Question: What sort of a man would fire a bullet into a mother walking with a toddler from a distance of 300 yards?
Answer: A lethal American hero who can squeeze off a shot between heart beats.
That is the disturbing paradox of "American Sniper," the latest from director Clint Eastwood, opening Friday and nominated today as best picture. I'll say at the entrance I will pay for anything directed by Eastwood. I'll let Gary Thompson handle the cinematic end; I'll look into the humanity of it.
The movie's heart, the bulls' eye you might say, is the motivation of Navy Seal Chris Kyle, the man credited with killing some 160 of the enemy – not all soldiers – during four tours in Iraq.
It would be easy to turn the story into an anti-war (and anti-U.S.) screed, as Oliver Stone makes a career of doing.
Also easy would be creating a flag-waving, patriotic paean to the sacrifice of our troops (and their families). There is no question of Kyle's patriotism and heroism.
Eastwood deftly steers his wagon away from those ruts, lightly crafting a psychological portrait without the pretense. What happens inside Kyle is as important as what happens each time he squeezes off a round. He was an expert shot from the time he got his first rifle from his father in Texas, a state with a history intertwined with guns.
In real life, Kyle did shoot down a woman with a small child. (The movie takes a liberty by having him shoot the child.) The shot was not sport, not murder. The woman was concealing a hand grenade she was going to detonate when she got close to nearby Marines. When real-life Kyle was questioned about killing a woman, he said she was already dead, the question was whether she would get to take some Marines with her.
Was that a hard choice for Kyle, known to the enemy as the "Devil of Ramadi," or an easy one?
Another Texan Seal, Marcus Luttrell, had a choice in 2005. Operating in Afghanistan in a four-member Seal team, they were spotted by a few villagers. As depicted in the movie "Lone Survivor," the team argued whether to kill the villagers for the team's safety, or release them and gamble the villagers wouldn't tell the Taliban.
They didn't kill the villagers – who ratted them out to the Taliban. Three of the four Seals died as a result.
In retrospect, Kyle's choice was right, Luttrell's was wrong. Had they killed the villagers, would they have been guilty of a war crime?
At the time of that incident, Andrew Colket was an Army sergeant in Ramadi. He is now program administrator of St. Joseph University's Office of Veterans Services, but when in Iraq he was a scout.
About killing, he told me, "I don't think anyone can truly enjoy it."
He never heard anyone express regrets "about what they were called to do," he said, because "What's the alternative – not shooting the guy? That would be a regret."
Kyle never had a regret. His role was "overwatch," in which he might lay motionless for up to eight hours on a rooftop, watching over Marines and soldiers below.
Kyle protected his kid brother as a youth and in a scene that quietly explained a lot, Kyle's father told him there are three kinds of people – sheep, wolves and sheep dogs. You will never be a wolf, his father says, because wolves are predators. Kyle is destined to be a sheep dog, conforming to his natural, protective instincts.
Now 33, Colket was sent home after contracting a parasite that incapacitated him. "I experienced guilt because I got sent home after seven months because of the parasite I got and we lost some guys while I was home."
Kyle did four tours because he felt he was uniquely qualified to protect our troops – and he was. He was also uniquely qualified to protect his family and returning to battle caused stress in his marriage. These are things that are intertwined with today's war.
So is the small size of the typical Seal unit. The days of set piece battles with enormous numbers of troops – think D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge – are passé. Our armed forces no longer need cannon fodder – they need men (and women) with skills and smarts and courage.
More deaths come from roadside bombs than from fire fights. Colket talks about the frustration of not seeing the enemy and being blown up by anonymous, random bombs for which there is little defense. There is no "front," there is no safety.
Our troops are all volunteers. Willingly putting themselves in harm's way was the first decision they made.
On the battlefield there will be more, maybe with greater gravity.
Such as being willing and able to do the unthinkable — and put a bullet through a woman's heart.
