American Sniper: The Autobiography Of The Most Lethal Sniper In U.S. Military History Part 64

Willie Nelson cranked through the speaker system of our Hummer as we set out for our base the next day. Music was about the only diversion we had out here, outside of the occasional stop in a village to talk to the locals. Besides the old-school country my buddy behind the wheel preferred, I listened to a bit of Toby Keith and Slipknot, country and heavy metal vying for attention.

I'm a big believer in the psychological impact of music. I've seen it work on the battlefield. If you're going into combat, you want to be pumped up. You don't want to be stupid crazy, but you do want to be psyched. Music can help take the fear away. We'd listen to Papa Roach, Dope, Drowning Pool-anything that amped us up. (They're all in heavy rotation on my workout mix now.)

But nothing could amp me up on the way back to base. It was a long, hot ride. Even though I'd just gotten some good news about my promotion, I was in a dark mood, bored on the one hand, and tense on the other.

Back at base, things were incredibly slow. Nothing was going on. And it started to get to me.

As long as I had been in action, the idea of my being vulnerable, being mortal, had been something I could push away. There was too much going on to worry about it. Or rather, I had so much else to do, I didn't really focus on it.

But now, it was practically all I could think of.

I had time to relax, but I couldn't. Instead, I'd lie on my bed thinking about everything I'd been through-getting shot especially.

I relived the gunshot every time I lay down to rest. My heart thumped hard in my chest, probably a lot harder than it had that night in Sadr City.

Things seemed to go downhill in the few days after we got back from our border patrol. I couldn't sleep. I felt very jumpy. Extremely jumpy. And my blood pressure shot up again, even higher than before.

I felt like I was going to explode.

Physically, I was beat up. Four long combat deployments had taken their toll. My knees felt better, but my back hurt, my ankle hurt, my hearing was screwed up. My ears rang. My neck had been injured, my ribs cracked. My fingers and knuckles had been broken. I had floaters and decreased vision in my right eye. There were dozens of deep bruises and an a.s.sortment of aches and pains. I was a doctor's wet dream.

But the thing that really bothered me was my blood pressure. I sweated buckets and my hands would even shake. My face, pretty white to begin with, became pale.

The more I tried to relax, the worse things got. It was as if my body had started to vibrate, and thinking about it only made it buzz more.

Imagine climbing a tall ladder out over a river, a thousand miles up, and there you're struck by lightning. Your body becomes electric, but you're still alive. In fact, you're not only aware of everything that's happening, but you know you can deal with it. You know what you have to do to get down.

So you do. You climb down. But when you're back on the ground, the electricity won't go away. You try to find a way to discharge the electricity, to ground yourself, but you can't find the d.a.m.n lightning rod to take the electricity away.

Unable to eat or sleep, I finally went to the docs and told them to check me out. They took a look at me, and asked if I wanted medication.

Not really, I told them. But I did take the meds.

They also suggested that, since the mission tempo was practically nonexistent and we were only a few weeks from going home anyway, it made sense for me to go home.

Not knowing what else to do, I agreed.

CHAPTER 14

Home and Out

DUCKING OUT

It was late August when I left. As usual, it was almost surreal-one day I was in the war; the next I was home. I felt bad about leaving. I didn't want to tell anyone about the blood pressure, or anything else. I kept it to myself as best I could.

To be honest, it felt a little like I was ducking out on my boys, running away because my heart was pounding funny or whatever the h.e.l.l it was doing.

Nothing that I had accomplished earlier could erase the feeling that I was letting my boys down.

I know it doesn't make sense. I know I had accomplished a huge amount. I needed a rest, but felt I shouldn't take one. I thought I should be stronger than was possible.

To top things off, some of the medication apparently didn't agree with me. Trying to help me sleep, a doctor back home in San Diego prescribed a sleeping pill. It put me out-so much so that when I really woke up I was on base with no recollection of working out at home and driving myself to base. Taya told me about my workout and I knew I had driven to work, because my truck was there.

I never took that one again. It was nasty.

Taya:

It's taken me years to get my head around some of this stuff. On the surface, Chris wants to just go and have a good time. When people really need him though-when lives are on the line-he is the most dependable guy. He's got a situational sense of responsibility and caring.

I saw this in his promotions in the military: he didn't care. He didn't want the responsibility of the higher rank, even though it would mean providing better for his family. And yet if a job needed to be done, he was there. He will always rise to the challenge. And he's prepared, because he's been thinking about it.

It was a real dichotomy, and I don't think a lot of people understood it. It was even hard for me to reconcile at times.

PROTECTING PEOPLE

While I was home, I got involved in a fairly interesting scientific program relating to stress and combat situations.

It used virtual reality to test what sorts of effects battle has on your body. In my case, specifically, they monitored my blood pressure, or at least that was the one measurement that really interested me. I wore a headpiece and special gloves while viewing a simulation. It was basically a video game, but it was still pretty cool.

Well, in the simulations, my blood pressure and heart rate would start out steady. Then, once we got into a firefight, they would drop. I would just sit there and do everything I had to do, real comfortable.

As soon as it was over and things were peaceful, my heart rate would just zoom.

Interesting.

The scientists and doctors running the experiment believe that during the heat of the battle, my training would take over and would somehow relax me. They were really intrigued, because apparently they hadn't seen that before.

Of course, I'd lived it every day in Iraq.

There was one simulation that left a deep impression on me. In this one, a Marine was shot and he went down screaming. He'd been gut-shot. As I watched that scene, my blood pressure spiked even higher than it had been.

I didn't need a scientist or a doctor to tell me what that was about. I could just about feel that kid dying on my chest in Fallujah again.

People tell me I saved hundreds and hundreds of people. But I have to tell you: it's not the people you saved that you remember. It's the ones you couldn't save.

Those are the ones you talk about. Those are the faces and situations that stay with you forever.

IN OR OUT?

My enlistment was coming to an end. The Navy kept trying to entice me to stay, making different offers: handle training, work in England, anything I wanted just so I would stay in the Navy.

Even though I had told Taya I wouldn't reenlist, I wasn't ready to quit.