Chuck Williams: 'American Sniper' difficult to process

The movie theater was silent. Dead silent.

As the credits rolled for “American Sniper” nobody in the Carmike theater at Bradley Park stood up. When the screen went dark, people filed out of the theater.

And no one said anything. It was eerie and thought provoking.

It was unlike any movie exit I have ever experienced.

“American Sniper,” the Clint Eastwood film starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, has started a national conversation about our soldiers and what we ask them to do. That is what happens when you leave people speechless.

In this community, Hollywood doesn’t have to tell us what the Chris Kyles of the world do. We already know.

I saw the movie more than a week ago and am still processing it. It has me thinking a lot about the work our special operations soldiers do.

Not long after seeing American Sniper, I was on a flight from Atlanta to Phoenix. There was a man sitting one row in front of me. It appeared to me he was a soldier who had a really bad day. His face had been burned, and he had two metal hooks where his hands should have been.

He started talking to the guy next to him, and I overheard him say he lived outside Columbus, Ga.

That got my attention.

It was U.S. Army Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Michael Schlitz, wounded in Iraq in 2007. The vehicle he and his team were riding in was destroyed by an improvised-explosive device. Three soldiers died in the attack.

We shared a few minutes of conversation before takeoff. We talked about Columbus and actor Gary Sinise and Sinise’s foundation, which helped build Schlitz’s home.

You can’t help but look at a man like Schlitz and thank him for his service. As we were leaving the plane, I watched as Schlitz fumbled to get some paper in his bag.

You look at him living independently and you get this sense of American pride. Guys like Schlitz are the real American heroes.

A few days later, I was standing in line waiting for a cab in downtown Las Vegas. There was a man in front of who had lost both of his legs. He was wearing shorts that didn’t cover his prosthetic legs. The bellman was flagging down a cab for the man and his two buddies.

The bellman asked the man, who was obviously military age and had a military-issue backpack, how many for the cab.

“Two and a half,” the man responded.

The bellman didn’t hesitate as he opened the rear door of the cab. He just looked at the man with prosthetic legs and simply said, “No sir, three plus.”

The two men smiled at each other.

We got the next cab. As we slid into the backseat, I slipped the bellman a couple of bucks and told him I appreciated his comment.

He summed up in one sentence my feelings since walking out of “American Sniper.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2015 at 4:35 PM.