Clint Eastwood has done many war and fighting hero movies. I got to wondering if he actually fought in a war. Here’s what I found:
In 1951, Eastwood enrolled at Seattle University but was then drafted by the United States Army and assigned to Fort Ord in California, where he was appointed as a lifeguard and swimming instructor. In Patrick McGilligan’s unauthorized biography Clint: The Life and Legend, high school friend Don Loomis alleged Eastwood avoided being sent to combat in the Korean War by “romancing one of the daughters of a Fort Ord officer, who might have been entreated to watch out for him when names came up for posting”. While returning from a weekend visit to his parents in Seattle, Washington, he was a passenger on a Douglas AD bomber that ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean near Point Reyes.Escaping from the sinking aircraft, he and the pilot swam 3 miles (5 km) to safety.
I fully expected self-righteous bib-dribbling on Salon and ThinkProgress, but I’m a little surprised this crowd is harping on it in a similar manner. More probably because you hate anything dealing with the military which, by liberal definition, is full of idiots, losers, meatheads and jingoistic racists who LUV to kill. So you make yourselves feel superior by dismissing it and scoff at the unwashed masses who go to see it. Or you’re just pissed that Clint Eastwood has a hit movie on his hands.
At least can you be happy that Chris Kyle is dead. And from a shooting incident to boot. You can clink to that.
Your statement contradicts itself. If (as you say) “liberals” hate anything dealing with the military", why are you “a little surprised” many people here are not impressed with this military movie?
Feel better now? I am another one of the libs that has zero interest in the movie and regard it as another entry of war porn. But then I have always hated snipers based upon personal experience as a Marine in RVN. The other side had snipers too (we operated along the DMZ) while not anywhere as proficient or lethal as ours, still good enough to take our several Marines in our rifle company. Sorry not to live up to your specious generalizations on libs but my dislike of snipers (and lack of interest in the movie) is based upon combat experience.
I read Kyle’s book. He came across as somebody who was pretty simple. He was totally black and white. He was devoted to his family and fellow SEALS (and Marines) but utterly failed to grasp that he was really killing other people, people just like his family and fellow soldiers. Maybe that is the way he dealt with his personal hell, but it doesn’t make him a hero. Most of us get over that sort of black and white thinking at about 22. He never did. I don’t need to see the movie.
I like Clint Eastwood (well, many of his movies), loved Unforgiven. That movie really showed the toll that killing people can take on a person, even a bad person, and that killing people is not a pleasant business, even if the people you are killing are bad. Perhaps ‘Sniper’ shares a bit in this, but without seeing it, my hunch is that at least some of the people executed by this sniper in Iraq (and yes, they were executions) probably did not deserve it. I don’t want to see a movie about people getting executed even if the executioner has problems with his conscience later on. If he really did execute people in NO following Katrina, then I do not mourn his death (but I can feel sorry for his family, who are innocent parties). Live by the sword…
Eastwood made a movie out of a book called Flags of My Father which was at heart a tribute from a son to his father who had fought on Iwo Jima and participated in the flag raising at Mt. Suribachi. Eastwood turned it into a nearly unwatchable blood and gore fest without an ounce of the humanity and love that was in the book.
Something wrong with not wanting to watch people get killed? Moreover, Chris Kyle never entered my consciousness until this movie started to be hyped. And that he’s dead in a shooting incident is some kind of Karmic payback
I saw this film this weekend. Conservatives may come away thinking it’s a tribute to Chris Kyle, a validation of the Iraq war and that may have been what Eastwood intended considering his politics, but I found it to be an anti-war film that showed the cost of war on soldiers and their family. By the end of the film Kyle is surrounded by veterans who have been maimed by the war both physically and psychologically. Kyle continues to be in denial that he has PTSD, but it’s obvious to those around him.
The affects of violence has been a theme of many Eastwood movies, think “Unforgiven” or “Gran Torino” where Walt says, “You want to know what it’s like to kill a man? Well it’s goddamn awful, that’s what it is. The only thing worse is getting a medal of valour for killing some poor kid that wanted to ‘just give up, that’s all.’ Yeah, some scared little gook just like you. I shot him right in the face with that rifle you were holding in there a while ago. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. You don’t want that on your soul. But I got blood on my hands. I’m soiled.” Doesn’t that discribe Chris Kyle?
Spoiler alert: The final scene where he is walking around the house with a gun, his children playing in living room and points the gun at his wife in a “playful” manner was particularly disturbing.
To answer some questions from others here. Yes, he does refer to the Iraqis as savages several times. Kyle never voices regrets about what he has done, and always defends it even as other soldiers express doubts. No, it doesn’t show some of the other stupid lies he made up such as picking off looters from the roof of the Superdome, the killing of carjackers or the fight with Jesse Ventura. Personally, I was against the war before it started and I think Kyle was a blowhard and would never think of a sniper as a true hero.
Seriously, if a known antiwar director had made this film many people here would be going to see it and Fox News would be denouncing it. Many here will not see the movie because of Eastwood’s politics, that’s their right. But be careful denouncing a film you haven’t seen.
I used to be active in the camping and hikiing part of Boy Scouts with my now-22 lad. One of his contemporaries/classmates in the troop was/is the son of another dad for whom I had a lot of respect. When high school graduation time came around, and the back and forth parties, I asked this classmate what he was thinking about his plans for the future. I’ll never forget his response: “I want to be a sniper”.
Fabulous book. Later, I noted that James Bradley, the son and author, had written another book exploring American relations with the Japanese and Asia. I had thought he would be critical of the Japanese based upon his father’s experience. (A notable moment in Fathers is when he invites his dad to go to Japan with him as part of his research for the book, and his father declines, saying, “No son, I don’t think I’ll be making a (pleasure) trip to Japan.” This was an attitude shared by many Pacific Theater veterans, at least via my experience with my WWII veteran uncles).
Anyway, the 2nd Bradley book, “The Imperial Cruise”, is about Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency and the trip to the Philippines post our colonial acquistion after the war with Spain.
Few people know how we suppressed the Philippine goal of independence then and there. (And, American use of water-boarding is not new…as an “enhanced interrogation” technique).
That blew me away. And that his wife acted like it was no big deal, even though a large caliber revolver is pointed directly at her? ANYONE who has the slightest respect for weapons would never, ever do that.
Don’t know if it’s still true, but when I was a lad these successful “war films” served as recruiting tools – intentionally or otherwise.
I’ve not seen it myself and am ambivalent about seeing it.
I did see the “Imitation Game” the other day. They took some liberties with the facts, but overall I’d give it a B+ on historical accuracy. Shows how “innerleckchools” can help win a war.
In this case, the hero got burned for his efforts.
