{"id":7935,"date":"2015-01-20T14:46:44","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T14:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7935"},"modified":"2015-01-20T14:46:44","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T14:46:44","slug":"american-sniper-glorifies-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7935","title":{"rendered":"&#039;American Sniper&#039; glorifies nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>What&#8217;s with all the chatter about whether a powerful film &#8220;glorifies&#8221; an American warrior doing his duty in the most hostile environment imaginable?<\/p>\n<p>Critics have contended the film &#8220;American Sniper&#8221; romanticizes the exploits of the late Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper whose struggles with post traumatic stress are chronicled in one of the most powerful bits of movie-making in years.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Entertainment\/american-sniper-generates-off-screen-controversy\/story?id=28342832<\/p>\n<p>Kyle served four tours of duty in Iraq and recorded more &#8220;kills&#8221; than any sniper in U.S. military history.<\/p>\n<p>I watched the film over the weekend in a packed Amarillo movie theater. At the end of the film, about the only sound coming from the departing audience were the sniffles of those who were crying.<\/p>\n<p>I do not get the criticism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;American Sniper&#8221; does not glorify what Kyle was ordered to do on the battlefield. As for whether Kyle and his teammates were &#8220;heroes,&#8221; well, yes they are. War produces heroic acts. From my standpoint, anyone who puts himself in harm&#8217;s way, exposing himself to possible death at the hands of an enemy combatant is a hero &#8212; and that standing needs <em>zero<\/em> glorification from a film to make it so.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t see any glory in what Kyle did. I saw a young man struggling with his emotions; he was torn between his devotion to the men with whom he served and the young family who were at home, waiting for his safe return.<\/p>\n<p>What I saw on that film screen was the story of war in all its brutality.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s with all the chatter about whether a powerful film &#8220;glorifies&#8221; an American warrior doing his duty in the most hostile environment imaginable? Critics have contended the film &#8220;American Sniper&#8221; romanticizes the exploits of the late Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper whose struggles with post traumatic stress are chronicled in one of the most &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7935\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#039;American Sniper&#039; glorifies nothing<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[369,371,968,2334,3226,3676],"class_list":["post-7935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment-news","category-military-news","tag-american-sniper","tag-american-warrior","tag-chris-kyle","tag-iraq-war","tag-navy-seals","tag-post-traumatic-stress-disorder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}