American Sniper is the story of Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle. Kyle is known for being the “most lethal sniper” that the U.S. military has ever seen. Chris Kyle exemplifies what it means to be a leader. On and off the battlefield we see time and time again, we see Kyle prove himself as a great leader.

Very early on in the movie there is a scene with Chris Kyle as a boy taking to his father at the dinner table. His father explains to him that there are three different kinds of people in this world, the sheep, the wolf and the sheepdog. The sheep represents the innocent people that try to live their lives without thinking about the evils that are out there. The wolves are the people that pray on the weaker people for their own benefit. The sheepdogs are those that feel the need to protect the weak from those that seek to hurt them. Chris Kyle is the embodiment of the sheepdog. In the film we see Kyle as he commits his entire life to protecting those that can’t protect themselves. This dedication to his task is one of the many examples of Chris being an extraordinary leader. In his quest to fight for what he believes in, we see Kyle make so many sacrifices. If there is a job that needs to be done, Chris Kyle will be the first to sign up for it. At times, it almost seems that he no longer cares about his own well-being and solely focuses on the well-being of the people around him. Another major sacrifice we see that Kyle makes for the greater good is the fact that he continues to go back to war for tour after tour even though he has done more than his fair share of active duty. He just couldn’t walk away from a job that he felt was undone.

Another great example of superior leadership shown by Chris Kyle is something that most people might not expect or think about often. This act of leadership I’m talking about is when Chris Kyle finally decides to go home. Constantly fighting in a war to the extent that Chris Kyle did during his military career can really take its toll on a person. It got so bad for Chris Kyle that by the end he just couldn’t take the pressure anymore and he had a mental breakdown on the battlefield. He then quickly stepped away from the military and let someone else do the fighting. Chris may have wanted to do more, but at the mental state that he was at, he might not have had much more he could have gave. Chris did what any reasonable leader would do and stepped down from his leadership position when he was no longer the optimal person to be the leader in that situation anymore. There was also another reason why it was important for Chris Kyle to return home is so that he may be a leader for his family. Being a leader in the military separated Kyle from his family. He needed to go back for them as much as he needed to go back for himself.

His service in the military was not the end of Kyle’s leadership. As I said in the previous paragraph Kyle became a leader for his family. However, he also found another way to find be a leader outside of the doing tour after tour in the Middle East. He took the initiative to help fellow soldiers who have returned home and suffer from PTSD. This goes to show that leadership doesn’t have to end. Just become he does fight wars anymore it doesn’t mean that he is no longer a sheepdog. He has stayed decided that his time is better spent helping those that fought the same fight he did and didn’t come out as fortunate. Chris Kyle may have met and unfortunate death through his leadership initiative, but he was a true leader to the very end.

Chris Kyle is truly an amazing individual. He is a natural leader whose leadership skills are unparalleled. Through the film American Sniper, we got a look at these great examples of leadership and through some of the lessons we learn from the life story of Chris Kyle, we can become better leaders in our everyday lives.

Lone Survivor and Saving Private Ryan are war films that are involve a group of soldiers that are sent out on a mission only for things to go very wrong. Through their struggles on the battlefield, the film-makers give the viewer an in depth look at the interpersonal connections between soldiers in battle. The men that we see in Lone Survivor are very different then the men in Saving Private Ryan Saving Private Ryan. However, there are common threads between the two groups that represent the commonality between all soldiers in a combat situation.

All people have different relationships with one another. This can be seen by comparing the groups of soldiers in the two movies. One noticeable difference between the two groups is how they talked to one another. In Saving Private Ryan the conversations seemed to be more relaxed than with the Lone survivor crew. Many jokes were thrown at each other and everyone spoke their mind at all most of the time. On the other hand, the Lone Survivor crew was very serious. Their conversations were always brief and to the point, especially when on the job. They were not afraid to throw around insults when on the military base, but the battlefield was a different story. This difference on the conversation leads us into the how they conducted their respective missions. The Lone Survivor crew was definitely the more efficient at doing this. They were very by the book. They did everything exactly as they were dictated by either command or general laws about warfare. A good example of this is how they released the goat herders even though they would undoubtedly give away their location, because they were just unarmed civilians. This is something the Saving Private Ryan probably wouldn’t have done. They are more lose when it comes to military discipline. This is not to say that they are bad at performing their job, but they don’t do it as the higher ups would see fit. This can be seen in the scenes where they try to rescue a couple of kids during a battle or when they almost executed a surrendered soldier and were only talked out of it when they the translator stepped in. The last noticeable difference between the interactions between the two groups is the way that they treated each other based on rank. One might think based on everything previously said that the Lone Survivor crew had a bigger emphasis on rank, but actually it is the opposite. The only person that is set apart in the Saving private Ryan crew is the lieutenant. However, while watching the Lone Survivor group, it is sometimes hard to determine who outranks who.

These have some major difference in the way that they interact with each other, they have common threads that tie them together. In reality it is more like one big overarching tie between the groups. This tie is their brotherhood. The men is both groups have an undying bond with one another. They fight side by side and are willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the man standing next to them safe. We see both groups sacrifice for each other on multiple occasions. One example is when one man in the Lone Survivor groups crawls to high ground to send a message requesting assistance only to be killed in the process. The Saving Private Ryan group sacrificed everything at the end of the movie to make sure the Ryan made it home alive.

Both groups of men interact in different ways. They speak differently, act differently and live very different lifestyles. I would reason that I someone would be hard pressed to find two groups of guys that acted exactly the same when placed in a war scenario. However, when people are placed in a war situation there is one thing that you can count on most of the time, brotherhood. In these tough situations men will come together and form bonds greater than any other to ensure that every makes it out alive. As we see, not everyone makes it out, but we also see that they damn sure try their hardest.

The film Black Hawk Down was a movie that focused mostly on the soldiers that serve our country in the military. In the film we get to see the struggle that they go through first hand when a plan to extract prisoners from enemy territory goes extremely bad. The mission that was supposed to be a thirty minute in and out deal turned into a major ordeal that lasted for hours when one black hawk helicopter was shot down by advisories. During this time we get to know a lot about the struggles that soldiers have to face when everything just goes badly. The one struggle that is truly explored is the relationship between looking out for all of your fellow soldiers and preserving the soldiers that are not in any sort of danger. This comes as real gray area in this movie as to what is the right course of action and what is just getting more men injured or killed than needed. This is something that the soldiers will have to face many times in this movie.

From the beginning of the film, it is clear to see that there is a strong relationship between all of the other soldiers. Before the battle that is to ensue, they all seem to be very happy in each other’s company at the barracks. They definitely fulfill the cliché that soldier become like brothers to one another. However, their happy and optimistic moods that they have at the barracks are going to change and change fast. When the men are first deployed to go on this mission, they are all very optimistic and treat it kind of like a joke. When they get there, things go badly right away when a soldier fall out of the helicopter. Immediately all of the men in the area are sanding in the line of fire trying to get the wounded soldier the care that he needs.

It only get worse from there when the black hawk is shot down. Although it only makes the mission longer than expected and more dangerous, they are ordered to go and secure the helicopter and get the men inside the helicopter out of the warzone. Without really flinching the men take up this extra task because they believe strongly that no men should get left behind. Things only manage to get worse, the convoy traveling through the city is taking major fire, another black hawk goes down and the bodies of the wounded and the dead start to pile up. For a while they continue to do everything they can to defend their fellow soldiers. However, eventually it becomes apparent that this is not working as the convoy is forced to go back and regroup as they have taken too many casualties.

We now start to see other soldiers questioning the actions being taken because it is only causing many more people than needed to get killed. However, no matter how questionable the plan is, there is no lack of volunteers going out to try to recover everyone from this mess that has been created. Many more men die out on the battlefield before the end of the movie. This leaves us with one question is wake of hell that transpired in the city. Should they have risked so much for the lives of a few men in the helicopter? Because of their attempts to secure the helicopter, exponentially more men were wounded or killed than if they had just gotten out of the city as fast as they possibly could, making no risks. If we look at the numbers, this makes sense. You complete the mission saving as many lives as possible with the sacrifice of a few men and a helicopter. Unfortunately, just looking at the numbers is not good enough in this situation because it is not the only factor. The factor the really drives the decision throughout Black Hawk Down is the men. All of the men have an obligation to each other to bring them back alive or dead. They do this because that is what they would expect of everyone else if they were in that situation. By following this code, it creates a strong bond between all the men and allows them to operate as a more efficient force. Following these moral reasons instead of pure numbers is why this mess transpired in the first place. Despite all the extra bloodshed, the soldiers picked to stay true to their moral standing and I’m sure none of them regret that decision.