Sam the Sniper

Just saw the movie “American Sniper” starring Bradley Cooper as real-life Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle.  An amazing movie and directed by Clint Eastwood.  While watching the movie, sitting next to Nick, my mind drifted for a moment recalling Sam’s first choice of occupation when he bravely came to me and told me at the tender age of six, “Mom, I want to be a soldier.”  Of course, he was only six but I wasn’t going to let that thought rest in his mind too long after I quickly contemplated I would lose my mind if either of my sons were off at war.  I don’t know how mothers of soldiers do it, I thought.  I’m not that tough I concluded.  That is when I reminded Sam that the profession we choose should be something that we are passionate about and makes the best use of the talents God gave us and serves the purpose as to why God brought us here in the first place.  Ever the keen kindergartener, Sam said that was exactly why he wanted to be a soldier.  In his words, “I’m going to get the bad guys.”  Chris Kyle certainly did that for his country with loyalty and pride not always all-too-common.  I thank him for that.  But I recall it was at that point in my conversation with Sam, that I picked up and we began looking at one of his current favorite books which was about dinosaurs, from A to Z.   He went on-and-on, page after page, showing me pictures and telling me about the long-necked herbivore Brachiosaurus and the largest land carnivore, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and finally telling me about his personal favorite, the Velociraptor, a two-legged dinosaur that was also very, very fast.  I took that moment to suggest Sam might want to consider being an archaeologist with his love of dinosaurs.  He hadn’t heard of an archaeologist before so we spent time talking about it.  We “played” with the idea further and created his first business card, Samuel X. Motsay, Dinoman; Archaeologist and Paleontologist for hire.  And set up his first email account, velociraptorsam@aol.com.  Nick joined in the fun, too.  “Bob the Builder” was who Nick aspired to be with his lego talents already leaning him in that direction.  So Nick’s title on his business card was “Nick the Worker” and his email was workernick@aol.com.  Finding our way through family and love.  That’s what “American Sniper” reminded me of.