Posted on 01/25/2015 6:33:57 AM PST by paterfamilias
We saw "American Sniper" last night. My wife and I went with a group of about a dozen other military parents (Navy, Marine Corps, Army).
This is not a typical "war movie" in that it explores one man's journey from civilian life into the military community into war (four tours in Iraq) and then explores his difficult re-entry into civilian life. So, in a way, the movie is about the family and community of the as much as it is about Chris Kyle.
There are aspects of the movie that some will dismiss as trite or jingoistic: Kyle's father instructing his sons that in a world populated by sheep and wolves, they are to be the sheep dogs protecting the sheep; Kyle's motivation for what he does - "... it's God, Family, Country..."; Chris and Taya watching the World Trade Center collapse on a 9/11/01 television news station. The reality of the matter that many who choose to serve have had similar life experiences and motivation contributing to their decision: one father wrote to his son on the day before entering the Navy, "Not everybody understands that the greatness of this nation resides not in its physical proportions, not in its economy, not in its might: it resides in the very idea of its conception and in the goodness and industry of its people. You and your shipmates, when you take the solemn oath to '...support and defend the Constitution...' will embody this greatness." The scores of young men and women who joined the military after 9/11 attest to that event's importance in their desire to serve. And far from displaying "war fatigue" the service academies are experiencing record high application numbers now more than a decade into war.
Turning to the effect of having an active duty military family member, this film again hits the mark. It is no secret that our popular culture has widely diverged from the ethos of self-discipline, self-reliance, and service that is inculcated into our military members. And if you live in an area of the country where military service is the exception rather than the rule, you frequently hear comments like, "He's a Marine? Why did he do that? He's really smart, isn't he?" Indeed, those who don't have a loved one in harm's way have no idea of the families' dread of a news report detailing a downed helicopter or a sailor lost at sea, a middle of the night phone call, or a government car pulling into your driveway with two military officers inside. Taya Kyle's struggles to keep her husband tied to his family and to keep things together at home while Chris is in danger beautifully illustrate this.
Eastwood masterfully illustrates the opposing forces acting on Kyle's sensibilities: his love of family and decency on the one hand and his deep commitment to protecting his comrades on the other. The intensity of military training, especially Special Ops training, creates bonds that we civilians may find hard to understand; and as the military and civilian cultures continue to diverge, the resulting cultural gap becomes more and more difficult for the individual soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine to bridge. We have heard frequently that members of the Greatest Generation rarely spoke about their experiences except to other soldiers. This has not changed. Imagine my surprise when my own son mentioned that sometimes he feels more comfortable hanging out with veterans two or three times his age than with civilians!
In summary, this is a good film, an important film, a well-crafted film, and a masterfully-acted film.
It is an excellent illustration of the Honor, Courage, and Commitment of combatant, family, and community alike.
My dad was career Navy, and I was a dependent overseas during the Vietnam conflict. Like many others in the Seventies, I stood by silently while I let liberals trash our veterans.
I vowed, when I realized what had been done to those men, that I would never let their slanders go unchallenged again. I had the opportunity to do just that over the last decade when liberals were trashing our veterans outside Walter Reed, and the DC Chapter of Free Republic went out to face them every single Friday night for years.
I was fortunate to be able to stand with them on many occasions, and even with the other things I have tried to do as a civilian to help our troops, those were more rewarding experiences than nearly anything else.
He did not want to taint his wife with what he had seen, but you have to talk about it.
IF you are allowed to talk about it...
And that is another entire concern.
Some are forced to live separate secret lives.
That is rough on the marriage and it is rough on the furniture.
xlnt.
I highly recommend the movie
Absolutely. I don’t know how those people do that job. The few times I have come across a wreck as the first person, and that dread feeling as you approach the vehicle...”what are you going to see?” is unfathomable to me that people could work through that all the time.
kudios also to Bradley Cooper for putting it up on the screen
I just deal with it, triage, get help.
Then you deal with the trauma later.
I am very proud of my Nephew who went to Afghanistan as an officer and Medic, though I knew he would never be the same.
Then you deal with the (personal) trauma later.
Why don't you explain to us what God wants.
It would be helpful if you explain how and why he chose you as his modern day mouthpiece.
That would be a good study, how the individual transitions into civilian life with or without a military mentor and correlate it with their experience with family before, during, and after service. Takes a second to become wounded but can take forever to heal. Knowing the predispositions and common reactions could be used to get on track faster.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3248698/posts
I am sure you know better than most. I work in Radiology, so I know how difficult it is to do your particular job and avoid burnout.
God bless ya brother .
I don’t do that for a living though I used to be a first responder.
I still follow the basic rules.
You do what you need to do.
It settles in later.
Back at ya, FRiend...
Heya LS, how’s things?
I thought that was an interesting point you made about the music, because I noticed that, and completely forgot about it.
He used music very, very sparsely. Very interesting.
And I appreciated your review. Spot on.
Many of the old films dealt with “modern” issues.
This gentleman had been in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front and had spent a year in a Russian prison of war camp. At the end, the Russians opened the camp and told them to go home. He walked across Poland, back to Stuttgart, found his wife in the ruins, and they walked to Bremerhaven and left for America.
When I was stationed in Stuttgart Germany, he refused to visit us there because his hatred of what the Nazis had did was still too great.
Thanks. Yes, much as he did in Flags of Our Fathers (where he did the music himself). It’s interesting too that “Lone Survivor” didn’t evoke this kind of mania, I think because you really never got to feel like Luttrell had any weaknesses. He was superman. But Kyle clearly has demons he must conquer.
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