American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History (3 page)

I was a decent worker, and I guess it showed. One day a fellow came in and started talking to me.

“I know a guy who owns a ranch and he’s looking for a hired hand,” he said. “I wonder if you’d be interested.”

“Holy hell,” I told him. “I’ll go out there right now.”

And so I became a ranch hand—a real cowboy—even though I was still going to school full-time.

L
IFE AS A
C
OWBOY

I
went to work for David Landrum, in Hood County, Texas, and quickly found out I wasn’t near as much of a cowboy as I thought I was. David took care of that. He taught me everything about working a ranch, and then some. He was a rough man. He would cuss you up one side and down the other. If you were doing good, he wouldn’t say a word. But I ended up really liking the guy.

Working on a ranch is heaven.

It’s a hard life, featuring plenty of hard work, and yet at the same time it’s an easy life. You’re outside all the time. Most days it’s just you and the animals. You don’t have to deal with people or offices or any petty bullshit. You just do your job.

David’s spread ran ten thousand acres. It was a real ranch, very old-school—we even had a chuck wagon during the spring round-up season.

I want to tell you, this was a beautiful place, with gentle hills, a couple of creeks, and open land that made you feel alive every time you looked at it. The heart of the ranch was an old house that had probably been a way station—an “inn” in Yankee-speak—back in the nineteenth century. It was a majestic building, with screened porches front and back, nice-sized rooms inside, and a big fireplace that warmed the soul as well as the skin.

Of course, because I was a ranch hand, my quarters were a little more primitive. I had what we called a bunkhouse, which was barely big enough for an actual bunk. It might have measured six by twelve feet, and my bed took up most of that. There wasn’t space for drawers—I had to hang all my clothes, including my underwear, on a pole.

The walls weren’t insulated. Central Texas can be pretty cold in the winter, and even with the gas stove on high and an electric heater right next to the bed, I slept with my clothes on. But the worst thing about it was the fact that there wasn’t a proper foundation under the floorboards. I was continually doing battle with raccoons and armadillos, who’d burrow in right under my bed. Those raccoons were ornery and audacious; I must’ve shot twenty of them before they finally got the message that they weren’t welcome under my house.

I started out riding the tractors, planting wheat for the cattle in the wintertime. I moved on to sluffing feed to the cattle. Eventually, David determined I was likely to stick around and started giving me more responsibilities. He bumped my salary to $400 a month.

After my last class ended around one or two in the afternoon, I’d head over to the ranch. There I’d work until the sun went down, study a bit, then go to bed. First thing in the morning, I’d feed all the horses, then head to class. Summer was the best. I’d be on horseback at five o’clock in the morning until nine at night.

Eventually, I became the two-year man, training “cut horses” and getting them ready for auction. (Cutting horses—also called carving horses, sorting horses, whittlers—are trained to help cowboys “cut” cows from the herd. These working horses are important on a ranch, and a good one can be worth a good amount of money.)

This is really where I learned about dealing with horses, and became much more patient than I had been before. If you lose your temper with a horse, you can ruin it for life. I taught myself to take my time and be gentle with them.

Horses are extremely smart. They learn quickly—if you do it right. You show them something real small, then stop, and do it again. A horse will lick its lips when it’s learning. That’s what I looked for. You stop the lesson on a good note, and pick up the next day.

Of course, it took a while to learn all this. Anytime I messed up, my boss would let me know. Right away he’d cuss me out, tell me I was a worthless piece of shit. But I never got pissed at David. In my mind, I thought,
I’m better than that and I’ll show you
.

As it happens, that’s exactly the kind of attitude you need to become a SEAL.

“N
O
”
FROM THE
N
AVY

O
ut there on the range, I had a lot of time and space to think about where I was headed. Studying and classes were not my thing. With my rodeo career ended, I decided that I would quit college, stop ranching, and go back to my original plan: join the military and become a soldier. Since that was what I really wanted to do, there was no sense waiting.

And so, one day in 1996, I made my way to the recruiters, determined to sign up.

This recruiting station was its own mini-mall. The Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force offices were all lined up in a little row. Each one watched as you came in. They were in competition with each other, and not necessarily a friendly competition, either.

I went to the Marine door first, but they were out to lunch. As I turned around to leave, the Army guy down the hall called over.

“Hey,” he said. “Why don’t you come on in here?”

No reason not to,
I thought. So I did.

“What are you interested in doing in the military?” he asked.

I told him that I liked the idea of special operations, and that from what I’d heard of Army SF, I thought I’d like to serve in that branch—if I were to join the Army, that is. (Special Forces, or SF, is an elite unit in the Army charged with a number of special operations missions. The term “special forces” is sometimes used incorrectly to describe special operation troops in general, but when I use it, I mean the Army unit.)

At the time, you had to be an E5—a sergeant—before you could be considered for SF. I didn’t like the idea of waiting all that time before getting to the good stuff. “You could be a Ranger,” suggested the recruiter.

I didn’t know too much about Rangers, but what he told me sounded pretty enticing—jumping out of airplanes, assaulting targets, becoming a small-arms expert. He opened my eyes to the possibilities, though he didn’t quite close the sale.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, getting up to leave.

As I was on my way out, the Navy guy called to me from down the hall.

“Hey, you,” he said. “Come on over here.”

I walked over.

“What were you talking about in there?” he asked.

“I was thinking about going into SF,” I said. “But you have to be an E5. So we were talking about the Rangers.”

“Oh, yeah? Heard about the SEALs?”

At the time, the SEALs were still relatively unknown. I had heard a little about them, but I didn’t know all that much. I think I shrugged.

“Why don’t you come on in here,” said the sailor. “I’ll tell you all about ’em.”

He started by telling me about BUD/S, or Basic Underwater Demolition/Scuba training, which is the preliminary school all SEALs must pass through. Nowadays, there are hundreds of books and movies on SEALs and BUD/S; there’s even a pretty long entry on our training in Wikipedia. But back then, BUD/S was still a bit of a mystery, at least to me. When I heard how hard it was, how the instructors ran you and how less than 10 percent of the class would qualify to move on, I was impressed. Just to make it through the training, you had to be one tough motherfucker.

I liked that kind of challenge.

Then the recruiter started telling me about all the missions SEALs, and their predecessors, the UDTs, had completed. (UDTs were members of Underwater Demolition Teams, frogmen who scouted enemy beaches and undertook other special warfare assignments beginning in World War II.) There were stories about swimming between obstructions on Japanese-held beaches and gruesome fights behind the lines in Vietnam. It was all bad-ass stuff, and when I left there, I wanted to be a SEAL in the worst way.

M
any recruiters, especially the good ones, have more than a little larceny in them, and this one was no different. When I came back and was about to sign the papers, he told me I had to turn down the signing bonus if I wanted to make sure I got the SEAL contract.

I did.

He was full of it, of course. Having me turn down the bonus made him look pretty good, I’m sure. I don’t doubt he’s got a great career ahead of him as a used-car salesman.

The Navy did not promise that I would be a SEAL; I had to earn that privilege. What they did guarantee, though, was that I would have a chance to try out. As far as I was concerned, that was good enough, because there was no way that I was going to fail.

The only problem was that I didn’t even get a chance to fail.

The Navy disqualified me when my physical revealed that I had pins in my arm from the rodeo accident. I tried arguing, I tried pleading; nothing worked. I even offered to sign a waiver saying that I’d never make the Navy responsible for anything that happened to my arm.

They flat-out turned me down.

And that, I concluded, was the end of my military career.

T
HE
C
ALL

W
ith the military ruled out, I focused on making a career out of ranching and being a cowboy. Since I already had a good job on a ranch, I decided there was really no sense staying in school. I quit, even though I was less than sixty credits shy of graduating.

David doubled my pay and gave me more responsibilities. Larger offers eventually lured me to other ranches, though for different reasons I kept coming back to David’s ranch. Eventually, just before the winter of 1997–98, I found my way out to Colorado.

I took the job sight-unseen, which turned out to be a big mistake. My thinking was, I’d been spending all my time in the Texas flatlands, and a move to the mountains would be a welcome change of scenery.

But wouldn’t you know it: I got a job at a ranch in the only part of Colorado flatter than Texas. And a good deal colder. It wasn’t long before I called up David and asked if he needed some help.

“Come on back,” he told me.

I started to pack, but I didn’t get very far. Before I finished making arrangements to move, I got a phone call from a Navy recruiter.

“Are you still interested in being a SEAL?” he asked.

“Why?”

“We want you,” said the recruiter.

“Even with the pins in my arm?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

I didn’t. I started working on the arrangements right away.

2

Jackhammered

W
ELCOME TO
BUD
/
S

“D
rop! One hundred push-ups! NOW!”

Two hundred and twenty-some bodies hit the asphalt and started pumping. We were all in camis—camouflage BDUs, or battle-dress uniforms—with freshly painted green helmets. It was the start of BUD/S training. We were bold, excited, and nervous as hell.

We were about to get beat down, and we were loving it.

The instructor didn’t even bother to come out of his office inside the building a short distance away. His deep voice, slightly sadistic, carried easily out the hall into the courtyard where we were gathered.

“More push-ups! Give me forty! FOUR-TEEE!”

My arms hadn’t quite started to burn yet when I heard a strange hissing noise. I glanced up to see what was going on.

I was rewarded with a blast of water in my face. Some of the other instructors had appeared and were working us over with fire hoses. Anyone stupid enough to look up, got hosed.

Welcome to BUD/S.

“Flutter kicks! GO!”

B
UD/S stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL and it is the introductory course that all candidates must pass to become SEALs. It’s currently given at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California. It starts with “indoc” or indoctrination, which is designed to introduce candidates to what will be required. Three phases follow: physical training, diving, land warfare.

There have been a number of stories and documentaries over the years about BUD/S and how tough it is. Pretty much everything they’ve said on that score is true. (Or at least mostly true. The Navy and the instructors tone it down a bit for national consumption on TV reality shows and other broadcasts. Still, even the watered-down version is true enough.) Essentially, the instructors beat you down, then beat you down some more. When that’s done, they kick your ass, and beat what’s left down again.

You get the idea.

I loved it. Hated it, loathed it, cursed it . . . but loved it.

L
AME AND
L
AMER

I
t had taken me the better part of a year to reach that point. I’d joined the Navy and reported for basic training in February 1999. Boot camp was pretty lame. I remember calling my dad at one point and saying that basic was easy compared to ranch work. That wasn’t a good thing. I’d joined the Navy to be a SEAL and challenge myself. Instead I got fat and out of shape.

You see, boot camp is designed to prepare you to sit on a ship. They teach you a lot about the Navy, which is fine, but I wanted something more like the Marines’ basic training—a physical challenge. My brother went into the Marines and came out of boot camp tough and in top condition. I came out and probably would have flunked BUD/S if I’d gone straight in. They have since changed the procedure. There’s now a separate BUD/S boot camp, with more emphasis on getting and staying in shape.

Lasting over a half-year, BUD/S is extremely demanding physically and mentally; as I mentioned earlier, the dropout rate can top 90 percent. The most notorious part of BUD/S is Hell Week, 132 hours straight of exercise and physical activity. A few of the routines have changed and tested over the years, and I imagine they will continue to evolve. Hell Week has pretty much remained the most demanding physical test, and probably will continue to be one of the high points—or low points, depending on your perspective. When I was in, Hell Week came at the end of First Phase. But more about that later.

Fortunately, I didn’t go directly to BUD/S. I had other training to get through first, and a shortage of instructors in the BUD/S classes would keep me (and many others) from being abused for quite a while.

According to Navy regs, I had to choose a specialty (or Military Occupation Specialty, or MOS, as it is known in the service) in case I didn’t make it through BUD/S and qualify for the SEALs. I chose intelligence—I naively thought I’d end up like James Bond. Have your little laugh.

But it was during that training that I started working out more seriously. I spent three months learning the basics of the Navy’s intelligence specialties, and, more importantly, getting my body into better shape. It happened that I saw a bunch of real SEALs on the base, and they inspired me to work out. I would go to the gym and hit every vital part of my body: legs, chest, triceps, biceps, etc. I also started running three times a week, from four to eight miles a day, jumping up two miles every session.

I hated running, but I was beginning to develop the right mind-set: Do whatever it takes.

T
his was also where I learned how to swim, or at least how to swim better.

The part of Texas I’m from is far from the water. Among other things, I had to master the sidestroke—a critical stroke for a SEAL.

When intel school ended, I was rounding into shape, but probably still not quite ready for BUD/S. Though I didn’t think so at the time, I was lucky that there was a shortage of instructors for BUD/S, which caused a backlog of students. The Navy decided to assign me to help the SEAL detailers for a few weeks until there was an opening. (Detailers are the people in the military who handle various personnel tasks. They’re similar to human resources people in large corporations.)

I’d work about half a day with them, either from eight to noon or noon to four. When I wasn’t working, I trained up with other SEAL candidates. We’d do PT, or physical training—what old-school gym teachers call calisthenics—for two hours. You know the drill: crunches, push-ups, squats.

We stayed away from weight work. The idea was that you didn’t want to get muscle-bound; you wanted to be strong but have maximum flexibility.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we’d do exhaustion swim—swim until you sink, basically. Fridays were long runs of ten and twelve miles. Tough, but in BUD/S you were expected to run a half-marathon.

My parents remember having a conversation with me around this time. I was trying to prepare them for what might lie ahead. They didn’t know that much about SEALs; probably a good thing.

Someone had mentioned that my identity might be erased from official records. When I told them, I could see them grimace a little.

I asked if they were okay with it. Not that they would really have a choice, I suppose.

“It’s okay,” insisted my dad. My mom took it silently. They were both more than a little concerned, but they tried to hide it and never said anything to discourage me from going ahead.

Finally, after six months or so of waiting, working out, and waiting some more, my orders came through: Report to BUD/S.

G
ETTING
M
Y
A
SS
K
ICKED

I
unfolded myself from the backseat of the cab and straightened my dress uniform. Hoisting my bag out of the taxi, I took a deep breath and started up the path to the quarterdeck, the building where I was supposed to report. I was twenty-four years old, about to live my dream.

And get my ass kicked in the process.

It was dark, but not particularly late—somewhere past five or six in the evening. I half-expected I’d be jumped as soon as I walked in the door. You hear all these rumors about BUD/S and how tough it is, but you never get the full story. Anticipation makes things worse.

I spotted a guy sitting behind a desk. I walked over and introduced myself. He checked me in and got me squared away with a room and the other administrative BS that needed to be handled.

All the time, I was thinking: “This isn’t too hard.”

And: “I’m going to get attacked any second.”

Naturally, I had trouble getting to sleep. I kept thinking the instructors were going to burst in and start whipping my ass. I was excited, and a little worried at the same time.

Morning came without the slightest disturbance. It was only then that I found out I wasn’t really in BUD/S; not yet, not officially. I was in what is known as Indoc—or Indoctrination. Indoc is meant to prepare you for BUD/S. It’s kind of like BUD/S with training wheels. If SEALs did training wheels.

Indoc lasted a month. They did yell at us some, but it was nothing like BUD/S. We spent a bit of time learning the basics of what would be expected of us, like how to run the obstacle course. The idea was that by the time things got serious, we’d have our safety down. We also spent a lot of time helping out in small ways as other classes went through the actual training.

Indoc was fun. I loved the physical aspect, pushing my body and honing my physical skills. At the same time, I saw how the candidates were being treated in BUD/S, and I thought,
Oh shit, I better get serious and work out more.

And then, before I knew it, First Phase started. Now the training
was
for real, and my butt
was
being kicked. Regularly and with a great deal of feeling.

Which brings us up to the point where we started this chapter, with me getting hosed in the face while working out. I had been doing PT for months, and yet this was far harder. The funny thing is, even though I knew more or less what was going to happen, I didn’t completely understand how difficult it was going to be. Until you actually experience something, you just don’t know.

At some point that morning, I thought,
Holy shit, these guys are going to kill me. My arms are going to fall off and I’m going to disintegrate right into the pavement.

Somehow I kept going.

The first time the water hit me, I turned my face away. That earned me a lot of attention—bad attention.

“Don’t turn away!” shouted the instructor, adding a few choice words relating to my lack of character and ability. “Turn back and take it.”

So I did. I don’t know how many hundreds of push-ups or other exercises we did. I do know that I felt I was going to fail. That drove me—I did not want to fail.

I kept facing that fear, and coming to the same conclusion, every day, sometimes several times.

P
eople ask about how tough the exercises were, how many push-ups we had to do, how many sit-ups. To answer the first question, the number was a hundred each, but the numbers themselves were almost beside the point. As I recall, everyone could do a hundred push-ups or whatever. It was the repetition and constant stress, the abuse that came with the exercises, that made BUD/S so tough. I guess it’s hard to explain if you haven’t lived through it.

There’s a common misunderstanding that SEALs are all huge guys in top physical condition. That last part is generally true—every SEAL in the Teams is in excellent shape. But SEALs come in all sizes. I was in the area of six foot two and 175 pounds; others who would serve with me ranged from five foot seven on up to six foot six. The thing we all had in common wasn’t muscle; it was the will to do whatever it takes.

Getting through BUD/S and being a SEAL is more about mental toughness than anything else. Being stubborn and refusing to give in is the key to success. Somehow I’d stumbled onto the winning formula.

U
NDER THE
R
ADAR

T
hat first week I tried to be as far under the radar as possible. Being noticed was a
bad
thing. Whether it was during PT or an exercise, or even just standing in line, the least little thing could make you the focus of attention. If you were slouching while in line, they fixed on you right away. If an instructor said to do something, I tried to be the first one to do it. If I did it right—and I sure tried to—they ignored me and went on to someone else.

I couldn’t completely escape notice. Despite all my exercise, despite all the PT and everything else, I had a lot of trouble with pull-ups.

I’m sure you know the routine—you put your arms up on the bar and pull yourself up. Then you lower yourself. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

In BUD/S, we had to hang from the bar and wait there until the instructor told us to start. Well, the first time the class set up, he happened to be standing right close to me.

“Go!” he said.

“Ugghhhh,” I moaned, pulling myself northward.

Big mistake.
Right away I got tagged as being weak.

I couldn’t do all that many pull-ups to begin with, maybe a half-dozen (which was actually the requirement). But now, with all the attention, I couldn’t just slip by. I had to do
perfect
pull-ups. And many of them. The instructors singled me out, and started making me do more, and giving me a lot of extra exercise.

It had an effect. Pull-ups became one of my better exercises. I could top thirty without trouble. I didn’t end up the best in the class, but I wasn’t an embarrassment, either.

And swimming? All the work I’d done before getting to BUD/S paid off. Swimming actually became my
best
exercise. I was one of, if not
the
fastest, swimmers in the class

Again, minimum distances don’t really tell the story. To qualify, you have to swim a thousand yards in the ocean. By the time you’re done with BUD/S, a thousand yards is nothing. You swim all the time. Two-mile swims were routine. And then there was the time where we were taken out in boats and dropped off seven nautical miles from the beach.