American Sniper - Boekje Pienter

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of his head being bounced off the platoon’s gloves, he swung and hit
me.
I did what I had to do.
MARC LEE
With our deployment rapidly approaching, our platoon was beefed
up. Command brought a young SEAL named Marc Lee over from another
unit to help round us out. He immediately fit in.
Marc was an athletic guy, in some ways exactly the sort of tough
physical specimen you expect to be a SEAL. Before joining the Navy,
he had played soccer well enough to be given a tryout with a professional
team, and may very well have been a pro if a leg injury hadn’t
cut short his career.
But there was a lot more to Marc than just physical prowess. He’d
studied for the ministry, and while he left because of what he saw as
hypocrisy among the seminary students, he was still very religious.
Later on during our deployment, he led a small group in prayer before
every op. As you’d expect, he was very knowledgeable about the Bible
and religion in general. He didn’t push it on you, but if you needed or
wanted to talk about faith or God, he was always willing.
Not that he was a saint, or even above the horseplay that is part of
being a SEAL.
Soon after he joined us, we went on a training mission in Nevada.
At the end of the day, a group of us piled into a four-door truck and
headed back to the base to get to bed. Marc was in the back with me
and a SEAL we’ll call Bob. For some reason, Bob and I started talking
about being choked out.