Special Vocabulary

In reading "American Sniper," I have found so many terms and names for things that I didn't know.  Most of these are acronyms that are used in the SEALs and throughout the military.  The author uses these because they are what they used, and are more common.  It is also easier to write UDT, opposed to Underwater Demolition Team.  This is one example, there are many others in the book.

This can be a bit difficult to read, because he only defines the term once, and then uses it throughout the book.  He might not talk about one of the acronyms for a portion of the book, then when he comes back to it, you have forgotten what the acronym stands for.  Something I wish I would have done in the beginning of the book was start a journal or dictionary of the terms and acronyms.  I think that would have been interesting to see once I had finished the book, and also to reference when I'm reading.  

Another form of vocabulary that is special to this book is all of the terms about weapons.  Because it is about his time being deployed, there are many times that he tells what weapon he was working with.  In these times, he will give the name, and define what it does, as well as when it is usually used.  This is helpful to readers that aren't that knowledgeable about every type of weapon, or any weapons at all.  To the people that do know a lot about weapons or have military experience, this might seem really simple and redundant after a while.

I think that the Kyle does a very good job at helping the reader understand the vocabulary that he is using.  He tries to give you a mental picture of what he is talking about, and does a good job doing that.  He wants the book to be aimed toward more than military personal, and for him to do that, he has to make sure they understand the words he is using, otherwise they will get bored and stop reading.