American Sniper

Kyle, Chris.  American Sniper:  The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.  HarperCollins, 2012.  381 pages.  ISBN 9780062082350, ages 16 and up.

It takes a very special kind of a person to be a military sniper-a killer.  Sure, they receive specialize training and run simulations all the time but, to experience what they go through during these missions and then deployment is not something most would be willing to endure.  Chris Kyle was a very special person.  He shares these experiences-he is very honest about them:  how he truly enjoys killing the bad guys; how military provided gear was inadequate; how his love of country almost ruined his family.  I found this to be a very emotional story.  How can a government that asks men to protect citizens not give them body armor that doesn’t fall apart?  (Chris’s in-laws bought him better body armor on his third deployment.)  How can the government send them off to foreign countries and not even provide them with a warm coat to wear?  How can the government train the military to fight/kill the enemy but then send them off with no way to integrate back into our society when their duty has been served?

“It would have been tough to go and just blatantly shoot people in Iraq.  For one thing, there were always plenty of witnesses around.  For another, every time I killed someone in Ramadi I had to write a shooter’s statement on it.  No joke.  This was a report, separate from after-action reports, related only to the shots I took and kills I recorded.  The information had to be very specific.  I had a little notebook with me, and I’d record the day, the time, details about the person, what he was doing, the round I used, how many shots I took, how far away the target was, and who witnessed the shot.  All that went into the report, along with any other special circumstances.  The head shed claimed it was to protect me in case there was ever an investigation for an unjustified kill…” (page 296.)  Soldiers could be convicted of murder for unjustified kills.

Now a major motion picture.

 

Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

Robertson, Phil. Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander. Howard Books, 2013. 230 pages. ISBN 9781476726090, ages 15 and up.
The patriarch of the Robertson family has led a colorful life-from growing up poor, to attending college on a football scholarship, to being a commercial fisherman, to his alcohol and drug use, to finding God, to making duck calls, to becoming the star of the reality show “Duck Dynasty.”
“Of course, everybody laughed at us in the early days. People would come by our house and say, “Let me get this right: you have a master’s degree from Louisiana Tech University, you could’ve played professional football, but you turned that down so you could do what?” (page 122.)
That’s right, Phil Robertson has a master’s degree in English-he even taught English and coached for a little while. He played football-first string quarterback with second string quarterback being Terry Bradshaw in college. He married his high school sweetheart-Miss Kay-when she was just 15 and he was just 16. He had a chance to play football with the NFL but he gave up the chance to follow his dreams of hunting and fishing in the waters and lands in his home state of Louisiana. His life has had ups and downs before the dream of founding his business Duck Commander became a reality-some moments will almost make you cry.