This week I have continued reading "American Sniper" by Chris Kyle. It is very well written in the sense of accuracy and detail, considering while these events took place Chris was in the middle of a war zone. The main setting of the book is in Fallujah, where Chris was stationed for three out of four rotations in his career and the place he met his best "buds" from the Marines. He is currently near the end of his rotation on one of the biggest missions of his career, ground sweeps. He provides watch for the patrolling marines with searching for the highest ranked sniper in Iraq at this point. This is where he obtains the highest kill amount of his entire career.
I actually have a couple of problems with the title. First, the name is way to general. I feel like if I bought this book not knowing what it was about, I would think it was a complete fiction about some unknown average sniper. The writher was a living legend, and I think the book about his days of glory should reflect that. Titles that could replace "American Sniper" could be "American Legend" or "Lethal." It would be better just to show he was a successful serviceman.
The title fits perfectly in the sense of Chris being both American and a sniper, even though he was so much more than that. I feel like he could have based it off of both his career in the Navy (he was in both technically the Marines and Navy, Marines being a sub-group below the Navy), and his life at home. He had two growing children and a wife during his time in action, and I felt like they could have used that to say he had a double identity of sorts. Maybe "Working man" or "the Soldier with a family", but "American Sniper" is just fine.
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