Chris Kyle

• 1. Introduction

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  Chris Kyle was a Navy SEAL sniper, and on the 2nd of February 2013 he sent a short text message while driving to a Texas shooting range. His friend Chad Littlefield was the recipient. The two men were taking a young veteran named Eddie Ray Routh out to fire some guns. "This dude is straight-up nuts," Kyle wrote. Littlefield replied with three words of military slang: "Watch my six." It means watch my back.

  By that day, Kyle was one of the best-known snipers the United States had ever produced. He had written a bestselling memoir, and a major film was already on its way. Yet the exchange raises a puzzle. How does a Texas ranch kid end up with that kind of reputation? How much of the legend rests on documents, and how much on stories that nobody could confirm? And what went wrong on an ordinary afternoon at a gun range, among men who were trained to expect danger?

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• 2. From Ranch to SEAL

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  Odessa, Texas, is where Christopher Scott Kyle was born on the 8th of April 1974. He was the elder of two boys. His mother was Deborah Lynn, born Mercer, and his father, Wayne, was a Sunday school teacher and deacon.

  At the age of eight, Kyle received a bolt-action .30-06 Springfield rifle from his father. A shotgun followed later. Father and son used them to hunt deer, pheasant and quail.

  Cattle filled the rest of his boyhood. Kyle and his brother Jeff raised as many as 150 head at a time. He went to high school in Midlothian, Texas, and graduated in 1992. Then he became a professional bronco rider and ranch hand. A severe arm injury ended that rodeo career abruptly. For two years, 1992-1994, he studied Ranch and Range Management at Tarleton State University.

  The next turn came at a military recruiting office. Kyle had gone in hoping for Marine Corps special operations. A Navy recruiter steered him toward the SEALs instead. He enlisted on the 5th of August 1998 and began basic training on the 10th of February 1999. He finished at Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois, in April 1999.

  Training as an Intelligence Specialist came next, first at Dam Neck, Virginia, and then at Millington, Tennessee, ending in March 2000. The SEAL path was not smooth. Pins in his arm got him rejected at first. Eventually an invitation arrived for the 24-week Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL course at Coronado, California.

  Kyle graduated with Class 233 in March 2001. SEAL Qualification Training ran from May to August of that year. He was then assigned to SEAL Team 3 as part of the sniper element in Platoon Charlie, later renamed Cadillac. Four tours in the Iraq War lay ahead of him.

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• 3. The Sniper's Count

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  The first long-range shot of Kyle's war came during the initial invasion of Iraq. A woman carrying a hand grenade was walking toward a group of Marines. CNN later reported that she held a toddler in her other arm. Acting on orders, Kyle fired and killed her before she could attack.

  Every sniper filled out a shooter's statement after each mission. These reports went to higher command, who held onto them in case a shooting was ever challenged as outside the rules of engagement.

  Kyle's choice of rifle depended on the job. In training he tried four different rifles to learn which suited which situation. On regular patrol he carried a semi-automatic 7.62 NATO Mk 11. For urban patrol he used a 5.56 NATO Mk 12 Designated Marksman Rifle. Its lower receiver came from an M4A1, which gave it a collapsible stock and full-auto fire.

  His heavier weapon was a Remington Model 700 in .300 Winchester Magnum, with a McMillan stock and a customized barrel. It was later type classified as the MK13 Mod 1. An Accuracy International rifle in the same caliber eventually replaced it. For the longest shots he used rifles chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum.

  The numbers attached to Kyle were always slippery. His publisher, HarperCollins, stated that the Pentagon had confirmed more than 150 of his kills. The previous American record was 109. The Pentagon declined to verify a total for the book. Kyle himself wrote that the Navy credited him with more kills than any other American service member. In his words: "They go back and forth on what the number is."

  One document does give hard figures. Kyle's Silver Star citation covers the period from the 24th of April to the 27th of August 2006, when he served as lead sniper with a task unit in Ramadi. Across 32 overwatch missions, it credits him with 91 confirmed enemy fighters killed and dozens more probably killed or wounded. It also says his work prevented casualties on more than 30 occasions, and that he eliminated five enemy snipers.

  Decorations eventually became a dispute of their own. On the 8th of July 2016, the Navy corrected the discharge form Kyle had received. The original papers listed two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars with valor devices, matching his autobiography. The revised version showed one Silver Star and four Bronze Stars. The Navy said Kyle had no part in producing his personnel files beyond signing the form on his way out.

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• 4. A Bestselling Book

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  In 2009, Kyle left the Navy and moved back to Midlothian, Texas, with his wife, Taya, and their two children. He became president of Craft International, a company offering tactical training to military and law enforcement communities.

  HarperCollins published his autobiography, American Sniper, in 2012. Kyle had been reluctant to write it. What changed his mind was news that other books about SEALs were already under way.

  The book was blunt. Describing the fight for Ramadi, Kyle wrote: "Force moved that battle. We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table. That is how the world works." In interviews he said he had no regrets about his work as a sharpshooter. "I had to do it to protect the Marines," he said.

  American Sniper spent 37 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and made Kyle a national figure. Some media articles questioned certain anecdotes, yet the central narrative was widely accepted. Michael J. Mooney, who wrote a biography of Kyle, observed that "Tales of his heroism on the battlefield were already lore in every branch of the armed forces."

  Kyle also lent his name to the FITCO Cares Foundation. Its Heroes Project provides free in-home fitness equipment, individual programs, personal training and life coaching to veterans with disabilities, Gold Star families and people living with PTSD.

  Television came next. On the 13th of August 2012, he appeared on the reality show Stars Earn Stripes, in which celebrities were paired with special operations or law enforcement professionals who trained them in weapons and combat tactics. Kyle's partner was the actor Dean Cain.

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• 5. The Scruff Face Lawsuit

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  A subchapter called "Punching Out Scruff Face" turned out to be the most expensive passage in American Sniper. In it, Kyle described punching a man who had supposedly said "You deserve to lose a few guys" and criticized the Iraq war.

  According to Kyle, the fight happened at McP's, a bar in Coronado, California, on the 12th of October 2006. The occasion was a wake for his comrade Michael A. Monsoor, a SEAL killed in Iraq. Monsoor received the Medal of Honor posthumously on the 8th of April 2008, for actions on the 29th of September 2006.

  On the 4th of January 2012, Kyle went on the radio program Opie and Anthony to discuss the book. There he said that the character Scruff was former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura.

  Ventura denied that the incident ever happened. He also said he had never met Kyle. In January 2012 he sued for defamation, appropriation and unjust enrichment. When Kyle was killed the next year, the case passed to his estate.

  On the 29th of July 2014, a jury recommended by a vote of 8 to 2 that Kyle was liable for defamation and unjust enrichment, but not appropriation. It set the amounts at $500,000 for defamation and $1.34 million for unjust enrichment. The district judge, who issued the final judgment, said "substantial evidence" supported the verdict.

  Kyle's widow appealed on behalf of the estate. Her lawyers argued that Ventura's attorney had told jurors the roughly $1.8 million judgment would be covered by the publisher's insurance policy rather than by the estate. In June 2016, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the $1.8 million, partly because of that insurance disclosure. It dismissed the unjust enrichment award as inconsistent with Minnesota law. The $500,000 defamation claim was sent back for a new trial.

  In December 2017, the parties settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, so the final price of the Scruff Face story was never made public.

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• 6. Stories That Did Not Hold

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  The New Yorker reported in 2013 on a late-night drinking session in which Kyle described a trip to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He said he heard about looting and drove there with another man. They allegedly carried sniper rifles and took up a position on top of the Louisiana Superdome. From there, Kyle claimed, the pair shot armed civilians who were making trouble.

  The tally varied by listener. One person present said Kyle claimed to have shot 30 people himself. Another recalled that the two men had shot 30 between them. A third remembered no specific number. Records show no cluster of shooting victims near the Superdome, and military officials and former colleagues responded with skepticism. The story was widely discredited.

  A second tale concerned a Dallas-area gas station in January 2009. Kyle told one writer that two men tried to rob him at gunpoint. He said he drew his own weapon and shot both in the chest. According to Kyle, the whole thing was captured on tape, and police let him go once he gave them a number to call. He added that police officers across the country often emailed to thank him for "cleaning up the streets."

  This account was widely discredited too. The stretch of highway where Kyle placed the incident runs through three counties, and the sheriff of each one flatly denied it had happened.

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• 7. The Day at the Range

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  Eddie Ray Routh was 25 years old, a Marine Corps veteran from Lancaster, Texas. For at least two years he had been in and out of mental hospitals, and he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Kyle and Littlefield took him to the Rough Creek Ranch-Lodge-Resort shooting range in Erath County, Texas.

  Littlefield was 35. Both men carried .45-caliber 1911-style pistols, yet neither weapon had left its holster. The safety catches were still on. Kyle was killed with a .45-caliber pistol and Littlefield with a 9 mm SIG Sauer. Both guns belonged to Kyle.

  Routh fled in Kyle's Ford F-350 truck and drove to his sister's house in Midlothian. There he told her what he had done. His sister, Laura Blevins, called 911 and described him to the operator: "They went out to a shooting range... Like, he's all crazy. He's... psychotic." Police captured him after a short freeway chase that ended when he crashed into a police cruiser in Lancaster.

  Four months later, Routh spoke to Gene Cole, a former Erath County sheriff's deputy, from his jail cell. "I was just riding in the back seat of the truck, and nobody would talk to me. They were just taking me to the range, so I shot them. I feel bad about it, but they wouldn't talk to me. I'm sure they've forgiven me."

  He was arraigned on the day of the shootings on two counts of capital murder and held in the Erath County Jail on a $3 million bond. A trial date of the 5th of May 2014 slipped, because more time was needed to meet DNA testing requirements. Testimony began on the 11th of February 2015.

  On the 24th of February 2015, the jury found Routh guilty after less than three hours of deliberation. Prosecutors had chosen in advance not to seek the death penalty. Judge Jason Cashon therefore sentenced him at once to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Routh is held at the Ramsey Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Rosharon, Texas.

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• 8. Memorials and Laws

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  Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, hosted a memorial service for Kyle on the 11th of February 2013. The next day he was buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. The procession from Midlothian covered more than 200 miles. Hundreds of people lined Interstate 35, many waving American flags, to watch it pass.

  In August 2013, Governor Rick Perry signed Senate Bill 162, known as the Chris Kyle Bill. It recognizes military training when occupational licenses are issued. The measure was co-sponsored by Republican Representative Dan Flynn and Democratic Senator Leticia Van de Putte, and Taya Kyle attended the signing ceremony. Members of the Tea Party movement raised money for a memorial statue by sculptor Greg Marra, which was presented to Kyle's widow.

  A road also carries his name, thanks to a teacher. In 2013, Dana Morris tried to have a section of Highway 75 through Dallas named for Kyle, and failed. In 2015 she tried again, this time proposing to honor both Kyle and Chad Littlefield. Representative John Wray introduced House Bill 1187, with 53 Republican co-sponsors. Littlefield's name was removed at his widow's request. The bill passed both chambers on the 20th of May 2015, and Governor Greg Abbott signed it on the 3rd of June 2015 in Dallas. Abbott told Morris the project would "leave a fundamental legacy in their learning about government." The law took effect on the 1st of September 2015. Signs went up on the 16th of February 2016 along an 11-mile stretch of Highway 287 through Midlothian. A 2018 law named a plaza and a road there as well.

  Hollywood followed. Clint Eastwood directed American Sniper, released in 2014, with Bradley Cooper as Kyle and Sienna Miller as Taya. Cooper earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and the film received five other nominations, including Best Picture. It won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing.

  On the 2nd of February 2015, exactly two years after the killings, Governor Abbott declared the day Chris Kyle Day. A privately funded memorial, including a plaza and a bronze statue, was unveiled in Odessa, Texas, on the 28th of July 2016.

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