Chris Kyle was a Navy SEAL sniper, who set the record for most confirmed sniper kills (ringing in at over 150). He lived on a ranch in Texas as a kid, playing with bb guns and acquiring an appreciation for weapons.  Once he reached adulthood, his childhood hobbies inspired him to join the military, which lead to him meeting his wife and the beginning of their family.  Although Chris Kyle served multiple tours in the Middle East as a Navy SEAL and all of the horrible things he witnessed, he still managed to keep a loving wife and raise his children with strong family values.
       Chris Kyle grew up on a ranch in Texas and he claimed that he had been “a cowboy since birth”(213).  Modern cowboys usually fall into two lines of work—ranching or military careers.  Kyle was indeed the farmhand that he claimed to be.  He broke broncos, trained horses, and herded cattle.  He broke his hand on two different occasions from punching cows that would not obey him.  Riding horses and learning to lasso were some of his childhood hobbies.
      Horse riding and cattle herding were not even close to the only things that it takes to be a cowboy.  Chris fired bb guns with his brothers all the time, using toy pistols and airsoft guns to feed his “appetite for all things cowboy”(14).  He was growing accustomed to weapons and unwittingly getting practice for his future job.  He shot targets and learned to appreciate the trigger.
       Kyle loved his family and was very close with them.  He wrestled with his brothers and loved to get down and dirty.  He got thrown into the mud by the animals, rolled in the mud with his brothers, and crawled in the mud with his bb guns.  He loved to get dirty and he loved his family
    He did not know that he had a military career in his future, but his early life was the perfect preparation for his profession.  His experiences with horses and cattle toughened him up both physically, practicing his punches on his cattle, and mentally, getting bucked off the horse and having to get right back on regardless of the pain.  That helped him later when he had to last through weeks of intensely demanding training and when he had to keep moving after he was shot in the back.
      His sharpshooting with the bb guns were the taste he needed to learn to fear and love guns.  His toy pistols and his Red Rider shotguns gave him an appreciation for the sniper rifles that he acquired in the military.  Most boys play with toy weapons, but Chris put his childhood toys to work later in life.
      Kyle’s love for his family and bond with his brothers paralleled his connection with his SEAL brothers.  The first thing in his autobiography says that the book is dedicated to “the memory of my SEAL brothers Marc and Ryan”(II).  He loved the other SEALs so much because he loved his brothers so much.  Kyle learned to bond with his comrades just as he had learned to bond with his biological brothers.
      When Chris Kyle joined the military, it was a good thing that he had always thought that “working on a ranch [was] Heaven”(18).  His past as a cowboy was exactly what he needed.  His love for his horses and toy guns combined with his family ties really did make the military the perfect career for Kyle.  His childhood revolved around everything that he needed to be a SEAL and it culminated in his job as a sniper.
            After Kyle grew up, he joined the military and traveled to California for training.  In San Francisco, he met Taya.  In his own words, “I fell in love”(42).  After they dated through his training and first call of duty to the Middle East, he and Taya got married. Taya was his entire family at that point, but he would never have met her if he had not joined the SEALs.
      Chris loved Taya. He made that evident by including her letters and journal entries frequently throughout his own autobiography.  He constantly declared his love for her saying that she was “the love of his life”(214).  Taya, in return, trusted him.  He could not tell her every detail about his missions or what he had to do; however, Taya knew that she “might know every detail, but [she] knew what she needed to”(393).  She trusted him, because she knew that he loved her and did not want to lie to her.
      He had quite a few tours of duty throughout his career.  He and Taya wanted a family, but due to his job, he would spend months in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Because he was going to be away for a while, they were forced to have kids quickly.  She got pregnant “basically the first time [they] touched”(44). 
        Kyle had two children.  But even then the military still required its most deadly sniper.  He “left the states… only ten days after [his] son was born” (230).  It was rough on his family, but businessmen often go on business trips, and Chris tried hard to keep a normal family life.  Just life an average, run-of-the-mill father and husband, he had to travel for work.  Chris made sure he still hung with his family and did not let the military come between them.
      He did not let his time away from home have a negative impact on his household.  He worked hard to use it as a force for good with the way he raised his children.  The military gave Chris a way to express his values—the values that he wanted to impart to his offspring.  He was extremely proud of his country, and his affection for her kept him going on the battle field.  Patriotism was something he held close to his heart and he directed his kids on a patriotic path. 
      He loved every second of his childhood, so he raised children similarly.  They were not on a ranch, but he taught them some of the ranch values just the same, about hard work, getting dirty, and playing rough.  The book even includes a picture of himself and his son as they “check out a C-17,” a military aircraft (213).  Chris was proud of his country, proud of his service, and proud of himself.  His children were raised by a dad that was unafraid to show the things that he took pride in.
      Not everything that Kyle experienced was uplifting, however.  He saw horrific things, for example, his unit found a torture chamber in a basement, similar to the ones infamous for being in the videos where the terrorists behead Americans.  In that basement, he came across “amputated limbs, and more blood than you can imagine”(187).  Besides simply seeing aweful things, he also killed about two hundred people, but no matter how many people he killed or how many awful things he witnessed, he fought incredibly hard not to let it affect his family.
      The scarring sights that he saw actually helped Kyle, though; it made him appreciate his family that much more. Realizing how dangerous his line of work was forced to treasure his family time as much as possible.  “Every time [he] returned home from deployment, starting then, [he] wouldn’t leave the house for about a week”(107).  Chris wanted to some time with just his family, and that is exactly how he had it.  He knew what was important; all of the scary and painful things that he saw knocked his priorities straight.  The bad stuff is what taught him to cherish the good stuff.
      His time in training and his time as a SEAL did a lot more than just provide him with a military career.  As a child he learned some of the principles that a military life can teach and was inspired him to join as an adult.  Once he joined, He met Taya, the woman he married, during traveled on a training detour.  His sniping experiences also supplied him with values he was able to impart on his children.  Kyle’s career affected all aspects of his family and his life very heavily
     His military career not only coexisted with his family life, but it actually spear headed it.  His SEAL experiences were actually a catalyst that made his family life come together.  Without the training excursion, he never would have met Taya.  Without his future tours they would not have picked the same house nor had kids as quickly.  Without the SEALs, he might never have even started a family.  In the end, he was not trying to balance a military career with a home life; he was applying a military career to a home life.  Rather than turning him into a stoic father with PTSD who was rarely home, because he was off fighting in distant countries, the SEALs taught him life lessons that improved him in his roles as both a father and as a husband.