Kyle decided not to take a dime from
American Sniper . As it became a best-seller,
his share amounted to more than $1.5
million. He gave two-thirds to the families
of fallen teammates and the rest to a
charity that helped wounded veterans. It
was something he and Taya discussed a lot.
“I would ask him, ‘How much is enough?
Where does your family fit in?’ ” she says.
“But I understood.”
When the book came out, everyone wanted
to interview him. He was on late-night talk
shows, cable news, and radio. He did a
number of reality TV shows related to
shooting. (He rarely took much money from
the appearances.) He always went on with a
ball cap on his head and a wad of tobacco
in his mouth.
He had 1,200 people at his first public book
signing. It was similar in every town. He
preferred to stand for the length of the book
signings. “If y’all are standing, I can stand,”
he said. He would wait until he signed
every book he was asked to, even if it took
hours. It often did, because he wanted to
take a moment to talk with each person. He
tried to personalize each book. He’d pose
for photos, one after another.
As he became more famous, more people
wanted to spend time with him. More
politicians wanted to go shooting with him.
At one point, he was at a range with
Governor Rick Perry. Perry was about to
shoot the sniper rifle and asked Kyle if he
had an extra pad to put on the cement
before he lay down. Kyle replied with a
mock-serious tone.
“You know, Governor,” he said, “Ann
Richards was out here not too far back, and
she didn’t need a pad at all.”
A good friend once introduced him to the
movie star Natalie Portman. He asked her
what she did for a living. And, as the story
goes, she liked him even more after that.
Then there is this story: Kyle had been
invited to a luxury suite at a UT football
game and decided to take a heartbroken
buddy of his, a Dallas police officer who
had recently caught his girlfriend making
out with another guy. They were in the
suite for a few hours, talking, drinking,
when a former UT football star happened to
walk in. At some point, Kyle realized that
this former star was also the guy who had
kissed his friend’s girlfriend.
Kyle’s friend knew what was coming. He
begged him not to, but it was in vain.
“It’s man law,” Kyle said.
He had a party trick he liked to perform, a
sleeper hold that would render a man
unconscious in seconds. Kyle called it a
“hug.” People would dare him to do it to
them, saying they wouldn’t go down.
Sure enough, Kyle approached the former
star and gave him a “hug” right there in the
suite. As women were shrieking and
wondering if the former UT great was dead,
Kyle kept the hold for just a little longer
than normal, causing the man to lose
control of his bowels as he passed out.
It wasn’t just his friends he took care of.
People wrote to him from all over the
world, asking for favors or for his time,
especially after he started appearing on TV.
He did his best to accommodate every
request he could, even when Taya was
worried he was spreading himself too thin.
“He was so trusting,” she says. “He didn’t
let himself worry about much.”
JODI ROUTH, A TEACHER’S AIDE AT AN
elementary school close to Kyle’s home, had
a son, a former Marine, who needed help.
She reached out to Kyle because she knew
his history of caring for veterans. Kyle told
people he and his friend, Chad Littlefield,
were going to take the kid out to blow off
some steam.
Littlefield was a quiet buddy Kyle had come
to count on over the last few years. They
worked out and went hunting together. He
had come over a few nights earlier to have
Kyle adjust the scope of his rifle. Kyle
invited Littlefield to come with him to
Rough Creek. They were going to take Jodi
Routh’s son shooting. Littlefield had
accompanied Kyle on similar trips dozens of
times.
They were in Kyle’s big black truck when
they showed up in the Dallas suburb of
Lancaster, at the home Eddie Ray Routh
shared with his parents. He was a stringy,
scraggly 25-year-old. He’d spent four years
in the Marines but in the last few months
had twice been hospitalized for mental
illness. His family worried that he was
suicidal. They hoped time with a war hero,
a legend like Chris Kyle, might help.
It was a little after lunch on Saturday,
February 2, when they picked up Routh and
headed west on Highway 67. They got to
Rough Creek Lodge around 3:15 pm. They
turned up a snaking, 3-mile road toward
the lodge and let a Rough Creek employee
know they were heading to the range,
another mile and a half down a rocky,
unpaved road.
This was a place Kyle loved. He had given
many lessons here over the last three years.
He’d spend hours working with anyone who
showed an interest in shooting. This is
where he would take his boys when they
needed to get away. In the right light, the
dry, blanched hills and cliffs looked a little
like the places they’d been in Iraq. When a
group went out there, away from the rest of
the world, they could relax and enjoy the
camaraderie so many of them missed.
We may never know exactly what happened
next. They weren’t there long, police
suspect, before Routh turned his
semiautomatic pistol on Kyle and Littlefield.
He took Kyle’s truck, left Rough Creek, and
headed east on 67. Later he would tell his
sister that he “traded his soul for a new
truck.” A hunting guide from the lodge
spotted two bodies covered in blood, both
shot multiple times.
Routh drove to a friend’s house in Alvarado
and called his sister. He drove to her house
where, his sister told police, he was “out of
his mind.” He told her he’d murdered two
people, that he’d shot them “before they
could kill him.” He said “people were
sucking his soul” and that he could “smell
the pigs.” She told him he needed to turn
himself in.
From there, Routh drove home to Lancaster,
where the police were waiting for him.
When they tried to talk him out of the
truck, he sped off. With the massive grill
guard, he ripped through the front of a
squad car. They chased Routh through
Lancaster and into Dallas. He was headed
north on I-35 when the motor of Kyle’s
truck finally burned out, near Wheatland
Road. Routh was arrested and charged with
two counts of murder.

CHRIS KYLE’S MEMORIAL WAS HELD AT
Cowboys Stadium to accommodate the 7,000
people who wanted to pay their respects.
Before the doors even opened that morning,
there was a line wrapped halfway around
the stadium, people standing patiently in
the cold, damp air.
Plenty of people attending knew Kyle. But
most didn’t. Some had read his book or
seen him on television. Some had only
heard of him after his death. Men missed
work and took their boys out of school
because they thought it was important.
Families traveled from three states away.
Most people wore black. Many wore dress
uniforms. His SEAL team was there, as were
other SEALs and special-operations fighters
from multiple generations. There were
police officers and sheriff’s deputies and
Texas Rangers. Veterans of World War II,
some in wheelchairs, nodded to each other
quietly as they made their way into the
stadium. Some men had served in Korea,
some in Vietnam, some in the first Gulf
War. There were many servicemen who
never served during a war and many people
who had never served at all, but they all
felt compelled to come.
Celebrities came, including Jerry Jones and
Troy Aikman and Sarah Palin. Hundreds of
motorcycle riders lined the outside of the
field. Bagpipe players and drummers came
from all over the state. A military choir
stood at the ready the entire time.
A stage was set up in the middle of the
football field. On the stage was a podium,
some speakers, and a few microphone
stands. At the front of the stage, amid a
mound of flowers, were Kyle’s gun, his
boots, his body armor, and his helmet.
Photos from Kyle’s life scrolled by on the
gigantic screen overhead: a boy, getting a
shotgun for Christmas. A young cowboy,
riding a horse. A SEAL, clean-shaven and
bright-eyed. In combat, scanning for targets.
In the desert, flying a Texas flag. With his
platoon, a fearsome image of American
might. At home, hugging Taya, kissing the
foot of his baby girl, holding the hand of his
little boy.
His casket was draped with the American
flag and placed on the giant star at the 50-
yard line.
Randy Travis played “Whisper My Name,”
and “Amazing Grace.” Joe Nichols played
“The Impossible.” Kyle’s friend Scott Brown
played a song called “Valor.” The public
heard stories about what Kyle was like as a
little boy. What he was like in training.
What he was like at war. What he was like
as a friend and business partner. Some
people talked about the times they saw him
cry. Fellow SEALs told stories about his
resolve, his humor, his bravery. There were
tales of his compassion, his intelligence, his
dedication to God.
“Though we feel sadness and loss,” one of
his former commanders said, “know this:
legends never die. Chris Kyle is not gone.
Chris Kyle is everywhere. He is the fabric of
the freedom that blessed the people of this
great nation. He is forever embodied in the
strength and tenacity of the SEAL teams,
where his courageous path will be followed
and his memory is enshrined as SEALs
continue to ruthlessly hunt down and
destroy America’s enemies.”
Taya stood strong, surrounded by her
husband’s SEAL brothers, and told the
world about their love.
“God knew it would take the toughest and
softest-hearted man on earth to get a
hardheaded, cynical, hard-loving woman
like me to see what God needed me to see,
and he chose you for the job,” she said, her
cracking voice filling the stadium. “He
chose well.”
When the ceremony ended, uniformed
pallbearers carried out the casket to the
sounds of mournful bagpipes. Taya walked
behind them with her children, hand in
hand.
The next day, the casket was driven to
Austin. There was a procession nearly 200
miles long—almost certainly the longest in
American history. People lined the road in
every town, waving flags and saluting.
American flags were draped over every
single bridge on I-35 between the Kyle home
in Midlothian and the state capital.

PEOPLE WILL TELL STORIES ABOUT
CHRIS KYLE for generations to come. Tales
of his feats in battle, and of his antics and
noble deeds, will probably swell. In a
hundred years, people won’t know which
stories are completely true and which were
embellished over time. And, in the end, it
may not matter too much, because people
believe in legends for all their own reasons.
Since her husband’s death, Taya has been
overwhelmed by the number of veterans
who want to tell her that Chris Kyle saved
their lives. A man with a 2-year-old girl
wept recently as he explained that his
daughter would not have been born had it
not been for Chris Kyle rescuing him in
Iraq. Years from now, men will still be
telling stories about the moments when they
were seconds or inches from death, when
they thought it was all over—only to have a
Chris Kyle bullet fly from the heavens and
take out their enemies. They’ll tell their
grandchildren to thank Chris Kyle in their
prayers.
Because his legend is so large, because he
personally protected so many people, there
will surely be men who think they were
saved by Kyle but owe their lives to a
different sniper or to another serviceman.
Of course, there will be no way to know for
sure. Kyle credited his SEAL brothers any
chance he could, but he also knew that he
was an American hero, and he knew the
complications that came with it.
During the interview in which he discussed
the gas station incident, he didn’t say where
it happened. Most versions of the story have
him in Cleburne, not far from Fort Worth.
The Cleburne police chief says that if such
an incident did happen, it wasn’t in his
town. Every other chief of police along
Highway 67 says the same thing. Public
information requests produced no police
reports, no coroner reports, nothing from
the Texas Rangers or the Department of
Public Safety. I stopped at every gas station
along 67, Business 67 in Cleburne, and 10
miles in either direction. Nobody had heard
of anything like that happening.
A lot of people will believe that, because
there are no public documents or witnesses
to corroborate his story, Kyle must have
been lying. But why would he lie? He was
already one of the most decorated veterans
of the Iraq war. Tales of his heroism on the
battlefield were already lore in every
branch of the armed forces.
People who never met Kyle will think there
must have been too much pressure on him,
a war hero who thought he might seem
purposeless if he wasn’t killing bad guys.
Conspiracy theorists will wonder if maybe
every part of his life story—his incredible
kills, his heroic tales of bravery in the face
of death—was concocted by the propaganda
wing of the Pentagon.
And, of course, other people—probably most
people—will believe the story, because it
was about Chris Kyle. He was one of the few
men in the entire world capable of such a
feat. He was one of the only people who
might have had the connections to make
something like that disappear—he did work
regularly with the CIA. People will believe
it because Chris Kyle was incredible, the
most celebrated war hero of our time, a
true American hero in every sense of the
word. They’ll believe this story because
there are already so many verified stories of
his lethal abilities and astonishing valor,
stories of him hanging out with presidents,
and ribbing governors, and knocking out
former football stars and billionaires and
cocky frat boys.
They’ll believe it because Chris Kyle is
already a legend, and sometimes we need to
believe in legends.""

Link.

Men like him are few and far between.
He will be missed by all whose lives he touched clearly

Wow-that was really worth reading! Made me tear up-his life lives on through all who knew him tho:)Ty for the story Walks:-)

R.I.P. Chris Kyle

Just wanted to share an interesting article.....a movie about his life will be out in 2015.

@WalkSoftly: Will be lookin forward to it-ty for the info:)

Like the article says, "legends never die."