The Intercept’s Matthew Cole, in collaboration with Sheelagh McNeill, wrote a revealing piece on ‘American Sniper’ Chris Kyle, alleging the former SEAL embellished his military record in his bestselling autobiography.  The journalists point to a passage in which Kyle states, “All told, I would end my career as a SEAL with two Silver Stars and five Bronze, all for valor.”  What Cole and McNeill uncovered is that, according to their research which as been corroborated by Navy officials, documents show that Kyle earned one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with Valor.  The article ends with a quote from an unnamed former SEAL who states, “The SEAL leadership was aware of the embellishment, but didn’t want to correct the record because Kyle’s celebrity status reflected well on the command.”

This is truly sad.

It’s sad for me because it tarnishes something that I hold very dear to me.

It’s sad for me because, whenever the truth exposes wrongdoing, there’s a bit of sadness to why it happened in the first place.

What he wrote about me was totally fabricated. That’s why I never bothered to read the rest of his book.  How could I fully believe anything he wrote, knowing he’d fabricated a story about me?

We never had an altercation.  Nothing of the sort took place, and that’s been proven in court, whether people like it or not.

In fact, they had rewritten that particular chapter several times to make it better and embellish it further. That was entered into evidence during the trial.

I never read his book.  But I know having had the investigations on him, have revealed a couple more huge bogus stories that are clearly not true.

Nothing about this surprises me.  

If you tell the truth, things like this don’t happen.  And far more people get hurt from a lie than would ever get hurt from the truth.  Deception causes far more damage as opposed to telling the truth from the get-go.

On the personal level, you would think I would be pleased by this.  But I’m not.  I have mixed emotions.  On one side, I feel vindicated.  On the other side, I feel sadness that someone would feel the need to lie to attempt to be someone they’re not.

The truth was always on my side and, eventually, the truth finds its way out.  At least, that’s what I like to believe.

In light of this, there’s a lot of people out there that owe me an apology though.  I’d sure like to get it publicly, even though I know I won’t.

Apologizing takes courage.

-Jesse Ventura 


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