![]() Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, were fatally shot at a shooting range southwest of Fort Worth, Texas on Feb. 8, 2014 AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Apfile photo, Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and author of the book "American Sniper," holds a weaon in Midlothian, Texas. In addition to luxury accommodations, it has hunting areas and a 1,000-yard shooting range.ĪDVANCE FOR USE SUNDAY, FEB. In Kyle's black pickup, they drove to Rough Creek Lodge and Resort, which sits on 11,000 acres of rolling hills scattered with scraggly trees and prairie grasses. Kyle and Littlefield - a neighbor and hunting buddy who also volunteered his time with veterans - decided to take Routh shooting. Jodi Routh worked as an aide at the Kyle kids' school, and she asked if he would take her son on. In search of another mission after leaving the SEALs, Kyle helped create a program to help rehabilitate wounded and troubled veterans through exercise. To the Iraqi insurgents who'd placed a bounty on his head, Chris Kyle was "al-Shaitan Ramadi" - the "devil of Ramadi." But to Jodi Routh, he was an angel. 30, 2013, his mother took him to the Veteran's Administration hospital.ĭespite her pleas that he be admitted, doctors sent him home. Routh would go back to Green Oaks at least one more time. His parents and sister have told reporters that Eddie claimed to be a vampire or werewolf, and complained that a tapeworm was eating out his insides. "Eddie stated he was hurting and that his family does not understand what he has been through," the police report said. Police had found him wandering - barefoot, shirtless and reeking of alcohol. In September 2012, Routh was transported to Green Oaks Hospital for psychiatric care after his mother told police he'd threatened to kill himself and family. His drinking, which had begun in his teens, got worse. He was diagnosed with PTSD the following summer, according to medical records viewed by Men's Health. Routh left the Marines as a corporal that summer and floated around - a brief stint with a military contractor, doing odd jobs for a real estate agent, cabinet-making, building storage units. "Fishing hundreds of bodies - men, women, children - out of the ocean, piling them up and throwing them into mass graves." "He wasn't prepared for what he was doing out there," his father told London's Daily Mail for an article published last month. Routh talked of being forbidden by an officer to give his rations to a starving boy - and of things much worse. They found a country in ruins, with about a quarter million dead - many of them stacked in rotting piles along the muddy roads. In January 2010, Routh was attached to the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit as part of Operation Unified Response, sent to the island nation. "How would you feel if I shot a kid?" they said he asked.īut family and friends say Routh was more disturbed by what he saw during a later deployment - in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. You kill them before they can kill you.'"Ī few months later, his parents told the magazine, he called home and suggested that something bad had happened while he was out on patrol. ![]() "Our response was, of course, 'Eddie, this is a war. "He said, 'Dad, how are you going to feel about me if I have to kill somebody?'" his mother, Jodi Routh, told a writer from Men's Health magazine before a judge imposed a gag order in the case. ![]() In a conversation with his parents shortly before deploying, he reportedly expressed concerns about having to use his weapon. By September 2007, he was in the Middle East. Not long after graduation, Routh - also 6-2, but about 50 pounds lighter than Kyle - was off to boot camp in California. "I want to be one of the few and the proud," he told the photographer. ![]()
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