We’re going to use William Shakespeare to help set the tone for this post, okay? It’ll help everyone better understand the intention, which is not to discredit or soil a celebrated combat veteran’s reputation, just better inform upon it. Solidify it.

If the Bard of Avon never wrote The Tempest, but still wrote all the other stuff — Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, etc. — he’d still be considered a great writer, no? Of course he would. It wouldn’t make a lick of difference, really.

Now apply that to the recent news out of the United States Navy, who released a detailed clarification of American Sniper author and late SEAL Chris Kyle’s valor record.

This from the Navy Times:

In an unusual move, the service has re-issued the DD-214 discharge paperwork to support the medals that the late Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Chris Kyle received during his 10-year Navy career, finding no records for two of six Bronze Stars with combat ‘V’ and the second Silver Star, two of which he had claimed in “American Sniper.” However, the renowned SEAL sniper had earned the Silver Star and four Bronze Stars, the review confirmed.

So, instead of looking like the above photo, it really looks like the one below:

kyles medals

While the review and release does seem a bit odd (experts say it’s indeed “rare”), and a lot of work, the Navy insists that it isn’t, saying that they corrected more than 3,800 DD-214s in 2015 alone.

A Silver Star belonging to Kyle is verified in a citation that rests in the Military Times Hall of Valor database. It’s from a 2006 deployment to Ramadi, Iraq. Within its copy, it credits the SEAL “with killing 91 enemy combatants between April and August of that year” (via the Navy Times).