Clint Eastwood’s 2014 war movie American Sniper is based on the engrossing true story of Chris Kyle, a US Navy SEAL who served four campaigns in the Iraq War. The film is based on Kyle’s own autobiography of the same name, which was released two years earlier in 2012, but includes a final scene that takes place after the events of the book, in February 2013. At this point in the movie, Kyle is retired from military service, and enjoying life with his family. His wife Taya tells him she’s happy to have her husband back, and Kyle’s story appears to have a happy ending.

During the preceding two hours of American Sniper, we witness the grueling nature of Kyle’s tours of Iraq, including his search for Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his right-hand, known simply as “The Butcher”. Bradley Cooper brilliantly portrays the emotional toll Kyle’s role as a Navy SEAL sniper takes on him, in what’s surely one of the best movies ever made about the Iraq War. Given its compelling mix of all-out action and layered character study, it’s no surprise that American Sniper’s take on warfare has been trending on Netflix recently.

Chris Kyle Was Killed By Eddie Ray Routh At The Shooting Range After The End Of American Sniper

Routh SH๏τ Kyle And His Friend Chad Littlefield With Guns That Belonged To Kyle

In a tragic ending to the movie, American Sniper takes Chris Kyle’s true story beyond his 2012 autobiography to the final day of his life, as he kisses his wife and kids goodbye and heads to the shooting range with another armed forces veteran. That veteran is Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old former member of the US Marines who sH๏τ and killed Kyle on February 2, 2013. Routh also sH๏τ and killed Kyle’s friend, Chad Littlefield. They were sH๏τ with two semi-automatic handguns, both of which Kyle had given to Routh to use at the shooting range (via ABC News).

In an understated and respectful manner synonymous with Clint Eastwood’s best movies as a director, American Sniper avoids showing the killing of Chris Kyle itself. Instead, the movie explains his death in a single line of postscript, and shows a montage of Kyle’s funeral procession alongside its end credits.

While refusing to take an overt moral standpoint on his actions, the film unquestionably depicts Chris Kyle as a hero of sorts, who excelled in the line of duty and seemed to have found peace with his loving family before he died. Eastwood’s decision not to show how he died means that Kyle retains the dignity in death he earned during the course of the movie.

Eddie Ray Routh Was Suffering From PTSD When He Murdered Chris Kyle And Chad Littlefield

Routh Had Also Been Diagnosed As Schizophrenic And PsycH๏τic

At the time he killed American’s Sniper’s Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield, Eddie Ray Routh had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis. The veteran of the US Marines was also said to be afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following his time serving in the military (via The Washington Post). Routh later explained that he’d sH๏τ Kyle and Littlefield because they weren’t talking to him on the way to the shooting range. Meanwhile, Kyle sent Littlefield a text message before picking him up that referred to Routh as “straight-up nuts”.

It seems neither Chris Kyle nor Chad Littlefield were aware of the mental health conditions with which Eddie Ray Routh had been diagnosed prior to their trip to the Rough Creek Ranch-Lodge-Resort shooting range in Erath County, Texas. This ending to Kyle’s story, in particular, does feel like an agonizing irony, given that he’d survived four terms in the line of fire during the Iraq War, and was just beginning to turn his life around at the time it was taken from him.

Why Chris Kyle Went To A Shooting Range In American Sniper’s Final Scene

Kyle Was Helping Other Military Veterans Overcome Their Traumatic War Experiences

Chris Kyle had been going with military veterans to shooting ranges for some time prior to that fateful day he and Littlefield took Eddie Ray Routh with them on February 2, 2013. As American Sniper alludes to in its final minutes, Kyle decided to undertake work helping military veterans through their war trauma as a way of healing from his own experiences, on the advice of a psychiatrist. His way of helping was apparently spending time with troubled veterans doing what he felt they would enjoy doing most, shooting at targets with live firearms.

It was Routh’s mother who suggested to Kyle that her son could do with his help, when he met her outside his children’s elementary school. This detail is mentioned in one of the final lines of what’s surely the most serious role of Bradley Cooper’s career, as the actor’s character says goodbye to his family for what he doesn’t realize will be the final time.

No one could have predicted what Eddie Ray Routh would do, but the informal nature of his mother’s request made the trip a major risk for Kyle and Littlefield. It probably wasn’t the case that Taya Kyle noticed something was up when she saw Routh in her driveway, as is portrayed in American Sniper’s final sH๏τ, but this dramatic rendering does the work of showing us that, with the benefit of hindsight, Kyle should never have agreed to help in this way.

What Happened After Chris Kyle’s Death As A Result Of His Murder

He Was Venerated By His Wife And Residents Of Texas, Including With A Bill Pᴀssed In His Name

Taya Kyle published her own memoir after the events of American Sniper, which includes her account of the tragic death of her husband. She also became a campaigner for American military veterans, and has written and released further books during the past decade. In addition, she was involved in the pᴀssing of the Chris Kyle Bill, which made military veterans eligible to receive state licenses in Texas, Kyle’s home state, for professional qualifications upon their discharge from the armed forces (via Texas Military Department).

The movie American Sniper came out less than two years after Chris Kyle’s death, although pre-production had actually begun while Kyle was still alive. The date of his death has since been named “Chris Kyle Day” in Texas, and a memorial to his legacy has been erected in Odessa, the city of his birth. The renewed success of Clint Eastwood’s movie on Netflix will make a new generation aware of Chris Kyle’s story, which is worth examining more for his actions in life, both inside and outside the military, than for the tragic incident which brought about his death.

Sources: ABC News; The Washington Post; Texas Military Department