American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History (5 page)

Marcus had graduated from BUD/S prior to me, then went off to do special advanced training before returning to SQT. Trained as a corpsman, he happened to check me over when I got my first O
2
hit while diving. (In layman’s terms, an “O
2
hit” occurs when too much oxygen enters your bloodstream during a dive. It can be caused by a number of different factors and can be extremely serious. My case was very minor.)

Diving again. I always say I’m an “ . . . L,” not a SEAL. I’m a land guy; you can keep air and sea for someone else.

The day my incident occurred, I was swimming with a lieutenant, and we were determined to get the day’s golden fin—an award for the best shit-hot dive of the day. The exercise involved swimming under a ship and planting limpet mines. (A limpet mine is a special charge that is placed against the hull of a ship. Generally, it will have a timed charge.)

We were doing extremely well when suddenly, while I was underneath the hull of the ship, I experienced vertigo and my brain turned into a vegetable. I managed to grab hold of a pylon and hug it. The lieutenant tried handing me a mine, then tried signaling to me when I wouldn’t take it. I stared blankly into the ocean. Finally, my head cleared, and I was able to get out and continue.

No golden fin for us that day. By the time I got back to the surface, I was all right, and both Marcus and the instructors cleared me.

Though we ended up in different Teams, Marcus and I kept in touch as the years went by. It seemed like every time I was coming back from a combat deployment, he was coming in to relieve me. We’d have lunch together and trade informal intel back and forth.

T
oward the end of SQT, we got orders telling us which SEAL Team we were about to join. Even though we had graduated BUD/S, we didn’t consider ourselves real SEALs yet; it was only when we joined a Team that we would get our Tridents—and even then we’d have to prove ourselves first. (The SEAL Tridents—also known as a Budweiser—is a metal “device” or badge worn by SEALs. Besides Neptune’s trident, the symbol includes an eagle and an anchor.) At the time, there were six Teams, meaning three choices on each coast, East and West; my top pick was Seal Team 3, which was based out of Coronado, California. I chose it because that team had seen action in the Middle East and was likely to return. I wanted to get into the heat if I could. I think all of us did.

My next two choices were for Teams based on the East Coast, because I’d been in Virginia, where they are headquartered. I’m not a big fan of Virginia, but I liked it a lot better than California. San Diego—the city near Coronado—has beautiful weather, but Southern California is the land of nuts. I wanted to live somewhere with a little more sanity.

I’d been told by the detailer I worked for that he would make sure I got my top choice. I wasn’t 100 percent sure that was going to happen, but at that point I would have accepted whatever assignment I got—obviously, since I had no real say in the matter.

Getting the actual assignment was the opposite of dramatic. They brought us into a big classroom and handed out paper with our orders. I got my top choice: Team 3.

L
OVE

S
omething else happened to me that spring that had an enormous impact not just on my military career, but on my life.

I fell in love.

I don’t know if you believe in love at first sight; I don’t think I did before the night in April of 2001 when I saw Taya standing at a bar in a San Diego club, talking with one of my friends. She had a way of making black leather pants look smokin’ hot
and
classy. The combination suited me fine.

I’d just joined Team 3. We hadn’t started training yet, and I was enjoying what amounted to a week of vacation before getting down to the serious business of becoming a SEAL and earning my place on a Team.

Taya was working for a pharmaceutical company as a drug rep when we met. Originally from Oregon, she’d gone to college in Wisconsin and moved out to the coast a couple years before we met. My first impression was that she was beautiful, even if she looked pissed off about something. When we started talking, I also found out she was smart, and had a good sense of humor. I sensed right away she was someone who could keep up with me.

But maybe she should tell the story; her version sounds better than mine:

Taya:

I remember the night we met—some of it, at least. I wasn’t going to go out. This was all during a low spot in my life. My days were spent in a job I didn’t like. I was fairly new in town and still looking for some solid female friendships. And I was casually dating guys, with not much success. Over the years I’d had some decent relationships and a couple of bad ones, with a few dates in between. I remember literally praying to God before I met Chris to just send me a nice guy. Nothing else mattered, I thought. I just prayed for someone who was inherently good and nice.

A girlfriend called and wanted to go down to San Diego. I was living in Long Beach at the time, about ninety miles away. I wasn’t going to go but somehow she talked me into it.

We were walking around that night and we passed a bar named Maloney’s. They were blaring “Land Down Under” by Men at Work. My friend wanted to go in but they had an outrageous cover charge, something like ten or fifteen bucks.

“I’m not doing that,” I told her. “Not for a bar that’s playing Men at Work.”

“Oh, shut up,” my girlfriend said. She paid the cover and in we went.

We were at the bar. I was drinking and irritable. This tall, good-looking guy came over and started talking to me. I’d been talking to one of his friends, who seemed like a jerk. My mood was still pretty bad, though he had a certain air about him. He told me his name—Chris—and I told him mine.

“What do you do?” I asked.

“I drive an ice cream truck.”

“You’re full of shit,” I told him. “Obviously you’re military.”

“No, no,” he protested. He told me a bunch of other things. SEALs almost never admit to strangers what they really do, and Chris had some of the best BS stories ever. One of the better ones was dolphin waxer: he claimed that dolphins in captivity need to be waxed so their skin didn’t disintegrate. It’s a pretty convincing story—if you’re a young, naive, and tipsy girl.

Fortunately, he didn’t try that particular one on me—I hope because he could tell I wouldn’t fall for it. He’s also convinced girls that he mans an ATM machine, sitting inside and doling out money when people put their cards in. I wasn’t anywhere near that naive, or drunk, for him to try that story.

One look at him and I could have told he was military. He was ripped and had short hair, and had an accent that said “not from here.”

Finally, he admitted he was in the service.

“So what do you do in the military?” I asked.

He said a bunch of other things and finally I got the truth: “I just graduated from BUD/S.”

I was like, okay, so you’re a SEAL.

“Yeah.”

“I know all about you guys,” I told him. You see, my sister had just divorced her husband. My brother-in-law had wanted to be a SEAL—he’d gone through some of the training—and so I knew (or thought I did) what SEALs were all about.

So I told Chris.

“You’re arrogant, self-centered, and glory-seeking,” I said. “You lie and think you can do whatever you want.”

Yes, I was at my charming best.

What was intriguing was how he responded. He didn’t smirk or get clever or even act offended. He seemed truly . . . puzzled.

“Why would you say that?” he asked, very innocently and genuine.

I told him about my brother-in-law.

“I would lay down my life for my country,” he answered. “How is that self-centered? That’s the opposite.”

He was so idealistic and romantic about things like patriotism and serving the country that I couldn’t help but believe him.

We talked for a while more, then my friend came over and I turned my attention to her. Chris said something like he was going to go home.

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, you were saying about how you never would date a SEAL or go out with one.”

“Oh no, I said I would never marry one. I didn’t say I wouldn’t go out with one.”

His face lit up.

“In that case,” he said, with that sly little smile he has, “I guess I’ll get your phone number.”

He hung around. I hung around. We were still there at last call. As I got up with the crowd to go, I was pushed against him. He was all hard and muscle-y and smelled good, so I gave him a little kiss on his neck. We went out and he walked us to the parking lot . . . and I started puking my brains out from all the Scotch on the rocks I’d been drinking.

How can you
not
love a girl who loses it the first time you meet? I knew from the start that this was someone I wanted to spend a lot of time with. But at first, it was impossible to do that. I called her the morning after we met to make sure she was okay. We talked and laughed a bit. After that, I’d call her and leave messages. She didn’t call back.

The other guys on the Team started ribbing me about it. They were betting about whether she’d ever call me on her own. You see, we talked a few times, when she would actually answer the phone—maybe thinking it was someone else. After a while, it was obvious even to me that she never initiated.

Then, something changed. I remember the first time she called
me.
We were on the East Coast, training.

When we were done talking, I ran inside and started jumping on my teammates’ beds. I took the call as a sign she was
really
interested. I was happy to share that fact with all the naysayers.

Taya:

Chris was always very aware of my feelings. He is extremely observant in general and it is the same with his awareness of my emotions. He doesn’t have to say much. A simple question or easy way of bringing something to light reveals that he is 100 percent aware of my feelings. He doesn’t necessarily enjoy talking about feelings, but he has a sense of when it is appropriate or necessary to bring things out that I may have been intent on keeping in.

I noticed it early on in our relationship. We would be talking on the phone and he was very caring.

We are, in many ways, opposites. Still, we seemed to click. One day on the phone he was asking what I thought made us compatible. I decided to tell him some of the things that drew me to him.

“I think you’re a really good guy,” I told him, “really nice. And sensitive.”

“Sensitive?!?” He was shocked, and sounded offended. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know what sensitive means?”

“You mean like I go around crying at movies and stuff?”

I laughed. I explained that I meant that he seemed to pick up on how I was feeling, sometimes before I did. And he let me express that emotion, and, importantly, gave me space.

I don’t think that’s the image most people have of SEALs, but it was and is accurate, at least of this one.

S
EPTEMBER 11, 2001

A
s our relationship got closer and closer, Taya and I started spending more time with each other. Finally, we’d spend nights at each other’s apartment, either in Long Beach or San Diego.

I woke up one morning to her yelling. “Chris! Chris! Wake up! You’ve got to see this!”

I stumbled into the living room. Taya had turned on the television and jacked the volume. I saw smoke pouring out of the World Trade Center in New York.

I didn’t understand what-all was happening. Part of me was still sleeping.

Then as we watched, an airplane flew right into the side of the second tower.

“Motherfuckers!” I muttered.

I stared at the screen, angry and confused, not entirely sure it was real.

Suddenly I remembered that I left my cell phone off. I grabbed it, and saw I’d missed a bunch of messages. The sum total of them was this:

Kyle, get your ass back to base. Now!

I grabbed Taya’s SUV—it had plenty of gas and my truck didn’t—and hauled down to base. I don’t know exactly how fast I was going—it might have been three digits—but it was certainly a high rate of speed.

Down around San Juan Capistrano, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a set of red lights flashing.

I pulled over. The cop who came up to the truck was pissed.

“Is there any reason you’re going so fast?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir,” I told him. “I apologize. I’m in the military and I just got recalled. I understand you got to write me a ticket. I know I was in the wrong but with all due respect can you just hurry and give me the ticket so I can get back to base?”

“What branch are you in?”

Motherfucker,
I thought.
I just told you I have to report. Can’t you just give me the damn ticket?
But I kept my cool.

“I’m in the Navy,” I told him.

“What do you do in the Navy?” he asked.

By now I was pretty annoyed. “I’m a SEAL.”

He closed his ticket book.