Why the heck was this guy even allowed to stay in the Army? From Wired:
A year before he entered the Army, police removed WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning from his father’s home after he allegedly threatened his stepmother with a knife, according to a news report Tuesday.
The revelation comes from a 911 call the stepmother made to Oklahoma dispatchers in 2006, after Manning, then 18, argued with his father and stepmother. Audio of the call was obtained by PBSFrontline for a 10-minute segment that will air Tuesday evening.
According to a transcript of the call, the father — after making a move to intervene — slipped and fell to the floor, prompting his wife to call 911.
The incident would not be the last time Manning allegedly exhibited violent behavior. When he was arrested last year for allegedly leaking classified information, he had recently been demoted from specialist to private first class for punching an Army colleague in the face, according to transcripts of an online chat he had with former hacker Adrian Lamo.
“It was a minor incident, but it brought attention to me,” he allegedly told Lamo. His life, which was already in turmoil, began to unravel at this point, as his career began to implode.
“I had about three breakdowns, successively worse, each one revealing more and more of my uncertainty and emotional insecurity,” he told Lamo.
Prior to his deployment to Iraq, Army commanders had been warned against sending Manning to Iraq, because of disciplinary problems. Manning’s supervisor at Fort Drum in New York had told his superiors that Manning had thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher-ranking soldiers, according to an Army investigation.
Read the full report here.