'Standup soldier' who killed Iraqi journalist had troubled past Russell Carollo | Sacramento Bee
last updated: July 14, 2008 05:52:38 PM
Dr. Yasser Salihee's body lay in his compact car on a busy Baghdad street for everyone to see.
The doctor, employed as a journalist by the now defunct Knight-Ridder Newspapers group, had been shot by an American soldier who claimed that Salihee refused to slow down and who believed he presented a threat.
Though the details are disputed, the results were not: The June 24, 2005, shooting outraged the very population the military was trying to win over.
"Before the accident I loved the Americans … but after the accident, I hate all the Army," said Salihee’s widow, Raghad al Jabar al Wazan, also a medical doctor. "All my neighbors were hating the Americans."
The shooter seemed beyond suspicion, with a resume fit for a character from a John Wayne movie: son of a Vietnam-era fighter pilot, former elite Army Ranger, sniper team leader, accomplished hunter and marksman, aspiring wilderness guide with a trunk full of awards and a small fan club of admiring young soldiers.
"This kid was a good soldier," said former Louisiana National Guard Maj. Andre Vige, who conducted an administrative inquiry into the shooting. "Good outfit. Good guys. One of the premier combat brigades of the National Guard. They were the standard bearer."
But a yearlong examination by the Sacramento Bee found that the shooter, Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Romero, brought a long, troubled past with him to Iraq, and the Guard unit Vige praised was riddled with misfits, drug users and soldiers with criminal records — at least two of them former mental patients.
At the time that he shot Salihee Romero was under investigation for selling cocaine, military records show.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/v-print/story/44211.html 
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