American Wife (12 page)

W
e don't talk enough about what happens to servicemen when they leave the military, especially men like Chris who have seen a lot of action. I've come to learn that when these guys get out, they really need a year or two before they're resettled. It's bigger than changing a job or moving to a different state—they've given up a brotherhood. Everything about the civilian world is completely different than the one they've left. For SEALs, especially. We see these men as so strong and capable, and just assume that when they're home, they'd adjust.

It's not that easy.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that at the time. I thought things would be perfect if he got out.

A NON-ULTIMATUM ULTIMATUM

It turned out Angel was okay. Her dad, though, was a different story.

Back home, Chris struggled to readjust, physically and mentally. He also faced another decision—reenlist, or leave the Navy and start a new life in the civilian world.

This time, he seemed to be leaning toward getting out—he'd been discussing other jobs and had already talked to people about what he might do next.

It was his decision, one way or another. But if I'd been resigned to his reenlistment last go-around, this time I was far more determined to let him know I thought he should get out.

There were two important reasons for him to leave—our children. They really needed to have him around as they grew. And I made that a big part of my argument.

But the most urgent reason was Chris himself. I saw what the war was doing to him physically. His body was breaking down with multiple injuries, big and small. There were rings under his eyes even when he had slept. His blood pressure was through the roof. He had to wall himself off more and more.

I didn't think he could survive another deployment.

“I'll support you whatever you decide,” I told him. “I want to be married to you. But the only way I can keep making sense of this is . . . I need to do the best for the kids and me. If you have to keep doing what is best for you and those you serve, at some point I owe it to myself and those
I
serve to do the same. For me, that is moving to Oregon.”

For me, that meant moving from San Diego to Oregon, where we could live near my folks. That would give our son a grandfather to be close to and model himself after—very important things, in my mind, for a boy.

I didn't harp on the fact that the military was taking its toll. That argument would never persuade Chris. He lived for others, not himself.

It didn't feel like an ultimatum to me. In fact, when he described it that way later on, I was shocked.

“It was an ultimatum,” he said. He felt my attitude toward him would change so dramatically that the marriage would be over. There would also be a physical separation that would make it hard to stay together. Even if he wasn't overseas, he was still likely to be based somewhere other than Oregon. We'd end up having a marriage only in name.

I guess looked at one way, it was an ultimatum—us or the Navy. But it didn't feel like that to me at the time. I asked him if he could stay in and get an assignment overseas where we could all go, but Chris reminded me there was never a guarantee with the military—and noted he wasn't in it to sit behind a desk.

Some men have a heart condition they know will kill them, but they don't want to go to the doctor; it's only when their wives tell them to go that they go.

It's a poor metaphor, but I felt that getting out of the Navy was as important for Chris as it was for us.

In the end, he opted to leave.

Later, when Chris would give advice to guys thinking about leaving the military, he would tell them that it would be a difficult decision. He wouldn't push them one way or the other, but he would be open about his experiences.

“There'll be hard times at first,” he'd admit. “But if that is the thing you decide, those times will pass. And you'll be able to enjoy things you never could in the service. And some of them will be a lot better. The joy you get from your family will be twice as great as the pleasure you had in the military.”

Ultimatum or not, he'd come to realize retiring from the service was a good choice for all of us.

It was around this time in 2006 that Chris began texting with an old girlfriend—something he also talks about in the book.

There's not much more to add to what he said there. I felt sick to my stomach when I realized what was going on.

Was I jealous?

No. I was just hurt that our marriage had taken such a dive. And for Chris to do something that extreme, I worried he'd lost all faith in us. Another woman was getting more attention than I was, or so it seemed. Certainly it had the potential to break up our marriage.

Fortunately, Chris didn't want that, and neither did I.

When I told him what I thought, he was devastated—in fact, I have never seen him so devastated.

We talked again, later that night.

“I love you and I want you to stay,” I told him. “If you want to go though, you are free to. You are not trapped here. If you want to stay, I want you to find a counselor for us, book a weekend away for us and leave a message for her that you will not talk to her anymore. And agree to tell me when she contacts you again.”

As we both cried, he told me all day at work he was thinking of “suck starting his pistol.” I couldn't imagine it ever being that bad or him feeling so horribly. But that was Chris. Harder on himself than anyone else ever would be.

I don't know if that was the worst threat to our marriage. Chris certainly felt that it was a very serious issue, and so did I. But the problem wasn't really the old girlfriend. The problem was that we had stopped focusing on each other. We had become distracted and harassed, and we weren't taking care of our relationship. We needed to get back to the reasons we had gotten together in the first place—the mutual respect and love, the support, and the genuine interest in the other person.

The big problem was realizing that.

We both learned a lot about each other in counseling. One of the issues that I always struggled with was communication. Chris could be pretty subtle about expressing his emotions. There were things I didn't pick up on. At times he thought he was communicating, but it went past me. He would say “A” and think that I understood B, C, and D.

So what was the solution?

Talking more. Understanding that there were gaps. Knowing that I did have to try and figure out B, C, and D.

Two people communicating, even when they love each other, is not an easy process. I'm sure we still missed things. But working with the counselor helped give both of us a vocabulary. The fact that we were starting from a really strong foundation of love made it possible to use that vocabulary, even if it wasn't always perfect.

BUSINESS

The Navy made a halfhearted attempt to get Chris to reenlist, telling him they would assign him stateside. But they wouldn't put it in writing, and in the end Chris's pledge to me and our family won out. His official discharge papers list his commendations. Among them: two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with “V” (“V” for valor, meaning they had been earned in combat), two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, five Armed Forces Expeditionary Medals, an Iraq Campaign Medal, and three Good Conduct Medals. He was also awarded the Grateful Nation Award by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Chris kept what he considered the most important medals in a small box in a desk drawer, shoved in with other paraphernalia. The rest . . .

Having decided to leave the Navy, the next big question was: What should he do for work?

Chris had struck up a friendship with Mark Spicer, a British sniper and commando who was now providing military-style training in the U.S. Together they formed a plan to open their own training facility. The idea was to teach military and police personnel how to work in realistic settings. Sniping was the most obvious skill—Spicer was also an accomplished shooter—but there were a variety of other combat-related specialties they felt would round out a curriculum. At the time, there were few if any such training facilities in the country, and none could boast the military's most lethal American military sniper as their head instructor. The two found a suitable property in Arizona, and made plans to establish their school there.

But before they put that plan into action, Texas hedge fund owner Kyle Bass approached Chris about doing security work for him. While being a bodyguard wasn't Chris's favorite thing, he felt the job might be a good opportunity: not only would it pay well, it was in Texas.

Emphasis on the latter.

Bass flew Chris to Dallas to talk about the job. The interview went well, though Chris still had misgivings. On the way back to the airport, Bass asked Chris where he saw himself in a few years. Chris mentioned the training facility.

Bass was immediately interested. So much so, in fact, that he asked if Chris had ever thought of putting together a business plan.

“As a matter of fact,” said Chris, “I have one.”

Chris gave the plan to Bass, who was impressed enough to offer to help establish the business, Craft International. The billionaire lined up some investors and put up a major portion of working capital himself, through his firm. The protection job went by the wayside, except when Bass had a special need. (The company eventually did provide protection services, including to former governor Sarah Palin and to Chris himself when
American Sniper
was published.)

The opportunity to have a facility he loved in Texas was a dream come true for Chris. He got ahold of Spicer, and together they reworked the plans to establish Craft in Texas.

That meant moving from San Diego.

I was ready. San Diego had been convenient when Chris worked there, but I wanted a place where we could have more space. The cost of living in San Diego was outrageous. And believe it or not, the near-perfect weather had become a bit of a bore. I like changing seasons.

Most of all, I was ecstatic to have Chris home. We were finally going to settle down and have a normal family life, one where he wouldn't be traveling all the time—and one where I would never have to worry about him getting shot at or blown up by an IED.

Life was going to be perfect, and Texas was going to be a piece of heaven.

ROCK-BOTTOM TEXAS BLUES

The Texas part came true. It was the first place I've ever lived where I instantly felt at home.

Texas has a way of getting in your blood. I like the open space, the style of a lot of the houses, and, most of all, the people. Newcomers often fear that “native” Texans will look down on them or treat them differently, but that's never been my experience. And traditional family values are as strong here as any place I've been.

Even stronger is patriotism. There are more flags per acre in Texas than any place outside a flag factory. And the communities tend to be God-based in a friendly, nonjudgmental way. Faith is an easy, accepted thing. There are places you live in where you would be cautious talking about God, because you don't know how other people think; here it's just accepted.

We'd always been a religious family. That's “religious” with a small “r.” We believed in God and prayer. We'd read the Bible—Chris especially. But I wouldn't say we were regular churchgoers. We went when we felt the need, maybe once or twice a month. Every night we would say a little prayer together with the kids. Many nights I simply said to Chris, “Look how blessed we are. You, me, and the kids.”

“Yes,” he'd reply. “Blessed.” And we'd thank God for something specific, maybe a friend who'd helped us or a prayer that had been answered.

I don't know if those brief sentences count as “real” prayers, but they were true emotions, and an honest testimony of our faith.

Chris had to start quickly. We put our San Diego home on the market; in the meantime, we needed a place to stay near Dallas. Kyle Bass had just moved into a new house, and he offered us his old home temporarily. It was large—far bigger than our San Diego home—and it was furnished. But despite its size, it soon began to feel very cramped.

One of my relatives was having assorted troubles. I invited her to live in our house, which turned out to be a mistake. She began drinking more than I thought she should, couldn't or wouldn't find a job, and ended up sleeping in much of the day. Worse, she brought along a dog that absolutely hated Chris.

Needless to say, none of this improved the family situation. Nor did the constant stream of friends and acquaintances who seemed to stop by every time it looked like Chris and I would have a moment alone together. I'd never been in a situation before where I resented visitors, but I quickly reached that point. The perfect life I'd envisioned was anything but.

Our marriage hit a rock within the first six months of moving. The unfamiliar neighborhood, the revolving door of visitors, the kids—those were just normal stresses. There were others: Spicer lost his wife, which affected his ability to help with the company. Our house back in California wasn't selling; we were asking roughly the same price we'd paid when we'd bought it eight years before, but with the housing bust it wouldn't move. An investment soured. Craft went through typical startup pressures: Chris threw himself into work, but the company struggled.

Not surprisingly, he started having second thoughts about leaving the Navy. He seemed to stop taking care of himself physically. He didn't work out. He started drinking heavily.

I think it didn't help that many people treated him like a show pony. Having heard of his military accomplishments and the fact that he was a SEAL, people would befriend him, then want to show him off to others. It was as if they gained a contact high from being around him and claiming that they were good buds.

They'd say:
This is my friend Chris Kyle. He was a bad-ass SEAL.