The decorated former tank company commander's voice remained strong as he recounted his thoughts before he aimed his gun at a wounded, unarmed Iraqi and shot him in the head on May 21, 2004.
''We're trained, conditioned, to keep a distance," said Maynulet, 30, looking down. ''Maybe my mistake was that I projected myself into that Iraqi. I didn't want to be in his state -- if I were, I would hope that someone would put me out of my misery."
Maynulet was leading his 1st Armored Division company on a mission near Kufa, south of Baghdad, when it was alerted that a car thought to be carrying what the Army called a ''high-level target" was headed toward them.
It has been widely reported the company was told radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings against US-led forces in Iraq last year, was believed to be in the car with a driver.
The company chased the vehicle and fired at it. A passenger who was slightly wounded fled and was later apprehended. The driver was dragged from the car with serious head injuries and pronounced untreatable by Maynulet's medic.
In closing arguments yesterday, prosecutor Major John Rothwell said Maynulet ''played God" when he shot the driver, whom the US military has referred to only as an ''unidentified paramilitary member." But relatives named him as Karim Hassan, 36, and said he worked for Sadr.
The jury is expected to deliver a sentence today.
