Another Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kyle’s high-profile status should have prompted authorities to fix any errors contained in his records, but it apparently didn’t. Ventura, a veteran himself, sued a year after Kyle’s death and won $1.8 million in damages.
Advertisement
“Given [Kyle’s] celebrity, you’d think the Navy would have gone back and fixed the discrepancy”, the official said, to the Intercept.
USA Today and the Washington Post reported Wednesday that a Navy spokeswoman confirmed that officials were looking into the discrepancy.
A new report claims Chris Kyle may have lied about how many medals he said he had in his memoir “American Sniper”, and the U.S. Navy is investigating.
“I have suspected this for some time, but I’ve done interviews where I’ve said this is what I believe, but I’m not going to go there, because I believe Chris Kyle is a hero in the veterans community”, Sterner said. Kyle’s DD-214 form, the official form service members receive upon discharge, seems to prove his claim. He had claimed in his book that he was at a bar where he heard Jesse Ventura, the Minnesota governor who served in a NAVY unit that became the SEALS, badmouthing the troops that served in Iraq.
She explained that his discharge papers, also known as a DD214 form, should match official records, “but inevitably some errors may occur”.
“American Sniper”, the touching war movie based on Kyle’s service during the Iraq War, was a record-breaking success.
In Kyle’s case, the issue will undoubtedly be used as fodder by critics who have already questioned his truthfulness. Kyle “embellished his military record” and was warned at least once before “American Sniper” was published that its description of his medal count was inflated, the story alleged, citing one current Navy officer who requested and received anonymity from the Intercept.
Advertisement
To be clear, one Silver and three Bronze Stars is still impressive. In Arabic language media too, the Clint Eastwood film “American Sniper” starring Bradley Cooper and based on his book of the same name has been criticized as misrepresenting the events surrounding the 2003 US -led invasion of Iraq.
