COMMENTARY | Chris Kyle is considered the most deadly sniper in American history, with 150 certified kills during the current war. But he is likely most famous for a man he did not kill, yet was obliged to put on the deck — former governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura.
It seems that Kyle and some of his SEAL teammates were in a bar in Coronado near where SEALS are trained holding a wake for two fallen friends. Ventura, himself a former member of the U.S. Navy’s Underwater Demolition Team 12, was also in the bar and, despite having not taken on too much drink, was being very belligerent. As Kyle related to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, Ventura was running down the war, President Bush, and the United States in that order.
Kyle asked the former governor to tone it down and show some respect. There were family members of the fallen present. Unfortunately Ventura chose to double down and say that the SEALs “deserved to lose a few guys.”
Then Kyle put Ventura on the deck with one punch.
Ventura has fallen far since he didn’t have time to bleed in that movie he appeared in with Arnold Schwarzenegger and that alien, and not just from the upright to the prone position either. He has gone from a feisty, independent politician who somehow managed to become governor of a state thanks to popular disdain for both parties to a vicious, hate filled 9/11 truther.
One wonders what a younger Ventura, who did not see combat in Vietnam, would have done had he been in a bar in, say, 1975 and had heard an anti-war protestor bad mouthing his comrades as the older version of himself did the modern SEALs. One suspects that the younger Ventura would have done as Kyle did and put the miscreant on the deck.
Despite the satisfyingly wild justice inflicted by Kyle, the entire story leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. One hope it did for Ventura likewise, beyond the salty tinge of blood from the punch in the face he received. Baiting members of the teams in their own place was an act of unmitigated folly. Doing it as Ventura did was an act of soulless depravity,
Sources: Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, Fox News, Jan 5, 2012
Ventura discloses he didn’t see combat in Vietnam War, Associated Press, Jan 29, 2002