From The Washington Post
.... Army Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, ... has become the infamous guard of Abu Ghraib. But there are other, lesser-known images of him: In 1991, he was a 22-year-old soldier in Saudi Arabia, calling home at all hours to see if his wife was there. In 1992, he was working at a county prison in Pennsylvania with guards who acknowledge beating up prisoners as a means of control. In 1994, he made a fellow prison guard sick by spraying Mace into his coffee. In 1997, he was accused by his wife of threatening to kill her. In 1998, when he was working as a guard in a state prison, he was accused by one inmate of slipping a razor blade into his food. And in 2001, he was accused by his now-ex-wife of grabbing her by the hair, dragging her out of a bedroom and trying to throw her down the stairs. .... From interviews with people who had close contact with Graner at various points in his life, however, a portrait emerges of someone who went from "always smiling, always laughing" to angry by the time he left for Iraq. .... |