Fallujah was where three American contractors were murdered in 2004, their bodies desecrated and then hung from a bridge. When this outrage brought only a minimal response, thousands of insurgents swarmed into Fallujah, all but daring the Americans to come and get them. In November 2004, U.S. Marine and Army forces swept through the heavily fortified city, block-by-block, killing or blasting out the insurgents. While supporting the battle, Kyle reported, he averaged two or three enemy kills per day, for a total of 40. Several times he shot insurgents at close range with 5.56 mm rounds and they did not halt, causing him to question the cartridge’s effectiveness. That ineffectiveness may have been caused by drugs. “In Fallujah we learned the bad guys were on dope,” he said. “The Americans gathering [enemy] bodies for burial found track [needle] marks on the arms of enemy dead.” U.S. forces also found burnt spoons from cooking heroin, syringes and black tar heroin, he said.

In Ramadi, Kyle’s SEAL platoon seized a four-story building where shooting was so heavy one day that it was difficult to keep track of the kills. The area’s U.S. Army commander estimated that SEAL snipers took out two dozen insurgents in their first 12 hours. It was here that he scored his 100th and 101st confirmed kills and was dubbed by the insurgents Al-Shaitan Ramad—“The Devil of Ramadi”—a moniker he accepted proudly because it attested to his effectiveness. With that nickname came a $50,000 bounty; he was actually a bit jealous when another SEAL sniper had an even higher bounty placed on his head.

Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, by far, was the most difficult and dangerous place Chief Kyle operated. Its 3 million Shiite inhabitants lived along narrow, winding streets and alleyways, which were too dangerous to infiltrate on foot—even at night. “They were all around you, everywhere,” he soon realized, and the only safe way to enter was aboard armored vehicles. In Sadr City, Kyle and his fellow SEALs were tasked with covering U.S. Army engineers while they constructed a 12-feet-high concrete wall, which would protect the capitol’s Green Zone from rocket attacks. The month-long construction project proved a haven for insurgents.

Terming the area “a target-rich environment,” Kyle accounted for seven enemies in a single day; even more the next day. His closest engagement eliminated three armed insurgents who materialized just 15 yards from his concealed position, all falling to 5.56 mm fire.

Unlike their previous fights, in Sadr City Chief Kyle’s SEALs fought not just Iraqis, but Iranian Revolutionary Guard covert operatives from the elite “Quds Force.” Well trained and devoted true believers, some Quds Force troops previously had been identified in northern Iraq, where they supplied Iranian-made Explosively Formed Penetrators—the most dangerous of IEDs—and trained enemy snipers.

Chief Kyle’s longest kill in Sadr City was 880 yards but this was hardly his longest shot. His most extreme-range engagement came during his final tour, while covering an American convoy route just outside Baghdad. Watching an approaching U.S. Army convoy, he noticed an insurgent appear on a rooftop, wielding an RPG rocket launcher. The distance was 2,100 yards—about 1.2 miles.

So great a distance required at least 107 minutes-of-angle (m.o.a.) elevation, some 7 m.o.a. beyond his Nightforce scope’s maximum. Cranking the scope to its highest elevation, he held over the distant rocketeer, squeezed—and watched. Four and one-quarter seconds later the insurgent collapsed while the convoy passed safely below.

During his four tours, Chief Kyle was decorated with two Silver Stars for Gallantry and five Bronze Stars for Valor, but he emphasized he was not there to get medals. “Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot.” And his only regret? The American servicemen his precision fire did not save. The way Chief Kyle sees it; he’s only continuing the heritage of great American snipers. “Right now I have the record,” he told me, “but Carlos Hathcock is still the greatest.”