this is chris beck in june of 2010, shortly before he retired from the military. shortly before his life changed dramatically. chris had served in some of the most dangerous combat zones in the world with one of the toughest units in the u.s. military, the navy s.e.a.l.s. beck enlisted in 1990. s.e.a.l.s who knew him say he developed a reputation as a good comrade and a fearless wearier. warrior. the tough training for s.e.a.l.s is legendary, but beck excelled. that s him taking down a target in hand-to-hand combat. diving under water to practice approaching ships from below. that s him doing a back flip during parachute training. commander rutherford knew beck when they were both with the navy s.e.a.l.s.
a lot more hope here than theirs any right to expect. when all is said and done, i wanted to go to the congo wanted to go to the congo and i did. captions by vitac www.vitac.com i m anderson cooper. in the hour ahead, you re going to meet somebody who has demonstrated bravery time and time again as a u.s. navy s.e.a.l., a person who served this country for 20 years, and now is showing another kind of strength, living as the woman she felt she s always been. this is her story, from chris to kristin, a navy s.e.a.l. s secret. christopher todd beck enlisted with the military in 1990 with the dream of joining the u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s. the elite unit with a reputation of being one of the toughest, fittest and most secretive forces in the u.s. military. chris realized that dream
0 a lot more hope here than theirs any right to expect. when all is said and done, i wanted to go to the congo wanted to go to the congo and i did. captions by vitac www.vitac.com i m anderson cooper. in the hour ahead, you re going to meet somebody who has demonstrated bravery time and time again as a u.s. navy s.e.a.l., a person who served this country for 20 years, and now is showing another kind of strength, living as the woman she felt she s always been. this is her story, from chris to kristin, a navy s.e.a.l. s secret. christopher todd beck enlisted with the military in 1990 with the dream of joining the u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s. the elite unit with a reputation of being one of the toughest, fittest and most secretive forces in the u.s. military. chris realized that dream serving 20 years with the s.e.a.l.s in some of the most dangerous battlefields in the world. serving in iraq and afghanistan. a former navy s.e.a.l. who knew beck said he had a stellar reputation. by the t
have disqualified him from being a navy s.e.a.l. entirely. our anderson cooper has more. christopher todd beck enlisted with the military in 1990, with the dream of joining the u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s the elite unit for the reputation of being one of the toughest and fittest and most secretly forces in the u.s. military. beck realized that dream serving for 20 years with the s.e.a.l.s in some of the most dangerous battlegrounds around the world, including iraq and afghanistan. a former navy s.e.a.l. who knew beck said he had a stellar reputation among his comrades. by the time he retired from service in 2011, beck had a long list of medals and commendations including the bronze star and the purple heart. but for 20 years, while beck was fighting for his country, he was also fighting an inner battle, a battle over his gender identity. chris beck wanted to live his life openly and honestly as a woman. which is what he started doing after he retired in 2011.
when the book came out, some amazing support and some amazing praises, but also some pretty amazing bigotry and hatred and they don t want to know. it s the comments, like, i will never read that book, you know, if you read it you could educate yourself a little bit and at least, i don t want you to love me. i don t want you to like me. but i don t want you to beat me up and kill me. you don t have to like me. i don t care. but please don t kill me. everybody knows that s.e.a.l.s are incredibly strong. in my opinion to do what you re doing now requires a whole other different kind of strength, though. yes. i ve seen that comment quite a bit and some of my s.e.a.l. team brothers they said, it s a whole different type of courage, and i look at it and it s not something that i look at myself or i say, you know, i m courageous. i never thought about it that way. well, coming up, beck says there are many others just like her in the u.s. military, and