Part 68 (1/2)
WAR
I'm not the same guy I was when I first went to war.
No one is. Before you're in combat, you have this innocence about you. Then, all of a sudden, you see this whole other side of life.
I don't regret any of it. I'd do it again. At the same time, war definitely changes you.
You embrace death.
As a SEAL, you go to the Dark Side. You're immersed in it. Continually going to war, you gravitate to the blackest parts of existence. Your psyche builds up its defenses-that's why you laugh at gruesome things like heads being blown apart, and worse.
Growing up, I wanted to be military. But I wondered, how would I feel about killing someone?
Now I know. It's no big deal.
I did it a lot more than I'd ever thought I would-or, for that matter, more than any American sniper before me. But I also witnessed the evil my targets committed and wanted to commit, and by killing them, I protected the lives of many fellow soldiers.
I don't spend a lot of time philosophizing about killing people. I have a clear conscience about my role in the war.
I am a strong Christian. Not a perfect one-not close. But I strongly believe in G.o.d, Jesus, and the Bible. When I die, G.o.d is going to hold me accountable for everything I've done on earth.
He may hold me back until last and run everybody else through the line, because it will take so long to go over all my sins.
”Mr. Kyle, let's go into the backroom... .”
Honestly, I don't know what will really happen on Judgment Day. But what I lean toward is that you know all of your sins, and G.o.d knows them all, and shame comes over you at the reality that He knows. I believe the fact that I've accepted Jesus as my savior will be my salvation.
But in that backroom or whatever it is when G.o.d confronts me with my sins, I do not believe any of the kills I had during the war will be among them. Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die.
My regrets are about the people I couldn't save-Marines, soldiers, my buddies.
I still feel their loss. I still ache for my failure to protect them.
I'm not naive and I'm beyond romanticizing war and what I had to do there. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. Losing my buddies. Having a kid die on me.