Taya Kyle, the wife of the late hero Chris Kyle has a new job.  Taya is dedicated to keeping Chris’ legacy alive, after he was murdered in February of this year.  She had not expected to become a working mom at this time in her life, but circumstances dictated otherwise.  In the midst of working on his second book, American Gun: A History of the US in Ten Firearms, Chris and his friend Chad Littlefield were murdered while trying to help a fellow veteran.  For those who never heard of him, Chris made history by becoming the most lethal sniper in American military history while serving in Iraq as a Navy SEAL. During an interview with American Thinker he referred to himself not as a "killer" but as a guardian angel for those troops on the ground. After retirement he committed himself to helping veterans and standing up for what he believed in: family, G-d, and country.

Taya’s newfound jobs are to promote American Gun, set up  www.chriskylefrog.com, to help veterans, and consult on the American Sniper movie.  The key is to balancing hew work and raising two young children whose ages are eight and seven.  She tries to be extremely disciplined by carving out certain times for her work activities, home schooling her children, and spending quality time with them. The biggest struggle for Taya “is to be able to cut off work when you say you are going to.  Then there are the plans that go awry, where I layout what I am going to do that day, only to find out the children or circumstances have other ideas. What works best for me is doing my duties before the children get up or after they are asleep.  I guess the struggle is to find that period where I can succeed at giving quality time to my children and quality time to promoting the book.”

Taya thought a lot about to whom this book would appeal. She is not a gun buff and is hoping other women will read American Gun to understand that it is “about American history and how everyday people used their firearms as tools to accomplish justice. This is really a book about people, and is not political.  It is about the impact of gun technology in America. There are personal stories of a few individuals who were caught up in extraordinary situations.”

One of her favorite stories in the book is about Continental Army Sergeant Timothy Murphy who like her husband, was a sniper, a Patriot, someone who saved many American lives, and who also decided, like Chris, to retire in order to raise a family.  Chris tells of how Murphy, a member of an elite brigade of riflemen, hiding up in a tree, would “find and eliminate high-value targets in the ranks of the Red Coats.”

Taya also thinks history buffs will love the stories about President Abraham Lincoln and President Theodore Roosevelt who personally became involved with improving gun technology.  Since Lincoln was a gun buff and a technology whiz he used the gun range behind the White House to test firearms. He also, as Chris describes, “threw his weight and opinions around like a seasoned CEO, and managed the equivalent of a multimillion-dollar firearms investment fund through the US military.  He was a venture capitalist of weaponry.”  Regarding Roosevelt, he also tested, experimented, and gave input into the design of guns.  With one weapon, the M1903 Springfield, Roosevelt had production halted until the bayonet was changed to ensure it was able to act as an emergency ramrod.

One story Taya found extraordinary was about Owen J. Baggett’s courage.  During WWII his B-24 bomber was hit and he was forced to bail out of the plane.  As Japanese Zeros used the parachuting Americans as target practice Baggett fired directly at a Japanese pilot, whose canopy was open, and killed him.  This is an incredible feat of having an enemy fighter pilot shot down by a GI with a handgun.

The book closes with Taya Kyle discussing how this project enabled her to stay connected with Chris through his deep love of American history.  Jim DeFelice, Chris’ co-author of American Sniper noted that Chris would take Taya and the children to famous battle sites and talk about the history behind them. Chris extended those lessons by writing American Gun, which is really an insightful and entertaining collaboration of stories reflecting America’s history by a man who made history.