Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, named as the suspect who allegedly went on a rampage, killing 16 Afghan civilians, was remembered by his neighbors in Lake Tapp, Wash., as a family man and "good guy," but news of a criminal record has surfaced and his wife's blog posts reveal a man frustrated with not being promoted. 
 
 Between the 38-year-old's deployments, he had scattered trouble at home, including a criminal record that includes a misdemeanor arrest for assaulting a girlfriend in 2002 that led to 20 hours of court-ordered anger management, and a report of a drunk driving arrest in 2005 for which he wasn't charged. 
 
 His record also includes a hit-and-run in 2008. Witnesses saw a bleeding man in a military-style uniform with a shaved head running into the woods, where the police found him. Bales said he fell asleep at the wheel, and paid about $1,000 in fines and restitution, according to The Associated Press. The case was dismissed. 
 
 Bales' wife, Karilyn Bales, a public relations and marketing manager, wrote on her blog in March of last year that her husband was very disappointed about not getting promoted to E-7, sergeant first class. 
 
 "Bob didn't get a promotion and is very disappointed, after all the sacrifices he has made for his love of country. But I am also relieved. We can finally move on to the next phase of our lives," she wrote. 
 
 The Bales' house was recently listed for sale, and his wife wrote that they hope to move closer to family in the Midwest. 
 
 He Was 'One of the Best Soldiers I Ever Worked With' 
 
 Neighbors painted a picture of the career soldier as a family man who spoke little about his deployments. 
 
 "I just can't believe Bob's the guy who did this," neighbor Paul Wohlberg told the Associated Press. "A good guy got put in the wrong place at the wrong time." 
 
 Kassie Holland, a neighbor, told the Associated Press that she would see Bales playing with his daughter Quincy, 4, and son Bobby, 3. 
 
 "My reaction is that I'm shocked," she said. "I can't believe it was him. There were no signs. ... He always had a good attitude about being in the service. He was never really angry about it. When I heard him talk, he said, it seemed like, 'Yeah, that's my job. That's what I do.' He never expressed a lot of emotion toward it." 
 
 Bales' platoon leader in Iraq described him to the Washington Post as an exemplary soldier who "saved many a life." 
 
 "Bales is still, hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with," Army Capt. Chris Alexander , 28, told the newspaper. 
 
 Bales remains locked up today in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he is being housed in a private cell away from other inmates. 
 
 Charges are expected soon against the career soldier, who was flown out of Afghanistan and arrived at the Army prison Friday night. 
 
 Bales is accused of breaking into several Afghan homes in the middle of the night last Sunday and killing 16 civilians, mostly women and children. He could face the death penalty if found guilty. 
 
 Pentagon officials said that Bales' being brought back to the U.S. does not necessarily mean that his military court proceedings will be held in the U.S., holding out the possibility that they could be held in Afghanistan. The Afghan government is demanding that Bales be tried in Afghanistan. 
 
 Details of Bales' military record have also emerged and they depict a soldier who has seen intense combat and lost part of a foot. 
 
 Bales, who enlisted shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks, was first deployed in November 2003 when his unit spent a year in Mosul, Iraq. 
 
 In June 2006, he and his unit were sent back to Iraq and their year-long deployment was given a three-month extension until September 2007. During that time, he saw duty in Mosul in the north, Bagdad when the city was pressed by militants, and then Baquba, where his unit took major casualties. 
 
 His final Iraq deployment was from September 2009 to September 2010 in Diyala province, which was also a hotbed of insurgent activity. 
 
 In December 2011, he was ordered to Afghanistan. 
 
 Bales' alleged murderous rage stood in stark contrast to what he said after a fierce battle in Zarqa, Iraq, in 2007. 
 
 "I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then, afterward, we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us," he told Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian. 
 
 "I think that's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that," Bales said at the time. 
 
 John Henry Browne, Bales' lawyer in Seattle, told The Associated Press Thursday that the soldier had witnessed his friend's leg blown off the day before the massacre. 
 
 Bales reportedly spent his entire 11-year career at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state and lived not too far from the base. Originally from the Midwest, he was deployed with the Second Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division in December. 
 
 Browne said that he was highly decorated and had once been nominated for a Bronze Star though he did not receive it. He also lost part of a foot because of a combat injury. 
 
 "He's never said anything antagonistic about Muslims. He's in general very mild-mannered," Browne told the AP. 
 
 Bales reportedly left Camp Belambay -- where he was stationed to protect Special Operation Forces creating local militias -- in the middle of the night, wearing night-vision goggles, according to a source. The shooting occurred at 3 a.m. in three houses in two villages in the Panjway district of southern Kandahar province. 
 
 In the first village, more than a mile south of the base, he allegedly killed four people in the first house. In the second house, he allegedly killed 11 family members -- four girls, four boys and three adults. 
 
 According to a member of the Afghan investigation team and ABC News' interviews, he then walked back to another village past his base and killed one more person. He reportedly returned to the base on his own and turned himself in calmly. 
 
 An official told ABC News that the soldier had suffered a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the past, either from hitting his head on the hatch of a vehicle or in a car accident. He reportedly went through the advanced TBI treatment at Fort Lewis and was deemed to be fine. 
 
 He also underwent mental health screening necessary to become a sniper and passed in 2008. He had routine behavioral health screening after that and was cleared, the official said. 
 
 When the soldier returned from his last deployment in Iraq he had difficulty reintegrating, including marital problems, the source told ABC News. But officials concluded that he had worked through those issues before deploying to Afghanistan. 
 
 On Thursday, Browne said that Bales' marriage was "fabulous." 
 
 Afghan political leaders have called for Bales to be tried publicly in Afghan courts, but U.S. military officials said the case will be handled in U.S. military courts. A U.S. military official said Afghan officials were made aware of Bales' transfer out of Afghanistan before it occurred. 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this story. ||||| Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A Taliban commander expressed skepticism that one soldier carried out a massacre last week that left 16 Afghan civilians dead, and anger that the suspect subsequently was flown out of Afghanistan. 
 
 "We don't think that one American was involved," the Taliban official told CNN, refusing to give his name or be otherwise identified. "The foreigners and the puppet regime (in Afghanistan) are blind to the truth of what happened here. 
 
 "But if this was the act of one soldier, we want this soldier to be prosecuted in Afghanistan, and according to Islamic law. The Afghans should prosecute him." 
 
 Stunned friends recall suspect's good deeds 
 
 The commander also explained that the Islamic fundamentalist group had halted talks with U.S. officials. It had set up an office in Qatar on January 3 to reach "an understanding with the international community" and discuss specific issues with American officials. 
 
 In a statement Thursday, the Taliban said work from their Qatar office was being suspended, a decision made due to what the group called U.S. officials' "alternating and ever-changing position." Preliminary talks had already begun over the exchange of prisoners, the Taliban said. 
 
 The Taliban commander said the burning of Qurans in February by U.S. troops and issues surrounding the U.S. possibly transferring five Taliban members from the U.S. prison facility in Guantanamo Bay to Qatar were the main reasons for the decision. 
 
 "The peace talks with the Americans were limited to discuss the prisoner deal. And those promises were not kept by the Americans," he said. 
 
 The Taliban official had harsh words for the U.S. regarding the March 11 rampage in two villages in the district of Panjwai in Kandahar province, though he did not tie that directly with the group's decision to suspend talks. 
 
 A resident of one of the villages, Ali Ahmed, described to CNN how what he and some others claimed were multiple attackers had come into a home before dawn that morning, asked his uncle where the Taliban were and then shot him dead. 
 
 "Finally, they came to this room and martyred all the children," Ahmed said from the home, claiming a 2-month-old child was among the nine children killed. Later, he said some of the dead were piled in a room and set on fire. 
 
 U.S. officials have said that one man, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, left his outpost and singlehandedly carried out the massacre in two villages. 
 
 He is currently at the U.S. military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, pending trial, having flown back to the United States last week. 
 
 The incident, as well as the fact the suspect isn't set to be tried in Afghanistan where the crime occurred, has infuriated many Afghans and heightened tensions between that nation and the United States. 
 
 After the shooting spree, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that relations between the two countries were at the "end of the rope." The incident came weeks after U.S. troops burned Qurans at a coalition base in Afghanistan, sparking outrage and fierce protests across the central Asian nation. 
 
 Yet Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States insisted Sunday that his nation trusts the U.S. investigation into the rampage. 
 
 "We do trust the United States and we do know how important this relationship is, and we are working as a partner to resolve all the issues as a partner," Ambassador Eklil Hakimi told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. 
 
 Hakimi said both the shooting rampage and Quran burning are tragic, but he acknowledged they come after more than 10 years of a U.S. presence in his country that has claimed the lives of more than 1,700 U.S. troops, according to the official U.S. military count. 
 
 "We do understand sacrifices that our allies, especially our main allies, the United States -- that they have suffered quite a lot, those men in uniform, those women in uniform," Hakimi said. "Those are the things that we are grateful (for) and we are appreciating that." 
 
 U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta promised Karzai a full investigation and said the United States will bring the shooter to justice. 
 
 "He accepted that and hoped that it could be a transparent process so that the Afghanistan people would see that the U.S. is indeed going to not only prosecute this individual but ensure he's held accountable," Panetta said after meeting Karzai on Wednesday. 
 
 "I also indicated to him that we take these kinds of incidents seriously. We need to look at just exactly was involved here that caused this terrible crime," Panetta said. "Was it related to combat stress? Other factors? We need to pay attention to those so it won't happen again." 
 
 The shooting prompted Karzai to demand that foreign troops pull back from their outposts in Afghan villages and confine themselves to military bases. In his meeting with Panetta, Karzai also demanded that the transfer of security responsibilities from Washington to Kabul be accelerated. 
 
 Family friends who knew Bales, the shooting spree suspect, growing up in the Cincinnati suburb of Norwood, Ohio, described him as "quiet" and "very nice." The Army said that he enlisted in the military two months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 
 
 Bales went on to serve four combat tours, the last one to Afghanistan beginning in January. And in between them, he settled down with his wife and their two young children near Joint Base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Washington. 
 
 The family owned a townhouse in a modest, middle-class neighborhood in Auburn, about 30 minutes from the base, before purchasing a house in 2006 for $280,000 near Lake Tapps, according to realty records. 
 
 Tim Burgess, whose Auburn townhouse shared a wall with that of the Bales family, on Sunday described his former neighbor as "a really good guy (who) just wanted to serve." 
 
 "I know he just wanted to go back and serve overseas, that was his goal," Burgess recalled from their conversations, while noting the two hadn't spoken in about five years. 
 
 Robert Baggett, president of the Riverpark Homeowners Association, said Sunday that -- after the Bales family moved to Lake Tapps -- there were occasionally renters in the residence. 
 
 But several years ago, their townhouse was foreclosed upon, according to Baggett and Burgess. The Bales also didn't pay homeowners association fees for "at least three or four years," said Baggett. 
 
 "We don't know what happened," Baggett said of the Bales and their Auburn property, which Sunday had a notice that read "Do Not Occupy" on its front door. 
 
 One of Bales' lawyers, John Henry Browne, said upon arriving at the Kansas City, Missouri, airport -- where he'd come so he can drive to meet with his client -- that all the reports surrounding Bales have been a "shock" to those who know him as a "very mild mannered person and a great person." 
 
 Browne added that the entire situation was unique and challenging. 
 
 "You couldn't imagine a more difficult case, I don't think," the lawyer said. "This case has political ramifications, it has legal ramifications, it has social ramifications." 
 
 CNN's Sara Sidner in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Paul Vercammen in Auburn, Washington, contributed to this report. ||||| With formal charges looming against his client within days, the lawyer for an Army sergeant suspected in the horrific nighttime slaughter of 16 Afghan villagers flew to Kansas and was preparing for his first face-to-face meeting with the 10-year veteran. 
 
 A white van, believed to be transporting Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, leaves Kansas City International Airport Friday, March 16, 2012, in Kansas City, Mo. Bales is is accused of gunning down 16 Afghan women... (Associated Press) 
 
 The home of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, is shown, Friday, March 16, 2012, in Lake Tapps, Wash. Bales has not yet been charged. He was being flown... (Associated Press) 
 
 Boxes and a U.S. flag sit Friday, March 16, 2012, in Lake Tapps, Wash., on the front porch of the home of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians. (AP Photo/Ted... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this Aug. 23, 2011 Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System photo, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, right, participates in an exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. Five days... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sunday, March 11, 2012 file photo, men stand next to blood stains and charred remains inside a home where witnesses say Afghans were killed by a U.S. soldier in Panjwai, Kandahar province... (Associated Press) 
 
 John Henry Browne of Seattle said he planned to meet Monday with Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is being held in an isolated cell at Fort Leavenworth's military prison. 
 
 Bales, 38, hasn't been charged in the March 11 shootings, which have endangered relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan and threaten to upend U.S. policy over the decade-old war. But formal charges are expected to be filed within a week and if the case goes to court the trial will be held in the United States, said a legal expert with the U.S. military familiar with the investigation. 
 
 That expert said charges were still being decided and that the location for any trial had not yet been determined. If the suspect is brought to trial, it is possible that Afghan witnesses and victims would be flown to the United States to participate, he said. 
 
 Military lawyers say once attorneys involved in the initial investigation of an alleged crime involving a service member have what they believe to be a solid understanding of what happened and are satisfied with the evidence collected, they draft charges and present them to a commander. That person then makes a judgment on whether there is probable cause to believe that an offense was committed and that the accused committed it. 
 
 That commander then "prefers" the charges to a convening authority, who typically is the commander of the brigade to which the accused is assigned but could be of higher rank. 
 
 Bales' defense team said in a statement late Saturday that "it is too early to determine what factors may have played into this incident and the defense team looks forward to reviewing the evidence, examining all of Sergeant Bales' medical and personnel records, and interviewing witnesses." 
 
 The lawyers' statement also said Bales' family was "stunned in the face of this tragedy, but they stand behind the man they know as a devoted husband, father and dedicated member of the armed services." 
 
 Military officials have said that Bales, after drinking on a southern Afghanistan base, crept away March 11 to two slumbering villages overnight, shooting his victims and setting many of them on fire. Nine of the 16 killed were children and 11 belonged to one family. 
 
 Court records and interviews in recent days have revealed that Bales had a string of commendations for good conduct after four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he also faced a number of troubles in recent years: a Florida investment job went sour, his Seattle-area home was condemned as he struggled to make payments on another, and he failed to get a recent promotion. 
 
 Legal troubles included charges that he assaulted a girlfriend and, in a hit-and run accident, ran bleeding in military clothes into the woods, court records show. He told police he fell asleep at the wheel and paid a fine to get the charges dismissed, the records show. 
 
 Rebecca Steed, spokeswoman at Fort Leavenworth, said Bales would be able to meet with Browne in what is described as a privileged visit. Along with medical visits, such meetings are generally more private than others conducted in the prison. 
 
 Browne, 65, has represented clients ranging from serial killer Ted Bundy to Colton Harris-Moore, known as the "Barefoot Bandit." He has said he has handled only three or four military cases. Bales will also have at least one military lawyer. 
 
 Tall and stylish, Browne has been a prominent figure in Washington state legal circles since the 1970s, known equally for his zeal in representing his clients and his flair before television cameras. 
 
 _____ 
 
 Also contributing were Associated Press writers Manuel Valdes in Seattle, John Milburn in Topeka, Kan., and Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Afghanistan. ||||| Image caption A photo showing Sgt Robert Bales (left) has been removed from a military website 
 
 The US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians in their homes remembers "very little" of the incident, his lawyer has said. 
 
 John Henry Browne made the comments after he met Staff Sgt Robert Bales at a US army prison for the first time. 
 
 The killings have undermined US relations with Kabul and led to calls for Nato to speed up their planned withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. 
 
 Sgt Bales, 38, is being held in solitary confinement pending charges. 
 
 He arrived at the military detention centre in Kansas on Friday after being flown from Kuwait, the US Army said. Formal charges are expected within the week. 
 
 Sgt Bales is the only known suspect in the killings - despite repeated Afghan assertions that more than one American was involved. 
 
 His wife, Karilyn, has issued a statement expressing her condolences to the victims and their families and saying what reportedly took place is "completely out of character of the man I know and admire". 
 
 'Emotional' meeting 
 
 Mr Browne met his client at Fort Leavenworth on Monday to begin preparing his defence. 
 
 He told the Associated Press that Sgt Bales had "some memory of some things that happened" in the early hours of 11 March. 
 
 Staff Sgt Robert Bales Aged 38 
 
 Two children 
 
 Enlisted in 2001 
 
 Three previous tours to Iraq 
 
 Injured twice 
 
 "He has some memories of before the incident and he has some memories of after the incident. In between, very little," Mr Browne said. 
 
 Pressed on whether Sgt Bales could remember anything about the shooting, Mr Browne said, "No," but added: "I haven't gotten that far with him yet." 
 
 Mr Browne was more unequivocal earlier,telling CBS NewsSgt Bales "doesn't have memory" of the alleged massacre. 
 
 He also played down Sgt Bales' consumption of alcohol on the nights of the killings, saying he had had a "couple of sips of something but he didn't have a full drink". 
 
 Earlier, Mr Browne described his meeting with his client as "emotional". 
 
 "What's going on on the ground in Afghanistan, you read about it, I read about it, but it's totally different when you hear about it from somebody who's been there," Mr Browne told AP. 
 
 He suggested his client was not fit to serve because of injuries he had suffered on previous tours of duty. 
 
 Image caption Sgt Bales and his wife were reportedly having trouble making their mortgage payments 
 
 Mr Browne has represented a number of high-profile clients including serial killer Ted Bundy and a teenage thief known as the Barefoot Bandit. 
 
 In her media statement, Karilyn Bales said she too wanted to know what happened and "know how this could be". 
 
 She said the Afghan victims and their families "are all in my prayers, as is my husband, who I love very much". 
 
 Bales' 'troubles' 
 
 The sergeant's past brushes with the law included charges for assault and fleeing a car accident. 
 
 Sgt Bales paid fines in both cases and had to attend anger management classes for the assault, after which the charges were dropped. 
 
 He and his wife had reportedly struggled to make the payments on two properties they had bought. 
 
 It has now also emerged that - along with another man and his company - Sgt Bales owed a reported $1.5m (£950,000) from an arbitration ruling nearly a decade ago which found him guilty of securities fraud while he was working as a stockbroker. 
 
 The Pentagon has previously said that Sgt Bales could face charges that carry a possible death penalty. 
 
 Such a trial could take years, contrasting with Afghan demands for swift and decisive justice. 
 
 The Taliban called off peace talks in the wake of the deadly rampage, in which men, women and children were shot and killed at close range. ||||| Pentagon officials on Friday identified the soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan villagers as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a trained Army sniper who had served three tours in Iraq and suffered war wounds. 
 
 Bales, a 38-year-old married father of two who enlisted in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was flown Friday to a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to await possible criminal charges, according to a U.S. Army statement. 
 
 Bales is accused of leaving his base in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province; shooting 16 people, including nine children; and attempting to burn their bodies before returning to the base and turning himself in. He could face the death penalty, military officials have said. 
 
 The incident has sparked significant backlash in Afghanistan, straining already difficult relations with the United States over conduct of the war there. 
 
 The suspect’s name had been a closely kept secret since he allegedly surrendered to authorities after the shootings on Sunday morning. Officials confirmed his name after news organizations began reporting it Friday evening. 
 
 Bales’s attorney, John Henry Browne, has said that Bales did not want to deploy to Afghanistan in December, had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his deployments and had suffered a head injury during a deployment in Iraq. Bales also had seen one of his fellow soldiers lose his leg in an explosion hours before he allegedly went on a rampage, Browne told reporters. 
 
 Army Capt. Chris Alexander, 28, who was Bales’s platoon leader during a deployment in Iraq, said in an interview Friday night that he “saved many a life” by never letting his guard down during patrols. 
 
 “Bales is still, hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with,” Alexander said. “There has to be very severe [post-traumatic stress disorder] involved in this. I just don’t want him seen as some psychopath, because he is not.” 
 
 Bales, a member of the 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, lived with his wife and young children in Lake Tapps, Wash., about a 20-minute drive east of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma. He attended high school in a Cleveland suburb but spent the past several years in Washington or on military deployments overseas. 
 
 His family was moved onto the base in recent days for their protection, officials have said. 
 
 The neighborhood where Bales lived includes many military families, according to neighbors. The family lived in a two-story beige house with a cedar-shake roof and a small front porch. 
 
 In 2007, Bales was part of a long, bloody battle in southern Iraq in which 250 enemy fighters were killed and 81 were wounded while members of Bales’s unit suffered no casualties, according to an Army account that described the battle as “apocalyptic.” 
 
 “I’ve never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day,” Bales was quoted as saying. “We discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us. I think that’s the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm’s way like that.” 
 
 Bales said of the battle that “the cool part about this was World War II-style. You dug in. Guys were out there digging a fighting position in the ground.” 
 
 He also described an intense firefight as his unit tried to secure a downed helicopter: “It was like a match lit up. It looked like a toy with a candle lit underneath it.” 
 
 He received more than a dozen medals and badges for his service overseas and for good conduct, according to the Army statement. But in her blog last year, his wife, Karilyn, said he was disappointed that he was not promoted to sergeant first class. 
 
 In a post dated March 25, she noted “all of the work Bob has done and all the sacrifices he has made for his love of his country, family and friends.” 
 
 “I am sad and disappointed too,” she wrote, “but I am also relieved, we can finally move on to the next phase of our lives.” 
 
 That meant a different duty station, hopefully in Germany, Italy or Hawaii, she wrote. 
 
 In previous blog posts she wrote of how difficult it was for her while Bales was deployed during the pregnancy of her first child but how excited he was to learn that their first born was going to be a girl. “Our baby girl will most definitely be Daddy’s Little Girl!” she wrote. 
 
 Government officials, in some news reports, have said Bales may have been drinking on the night of the shootings and was agitated by marital problems at home. Browne disputed that, saying the reports were “very offensive.” The couple had financial problems but nothing severe, he said, adding that they had “a very strong marriage.” 
 
 Family members of Bales could not be reached for comment Friday night. 
 
 While living outside Tacoma, Bales had brushes with the law, according to court records and news accounts. In 2002, he was charged with misdemeanor criminal assault, according to the Tacoma News Tribune. The charge was dismissed after he paid a $300 fine and completed an anger management assessment, the newspaper reported. 
 
 Then in 2008, witnesses told police they saw him running from a single-car rollover, the newspaper reported. 
 
 Witnesses told the News Tribune they saw a “white man wearing military style uniform, shaved head and bleeding” running into the woods. Bales later told a police officer that he had fallen asleep while driving. Bales received a 12-month deferred sentence and paid a fine of $250 and the charges were dismissed, according to the report. 
 
 With limited facts about the motive in Sunday’s shooting, some veterans groups and mental health advocates fear that the image being stitched together from the loose assemblage of facts is of a crazy veteran gone wild. 
 
 “The main concern is that we’ll be back where we started with a stigma that all veterans that return are broken in some way,” said Ryan Gallucci, deputy director of national legislative service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. 
 
 On Friday, Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, which is in charge of training and equipping soldiers for war, said the Army has done a “very, very good job of sustaining” troops through multiple combat deployments.” He said the decision of whether to send soldiers on multiple deployments are made “on a case-by-case basis.” 
 
 “There is not a cookie-cutter solution or rule that says this guy can handle two or three [tours],” he said. “It’s about taking care of soldiers.” 
 
 Some fear that the stereotype of veterans as unstable at best and violent at worst will be resurrected. Many veterans spoke out against a headline about the shootings in the New York Daily News this week that read, “Sergeant Psycho.” 
 
 Tom Tarantino, the deputy policy director at Iraq and Afghanistan of America, said that without the facts, “you have this wired mind-set in the public consciousness and immediately everyone goes to the ‘Sergeant Psycho’ thing.” 
 
 Many veterans advocates have dismissed simple theories about what set off the killings. 
 
 “There are plenty of service members with stress and trauma who are drinking and self-medicating every day to deal with their conditions, and they don’t go out and gun down a bunch of women and children,” said Josh Renschler, the director of Men of Valor, a service member support group. 
 
 He argued that while bouts of rage can be caused by traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder, they alone are not sufficient to explain killing of this magnitude. 
 
 Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist and author who was awarded a MacArthur “genius grant” for his work with veterans, wondered about the soldier’s relationship with the Special Operations forces — which can be very standoffish to outsiders — that he was attached to at a remote outpost in Afghanistan. “To me this is a presumptive case of leadership failure,” he said. “Whoever was directly responsible for this soldier did not do his job in the sense of getting to know him.” 
 
 Flaherty reported from Tacoma. Staff writers Craig Whitlock, Peter Finn and William Branigin, staff researchers Julie Tate, Lucy Shackleford and Madonna Leibling, and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
– Taliban leaders are insisting that US Staff Sergeant Robert Bales didn't act alone when he allegedly massacred 16 Afghan civilians as they slept. "We don't think that one American was involved," a Taliban official told CNN, without offering further details. "The foreigners and the puppet regime" in Afghanistan "are blind to the truth of what happened here." But whatever the case, Bales should be "prosecuted in Afghanistan, and according to Islamic law," he added. "The Afghans should prosecute him." The comments followed a move by the Taliban last week to cut off talks with the US because of American officials' "ever-changing position," said a spokesman. Meanwhile, more details continue to emerge about Bales, including his and his family's difficulty with repeated war tour deployments, and an arrest record that includes an assault on a girlfriend, and a hit-and-run in 2008. In the accident, a bloodied Bales was seen running into a nearby woods, reports ABC News. Bales said he fell asleep at the wheel, and paid about $1,000 in fines and restitution, according to AP. The case was dismissed. Bales' platoon leader told the Washington Post that Bales was "one of the best soldiers I have every worked with," and that he saved "many a life." Bales' attorney hopes to meet in Kansas today with his client at the Fort Leavenworth military prison.