Last night I had the privilege of watching the just released, highly acclaimed film American Sniper, an adaptation of an autobiography by the same title about Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, "the deadliest sniper in American military history." Sitting beside me were my brother, a United States Marine, and two brothers-in-law, one of them an Army veteran.
Carmike Cinemas, the theater in Minot, North Dakota was packed full. Were it not for empty seats in the front row, we might not have been able to find any seats.
Before seeing the film, the four of us visited a local shooting range and got some target practice in, taking advantage of some warmer weather and clear skies to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights.
But before hitting the range, we visited the shopping mall, wherein lies the theater, and stopped in at Scheels sporting goods store so I could pick up a warmer shirt for wearing outdoors for a few hours. While we were visiting Scheels, right next door to the theater, we were amazed at the long line of people at the ticket counter, stretching across the walkways and around the theater. Everyone and their brother was there to see American Sniper at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday. An even longer line was there when we exited the 5:05 showing after watching the film.
Seeing so many people eager to watch this movie was an encouraging surprise to me, somehow. Sure, everything I had read and heard on the radio was positive, to say the least. But at 28 years old, I have seen how the USA transformed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, watched two brothers-in-law join the Army and my younger brother join the Marine Corps. Between the three of them, I've heard stories of deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq. I have witnessed the surges of patriotism and of war weariness in this nation, and listened to the speeches of presidents, Bush and Obama, and the ceaseless nit-picking and exhortations of pundits and journalists and politicians, telling Americans at first to be proud of their national heritage and character and emboldening them to fight evil, and then later shaming Americans at home and abroad for having done just that, all but accusing the United States of being a worse evil than the murderers who have set their faces against every free citizen.
Watching the pendulum swing back from ardent support of to vehement opposition to fighting the terrorists in a meaningful way has been personally disheartening for me. No, the valiant and self-sacrificing efforts of our military personnel have not made me ashamed to be an American, but the weak-kneed voices calling for retreat from and appeasement of terrorists has brought me very close, causing me to wonder whether perhaps those voices have come to represent most closely what and who America is now.
Yes, I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged last night to see so many people lining up to watch American Sniper, a movie which gives a refreshing vignette of the American Global War on Terror, hoping as I do that the loud cowards boldly espousing their lack of bravery, all the while hiding behind claims that they speak for the majority, do not really speak for America.
After reading American Sniper several weeks ago, and now even moreso after seeing the film made from that book, I hope Chris Kyle represents what America has been, is, and will continue to be. I hope the people who not only lined up to buy tickets to see the movie about his life, but who also sat quietly through the credits rolling at the end of this film, then applauded before departing, represent who we really are as a people.
By God, I hope we are still a courageous people who hate evil and oppression and injustice, who will actively oppose wicked men with firm resolve, and who will celebrate and support those who stand in the gap between the innocent and those who would, if left unchecked, prey upon and enslave, if not outright butcher them. I hope we are a nation that promotes and celebrates and honors the sheep dog, and does not and will never submit to the wolf, or justify his actions, or seek to appease him while we tremble and think only of saving our own necks. If we are an America like that, I can be proud to be a citizen of a great nation. If that's what America is and will be, I am proud to be an American, because that's the kind of America I want to live in and be a part of. That's the sort of nation in which I can be proud to have my four sons grow into men.
American Sniper is a war story, no doubt. But hopefully this popularity it currently enjoys at its release is not derived from this society's bloodlust or love of violence. War is not just what happens on a distant battlefield, not just a series of violent actions, not merely a collection of statistics regarding persons killing, killed, and wounded. War deeply affects real people, and not only in physical ways. There are deep traumas which the mind and the soul suffers in partaking of, participating in, and witnessing war. Every warfighter has a mother and father, many have siblings and spouses and children, and all have friends and acquaintances. And war affects all these people, not only when their loved ones are killed and bodily maimed on the battlefield, but also in the inescapable absences from family, community, and society which their deployment to battlefields require.
"Please bring them home safely" is the sincere prayer of every loving friend and family member of a warfighter. But when our military servicemembers do come home in apparent good health, by God's grace, with all their limbs and five senses apparently intact, the wounds that cannot be seen still need mending. And hopefully, by God's grace, we have reserved a place for them in our hearts, in our homes, and in our communities. Hopefully we have not allowed what they left behind to fall into disrepair, abandoning the principles which they left to fight for and defend.
It is a great shame that many American veterans are homeless and jobless. And while we argued and debated back home, with hollow platitudes and vague allusions to what was the most practical strategy, while we went back and forth with one another about whether we should be fighting this or that war, or whether we were fighting our wars in the right way, these men and women were in harm's way, and many of them were harmed. While they dodged bullets and confronted evil men for us, we tended to our private lives and enjoyed the comforts which the Lord Almighty has blessed us with. But have we forgotten those who sacrificed to guard us from those who would rob and destroy us?
I hope American Sniper brings us back into sober remembrance of and appreciation for the hardships our military and its families undertook on our behalf. Regardless the motives of various politicians and talking heads, these men and women who served did so with us in mind, remembering and loving us from afar, and that is a great and noble thing worthy of our recognition and gratitude.
In the words of our savior, "Greater love has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." And that's what the best of them did. Politicians and the elite of our country may or may not have been so noble or self-sacrificing, may or may not have taken advantage of crises or mismanaged their responses to them, but the best of these military men and women set aside their private aspirations, hopes, and dreams for a time at least, knowing that they might never return to the lives they were putting on hold.
We see that in American Sniper, that some men and women were shot and blown to pieces, and that the rest had to watch it happen before going home to try and reconcile what they had experienced. We see those who survived lifting and carrying their fallen brothers from those who would butcher them, driving their comrades to those who would mend their wounds and give them rest.
May we as Americans be those who rescue, mend, and give rest to those who have been harmed, and may we never forget them or leave them behind. So help us God.
