Recently, we went to see the movie, “American Sniper.” I was familiar with Chris Kyle’s story. I was in Texas when he was killed.

My sisters and I met there to celebrate my late mother’s 100th birthday, Feb. 4, 2013. We had a good time and all of us enjoyed each other’s company. This was the last time we were all together with her. During the week following our celebration, the hype around the murders continued as funeral plans were made and the service held at Cowboy’s stadium for Chris Kyle with a 200-mile procession down Interstate 35 for the Austin, Texas, burial.

I kept expecting to see a report of the other memorial service. I waited and heard nothing. There was so little said about the “other guy.” He was just as dead; his family was grieving, but everything being reported was about the perceived hero who wrote a book and became even more well-known.

So I decided to look up the name of the other guy because, of course, I didn’t remember it. Chad Huston Littlefield was Chris Kyle’s next door neighbor. He was not a veteran; he was a lab and logistics manager for an oilfield services company. He was married, had a young daughter and was quite religious, especially since the birth of his daughter.

Littlefield was the guy next door; the guy willing to lend a hand to help a person in trouble. It is very “Texas” to go to a shooting range and target practice as an activity. My brother-in-law, born and raised in Texas, takes his adult children, two of whom are daughters, to the shooting range on a regular basis. So the guy next door accompanied Kyle and convicted killer Eddie Routh to the shooting range that day, and there his life on this planet ended.

I chose to write about Littlefield because he is the guy next door; the all of us and our neighbors. About a year ago we moved to a neighborhood in southeast Bend. I have met several of my neighbors. One lives alone, one has her daughter and grandson living with her while they each finish educational programs, and another has her daughter who moved from out of state living with her while she gets settled into life in Bend.

Early in our residence in this neighborhood we gathered information from a neighbor about people they trust to do home maintenance when the person we had previously employed moved to the coast. If I needed aid or assistance in other matters, I think my neighbors would be there for me, as I would also be willing to help them.

Thankfully, no life-or-death emergencies have occurred on our watch as neighbors, but these kinds of things can happen anytime, and a kind response is just as important right here at home as far away in a foreign land.

As the movie hype passes, the Oscars have concluded and the murder trial ends in a guilty verdict, there’s room for further reflection. Fortunately, Littlefield’s friend Brian White began a memorial Facebook page about him in 2013. So Littlefield’s life and words of those who cared about him are accessible and promise to be more so when the gag order is lifted.

I believe “American Sniper” is not who we are as a country. Chad Littlefield is who we are as a country; guys and gals next door willing and able to lend a hand when it’s needed.

Across our great nation, Google maps look down on us. There could even be a higher power looking down on us also. And what do they see? All the neighbors helping neighbors, sometimes as their final act.

— Patricia E. Smith lives in Bend.