American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U. S. Military History

T
OO
 M
UCH
 T
HINKING

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“O
n the road again . . .”
Willie Nelson cranked through the speaker system of our
Hummer as we set out for our base the next day. Music was about
the only diversion we had out here, outside of the occasional stop in
a village to talk to the locals. Besides the old-school country my
buddy behind the wheel preferred, I listened to a bit of Toby Keith
and Slipknot, country and heavy metal vying for attention.
I’m a big believer in the psychological impact of music. I’ve seen
it work on the battlefield. If you’re going into combat, you want to
be pumped up. You don’t want to be stupid crazy, but you do want
to be psyched. Music can help take the fear away. We’d listen to
Papa Roach, Dope, Drowning Pool—anything that amped us up.
(They’re all in heavy rotation on my workout mix now.)
But nothing could amp me up on the way back to base. It was a
long, hot ride. Even though I’d just gotten some good news about
my promotion, I was in a dark mood, bored on the one hand, and
tense on the other.
Back at base, things were incredibly slow. Nothing was going
on. And it started to get to me.
As long as I had been in action, the idea of my being vulnerable,
being mortal, had been something I could push away. There was
too much going on to worry about it. Or rather, I had so much else
to do, I didn’t really focus on it.
But now, it was practically all I could think of.
I had time to relax, but I couldn’t. Instead, I’d lie on my bed

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thinking about everything I’d been through—getting shot especially.
I relived the gunshot every time I lay down to rest. My heart
thumped hard in my chest, probably a lot harder than it had that
night in Sadr City.
Things seemed to go downhill in the few days after we got back
from our border patrol. I couldn’t sleep. I felt very jumpy.
Extremely jumpy. And my blood pressure shot up again, even
higher than before.
I felt like I was going to explode.
Physically, I was beat up. Four long combat deployments had
taken their toll. My knees felt better, but my back hurt, my ankle
hurt, my hearing was screwed up. My ears rang. My neck had been
injured, my ribs cracked. My fingers and knuckles had been
broken. I had floaters and decreased vision in my right eye. There
were dozens of deep bruises and an assortment of aches and pains.
I was a doctor’s wet dream.
But the thing that really bothered me was my blood pressure. I
sweated buckets and my hands would even shake. My face, pretty
white to begin with, became pale.
T
he more I tried to relax, the worse things got. It was as if my
body had started to vibrate, and thinking about it only made it buzz
more.
Imagine climbing a tall ladder out over a river, a thousand miles
up, and there you’re struck by lightning. Your body becomes

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electric, but you’re still alive. In fact, you’re not only aware of
everything that’s happening, but you know you can deal with it. You
know what you have to do to get down.
So you do. You climb down. But when you’re back on the
ground, the electricity won’t go away. You try to find a way to
discharge the electricity, to ground yourself, but you can’t find the
damn lightning rod to take the electricity away.
U
nable to eat or sleep, I finally went to the docs and told them to
check me out. They took a look at me, and asked if I wanted
medication.
Not really, I told them. But I did take the meds.
They also suggested that, since the mission tempo was
practically nonexistent and we were only a few weeks from going
home anyway, it made sense for me to go home.
Not knowing what else to do, I agreed.

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