American Sniper has sold almost $300,000,000 worth of tickets at the box office since its release, as America loves Chris Kyle and our Navy SEALS. Hollywood has discovered, with the help of director Clint Eastwood, that stories about brave men taking care of terrorists would be popular. And the movie has set off a firestorm of discussion across the country.

But one thing the movie doesn’t go into detail about is his murder, which took place in February 2013. The trial for his killer – Eddie Ray Routh, a veteran with a slew of mental problems – is underway now. And he also killed Chris’ friend Chad Littlefield.

Probably due to his training, Kyle developed instincts which led him to text Chad about Routh: “This dude is straight up nuts.” To see their discussion just hours before their deaths is eerie:

In the hours before they died, both men were worried about the stranger they were taking shooting, text messages will show.

“He’s sitting right behind me. Watch my six,” Littlefield replied in a return text to his buddy, using military parlance for “Watch my back.”

In the year before the tragedy, Routh had been drinking heavily and smoking marijuana, and was prone to fits of paranoia, violence and uncontrollable crying, the defense says.

During the last car ride of his life, the real-life sniper texted his friend and fellow veteran, Chad Littlefield, about Routh, the edgy ex-Marine in the back seat of their car — “This dude is straight up nuts.”

Kyle and Littlefield had taken the distraught Routh to the shooting range on Feb. 2, 2013, to help him through his post-traumatic stress, on the request of Routh’s worried mother.

via The New York Post

Routh and his attorneys are going to claim that he didn’t know what he was doing at the time, so his mental psychosis makes him innocent. That is hard to believe, and justice should be served. He murdered America’s toughest sniper, and took away a husband/father away from his family. A senseless end to the life of an American patriot.

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