Accused soldier’s dad: Son was ‘broke’

SHERMAN, Texas (AP) — The Army sergeant accused of killing five fellow soldiers in Iraq was typically not a violent person, but counselors “broke” him before the gunfire erupted in a military stress center, his father said Tuesday.

Wilburn Russell, 73, told reporters that his son, Sgt. John M. Russell, was treated poorly at the stress center and had e-mailed his wife calling two recent days the worst in his life.

“I hate what that boy did,” said the elder Russell, speaking in front of the two-story suburban home his son is buying with his wife. “He thought it was justified. That’s never a solution.”

The 44-year-old soldier has been charged with murder and aggravated assault in the Baghdad slayings Monday, which his father said came just weeks before the end of his third tour of duty in Iraq.

His father said the younger Russell, an electronics technician, was at the stress center to transition out of active duty. He said his son was undergoing stressful mental tests that he didn’t understand were merely tests, “so they broke him.”

“His life was over as far as he was concerned. He lived for the military,” the elder Russell said. “We’re sorry for the families, too. It shouldn’t have happened.”

The soldier’s son, John M. Russell II, said Tuesday that he has communicated with his father by e-mail regularly. In the last message he received from him, on April 25, his father sounded normal and planned to be back in Texas to visit in July.

“He’s not a violent person,” he said. “For this to happen, it had to be something going on that the Army’s not telling us about.”

Meanwhile, details are emerging about some of the shooting victims.

A Navy officer who spent his career helping service members deal with stress and a 19-year-old soldier from Maryland were among the five people shot to death at a military counseling clinic in Baghdad, family members and the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Cmdr. Charles Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., was one of the victims, the Pentagon said. Shawna Machlinski, the mother of Pfc. Michael Edward Yates Jr., said two men from the Army came to her home on the Eastern Shore early Tuesday and said her son was also fatally wounded at the clinic by what they called “friendly fire.”

One other officer and two enlisted soldiers also were among the dead, officials said, but their names have not been released.

Machlinski, who last spoke to her son on Mother’s Day, said he had talked about Russell, the reported shooter. She said he told her Russell was deeply angry at the military after three tours of duty in Iraq.

“He said, ‘Man, this guy’s got issues,’” said Machlinski of Federalsburg. She said her son wasn’t more specific about Russell’s problems and that he told her he got along with him.

Springle, a clinical social worker, was director of the Camp Lejeune Community Counseling Center.

Machlinski said her son was at the clinic because he was having difficulty readjusting to life in Baghdad after visiting Maryland for most of April, when he seemed angry and distant.