It seems that my posts about Chris Kyle are not going out of style. I just got the following comment response from a soldier (at least I presume he is based on his comments):
You are a left wing pussy who doesn't have the balls to even be in the region, let alone stand up for fellow members of the armed forces and for the citizens of our country. Those who have served in this capacity realize that it HAS to be done. WE are the great evil and their poor "women and children" wouldn't hesitate to pop a few rounds in our heads. I tell you what, sign up for a tour before your criticize anyone who has done so. You are pathetic. When you are in that situation you have two choices, kill. . . or be killed. I choose the former. "Oh no, he shot a Jihadist Muslim" THey ARE savages. THey DO want us to die. We are Satan to them. Study some religion. . . then grow some balls. He's not a sociopath. It's quite simple. It's your job, and you either do it, or die. You gotta flip the switch in your mind, shut it off as best as you can, but I promise, he like me has a lot of nights waking up in cold sweats rehashing what happened.
I’m going to address this comment, because I actually feel pity and sympathy for the commenter, despite his best efforts to avoid invoking such feelings in me.
Let me first address his first insult, that I am a left-wing pussy. In three simple words, he challenged my political ideology and my manhood, which is always amusing. I can assure him that I am neither left, right, nor even a centrists. I do not conform to the political theories of the day because I don’t believe in political solutions for the world. I am, at heart, a political nihilist. I believe that there is no political solution for anything, whether its foreign enemies, domestic crime, or economic woes. From John Edwards, who said the government will heal the lame, to George W. Bush who thrust a homeownership society on an unwilling public, we see failure after failure regardless of who is in power.
As for my manhood, know that there are four faces of manhood: the King, the Warrior, the Lover, and the Friend. Of all of these, the King is the most important because the King is the one who exhibits judgment based his morals and values. Without the King, the Warrior runs free and acts aggressively toward others, the Lover gets venereal diseases, and the Friend ends up either alone, or surrounded by douchebags. When I talked about Chris Kyle, I put on the face of the King and judged him based on his boisterous nature, not his acts as a soldier. If you had paid attention to what I had written, which you clearly did not, you would have seen that I did not question his military service, just his justification for doing so. While most men will simply fall back on the “just doing my job line” (not acceptable, but understandable nonetheless), Chris Kyle insisted they were savages who deserved death and that he wished he had killed more.
That last point ties into the next set of comments. I do not disparage the United States military for what they did, at least the ones who were in the warzones where it was kill or be killed. I am not naïve and I completely understand that an individual will always choose their life over another person’s life, except in rare circumstances. On top of that, I understand that war is Hell and there are always situations where you have to do things that will leave a normal person haunted for this rest of his life, as this anonymous soldier clearly is.
I am sorry that you went to war for no good reason. I am sorry that our government seems Hell-bent on getting young men like yourself killed overseas for some vague goal of freedom and democracy in a land of savages who want neither. I know that this is probably exactly what you do not want to hear, but that is why my subtitle of the my blog comes from Job 32. Incidentally, I have studied religion. I have read through the Bible in its entirety three times now and I am currently working through my fourth time. I am quite amazed that most Christians in the United States are quite unwilling to accept the whole of the Bible and only pick and choose what they want, leaving out the rest. Instead, the raise up idols like their favorite football team or a political party, forgetting that God loves all, that He sent His Son not to condemn the world but to save it (see John 3:17).
Right now, I have a missionary friend of mine who is heading back to Afghanistan in order to preach the Good News. He is going back with his wife and four children, all of whom are less than 10 years old. God put it on his heart to love the Afghan people and so he traveled there long before the 9/11 attack. When the United States reporters first showed up in Afghanistan, they were surprised to see an man dressed in Afghan robes with a long, curly beard and blue eyes speaking perfect English to them. He is going to a country that is now much more dangerous than it was a few years ago because of our continued presence in that nation. Like it or not, the United States is the prime representation of Christianity in the world and it is making the job of missionaries like him that much harder.
As for Chris Kyle, I do not think he is like you, anonymous soldier. He has stated, in no uncertain terms, that he wants to kill more people. Savage or not, they are human beings and we are to love them, as Christ commanded us. He shows no love or compassion for Iraqis. Mr. Kyle shows no signs of remorse, unlike you, which makes him all the more dangerous.
I am actually moved by your comments. I am sorry that you wake up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat after dreaming about the horrible things you witnessed or took part in. I don’t condemn you for what you did and I don’t believe you are a sociopath. I believe that you are a good person at heart who just happened to be in a bad situation that, God-willing, I will never have to face in my lifetime.