Oh well! As much as I have avoided this movie, tonight is the Oscar Award Ceremony and true to my nature, I needed to see all the movies before I could be entitled to have an opinion.
From an interview to Chris Kyle: “You don’t think of the people you kill as people,” he said. “They’re just targets. You can’t think of them as people with families and jobs. They rule by putting terror in the hearts of innocent people.”
Although I am against violence of any kind, I understand that it is necessary sometimes. Mostly in self defense. But what does qualifies as self defense? How could the world get rid of the extremists, currently capturing hostages to later behead them? How about cases of intolerance, like Charlie Hebdo? How about marital abuse? A serial killer? As the logo for Craft International (a consulting and training services provider for which Kyle served as president until his death) reads: “Despite what your momma told you, violence does solve problems.”
So yes, violence comes in our DNA. And yes, it does serve disciplinary purposes. But, to glorify a man for officially killing 160 people (and unofficially, almost twice that number) and to make propaganda about the worth of DoD members is not something I agree with. I would have preferred for this movie to have a different proportion: less war scenes and more of the adjusting to regular life as a man, a husband, a father, and a veteran willing to comfort his boys, as he called his peers. But I am sure this G.I. Joe movie was geared to appeal to men, as Fifty Shades of Grey to appeal to women.
Almost twenty years ago, I worked for both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army which allowed me to witness two military operations: the creation of a Cuban camp right at the banks of the Panama Canal when Fidel Castro released from the island all he considered to be his infidels and Just Cause, to capture dictator Manuel Noriega, right here on my own soil.
In the first case, I personally helped to develop a computer application to keep track of the Cubans at the camp by scanning their bar code wristband at each meal. On the second case, I participated in vacating the military posts from dependents when the invasion was already impending. I also had to sign a travel form for the additional troops that were already on their way from Conus to Panama.
So, somewhere, my signature has been left registered for posterity.
Back to the movie? I do relate to the bbq moment because I got to meet lots of military families and I embraced their way of life, celebrated their holidays, attended football games and bake sales, bought furniture from their yard sales, and I even asked to some the favor of purchasing some things for me from their Sears catalog. Every week, these soldiers, my coworkers, would bring me Hershey kisses or M&Ms by the pound from their commissary. There was a sense of community as much as there was later a sense of tension, once we, Panamanians, became their operation at hand.
So yes, I know about their compassionate generosity but I also know about their ruthless attitude as owners of the world. The movie is American Sniper, but the horror of soldiers at war is universally deplorable.“The legend” as this sniper was so proudly known, is Chris Kyle; having to serve your country might be inevitable, but volunteering for three additional tours is, in my opinion, like having a sweet tooth for violence.