Attorneys for a disgruntled Army Reserve soldier who fatally shot his supervisor after his vacation was denied say his fasting to meet stringent military weight guidelines left him in a trancelike state. (This courtroom sketch shows Army Reserve Sgt. Rashad Valmont during military hearing Monday, Aug. 30, 2010 at Fort McPherson, Ga. Attorney William Cassara, not shown, said Valmont was dehydrated, exhausted and delirious when he burst into Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado’s office in nearby Fort Gillem in June and shot him six times. (AP Photo/Richard Miller) (Richard Miller – AP))

The Washington Post has this report.

NDTV.com has this report:

Army revises training to deal with unfit recruits This is the Army’s new physical-training program, which has been rolled out this year at its five basic training posts that handle 145,000 recruits a year. Nearly a decade in the making, its official goal is to reduce injuries and better prepare soldiers for the rigors of combat in rough terrain like Afghanistan. But as much as anything, the program was created to help address one of the most pressing issues facing the military today: overweight and unfit recruits.

U.S. Army officials have charged a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserves, a St. Croix native, with the premeditated murder of his supervisor, who was shot multiple times last week at Fort Gillem in Georgia, where the two men were stationed. . . .

A pretrial confinement hearing held Friday determined Valmont will remain in pretrial confinement.

Military officials have charged Staff Sgt. Rashad Valmont with murder in the fatal shooting of Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado at Fort Gillem, U.S. Army spokeswoman Maj. Lenora Hutchinson told the AJC on Tuesday.

The report then goes on to say that:

The charge of premeditated murder was recommended Tuesday by the U.S. Army’s criminal investigations command . . .

So apparently the CID investigation is “complete” (for all that means to those experienced in dealing with CID).

The military has released the name of the man allegedly shot to death by a fellow reservist at Fort Gillem.

An earlier release said that the name of the suspect would not be released until there were charges.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that:

The Army reservist gunned down by a fellow soldier at Fort Gillem spent 29 years in the military, his family told the AJC Saturday night. Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado, 47, died from multiple gunshot wounds Thursday afternoon in building 941 at the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Forest Park. The married father of three was a New York native who lived in Stockbridge.

The New York Post quotes MSG Mercado’s wife:

“Pedro was a wonderful person, if you got to meet Pedro, you were truly blessed,” his distraught wife, Kimberly Mercado, told The Post. “He was all about work and family.”

The victim of Thursday’s U.S. Army Reserve post shooting and his alleged killer both apparently worked together, Army officials said Friday. Both men were full-time Army Guard reserve soldiers assigned to the Army Medical Professional Management Command, spokeswoman Maj. Lenora Hutchinson told the AJC. It’s unclear whether they both were on-duty and working in the office building near the southeast corner of Fort Gillem when the shooting took place, but the alleged shooter was said to be in military uniform when he later turned himself in to police in Lake City, just south of the base. While one Army reservist died from multiple gunshot wounds Thursday evening, the other remains in military custody at a holding facility located somewhere on Fort Gillem, authorities told the AJC.