( CNN ) '' American Sniper '' stormed the box office this past weekend with $ 105 million in ticket sales . Not since the Rambo movies have so many farmers and ranch hands buddy-upped to the popcorn counter . As much as I adore Bradley Cooper , I wo n't be seeing the movie . I ca n't see it . And my reluctance to see it has nothing to do with Michael Moore 's flippant assertion that snipers are cowards ( although he said he was n't talking about the movie ) . I was always taught that cowards are those who refuse to serve their country . Friends who 've seen the movie say I 'm missing out . They say it is an accurate portrayal of what happens in war . One friend , who declares herself as a pacifist , urged me to go . `` Far from glorifying war , it made war look brutal , and a means of destroying people for life , '' she said . What I keep wondering is why all these moviegoers were n't lining up to volunteer for war . Before his ironic death , Chris Kyle , on whom the movie is based , denounced Hollywood 's version of war . `` Hollywood fantasizes about it and makes it look good . It -- war sucks , '' he told Fox News ' Bill O'Reilly in 2012 . Clint Eastwood deserves credit for the truth he does show . Women and children are killed more often than Americans like to consider . And good soldiers are always haunted by the comrades they could n't save . I know . The surgeon who tried to save my soldier father in Vietnam 's Ia Drang Valley still considers July 24 , 1966 , one of the worst days of his life . The men who were there that day tell me that my father grabbed Doc 's arm and begged him , `` Do n't let me die . '' Doc did his best to save my father . I have thanked him for that . Still , he regrets that he did n't save him , and I hate that he lives with that . Maybe that 's why I ca n't see the movie . When you have experienced firsthand the multitude of ways war wreaks havoc on families , you have little tolerance for the mythmaking that war always seems to invoke . Not to mention the patriotic , almost nationalistic fervor that accompanies a flag-draped coffin . Related : Why 'American Sniper ' is a smash hit . When my father died there were no crowds gathered at Cowboys Stadium , no JumboTron displaying pictures of the family man my father was , and no front-page stories . There was just a broken family feeling very abandoned by an ungrateful nation . The other reason I ca n't see the movie is my friend Sgt . Gordon Wofford . Gordon was serving with 9th Infantry Regiment ( Manchu ) , 25th Infantry Division when he was struck by a sniper 's bullet on May 28 , 1970 . The bullet took out his lower jaw and all of his teeth . The company medic , Spec . Ronald Krebsbach , was killed by the next bullet while yanking Gordon to safety . Gordon spent 19 months at Walter Reed relearning skills toddlers know : How to chew . How to talk . How not to slobber all over himself . When I met him in 2005 , Gordon was not getting help for his post-traumatic stress disorder . He did n't think he deserved benefits . Before his death from cancer in 2009 , Gordon and I forged a friendship from our experiences in war -- his as a soldier , mine as a Gold Star daughter . Every day as he went through the motions of putting in a set of false teeth , Gordon remembered the sniper he so longed to forget . Krebsbach , the medic , left behind a young pregnant wife . That always haunted Gordon . He felt bad that he had lived and Krebsbach had died . I serve on a couple of boards of national organizations for veterans . I know by name the men and women who have suffered the aftermath of war . They are not fictional characters to me . Their numbers are in my cell phone . I have wept with them at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington and at graves at Arlington National Cemetery . I have buried my Gold Star mother beside the only man she ever loved , my father . Why 'American Sniper ' is a smash hit . Hollywood has a way of fictionalizing war , of making it all about `` us '' and `` them . '' `` Ragheads '' was one of the names Kyle gave to the Iraqi people . He said he did n't give a `` flying f**k about the Iraqis . '' Kyle dehumanized them . He had to . That 's how the military trains snipers like him . `` Every person I killed I strongly believe that they were bad , '' Kyle told the BBC . I have traveled to my father 's battlefield in Vietnam and I have befriended Vietnamese who lost even more than I did during the war . I have learned there is no `` us '' and `` them . '' There is only `` us . '' Humanity . All of us . I wish Hollywood would make a war movie that gets that point across .
Karen Spears Zacharias : Hollywood should not glorify war and make it about `` us '' vs. `` them '' She describes her father 's death and a friend 's serious injury in Vietnam War . When you 've experienced effects of war firsthand , she says , you lose tolerance for mythmaking .