To men who served with Routh, he’s not the same

Associated Press

STEPHENVILLE, Texas

For those who served with Eddie Ray Routh in the Iraqi desert, the man on trial for gunning down the famed “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and a friend is not the Marine they had come to know.

“The Routh I knew looked up to people who did that kind of job,” said former Cpl. Ryker Pawloski. “He respected war fighters like you wouldn’t believe.”

“It just doesn’t fathom,” agreed Corey Smalley, who shared a metal trailer with Routh at Camp Fallujah. “He wasn’t the picture-perfect Marine, even though that’s what he wanted to be. And the people he looked up to the most were people like Chris Kyle. He always wanted to be those people — be the people that Marines from now on will always be talking about.”

Routh achieved that — but not the way he’d hoped.

The 27-year-old stands charged with capital murder in the Feb. 2, 2013, slayings of the former Navy SEAL and his friend, Chad Littlefield. Kyle, who by his own count made more than 300 kills, volunteered with veterans facing mental health problems.

Kyle and Littlefield took Routh to a shooting range after his mother asked Kyle to help her son cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and other personal demons.