an attack. Again, you know,
Speaker 5: as I was saying before, you know, we think of
Speaker 5: snipers as people in the jungles well interact. Much of
Speaker 5: the action, probably ninety percent of the action that the
Speaker 5: snipers saw were in urban situations, and these snipers who
Speaker 5: were interac had to you know, learn to interpret, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of urban areas and where you know where the
Speaker 5: enemy would be coming from.
Speaker 4: Now you say, you know quite you know a few
Speaker 4: months as a typical deployment. Yeah, now the sun is born. Yeah,
Speaker 4: his son is born, and he doesn't really get a
Speaker 4: chance to bond with his son obviously photos and I
Speaker 4: guess knowing of you know, getting contact with his wife
Speaker 4: constantly with Teya.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: Tell us what his adjustment was like when he'd come
Speaker 4: back from the deployment.
Speaker 5: I think it was, you know, it's pretty tough. It's
Speaker 5: tough to I think the weird one of the weirdest
Speaker 5: things about modern you know, combat is that you were
Speaker 5: in a combat situation on you know, on Thursday, people
Speaker 5: are shooting at you, and on Saturday, you're driving down
Speaker 5: the street of you know, wherever it is you live,
Speaker 5: San Diego or or wherever, and you're you know, going home. Uh.
Speaker 5: And that's got to be a heck of a I've
Speaker 5: never had to make that transition myself, but I would
Speaker 5: imagine it's it's very very strange. Chris would typically spend
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks really kind of just kind of decompressing,
Speaker 5: and for him, that basically meant staying in the house
Speaker 5: and and just kind of, you know, just not seeing
Speaker 5: anybody or or seeing very few people and just kind
Speaker 5: of just getting used to not being not being shot
Speaker 5: at the Seals. Everybody that was in Iraq obviously was
Speaker 5: you know, to some degree or another endanger. The Seals
Speaker 5: mission typically was to you know, go out and find
Speaker 5: the people who were planning bombs, planning IEDs, who were
Speaker 5: carrying out assassinations generally against Iraqis, and you know, so
Speaker 5: they were always they were always in danger. So I
Speaker 5: think it was you know, like kind of jumping off
Speaker 5: a freight train that's moving at a one hundred and
Speaker 5: ten miles an hour and now you know, now you
Speaker 5: have to learn to walk again.
Speaker 4: How was his marriage fairing from the employment itself and
Speaker 4: then the adjustment itself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you know, it was up and down. It's
Speaker 5: a lot of it was a huge it's a huge
Speaker 5: amount of stress. Having a kid is a lot of
Speaker 5: you know, it was a huge amount of stress parent.
Speaker 5: But you know, throw a war in there, and you know,
Speaker 5: and everything else, and you know, it's it's incredible. They
Speaker 5: went up and down at times. At times in their words,
Speaker 5: you know, it was blissful and then at other times,
Speaker 5: you know, there were I think both both of them
Speaker 5: were ready to you know, to throw in the towel.
Speaker 5: We talked about we One of the most emotional things
Speaker 5: for me and working in the book was very early
Speaker 5: on when we were working Chris, I I remember we
Speaker 5: we we conducted a lot of the interviews, We did
Speaker 5: a lot of you know, a lot of interviews in person, obviously,
Speaker 5: and we spend a lot a lot of time together.
Speaker 5: Chris and Tay came up and stayed with with myself
Speaker 5: and my family up here, and I down and you know,
Speaker 5: stayed with them. And one of the one I think
Speaker 5: the first time that we really spent a lot of
Speaker 5: time together, we actually were at the a ranch and
Speaker 5: it was a friend of Chris's and now a friend
Speaker 5: of mine, and I just remember, I think it was
Speaker 5: the first breakfast we had. We're sitting around and Taya,
Speaker 5: who was a great cook by the way, had made
Speaker 5: us breakfast and we just started talking and they started
Speaker 5: talking about their marriage and they s were talking for
Speaker 5: some reason about you know, some hard times they had,
Speaker 5: and it was just an incredibly emotional experience, Uh to
Speaker 5: hear these people just pouring, you know, just you know, saying,
Speaker 5: you know, how difficult it had been for them to
Speaker 5: keep to stay together, and you know, just uh, Taya
Speaker 5: talking about you know, the struggles that she had and
Speaker 5: you know, and and Chris talking about how how difficult
Speaker 5: it had been for him to you know, to adjust
Speaker 5: to coming back to to America. And and I the
Speaker 5: one time that that stands out. And we go into
Speaker 5: a lot of detail about this in the in the book,
Speaker 5: in The American Sniper, but one time that stands out
Speaker 5: for me. Their son had been was growing and tell
Speaker 5: you it just came to the conclusion that he was
Speaker 5: really going to need, you know, he needed a strong
Speaker 5: male figure, you know, growing up. And and she told, uh,
Speaker 5: Chris that cause his his enlistment was coming up, that
Speaker 5: if he was going to re enlist, she she wasn't
Speaker 5: going to leave the marriage, wasn't gonna walk out, but
Speaker 5: she was going to move from their home in San
Speaker 5: Diego up to you know, to be with her parents, Uh,
Speaker 5: to be closer to her parents. Because this way, at
Speaker 5: least that you know, her son, their son would have
Speaker 5: you know, their grandfather as a you know, as a
Speaker 5: you know, as a male figure. And I think that
Speaker 5: was a really important moment for Chris. And I think
Speaker 5: that Chris realized that you know, that he had he
Speaker 5: had to make a decision. And while sh he wasn't
Speaker 5: necessarily going to lose his wife and family, I think
Speaker 5: that inside he realized that he had to decide, you know,
Speaker 5: between the job that he had always wanted and and
Speaker 5: loved and the family that he had always wanted and
Speaker 5: and loved. And you know, he chose love. He chose
Speaker 5: his his his kids and his wife. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think about it some days. You know, I'm not
Speaker 5: sure if I had the same choice, what I choose
Speaker 5: between my career and you know, my family. I don't know.
Speaker 5: You know, that's a that's a tough choice for all
Speaker 5: of us. I think.
Speaker 4: Right now the he's working with the the Polish GROM
Speaker 4: or the NCO in in in Iraq. And what was
Speaker 4: interesting too is that you also talk about h well
Speaker 4: he talks about in the memoir and uh, and of
Speaker 4: course you make it come along. I mean that what
Speaker 4: happens is that they're also providing cover for advancement and
Speaker 4: clearing of buildings. So there's a lot of that sort
Speaker 4: of activity by the Seals as well, wasn't there right?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, first of all, I guess I have to
Speaker 5: give the GRAM a real plug because they're they're great guys,
Speaker 5: and and they owe me some drinks too, so hopefully
Speaker 5: they're d well. I'm not going to drink any of
Speaker 5: the vodka that they drink because they're their stuff is
Speaker 5: just crazy. They just those guys. I'm not gonna they
Speaker 5: Chris couldn't keep up with them and drinking, so I'm
Speaker 5: not going to even try. But they were actually Chris
Speaker 5: and Taya went over. I could couldn't make it, but
Speaker 5: Chris and Taya went over. When the book came out,
Speaker 5: We've been translated into many different languages, and the polls
Speaker 5: that the Gram especially were exceptional hosts. And I worked
Speaker 5: very close lessly with the Polish translator, who was really
Speaker 5: an excellent guy. And so I can't say enough about
Speaker 5: about how hospitable those people they were. But yes, the
Speaker 5: the job that the Grid we should explain the GRAM
Speaker 5: or the Polish kind of kind of the Polish equivalent
Speaker 5: of Seals. They're, you know, in a very elite special
Speaker 5: forces unit, and like the Seals, what they were often
Speaker 5: assigned to do would be to find a whether he's
Speaker 5: a bomb maker or some other someone who was suspected
Speaker 5: of being a terrorist leader. They would go to and
Speaker 5: they would go to his house and make the arrest
Speaker 5: and you know, bring him in. Sometimes it went you
Speaker 5: all went off without a hitch. They would come there
Speaker 5: in the middle of the night, knock on the door,
Speaker 5: and the door would open. They say, you know, are
Speaker 5: you such an are Actually the interpreted would say are
Speaker 5: you such and such. I'd say yes, okay, well you
Speaker 5: know you have to come with us, blah blah blah,
Speaker 5: and there would be no problem. More often the door
Speaker 5: would be locked and you know, and you didn't really
Speaker 5: know what was going to happen, you know, inside, And
Speaker 5: that was Chris. Chris went on quite a number of
Speaker 5: those missions basically because he had been trained. Besides the
Speaker 5: training as a sniper, he had trained as a navigator
Speaker 5: and was able to handle the special equipment that the
Speaker 5: GROM needed to use to get around wherever they were
Speaker 5: at the time.
Speaker 4: Now he goes for this is for deployments. But it's
Speaker 4: interesting what happens between the third and the fourth deployment
Speaker 4: in terms of the and I think I believe it's
Speaker 4: the other child and tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: the leukemia scare.
Speaker 5: Well, when chris is uh daughter uh was born, I
Speaker 5: she there there are a number of ailments and without
Speaker 5: you know, going into all the the technicalities, unfortunately that
Speaker 5: that she had to be hospitalized, and the initial sets
Speaker 5: of reports looked very very bad, so much so that
Speaker 5: I think that, you know, without getting going of going
Speaker 5: too deep into their kind of personal lives here, but
Speaker 5: I think that Taya probably thought that that she was
Speaker 5: ah with good reason, that her daughter was going to
Speaker 5: die and and it looked like she had leukemia and
Speaker 5: other complications. At the same time, Chris had been you know,
Speaker 5: under quite a lot of uh stress and strain and
Speaker 5: you know, on the on the job, and I think
Speaker 5: he got when he learned that that his daughter was
Speaker 5: you know, suffering with leukemia and that the doctors at
Speaker 5: that point were saying, you know, the prodagnosis did not
Speaker 5: look very good. He went to his CEO and you know,
Speaker 5: and said basically explained what was going on, and uh
Speaker 5: the CEO is credit uh just arranged very quickly for
Speaker 5: with the help I think, I believe the Red Cross
Speaker 5: uh J just to get Chris home and he was
Speaker 5: he was home within you know, within well, he was
Speaker 5: on his way within hours. I forget you know, whether
Speaker 5: it took twenty four or thirty six hours for him
Speaker 5: to get there. Fortunately, and thank god the U she
Speaker 5: her condition was was difficult, but it was not anywhere
Speaker 5: near as dire as some of the the tests had
Speaker 5: initially showed. And they were able to uh, I don't
Speaker 5: know all the the medications and stuff that they were
Speaker 5: able to to to deal with the problem. And it
Speaker 5: turned out that she didn't have leukemia, that that test
Speaker 5: had been incorrect, and fortunately and so she yeah, thank
Speaker 5: God today is a is a really really healthy, great
Speaker 5: little kid.
Speaker 4: Now you mentioned God, and this is another part that's
Speaker 4: interesting to as a you know, the complexity of Chris
Speaker 4: Kyle is that he was what he would call categorized
Speaker 4: as a devout Christian. Tell us a little bit how
Speaker 4: he came to terms with what some people might see
Speaker 4: a conflict of shooting people and a strong Christian background.
Speaker 4: How did he how did he come to terms with that? Explain?
Speaker 5: I think that well. I think that the first thing
Speaker 5: to understand about that with Chris is to understand that
Speaker 5: for Chris, what his job as a as a soldier
Speaker 5: was was to protect his people and to protect him
Speaker 5: by the by his people. He was protecting not only
Speaker 5: the people on his team, you know, they his fellow seals.
Speaker 5: But in his case specifically, he was protecting you know,
Speaker 5: Iraqi civilians and I he did not see, he did
Speaker 5: not see a a conflict in you know, in killing
Speaker 5: the enemy. He the things that he l lamented that
Speaker 5: the the deep sorrow that he had after the war
Speaker 5: were for the people that he couldn't protect. Uh. The
Speaker 5: two men who served you know next to him who
Speaker 5: died well won during the war and one from wounds
Speaker 5: later on. And you know, and different uh, different Americans
Speaker 5: who you know who not through any literal fault of his,
Speaker 5: but you know, died in you know, died in combat
Speaker 5: or died because of you know, IDs so that were
Speaker 5: placed or what have you. Chris did have Chris incidentally
Speaker 5: did have, you know, Muslim friends. As a matter of
Speaker 5: fact that I've just finished a book on one of
Speaker 5: the men who was a really good friend of Chris,
Speaker 5: who is a Muslim, a Sunni Muslim. But in in
Speaker 5: terms of religion, Chris considered himself, as you say, a
Speaker 5: devout Christian. He had been brought up, as you know,
Speaker 5: as a as a Christian. His father had been I
Speaker 5: believe a deacon in the church, Lady Econ, and he
Speaker 5: believed in the Bible, he would Chris would have been
Speaker 5: the first to tell you that he he committed a
Speaker 5: lot of things in there. And but he did not see,
Speaker 5: you know, he didn't see a big, a big conflict
Speaker 5: with war. And I think you know historically that has
Speaker 5: been you know something that you know, religions, especially the
Speaker 5: Christian religion, whether you're Catholic or Protestant, have you know,
Speaker 5: dealt with over and over, you know again over the ages.
Speaker 5: You know what you know, what is the just war?
Speaker 5: Where wind should someone you know defend other people? When
Speaker 5: should you know, he or she fight? And Chris wasn't
Speaker 5: particularly philosophical, and I don't think I think it was
Speaker 5: a fairly it was a fairly black and white question
Speaker 5: for him. He you know, his values were God, country
Speaker 5: and family, and you know, if his country needed him to,
Speaker 5: you know, to to go to war, then he was
Speaker 5: ready to go to war.
Speaker 4: There is a story though, that really shows how passionate
Speaker 4: he was as opposed to, well not opposed of, in
Speaker 4: the say, compared to even fellow Seal members. If I
Speaker 4: have this guy's name right, Dick Couch for a former
Speaker 4: Vietnam guy. Now, there was a so just illustrate. Part
Speaker 4: of the part of the book I found very fascinating
Speaker 4: was this little conversation and that he has. While Dick
Speaker 4: is a great.
Speaker 5: Dick's a great guy. Dick's a great guy, you know.
Speaker 5: And Chris had his own take to Dick. Uh Dick
Speaker 5: as you as you point out, it's a seal and
Speaker 5: you know, a veteran and a very good writer. It
Speaker 5: happened that there was he was working on he was
Speaker 5: working on a book and had a discussion I guess,
Speaker 5: got into a discussion with some other seals and Chris
Speaker 5: thought that Chris said a different, different opinion. I think
Speaker 5: Than didn't Dick on things and kind of let him
Speaker 5: know about it. But I don't think either, I don't
Speaker 5: think either man that was necessarily a really big moment
Speaker 5: in their lives.
Speaker 4: Well, it was just that he's very passionate about the infant.
Speaker 4: Somebody was, you know, Dick was criticizing what they were
Speaker 4: doing in Iraq as opposed to not that he was
Speaker 4: defending Vietnam, but he was saying that they were wrong
Speaker 4: headed in this and and I think very personal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think to kind of to step back just
Speaker 5: a little bit. I think a lot of the older
Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of the older generation Seals especially,
Speaker 5: but a lot of you know, Vietnam veterans and stuff have,
Speaker 5: you know, kind of a certain idea of how how
Speaker 5: the Seals should be deployed and what sort of mission
Speaker 5: they should be on, and and where they should be
Speaker 5: used and urban warfare and the way that the Seals
Speaker 5: were being used in different places it doesn't fit with
Speaker 5: that model. In the Battle of Felujah, for instance, the
Speaker 5: Seals were used, you know, as long distance snipers in
Speaker 5: urban warfare, which is absolutely not a traditional Special Operations role.
Speaker 5: And I think that a lot of the the younger
Speaker 5: guys are say this is you know, use us because
Speaker 5: you know, we've been trained, we're good, and we can
Speaker 5: do this. Yeah, maybe this isn't the mission that you know,
Speaker 5: you had planned, you know, thirty years ago or twenty
Speaker 5: years ago, but it's something that we can excel at
Speaker 5: and they have the record to back it up. The
Speaker 5: older guys see a lot of the pitfalls of that strategy,
Speaker 5: and you know, and they have a different take. In
Speaker 5: the case that we're talking about UH, specifically in the
Speaker 5: Battle of Ramadi uh the at the at the time,
Speaker 5: the UH philosophy that was being used was kind of
Speaker 5: the unfortunately I'm gonna end up taking size by by
Speaker 5: talking about here, but the philosophy that was was being
Speaker 5: used was was kind of, uh, you know, give them
Speaker 5: candy approach and you know, make nice and and then
Speaker 5: you can you know, build the country. And uh, Chris
Speaker 5: didn't Chris didn't believe in that, Chris, Chris is Uh.
Speaker 5: From Chris's point of view, the only reason that the
Speaker 5: that the terrorists lost in Ramandi and they did was
Speaker 5: because not just the not just seals, but the American forces. Uh,
Speaker 5: when after the bad dies and you know, and beat them,
Speaker 5: you know in you know, in a very very fierce,
Speaker 5: you know, fierce battles. And the discussion that specifically you
Speaker 5: know you're referencing there has to do with, you know,
Speaker 5: with that approach and which which approach you should you know,
Speaker 5: you should take. And I think, you know, Chris was
Speaker 5: pretty forceful in his opinions, as he always was, So.
Speaker 4: There certain amount to let.
Speaker 5: People read the I guess read the books so they
Speaker 5: can make their whole judgment.
Speaker 4: Yeah he did. He did say something to the effect too,
Speaker 4: that there was certain factors that only could appreciate that
Speaker 4: kind of approach. There was no again being nice with approach.
Speaker 4: They really only because there was certain factions that could
Speaker 4: go either way. They were looking for, not in terms
Speaker 4: of leadership losing to come out on top.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. And obviously I have an opinion here, and
Speaker 5: in my opinion, you know, shades a lot if there's
Speaker 5: two extremes on, you know, and Chris is on one side,
Speaker 5: and you know, I don't necessarily know that, you know,
Speaker 5: I know, I read Dick's book. Dick's book on the
Speaker 5: Battle of the Money is excellent. I would highly recommend
Speaker 5: it to anyone and and say, you know, it's a
Speaker 5: must read. I think my conception though, of how why
Speaker 5: that battle was was won is a heck of a
Speaker 5: lot closer to to Chris's. You know, then at least
Speaker 5: what the you know, what some of the people in
Speaker 5: Dick's books say. But you know, of course, you know
Speaker 5: history really it's really for history to you know, to
Speaker 5: tell us in years gone by or years to come,
Speaker 5: rather excuse me now the.
Speaker 4: Day and uh and and Chris, their marriage survives, they
Speaker 4: have two children. Tell us about the last deployment and
Speaker 4: then the return back from duty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the last deployment was I It's funny cause in
Speaker 5: some ways, by that time Chris Uh had had literally
Speaker 5: become a legend, and the some of his uh some
Speaker 5: of his buddies that had started using that as a
Speaker 5: nickname as his fame started growing. But Uh, but really
Speaker 5: by the by his fourth deployment in Iraq, or the
Speaker 5: fourth deployment that we talked about, he was truly a legend.
Speaker 5: And he had we say, he had over a hundred
Speaker 5: and fifty kills and w n by that we mean
Speaker 5: confirmed kills uh that were recorded and and done on
Speaker 5: the gun. And the reality is that he had actually
Speaker 5: if you threw another hundred on top of that number,
Speaker 5: you still would be under how many he had. And
Speaker 5: people knew he was good. He was highly respected and
Speaker 5: you know, and and looked up to and and and
Speaker 5: the person the guy that you wanted in battle. On
Speaker 5: the other hand, it he was also starting to get,
Speaker 5: you know, under a lot of pressure cause he the
Speaker 5: the what they call the a the the tempo of
Speaker 5: the operations had increased so muh so dramatically as they
Speaker 5: were fighting and they started getting into situations where, you know,
Speaker 5: where they were getting shot at quite a lot every night,
Speaker 5: and the pressure just started, you know, I think just
Speaker 5: started building up. And at the same time, unfortunately, sometimes
Speaker 5: when you're in you know, when you're a situation like that,
Speaker 5: you don't necessarily take the best care of your body.
Speaker 5: You don't necessarily eat right if you have habits of oh,
Speaker 5: say like uh, chewing a lot of tobacco, may start
Speaker 5: chewing a lot of tobacco and drinking a lot of coffee,
Speaker 5: and all of a sudden, your heart rate starts getting
Speaker 5: way up there. And so, yeah, have all these physical
Speaker 5: things going on in stresses, and they eventually got you know,
Speaker 5: got to the point with Chris where his uh, his
Speaker 5: blood pressure and his his heart rate were uh, well
Speaker 5: beyond the normal you know limits, and he was eventually
Speaker 5: uh and he eventually requested to or was was requested
Speaker 5: to go uh. He left. He leaves, He leaves early,
Speaker 5: about a week early. It they weren't actually in combat
Speaker 5: at the time, but it was clear that you know
Speaker 5: that the stress was you know, it was getting to
Speaker 5: him physically. And and so he goes home and and
Speaker 5: stops chewing so much tobacco among other things, and swallow.
Speaker 5: He had a really bad habit of you know, when
Speaker 5: you choose I don't know if you're uh tobacco chuur,
Speaker 5: but you know in theory is all spit it out. Well, Chris,
Speaker 5: Chris never spit his chewing tobaccua, so he would go
Speaker 5: through these big wads of he's basically eating, you know,
Speaker 5: tons of tobacco everything. It's like and you're wondering why
Speaker 5: you're wondering. You forget the stress.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's amazing. Now, what what point does the author
Speaker 4: that I thought this was impressive? He's authored the Naval
Speaker 4: Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine and which is you say it
Speaker 4: is the first Navy Seal Sniper manual.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Well the one thing we should should note,
Speaker 5: I guess like from a historical point of view, is
Speaker 5: that until very recently, and actually until just before Chris
Speaker 5: became a sniper, the Seals use the Marine uh you know,
Speaker 5: the Marine Sniper School exclusively, and uh they they changed
Speaker 5: that because they wanted to emphasize a few things differently.
Speaker 5: But a lot of a lot of uh, Seal sniper
Speaker 5: doctrine comes pretty much canna be traced from the from
Speaker 5: the Marines, and if you talk to some of the
Speaker 5: older some of the older snipers. You know, you'll you know,
Speaker 5: they went you know, they all went to they all
Speaker 5: went to Marine Scholl. Like Craig Sawyer from you know,
Speaker 5: from Top Gun. He you know, he's he was a
Speaker 5: seal sniper, but he was trained, you know by the Marines.
Speaker 5: So and that's why, that's why there was no official
Speaker 5: you know, so they were using all the Marine you know,
Speaker 5: documents and stuff. Chris did that, uh, Chris uh put
Speaker 5: that together after he came back from uh, from that deployment,
Speaker 5: from the fourth deployment, and it's basically a manual to
Speaker 5: my knowledge. It's yeah, obviously you know, they're specifics are
Speaker 5: still top secret, but to my knowledge, they still p
Speaker 5: you know, use pretty much what he laid out for them.
Speaker 4: And U I'm not sure we mentioned it already, but
Speaker 4: worth mentioning again. He won two silver stars, five bronze medals,
Speaker 4: and one Navy and Marine condemnation. Condemnation, So it's not
Speaker 4: that that's what he was there for.
Speaker 5: He was if you know where those mets, know where
Speaker 5: those you know, where those medals were. Actually his wife,
Speaker 5: his wife put one or two of them up on
Speaker 5: the wall. But I'm not kidding a shoe, but I honestly, guy,
Speaker 5: there was a shoe box at the bottom of his death.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said he wasn't really too interested in them
Speaker 4: and showing them off.
Speaker 5: And no, he had a dig. He had a dig
Speaker 5: dig through the you know the rubble there. Now, of course,
Speaker 5: you know you ask him about you know some you know,
Speaker 5: some stupid poster or not poster, but program from a
Speaker 5: Dallas Cowboy game, and you know you could find that
Speaker 5: real fast. So he was a big, a big Dallas
Speaker 5: Cowboy fan and being a New York Giants fan. I
Speaker 5: love to rib him and write him about that.
Speaker 4: Now, when did this book come out? Jim? When was
Speaker 4: this book released?
Speaker 5: The hardcover edition came out first, came out in January
Speaker 5: twenty twelve. We and the e book came out then too.
Speaker 5: The foreign edition started coming out soon after. We had
Speaker 5: a paperback at the beginning of this year, and then
Speaker 5: just a few weeks ago we came out with a
Speaker 5: with a new edition, Chris Kyle Memorial Edition. Unfortunately, tragically,
Speaker 5: Chris and a neighbor and good friend to his, Chad Littlefield,
Speaker 5: were tragically murdered by a man or where it's alleged
Speaker 5: that they were murdered by a man uh back in February,
Speaker 5: and there was immediately after h Chris's death, and there
Speaker 5: was a tremendous you know, just outcry of you know,
Speaker 5: just people who you know, just of respect for Chris.
Speaker 5: And in the memorial edition, myself and Tea Uh we
Speaker 5: talked to a lot of a lot of Chris's friends
Speaker 5: to try to get some of the other side for Chris.
Speaker 5: The book has a lot of you know, Chris as
Speaker 5: a warrior obviously, and has a lot of stuff about
Speaker 5: his marriage, but that was really only, you know, a
Speaker 5: small part of who Chris Kyle was. And so we
Speaker 5: wanted to talk to friends of his who whom he'd
Speaker 5: helped and you know, everybody from people on you know,
Speaker 5: on the football, baseball teams that he helped coach, you know,
Speaker 5: all up to you know, to blind it, to wound it,
Speaker 5: you know, veterans who's you know, whom he had helped.
Speaker 4: Now was this was he able to see the book?
Speaker 4: And ah did he? How much did he appreciate it
Speaker 4: or enjoy the I guess the interviews and subsequent interviews
Speaker 4: I did that happen for him?
Speaker 5: The you know, when the first book came out. I
Speaker 5: think that you know, it was kind of a wild
Speaker 5: process for him. He uh, you know, when when he
Speaker 5: and I were talking, it was the first time he
Speaker 5: had really ever you know, talked about his experiences and
Speaker 5: put them, you know, into any sort of perspective, and
Speaker 5: I think it was very emotional. And when the book
Speaker 5: came out, he kind of had to do that all again.
Speaker 5: And I think it got easier as you know, as
Speaker 5: time went on. But when it first came out, and
Speaker 5: there was so much hooplab about about who he was,
Speaker 5: people calling him hero, and that was a word he
Speaker 5: didn't particularly like, uh, especially when it's used for him,
Speaker 5: whether he was he deserved that, he didn't like to
Speaker 5: hear it youth. But yeah, I think there was you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of stress for him. And gradually, you know,
Speaker 5: he was coming back to UH to a good place,
Speaker 5: you know, where you know, he was able to he
Speaker 5: is able to use some of it or he is
Speaker 5: starting he starting to use some of his fame to
Speaker 5: go to actually help people, and had was in the
Speaker 5: process of setting up what became of or what will
Speaker 5: become a foundation UH to help wounded warriors, you know,
Speaker 5: transitioned back into UH into society and also hopefully help
Speaker 5: help marriages of you know, servicemen who you know, just
Speaker 5: to help their marriages, you know, continue and thrive despite
Speaker 5: the stress of war.
Speaker 4: And what does theeas say from all of this?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously have to get the newest and latest
Speaker 4: edition to see here some of her other thoughts. But overall,
Speaker 4: what was her impression of this? I mean, she loved
Speaker 4: this man, stayed with this man. Was it all worth
Speaker 4: it for her to be able to go through all this?
Speaker 5: Well? You know, I think we all, I'm sure that
Speaker 5: we would all you know, want Chris back, There's no
Speaker 5: question about that. I think that. Yeah, she's a remarkably
Speaker 5: strong woman.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 5: She's you know, she's done a lot of things since
Speaker 5: Chris died. There were a number of speaking commitments that
Speaker 5: Chris had that she's fulfilled. Chris had been working on
Speaker 5: another book that unfortunately I wasn't available to to originally
Speaker 5: anyway to do the book, but Chris and another writer
Speaker 5: were working on American Gun, and Chris's part actually hadn't
Speaker 5: been finished at all when he died, and Tea actually
Speaker 5: Taya uh called me and I she and I uh
Speaker 5: took over what Chris would have done, and you know,
Speaker 5: kind of got that book out. Uh. Taya's also uh
Speaker 5: started the foundation that that I was talking about Chris
Speaker 5: Kyle Frog and she's just you know, she's just done
Speaker 5: a remarkable thing or you know, just kind of carrying
Speaker 5: on his legacy and at the same time, you know,
Speaker 5: raising two two small kids. So you know, so it's
Speaker 5: pretty incredible. I would say that they were they were
Speaker 5: matching pretty well to two really remarkable people and really
Speaker 5: really you know, proud to t to call both of
Speaker 5: them my friend, really friends.
Speaker 4: And uh, is there anything profound that you've learned by
Speaker 4: the end of this entire project helping this family get
Speaker 4: this story out and and of course now we just
Speaker 4: talked about and being deceased, so it's a very bittersweet.
Speaker 4: Is there anything profound that you learned from this, from
Speaker 4: the study of this incredible man in this incredible life
Speaker 4: and an incredible career.
Speaker 5: Well, I think, you know, I think I'm still, to
Speaker 5: be honest, I think I'm kind of still processing it
Speaker 5: in a way. I think that you know, there's a
Speaker 5: lot of yeah, a lot of things that you can
Speaker 5: kind of you know, roll out and you know and say,
Speaker 5: and I I think they're The remarkable thing I think
Speaker 5: about Chris was that, you know, if there's a lesson
Speaker 5: to be drawn that anybody, anybody can actually end up
Speaker 5: doing heroic things if they you know, if they're if
Speaker 5: they just work hard at it, as I don't, you know,
Speaker 5: cause I don't think that. As I said, Chris was
Speaker 5: a good shot to begin with, but he wasn't, you know,
Speaker 5: the best. He just worked at it. He Chris wasn't necessarily,
Speaker 5: you know, the the greatest, you know, helper in the world,
Speaker 5: and yet he helped so many people just because he
Speaker 5: just did it, and he just showed up and he
Speaker 5: just kind of he just was. That was who he was.
Speaker 5: On the day of a day of uh, Hurricane Sandy,
Speaker 5: which you know wasn't really that all that bed specifically
Speaker 5: where I live, you know, he called me up at
Speaker 5: five o'clock in the morning and asked or I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: he texted me at five in the morning and and
Speaker 5: asked if I needed help, And he's like, go to bed, dude,
Speaker 5: you're up good up here, so you know, So, I mean,
Speaker 5: there's lots of lessons like that, and it's it's hard
Speaker 5: to kind of just draw one out and say, you know,
Speaker 5: and you know that, I mean, you know, the oldest
Speaker 5: here's I I guess the the biggest cliche in the
Speaker 5: world is that you know, you don't know what you've
Speaker 5: got until they're gone, you know, and you just you know,
Speaker 5: just value value those friendships. Uh, you know, uh while
Speaker 5: you you know, while you have 'em. We were we
Speaker 5: were digging around for photos, uh in the memorial edition
Speaker 5: as we wanted to put photos in, and you know,
Speaker 5: there's no photo of Chris and I together, which is
Speaker 5: you know, it's kind of funny and ironic, and you
Speaker 5: know it's like, no, we never you know, I never
Speaker 5: took No, I don't believe in taking pictures. You know,
Speaker 5: we just do stuff. And now I kind of wish
Speaker 5: I had a photo, but uh, that's the way it goes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it's uh. He's an interesting and well fascinating character.
Speaker 4: He's you know, his his entire attitudes just totally uncompromising.
Speaker 4: He does have this incredible love for his country, his family,
Speaker 4: his friends. He's no saint, that's for sure. He's he's
Speaker 4: like a little little guy, like he's a teenager that
Speaker 4: almost didn't grow up sometimes, but he's mischievous, but in
Speaker 4: the end. Yeah, he's a hero. He's a guy that
Speaker 4: wants to protect people and and has the guts and
Speaker 4: the gumption to do it. And he really loved the military.
Speaker 4: He like I say, he's uncompromising and unflinching. And what
Speaker 4: he said, he said, I enjoy doing this. And don't
Speaker 4: get me wrong, he says, there's you know, like no nightmares.
Speaker 4: So it's a it's a fascinating story of love for
Speaker 4: you know, a person that really maybe didn't want to
Speaker 4: show it, but he was a very loving and giving
Speaker 4: and generous person, a real soft guy, but a real
Speaker 4: tough customer. And that's why he had the nickname the Devil,
Speaker 4: you know, you know translated in Iraq that that's the
Speaker 4: kind of the kind of guy he was. He was
Speaker 4: feared by those people in Iraq because of what he
Speaker 4: was capable of doing. I want to thank you very much,
Speaker 4: Jim for coming on and talking about American Sniper. I
Speaker 4: want to thank you very much. How can people get
Speaker 4: ahold of you? If they're they're inclined to contact you?
Speaker 4: And do you have web page? Uh website? Facebook?
Speaker 5: The easiest way to jet me is through my website,
Speaker 5: which is Jim dfolies dot com. Uh, there's a there's
Speaker 5: a page where you can leave a message or email.
Speaker 5: You can email me at the author author at Jim
Speaker 5: Dfelice dot com is probably the easiest way. Uh. There's
Speaker 5: also I have a blog. There's an Amazon page. I
Speaker 5: tweet if you're if you really want your tweets, you
Speaker 5: can follow me on Twitter and uh there's a Facebook
Speaker 5: page and all that cool stuff.
Speaker 4: Great. So I want to thank you very much Jim
Speaker 4: and hope to hear from you again soon. One another
Speaker 4: fascinating forward.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you very much, Jim. Okay, night,