{"id":1236,"date":"2015-01-31T23:16:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T04:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2015-02-01T16:36:24","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T21:36:24","slug":"the-hero-worship-of-chris-kyle-the-need-to-separate-myth-from-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2015\/01\/the-hero-worship-of-chris-kyle-the-need-to-separate-myth-from-truth.html","title":{"rendered":"The Hero-Worship of Chris Kyle: The Need to Separate Myth from Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I confess to having been more than a bit shocked, and even mystified, to have recently found myself on the receiving end of some wildly baseless attacks by people, Iraq War devotees, who accused me of \u201ctearing down\u201d the late Chris Kyle, the subject of Clint Eastwood\u2019s latest blockbuster film, American Sniper. <\/em><\/p>\n

I have written three articles on Kyle.\u00a0 Unlike those who have derided him\u2014outrageously, in my judgment\u2014as a \u201cmurderer,\u201d \u201cracist,\u201d \u201cpsychopath,\u201d \u201csociopath,\u201d \u201ccoward,\u201d and even \u201cliar\u201d\u2014I at no time and in no way uttered a single syllable to slander the man.\u00a0 In fact, I have conceded his heroism.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t enough for some, particularly those who ache to vindicate the scandal that is the Iraq War and the foreign policy vision to which it belongs. As I\u2019ve written, for them, as for their \u201clibertarian\u201d critics, Kyle is a prop for their ideology, perhaps the one last attempt to prove to the American public before 2016 that the Iraq War was both just and necessary.<\/p>\n

Thus, acknowledgment of Kyle\u2019s heroism is insufficient: nothing less than unadulterated hero worship is called for.<\/p>\n

Hero worship, especially when it revolves around a government agent\u2014in this case, an agent of the United States military\u2014is dangerous to a free people.\u00a0 It\u2019s dangerous because the hero then fills the entire range of our vision, eclipsing all other considerations\u2014including, most importantly, moral <\/em>and legal <\/em>considerations.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve pointed out that Kyle was a braggart.\u00a0 Yet he bragged not just about his exploits in the military; he bragged about those violent confrontations about which he lied.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

(1)Kyle said that while at a Texas gas station, he shot dead two men who attempted to carjack him.\u00a0 Supposedly, when police officers arrived and ran Kyle\u2019s license, the license check gave them the phone number of the Department of Defense. The officers were then informed of Kyle\u2019s identity as the skilled sniper that he was. There was no arrest\u2014even though, according to Kyle, the whole event was captured on video.<\/p>\n

I have claimed that this incident never occurred. One angry critic castigated me for having failed to do my due diligence and insisted that had I done my research (as he allegedly had done) I would\u2019ve discovered that I am sorely mistaken.<\/p>\n

Michael J. Mooney, a writer for DMagazine <\/em>(in Dallas, Texas), wrote about this with Kyle\u2019s cooperation.\u00a0 Mooney apparently believed Kyle\u2014in spite of the fact that, to his admission, he was unable to confirm anything that Kyle said: no video surveillance, no police reports, and no coroners\u2019 reports on the dead carjackers. \u00a0\u201cConsider this story confirmed by the man himself,\u201d Mooney remarked.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Nicholas Schmidle of The New Yorker<\/em>\u2014the same writer who distinguished himself on account of his feature on the killing of Osama bin Laden\u2014did a little more homework than Mooney was willing to do.<\/p>\n

Schmidle wrote a sympathetic, yet honest, piece\u2014\u201cIn the Crosshairs\u201d\u2014on Kyle and some of his comrades-in-arms back in June of 2013.\u00a0 He supplies reasons to doubt Kyle\u2019s account of this carjacking-gone bad.<\/p>\n

The alleged incident was said to have transpired on a stretch of highway bounded by three counties. Yet the sheriffs of these counties assured reporters that there was no such incident.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Tommy Bryant, of Erath County, said that he could \u201c\u2018guar-an-damn-tee it didn\u2019t happen here.\u201d\u00a0 Greg Doyle, the sheriff of Somervell County, was just as adamant that the story was a hoax.\u00a0 Before asserting that he \u201c\u2018never heard\u2019\u201d of it and found it \u201c\u2018kinda shocking,\u2019\u201d he stated bluntly: \u201c\u2018It did not occur here.\u2019\u201d Sheriff Bob Alford, of Johnson County, pulled no punches either: \u201c\u2018If something like that happened here I would have heard of it, and I\u2019m sure you all at the newspapers would have heard of it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidle adds but another reason to be skeptical about Kyle\u2019s account. A \u201cSEAL with extensive experience in special-mission units\u201d told Schmidle \u201cthat the notion of such a provision [a direct line to the Department of Defense] being in place for a former SEAL driving a private vehicle was \u2018bullshit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Taya Kyle, when (much later)asked by a reporter for the Dallas Morning News <\/em>about this event and the press\u2019 inability to verify it, replied thus: \u201cAll I can say in response to that is that people enjoy taking rumors and try to paint a picture of what they want it to be.\u201d\u00a0 She added that she doesn\u2019t recall her husband ever mentioning this \u201cin public\u201d (but he did<\/em> mention it\u2014to DMagazine\u2019s <\/em>Michael Mooney).\u00a0 When then asked whether Kyle ever mentioned it to her privately, <\/em>she responded that she\u2019s \u201cbeen sticking to what he decided to share publicly and share only those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only blind hero-worship explains how, in light of these considerations, one can continue to maintain that Kyle gunned down two carjackers (But even if he did, how can anyone who claims to value liberty, to say nothing of a person who is said to have fought for \u201cour liberties,\u201d take heart in hearing that a man, because he was once a combat soldier, can determine when he is permitted to kill as a civilian?\u00a0 <\/em>How can the lover of liberty be untroubled believing that the national government coerced local government agents\u2014police officers\u2014into allowing a double-killer to ride off without any further questioning or paperwork?).<\/p>\n

(2)Kyle claimed to a bunch of people that he and another sniper were commissioned to shoot, from atop of the Superdome, armed rioters in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina mess in 2005.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Schmidle spoke with three people to whom Kyle made this claim.\u00a0 One person said that Kyle boasted of killing 30 rioters himself.\u00a0 Another said that Kyle said that he and his fellow sniper killed 30 people collectively.\u00a0 The third commented that she could recall no specifics regarding the conversation that she had with Kyle.<\/p>\n

Brandon Webb, who served with Kyle on SEAL Team Three and is the editor of SOFREP, a website covering special operations forces, invited Kyle on a radio show to discuss life as a special operator.\u00a0 Webb originally posted an article regarding Kyle\u2019s alleged time as a sniper in New Orleans on his website.\u00a0 According to Schmidle, he eventually took it down, concluding that it was \u201cdubious.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, told Schmidle: \u201c\u2018To the best of anyone\u2019s knowledge at SOCOM, there were no West Coast SEALS deployed to Katrina\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Kyle\u2019s officers insisted that he had \u201c\u2018never heard that story\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a \u201cSEAL with extensive experience in special-mission units wondered how dozens of people could be shot by high-velocity rifles and just disappear; Kyle\u2019s version of events, he said, \u2018defies the imagination.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Not unlike the carjacking episode, all of the evidence points to one verdict: Kyle was untruthful about his time as a sniper in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

(3) Among the most famous\u2014notorious\u2014of Kyle\u2019s claims is that he knocked out Jesse Ventura when the latter began running down the Iraq War while expressing his desire for the deaths of more American soldiers who were deployed there.<\/p>\n

Ventura was in Coronado, California in order to address a graduating class at the nearby naval base.\u00a0 Kyle was there for the funeral of a fallen SEAL. \u00a0Both, according to Kyle, were in a bar when the fight happened.<\/p>\n

In his memoir, Kyle writes that he initially asked Ventura to keep his comments to himself.\u00a0 When the latter only got more belligerent, Kyle said: \u201cI laid him out. Tables flew. Stuff happened.\u00a0 Scruff Face [Kyle never referred to Ventura by name in his book] ended up on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Kyle went on his book tour, and on \u201cThe Opie and Anthony Show,\u201d specifically, that he first started identifying Ventura as \u201cScruff Face.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He continued doing so while on the \u201cconservative\u201d talk radio and Fox News routes.<\/p>\n

It was then<\/em> that Ventura sued Kyle for defamation.<\/p>\n

A.J. Delgado, writing for, not <\/em>Alex Jones\u2019 Prison Planet, Slate, <\/em>or some other leftist or fringe \u201clibertarian\u201d site, but National Review On-Line, <\/em>does as excellent a job as anyone of separating out the \u201cmyths\u201d from the facts of what followed next.<\/p>\n

Legal experts generally, Constitutional experts specifically, assumed from the outset that Ventura had virtually no chance of winning.\u00a0 Not only are defamation and libel suits notoriously difficult to win given the First Amendment, they are even that much more difficult when it is a public figure who is leveling the suit. Ventura had to prove not just that the stories told of him were false; he had to convince a jury that Kyle knew that what he stated was false or that he acted \u201crecklessly\u201d in regard to the falsity of his statements.<\/p>\n

But given that, by the time the case went to trial, Kyle\u2014a distinguished war hero\u2014was dead, and that his widow was sure to cry on the stand\u2014she did, and on more than one occasion\u2014the odds were stacked further against Ventura.<\/p>\n

Still, of a jury of ten, eight jurors ruled in his favor and awarded Ventura over $1.8 million <\/em>for defamation and \u201cunjust enrichment.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of my critics charged that the jury was \u201csplit.\u201d <\/em>\u00a0Technically it was, but if 80 percent<\/em>\u2014four out of five<\/em>\u2014Americans were in agreement over any issue, only the most cynical of ideologues would say that the country was \u201csplit.\u201d<\/p>\n

This same critic elsewhere argued that juries can be mistaken, hence implying that this <\/em>jury got it wrong.\u00a0 Delgado\u2019s response is decisive:<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, juries sometimes get it wrong. (Though, statistics show, not often\u2026.) But common sense would tell you that Ventura\u2019s case must have been exceptionally strong and Kyle\u2019s case extremely weak if the jury held in favor of Ventura. Defamation is notoriously hard to prove, and juries do not easily find against a young widow (who cried on the stand multiple times) or a fallen war hero, let alone both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another critic asserted that this is a case of \u201che said, he said.\u201d\u00a0 Delgado notes that this is simply not true.\u00a0 \u201cThere were multiple witnesses, called by both sides.\u00a0 Clearly, the jury found Ventura\u2019s witnesses believable and not Kyle\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among Ventura\u2019s witnesses, incidentally, were former Navy SEALS, including Terry \u201cMother\u201d Moy, the owner of the bar in which this fight was supposed to have occurred (Tellingly, those, like my critics, think that the Vets and war heroes with whom they agree <\/em>should be beyond criticism while those Vets and war heroes\u2014like Ventura and his witnesses\u2014with whom they disagree<\/em> can be blasted, and even slandered, without end).<\/p>\n

One of my critics, like several on Fox News, wax indignant over Ventura\u2019s suing Kyle\u2019s widow<\/em>.\u00a0 Again, for the truth, we must turn back to Delgado who reminds us that Ventura sued Kyle <\/em>in 2012 before the latter was murdered\u2014and after <\/em>Ventura demand for an apology and a retraction from Kyle was denied.<\/p>\n

Since Kyle\u2019s wife is the executor of his estate and profited immensely from her husband\u2019s book\u2014over $6 million as of last summer, months <\/em>prior to the release of the film, American Sniper\u2014<\/em>the lawsuit had to shift to his estate. Delgado notes that Kyle\u2019s widow is a \u201cmulti-millionaire\u201d who is scarcely going to hurt financially because of this verdict.\u00a0 The $500,000 for defamation will be paid by libel insurance. The remaining $1.3 million for \u201cunjust enrichment\u201d will be paid for easily enough given all of the millions in rights and royalties from the sales of her late husband\u2019s book, to say nothing of his life insurance policies.<\/p>\n

Delgado remarks that the claim that this judgment is \u201ccruel or [imposes] a hardship on a destitute widow is ill-informed and disingenuous.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the point is that Ventura first took aim at Kyle.\u00a0 And\u2014here goes another one of my critics\u2019 myths\u2014Kyle did <\/em>indeed take the stand in his own defense.<\/p>\n

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune<\/em>, Kyle gave a videoed deposition in 2012.\u00a0 As the jury watched it, the defendant\u2019s credibility gradually started to slip. \u00a0Kyle admitted that \u201ctables\u201d did not <\/em>go \u201cflying,\u201d and claimed to not recall who told him<\/em> about the injuries\u2014a damaged head and a black eye\u2014that he originally boasted of delivering to Ventura.<\/p>\n

That Ventura was awarded damages for \u201cunjust enrichment\u201d means that the jury found that Kyle and his estate profited from the lies that Kyle told about Ventura.\u00a0 Delgado directs skeptics to the words of Kyle\u2019s publisher <\/em>to confirm that sales for the Harper Collins book most definitely increased astronomically<\/em> once Kyle revealed \u201cScruff Face\u201d to be Ventura.<\/p>\n

Marino Eccher, a reporter from Minnesota who covered the trial, relayed the testimony of Kyle\u2019s publicists.\u00a0 The story of Ventura, one said in an email to Kyle, \u201cis priceless.\u201d\u00a0 Another characterized it as \u201chot [,]hot [,] hot!\u201d Eccher reports: \u201cIn another email, an executive said a planned talk show rebuttal of Ventura\u2019s denial would be \u2018a nice little bonus hit for us.\u2019\u00a0 A publicist said \u2018the so-called incident has helped the book go crazy,\u2019 according to emails excerpts read in the [Kyle\u2019s] deposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no reason, other than Kyle\u2019s own word, to believe his tales about carjackers and armed rioters in New Orleans.\u00a0 There is even less <\/em>reason to believe what he said about Ventura.<\/p>\n

(4)There is a final claim that Kyle made that, perhaps most tragically of all, has since been exposed as untrue: Kyle claimed that the proceeds of his book went to the families of fallen soldiers.<\/p>\n

A.J. Delgado notes that while Kyle, his publicist, and several other publications advanced this line, it simply ain\u2019t so. \u201cOf the staggering $3 million that American Sniper <\/em>collected in royalties for Kyle, only $52,000\u201d\u2014that\u2019s 2 percent<\/em>\u2014\u201cactually went to the families of fallen servicemen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle\u2019s widow said that \u201cgift-tax laws\u201d precluded her and her husband from giving more than $13,000 each to two families from the prior year.\u00a0 When questioned by Ventura\u2019s lawyer as to why they just didn\u2019t start a non-profit organization, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune <\/em>reports that she replied that \u201cshe had not had the time to set up such a non-profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delgado is correct when she expresses incredulity that neither Chris nor Taya Kyle managed to find the time to find families in need. \u201cSurely it\u2019s quite easy to locate the families of fallen servicemen.\u201d\u00a0 She is further correct when she blasts the Kyles and their publisher for \u201cstrongly implying, and allowing others to claim unambiguously, that they were giving all the money away when this was clearly not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

One particularly angry critic of mine expressed being \u201cperplexed\u201d as to why anyone\u2014like, presumably, yours truly\u2014would want to \u201ctear down\u201d Kyle.\u00a0 I, for one, am not interested in tearing down anyone. Nor have I done anything of the kind.<\/p>\n

But this critic actually makes the case for why it is of crucial importance to separate truth from myth: Once we are swept up in hero-worship\u2014or maybe its idolatry\u2014reason, facts, logic, evidence, and, most importantly, considerations of fundamental fairness and decency are all too easily swept away.<\/p>\n

Delgado makes this point while focusing on the law.\u00a0 Americans \u201care showing a disturbing level of either support or disregard for the legal system\u2014based solely on what they think of the parties involved.\u201d\u00a0 This, she warns, \u201cis a dangerous approach,\u201d and contradicts \u201cthe fundamentals of justice to decide how you feel about a case based on how much you like the plaintiff or defendant, rather than the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hero-worship\u2014the inability or unwillingness to think<\/em> beyond our clich\u00e9s, stock phrases, and feelings\u2014can and has resulted in evil.<\/p>\n

This, ultimately, is why we must<\/em> sort out truth from myth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I confess to having been more than a bit shocked, and even mystified, to have recently found myself on the receiving end of some wildly baseless attacks by people, Iraq War devotees, who accused me of \u201ctearing down\u201d the late Chris Kyle, the subject of Clint Eastwood\u2019s latest blockbuster film, American Sniper. 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