Chris Kyle was known as ‘The Legend,’ the deadliest sniper in United States military history. But that day in 2013, he did not take a rifle to war; he took a friend wounded inside to get his mind off things for a while.
Eddie Ray Routh, 25, had returned from Iraq with post-traumatic stress disorder that no one knew how to treat in time. Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield decided to include him, invite him, make him feel part of something again. They took him to a shooting range in Texas, thinking that exercise and company could help him heal.
They never got to shoot together. Routh killed them both before the afternoon began. Years later, in his confession, he said something that remained etched forever. He thought they wanted to take his soul, so he took theirs first. Kyle’s kindness was not enough to save the person who needed it most. A year later, the film American Sniper, inspired by Chris’s life, would be released.
