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Article snippet: At the start of his Air Force career, Devin P. Kelley was picked for a demanding and selective intelligence analyst school. He walked into his first Monday of class with a crisp blue uniform, shined shoes, and for perhaps the first time in years, with hope. It didn’t last. Two years later, he found himself on the run, in a bleak El Paso bus station at midnight trying to catch the first Greyhound back home after failing out of school, being charged with assault and escaping from a psychiatric hospital. As he waited in jean shorts and a hooded sweatshirt, the ticket in his hand was proof he had once again failed. For Mr. Kelley, who last Sunday opened fire on a rural Texas church, killing 26 people, the Air Force could have been a turning point — a source of discipline and direction that he had not embraced in a troubled childhood. But military records and interviews with fellow airmen show that despite repeated chances, his career fell apart under the weight of his depression and rage, at a time when his mind was churning with half-laid plans to kill his superiors. After only a few months in the service, Mr. Kelley slid back into a long decline that left a wreckage of broken relationships, criminal convictions and eventually bloodshed. “The Air Force tried to give him chances but he was just problem after problem after problem,” said Jessika Edwards, a former Air Force staff sergeant who worked with Mr. Kelley in 2011, near the end of his career. “He was a dude on... Link to the full article to read more