"If you go to combat and you have people who love you at home, some version of this story is your story," Taya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle, the subject of the much anticipated movie, American Sniper said in an interview regarding this movie.
We saw it yesterday, Danny and I. This is the first war movie that I have seen with Danny that does not take place prior to him enlisting. Meaning, I have watched "We Were Soldiers" and "Heartbreak Ridge" but did not see "Lone Survivor" or "Hurt Locker" with Danny. I was very hesitant to see "American Sniper" in the theater and with Danny. There are some things that I may just not want to know.
Danny was active duty and guard for sixteen years. In those sixteen years he saw combat twice, in 1990-91 with Desert Shield/Desert Storm and again in 2004 in Iraq. He has shared many of his experiences while in the desert, but I have always been sure that many experiences are told to me in a white washed sort of way. When Pillage gets together, I don't hear about missions, but instead am regaled with tales of TV stations gone bad, fantastic cave restaurant food and escapades of the men in the orange baseball caps on the balcony of Sadaam's palace. And that has always worked for me. Even ten years later, I am still unprepared to hear how close the mortar landed.
I am grateful to Taya Kyle for letting this story be told. It is a difficult place to be, a spouse frustrated and ready to be a regular family again. Even knowing what we 'signed up' for does not make us not want the usual, normal things. And when there are children, we struggle even more to keep things normal when we are not feeling normal at all. Personally, I am still processing the way I behaved while Danny was gone in 2004 and am still trying to let go of it.
The military and those associated with it have come along way in knowing that people need help sometimes to work through the shit and there is no shame in that. We laugh now about Danny changing lanes under the overpasses and not allowing any vehicle to get too close to us on 22nd Street and the movie shows that same reaction so very well. Danny was a horrible driver right after he came home. He swerved for every pothole and McDonalds bag in the road. And we thought we understood why, but we also thought he should be able to wrap his head around the fact that he was in West Des Moines. Watching a movie that shows some of what his experience may have been like makes me realize how idiotic I was thinking he should be able to just let that year go and get back to picking up kids from soccer practice and ordering pizza and being a regular dad driving a minivan down the road.
I am sure that many will come out of the theater with new feelings about the war in Iraq. I know that I still wonder about it, try to make sense of it. Having had the opportunity to talk to people that escaped the genocide in Northern Iraq gives me a very different perspective, I suppose. I don't know that I could love something, an idea, so much that I would give up a thousand days to fight for that. Lucky for me, there are plenty of people that do have that kind of heart and strength.
From Danny's point of view, a very well made movie that captured so much of what was real about Iraq. From my point of view, a very well made movie that captured so much of what was real about loving someone in Iraq.
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