“Nobody was that crazy:” Documents show soldiers called Robert Bales “paranoid” well before killings
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/07/05/3274154/nobody-was-that-crazy-documents.html?sp=/99/296/331/354/
Images taken from the investigation into Staff Sgt. Robert Bales after he killed 16 people in Afghanistan. This photo of Bales was taken the night of the attacks.
Nobody was that crazy: Documents show soldiers called Robert Bales paranoid well before killings
By Adam Ashton
Staff writer
July 5, 2014 Updated 20 hours ago
Months before he committed an inexplicable massacre, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales showed a split personality to his fellow soldiers at a small outpost in Southern Afghanistan.
As far as soldiers who outranked him were concerned, the Tacoma-area soldier was the even keeled combat veteran whom leaders could trust.
Nothing would have led me to believe he was capable of doing the thing that he did, a higher-ranking Special Forces soldier later told military police.
But the junior soldiers who took orders from Bales saw a different side to the four-time combat veteran from Joint Base Lewis-McChord.