American Sniper: The Autobiography Of The Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. Military History Part 35

"You are thirty years old," she said. "Who does that?"

There's a side of me that loves to pull pranks on people, to get them to laugh. You can't just do regular stuff-I want them to have a good time. Belly laughs. The more extreme the better. April Fools' Day is a particularly tough time for my family and friends, though more because of Taya's pranks than my own. I guess we both like to have a good laugh.

On the darker side, I was extremely hot-headed. I have always had a temper, even before becoming a SEAL. But it was more explosive now. If someone cut me off-not a very rare occurrence in California-I could get crazy. I might try and run them off the road, or even stop and whup their a.s.s.

I had to work at calming down.

Of course, having a reputation as a SEAL does have its advantages.

At my sister-in-law's wedding, the preacher and I got to talking. At some point, she-the preacher was a lady-noticed a bulge in my jacket.

"You have a gun?" she asked.

"Yes, I do," I said, explaining that I was in the military.

She may or may not have known that I was a SEAL-I didn't tell her, but word tends to get around-but when she was ready to start the ceremony and couldn't get anyone in the crowd to be quiet and get into place, she came over to me, patted me on the back, and said, "Can you get everyone to sit down?"

"Yes, I can," I told her.

I barely had to raise my voice to get that little ceremony going.

Taya:

People talk about physical love and need when someone comes home from a long absence: "I want to rip your clothes off." That sort of thing.

I felt that way in theory, but the reality was always a little different.

I needed to get to know him again. It was strange. There's so much antic.i.p.ation. You miss them so much when they deploy, and you want them to be home, but then when they are, things aren't perfect. And you feel as if they should be. Depending on the deployment and what I'd been through, I also had emotions ranging from sadness to anxiety to anger.

When he came back after this deployment, I felt almost shy. I was a new mother and had been doing things on my own for months. We were both changing and growing in totally separate worlds. He had no firsthand knowledge of mine and I had no firsthand knowledge of his.

I also felt bad for Chris. He was wondering what was wrong. There was distance between us that neither one of us could really fix, or even talk about.

BREAKING AND ENTERING

We had a long break from war, but we were busy the whole time, retraining and, in some cases, learning new skills. I went to a school run by FBI agents and CIA and NSA officers. They taught me how to do things like pick locks and steal cars. I loved it. The fact that it was in New Orleans didn't hurt, either.

Learning how to blend in and go undercover, I cultivated my inner jazz musician and grew a goatee. Lock-picking was a revelation. We worked on a variety of locks, and by the end of the cla.s.s I don't think there was a lock that could have kept me or anyone else in our cla.s.s at bay. Stealing cars was a little harder, but I got pretty good at that, too.

We were trained to wear cameras and eavesdropping devices without getting caught. To prove that we could, we had to get the devices into a strip club and return with (video) evidence that we'd been there.

The sacrifices you make for your country ...

I stole a car off Bourbon Street as part of my final. (I had to put it back when we were done; as far as I know, the owner was none the wiser.) Unfortunately, these are all perishable skills-I can still pick a lock, but it'll take me longer now. I'll have to brush up if I ever decide to go crooked.

Among our more normal rotations was a recertification cla.s.s for parachuting.

Jumping out of planes-or, I should say, landing safely after jumping out of planes-is an important skill, but it's a dangerous one. h.e.l.l, I've heard it said the Army figures in combat, if they get 70 percent of the guys in a unit to land safely enough to rally and fight, they're doing well.

Think about that. A thousand guys-three hundred don't make it. Not a big deal to the Army.

Oh-kay.

I went to Fort Benning to train with the Army right after I first became a SEAL. I guess I should have realized what I was in for on the first day of school, when a soldier just ahead of me refused to jump. We all stood there waiting-and thinking-while the instructors tended to him.

I'm afraid of heights as it is, and this didn't build my confidence. Holy s.h.i.+t, I wondered, what's he seeing that I'm not?

Being a SEAL, I had to make a good showing-or at least not look like a wimp. Once he was taken out of the way, I closed my eyes and plunged ahead.

It was on one of those early static jumps (jumps where the cord is automatically pulled for you, a procedure usually used for beginners) that I made the mistake of looking up to check my canopy as I left the plane.

They tell you not to do that. I was wondering why when the chute deployed. My tremendous sense of relief that I had a canopy and wasn't going to die was mitigated by the rope burns on both sides of my face.

The reason they tell you not to look up is so that you don't get hit by the risers as they fly by your head when the chute opens. Some things you learn the hard way.

And then there are night jumps. You can't see the land coming. You know you have to roll into PLFs-parachute landing falls-but when?

I tell myself, the first time I feel something I'm going to roll.

The first ... time ... the f-i-r-s-t ... !!

I think I banged my head every time I jumped at night.

I will say I preferred freefall to static jumping. I'm not saying I enjoyed it, just that I liked it a lot better. Kind of like picking the firing squad over being hanged.

In freefall, you came down a lot slower and had much more control. I know there are all these videos of people doing stunts and tricks and having a grand ol' time doing HALO (high alt.i.tude, low opening) jumps. There are none of me. I watch my wrist altimeter the whole time. That chord is pulled the split-second I hit the right alt.i.tude.

On my last jump with the Army, another jumper came right under me as we descended. When that happens, the lower canopy can "steal" the air beneath you. The result is ... you fall faster than you were falling.

The consequences can be pretty dramatic, depending on the circ.u.mstances. In this case, I was seventy feet from the ground. I ended up falling from there, and having a couple of tree branches and the ground beat the c.r.a.p out of me. I walked away with some b.u.mps and bruises and a few broken ribs.

Fortunately, it was the last jump of the school. My ribs and I soldiered on, glad to be done.

Of course, as bad as parachuting is, it beats spy-rigging. Spy-rigging may look cool, but one wrong move and you can spin off in Mexico. Or Canada. Or maybe even China.

Strangely, though, I like helos. During this workup, my platoon worked with MH-6 Little Birds. Those are very small, very fast scout-and-attack helicopters adapted for Special Operations work. Our versions had benches fitted to each side; three SEALs can sit on each bench.

I loved them.

True, I was scared to death getting on the d.a.m.n thing. But once the pilot took off and we were in the air, I was hooked. It was a tremendous adrenaline rush-you're low and fast. It's awesome. The momentum of the aircraft keeps you in place; you don't even feel any wind buffeting.

And h.e.l.l-if you fall, you'll never feel a thing.

The pilots who commanded those aircraft are among the best in the world. They were all members of the 160th SOAR-the Special Operations air wing, handpicked to work with spec warfare personnel. There's a difference, and it's noticeable.

When you're fast-roping from a chopper with a "regular" pilot, you may find yourself at the wrong alt.i.tude, too high for the rope to reach the ground. At that point, it's too late to do anything about it except grunt or groan as you hit the ground. A lot of pilots also have trouble holding station-staying put long enough for you to get in the right spot on the ground.