WAS THE KILLER OF THE SHEEPDOG HERO A CLOSET MOSLEM?

The runaway box office success of "American Sniper," which chronicles the exploits of Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL credited with more confirmed kills than any other sniper in U.S. history, has unhinged many liberals.

The real Chris Kyle was "crazy," a "brainwashed mass murderer," a "racist" who "went on killing sprees," some said.

After seeing the movie, I can understand why they’re so upset.

Actor Bradley Cooper and director Clint Eastwood have captured precisely what motivates "sheepdogs" like Chris Kyle. I was deeply moved, because I was a "sheepdog" once.

"Most of the people in our society are sheep," said Dave Grossman, the former Army Ranger and West Point psychology professor who coined the metaphor. "They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident."

Some are wolves, who prey on the sheep.

"The sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep," LtCol. Grossman said. "They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world."

And some are sheepdogs, who recognize the evil, think it is their duty to fight it. They tend to become soldiers and cops, to protect the sheep from the wolves.

But "the sheep generally do not like the sheepdog," LtCol. Grossman said. "He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence…He is a constant reminder there are wolves in the land."

The difference between real sheep, wolves and sheepdogs and metaphorical ones is Nature defined the roles of the critters. They were born to do what they do. For human beings, whether to be a sheep, a wolf, or a sheepdog is largely a matter of conscious choice.

 If you choose to be a sheep, "when the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you," LtCol. Grossman said.

"If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love.

"If you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door," he said.

For Chris Kyle, that day came when al Qaida bombed our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. He served four tours in Iraq chiefly because he wanted to protect as many Marines as he could from the vicious killers they were fighting.

After leaving the Navy in 2009, Chris Kyle worked with veterans who had mental problems. On Feb. 2, 2013, he was murdered by one of the vets he was trying to help.

His family says Eddie Routh has PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). That’s not likely, because he never saw combat, said the Warfighter Foundation, which obtained copies of his military records.

Eddie Routh spent his entire tour in Iraq at Balad AFB, which was "comparable to being on a base in Southern California," a researcher there said. "He was known to be a drug user and a below average performer while in the Marine Corps. He was an individual with psychological problems that were not associated with his service."

For a time Eddie Routh guarded captured insurgents at a prison on the base, where he expressed sympathy for the prisoners. He may have converted to Islam, suspects Walid Shoebat, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity.

Was Chris Kyle’s murder the random, inexplicable act of someone mentally ill? Or was "the Legend" deliberately targeted by an Islamist seeking vengeance?

Eddie Routh’s trial began this week in Stephenville, Texas. Perhaps that question will be answered by the evidence presented during it.

If evidence should indicate clearly it was the latter, liberals never will acknowledge it, because to do so would be to admit there are wolves among us, that what they claim is a fantasy conjured up by "Islamophobes" is all too real.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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