The ‘unverifiable’ legacy of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in American history
Chris Kyle, musclebound, grim-faced and lethal, liked to tell stories.
Before his murder in 2013 at 38, the so-called deadliest sniper in American history nurtured a comic book narrative. He was the “true American badass,” as one journalist called him, who dipped, wore big boots and affected an aw-shucks Texas swagger. With 160 confirmed kills under his belt and a beautiful family behind him, he became the stuff of military legend. He wrote a best-selling book. Statues were erected. Millions made.
And then there were his stories — some of which smelled fishy. “There were a lot of things he told people that are really unverifiable,” journalist Michael J. Mooney, who wrote a book on Kyle, told The Washington Post.
Like the one about how he and a bud went down to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and picked off dozens of bad guys. Or the one in which he took on two armed Texans bent on stealing his truck and shot them both dead. Or the one he told about former Minnesota governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura.
It’s a story that Ventura said was false. A Minnesota jury, which on Tuesday awarded Ventura $1.8 million in damages from Kyle’s estate after deliberating for six days, agreed.
And if your on top of the Superdome looking down at a confrontation between two armed men, how do you know who is the looter and who is the defender? By the color of their skin? And since when did you become a supporter of government thuggery?
