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Monday, ABC's Martha Raddatz made use of fortuitous feature footage from her reporting at Camp Liberty outside Baghdad to cover the shooting spree at the base's Combat Stress Control Center. Now she returns to her own videotape for the macabre introduction that Col Beth Salisbury made to Cmdr Keith Springle (CBS and NBC called him Charles), a social worker at the center, who turned out to be one of the five slain. "It is in this very office where he likely died," Raddatz related. Springle's specialties were "combat stress, anger management and suicidal tendencies."
All three newscasts had a reporter file an update on the Camp Liberty killings as Sgt John Russell was formally charged with five counts of murder. Russell's family in Texas offered soundbites. CBS' Bob Orr quoted Russell's father (ABC and CBS called him Wilburn, NBC William) as speculating that the sergeant, with 20 years of service (ABC said he was 42 years old, CBS and NBC 44), "snapped, fearing his military career could be ended by a stress diagnosis." NBC's Jim Miklaszewski quoted the father about his son's commanding officers: "They broke him. They told him: 'That is it. You are out.'" Gen Peter Chiarelli offered this response: "We have got to change the culture in the army--and, I think, in society--that seeking help for these problems is not a bad thing. It is exactly what we want folks to do."
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