Booth mentions that he is a “data dink” who “couldn’t do bull” meaning he was brilliant at the STEM classes but struggled with Humanities based courses. This may suggest that he is on the Asperger spectrum, as humanities subjects often involve “reading between the lines” and grasping the nuances. People with Asperger syndrome are very adept at figuring out systems, but suck at reading human social cues. This explains why he lasted this long at the Academy - he figured out their system of military discipline and routine fairly easily. But his lack of social skills was also noticed, which was why he wasn’t given a “stripe” command position, and wasn’t assigned any junior mids to mentor. This was also why he fixated on Julie - according to the system, they were made for each other. But he failed to catch the social cues from Julie that indicated her desire for just a one night stand.
Fridge Horror
Hall’s warning about the Marine Corps wising up to Booth’s psychopathic tendencies and drumming him out aside, Booth would have become a truly terrifying villain had his initial “career plan” come to fruition. Booth wasn’t just looking to become an infantry officer - he was going to go Force Recon - the Corps special operations capable elite force. And he’d acquired a “taste” for hunting cops after killing NCIS agent Bagger Thompson. Imagine a special forces trained serial killer preying on policemen!
