AMERICAN SNIPER Chris Kyle William Morrow/Hardcover/On Sale 1/3/12 Key Points: • SEAL Chief Chris Kyle (USN Ret.), the author of this work, has the most confirmed kills (255) in the recorded history of the United States military, any branch, from 1776 to present. (For comparison: Adelbert F. Waldron, a Korean and Vietnam War era sniper, up to this point has been recognized as having the highest number of confirmed kills for any United States military sniper in history, with 109 confirmed kills. Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock is credited with the most confirmed kills in Vietnam, with 93 confirmed kills.) • Chris was born in Odessa, Texas, and was a pro-rodeo saddle- bronc rider, prior to joining the Navy. • In his ten years (1999-2009) with the United States Navy SEAL Teams, Chris was deployed four times to Iraq and was awarded the two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars with Valor. • Chris was shot on two separate occasions and was in six separate IED explosions. Four of the IED attacks did damage to and/or destroyed vehicles in which Chris was riding, two involved IED detonations while Chris was on foot. Chris received multiple frag (fragment) wounds from Rocket Propelled Grenades, IED’s and other shelling devices for which he was treated medically on multiple occasions. Chris never received the Purple Heart, as he refused to allow the paperwork to be submitted as this would have caused automatic removal from his unit for a minimum period of time. • Chris saw significant action in the battles Ramadi, Anwar Provence, Baghdad, and is credited with 40 kills alone in the Second Battle for Fallujah (2003) • In Ramadi Kyle lost two of his best friends, one severely wounded and the other killed, within the space of a few hours. The deaths affected him greatly; to this day he blames himself for failing to protect both men, though the circumstances and those who were there say clearly this was impossible. • While in Ramadi it was learned that Chris had a $20,000 bounty put on his head by Al Qaeda. His nickname, given to him by the terrorists, was Al Shatan---the Devil. His fellow SEALs had begun referring to him by a different name: The Legend. • Chris elected to not reenlist at the end of ten 10 years in the SEAL Teams to “save his marriage” to his wife, Taya. He has two children, a boy and a girl. • Following his combat deployments, the Navy assigned Kyle to be the chief instructor for training Naval Special Warfare Sniper and Counter-Sniper teams prior to operational deployments. He is also the author of the Naval Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine, which is the first Navy SEAL sniper manual. • Today, Chris is the CEO of Craft International, a leader in sniper and security training for military, including the Navy SEALs themselves. .