Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori?

Rating: 8/10 (7 February 2015)

Snipers have a bad name. On the notorious 'Sniper Alley' in Sarajevo, they reportedly slaughtered 600 people, including 225 children, and they are often seen by the general public as ruthless predators rather than real soldiers with an important tactical role.
Dictionary definitions are anodyne. Random House gives the role of a sniper as 'shooting at individuals as opportunity offers from a concealed or distant position' and Webster's 'shooting at exposed individuals (as of an enemy's forces) from a usually concealed point of vantage'. To both, it appears, the sniper simply shoots from a hidden position and the word does not appear to have attracted a negative connotation.
The main role of snipers in regular forces is to give tactical support to troops when they are vulnerable to attack, though the term did not enter the English language until the 20th Century. Early snipers were called sharpshooters, though the term applied to a rifleman who fired either from open or concealed positions. At Saratoga in 1777, legendary sharpshooter Timothy Murphy, one of Colonel Morgan's Kentucky Riflemen in the American Revolutionary Army, shot British General Fraser dead at 330 yards (300 metres) with his unusual Golcher double long-barreled rifle, and then brought down the general's aid, Sir Francis Clarke. The Revolution may have turned on those two shots.
In 1809, Thomas Plunket, an Irishman in the 95th Rifles in the British army, with his single-shot Baker rifle, shot dead French General Colbert from an range that may have been as much as 600 yards (550 metres) then, reloading, killed the French bugler, eliminating with two shots both command and control of an entire French cavalry force. With such efficacy, it is hardly surprising that the sharpshooter evolved into the specialist sniper, and made a devastating impact during WW1 and WW2, when snipers were feared and hated. German snipers in Normandy in 1944, for example, often remained behind to harass the advancing Allies. Knowing that capture often meant summary execution, few were taken alive.
All this puts American Sniper into context, and, indeed, the eponymous Chris Kyle became feared and hated in Iraq, where the insurgents named him 'Shaitan Ar-Ramadi' ('Satan of Ramadi') because of his devastating impact on the insurgents in the city of that name, and he carried a bounty of $80,000. During four tours, he had 160 confirmed kills out of 255 probables, making him the most lethal sniper in US history. (To put this figure into context, however, a drone operator reportedly killed over 1600 'enemy' in Afghanistan over four years from a base 6000 miles away) Kyle would have argued that none of his own statistics take into account how many of his comrades' lives he saved, and his final shot in the film, from about 2,100 yards (1,920 metres) eliminated an insurgent sniper who had been taking out US Army Engineers.
For all this, the adulation of his peers, the army and his country, Chris Kyle is a victim of American culture. A plain and simple man, he is sucked into a pseudo-patriotism that drives young men to arms, many of whom, like Kyle, had been gun enthusiasts almost from infancy,- he was trained as a hunter by his father-'pseudo patriotism', because dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, the dread line of Horace cited by WW1 poet Wilfred Owen as 'that old lie', still appears to be imbibed by American youth. Yet, how much of our own freedom in the west has been bought by young men, and, today, young women, going to war, we will never know.
Kyle and many of his comrades have become warriors, their patriotism, devotion to duty, addiction to shooting and almost fanatical comradeship all too easily manipulated into fighting a war in the mistaken belief that they were protecting hearth and home. By focusing on Kyle and his comrades, Eastwood's sharp direction brings an entire culture, political system and military ethos under the microscope, as well as the mental and physical damage to individuals and to family life, not to mention the destruction and killing in Iraq.
Yet, many critics on this website and beyond, fail to understand that, to the soldier in the combat zone, the main focus is to get the 'bad guys' first, since they are out to get you and your comrades, a narrow here-and-now, kill-or-be-killed world, and winning the war is a remote goal. If these men are gung-ho, it is necessary to keep going, a mask for the terrible guilt many soldiers feel at the loss of comrades, and the daily fear under which they have to live, and, indeed, often go on living.
The question of how many lives might have been saved had the coalition led by the United States not invaded Iraq is probably best left unanswered. Kyle was not responsible, but was the instrument of those who are.
Bradley Cooper is an inch-perfect Kyle, delivering an understated performance. As he slips into the derangement of post-traumatic stress, his demeanor remains largely unchanged, apart from his eyes, his stillness and his silence, as all he has been through continues to infect him. While healing himself by helping other veterans, especially the mutilated, all are drawn back towards the gun and shooting, which brings about his death. The irony is savage.
Sienna Miller is a major talent trammeled by her role as Taya, long-suffering wife of Kyle and mother of their two children. Yet, such confinement is emblematic of the role of the women and families who stay behind. As Milton puts it: 'They also serve who only stand and wait'. He might have added, 'they also suffer, and suffer deeply', but are there PTSD clinics for women who have to stand and wait? I hope so.
Everyone suffers in American Sniper. The audience too. For all its good qualities, it is a film I would gladly have missed.