tonight. we'll have more next time. time. been connected before. it's a new approach to journalism. this is an opportunity for americans to learn something. we need to know what's going on around the world. we need to know what's going on in our back yard and i think al jazeera does just that. >> as the world marks 70 years since d-day the u.s. and russia try to warm frosty relations. high profile journalist gets high in colorado on edible marijuana. raising questions about its dangers. eyewitness identification, top secret cover on some of the

phish's major cases. i'm antonio mora. welcome to "consider this." here's more on what's ahead. [ bugel ] >> world leaders and veterans gathering in france to mark the 70th anniversary of the normandy invasion. >> these men waged war so we might know peace, they sacrificed so we might be free. >> an unexpected meeting from president obama and vladimir putin. >> they discussed the crisis in ukraine. >> today on this momentous occasion. >> maureen dowd got really hide. >> legalization of pot, she tried a pot candy bar. >> it did not go very well. >> could the anniversary of a turning point in world war ii mark the turning point of one of

the worst crises of the berlin wall? 70th anniversary of d day, more than 160,000 allied troops stormed five beaches in normandy. , opening the western front against adolph hitler. president obama greeted veterans of the d day bald that killed 2799 american soldiers. the president praised the men for their sacrifice and tied their service to another generation. >> this 911, they answered another call they said, i will go. they too chose to serve a cause that's greater than self. many knew they would be sent in harm's way. >> moves were underway to try to end the crisis in ukraine. president obama had a short and formal meeting with russian

president vladimir putin. after meeting with other leaders. and putin had a meeting with petro poroshenko. a meeting that putin's spokesman said, a positive step, a very humble one but it is positive. let's go to the u.s. military cemetery near omaha beach, the scene of d day's bloodiest battle. mike viqueria is there. mike it must have been a tremendously emotional day. let's talk about this meeting between president obama and president putin. we have seen video of them ton sidelines. how did this happen? we layered that president obama all but ignored putin at various times earlier in the day. >> there was one photo earlier in the day, family photos, one family that was very dysfunctional. it was evident obama and putin weren't paying attention to one

another. it was seemingly intentional. a vine from the host french government, six or seven clip of, looped clip of video of president obama and vladimir putin and it really was they call it a pull-aside, standing up against the wall and starting a discussion obviously very informal, obviously no formal agenda there. this comes after weeks the white house swore there would be no kind of formal meeting. in some ways it was borne out. positive things came out of it of course chiefly that they said they would work towards some sort of cease fire in eastern ukraine. couple that with the meeting with petro poroshenko. a day of positive steps, no question about it antonio and it

came as a surprise. it's at least good to see them talking cordially. the meeting between poroshenko and putin, we heard the russian take on it. has there been any feedback from the white house on those discussion he? >> they also view that as a positive sign. obviously they were not at the table but petro poroshenko has been in close contact with the united states. as a matter of fact, vice president joe biden heads to kyiv on saturday to witness the inauguration. he brings a delegation with him. a day ever ironies. d day, the day these leaders make a step towards burying the hatchet. president obama spent the week trying to build up a unified g-7 force against russia. behind the iron curtain under the thumb of moscow for many

years now a member of nato, poland, and to try to bring a unified front against putin and then culminating in this talk with putin, informal as it is. >> what is next for obama? >> bhowm i obama -- obama is wheels up to washington. a lot of these discussions in wales in september antonio. >> al jazeera correspondent mike viqueria, reporting from hallowed ground at omaha beach. thank you mike. white tentative peace talks in normandy, claimed to have downed a an aircraft that is described as either an ukrainian intelligence plane, or a plane

carrying intelligence workers. fighting at a bother crossing at ment isk. whamentmetanivka. >> we layer the cry of triumph, saying it was brought down. we see a photograph of the pilot and co-pilot parachuting out, before that plane was hit by a mismissile. that's why the pilots got out as soon as they knew and saw the

missile was aimed at them. according to the ukraine government, it was carrying no other supplies in it just the two pilots. just near slovyansk, by the same fighters who brought down a military helicopter only a week ago. that's when i went inside the city. >> you were inside the city of slovyansk too and that's when the fighting seems to be really terrible on friday. the government says they killed 300 pro-russian separatists. the separatists say the loss was much smaller. >> the president of ukraine is

inaugurated on saturday. he deliberated, petro poroshenko, has targeted slovyansk, i've been inside it. while we were there, there were mortars coming in, there were surrounding troops of the ukrainian government launching mortars in the air. we got through the roadblocks, we got to a maternity hospital there, that had also been shelled by ukrainian army mortars. so civilians and babies and women with newborn babies are being caught in this conflict. and i saw the separatists fighters in the city. they are huge not only from the little industrial town itself with about 130,000 population but there are also fighters from chechnya, they were well armed well prepared and they clearly have sophisticated weaponry and they are using it. >> we have seen video of

slovyansk showing empty stores and armed soldiers at checkpoints. talking about checkpoints, we saw another brutal fight for control posts, you were in the middle, and it got actually fairly scary for you. >> quarters came under attack in luhansk, that's in addition to the border crossing that also came under attack from a column of volunteers coming in from russia. what's happened as a result of that is that the ukrainian government no longer has eyes or ears on a large stretch of the russian border. it's poor enough anyway, but the fact that their headquarters in luhansk has been overrun by separatist fighters, i was only there yesterday, emergence there is a huge section of the border, the border with russia where nobody knows what's happening. that is a vital flaw in the strategy here, the ukrainian

government must defend its borders, that is open for any resupply and volunteer fighters they want to get in, any sophisticated weaponry they want to get in. this is the plain problem with petro poroshenko, even with 15 minute conversation with presidents vladimir putin, how are they going to drawback from what is happening? who is really in control? that's the real problem with this so-called first step on the peace part here. >> that's an important question, who is in control. we'll see what this diplomatic dance in france is, english prime minister david cameron and president obama are demanding the border assess to be porous. david chater thank you. joined by washington, d.c. bby ambassador kurt voelker.

ambassador good to have you back. president obama seemed to be snubbing president putin before they finally met somewhat informally and had a little bit of time to speak. according to a senior administration official it was something that they expected. how important is it that they were at least able to have that small talk on friday? >> well, you know i think that it doesn't boil down to whether they met or whether they didn't meet. it is the actions that russia is taking and the actions that russia believes united states and europe are taking or not taking as the case may be. we've seen words from putin before about pulling troops back from the border, we've seen words about supporting ukraine but in the end we continue to see russian regulars on the ground. i don't think the discussions that president obama and president putin had are going to

change anything on the ground. we have got to get those actions and push back for the russians to take those actions. >> putin did tell president obama that deescalation meant that russia had to recognize petro poroshenko as ukraine's legitimate leader. now they say russia is sending an ambassador to kyiv. has there been progress? >> not as yet, as lega little aa week ago they are still saying yanukovych is legitimate. what about recognizing petro poroshenko, that is one step, but what about everything else, what about the weapons that are in ukraine, that russia is fueling and funding? far far advanced of russia's

encroachment into ukraine where it was a few months ago. >> the white house said putin and poroshenko discussed a cease fire but the details seemed vague. we just had a detail from david chater showing that not only are they not backing down but it's getting worse. >> they deny that they have anything to do with the separatists in ukraine that are fighting. what russia is agreeing to in a assescease fire, they'll agree o cease what, if russia stops that and pulls back from that, then you'd see a change. but as it is, russia is in complete public denial about this. >> the white house agrees with you, says that putin could stop

if he wanted to. but on so many cities in ukraine, are,. >> i don't think policy the separatist in donetske, moving with uniforms, arms, organize local groups, i think russia is very much behind this. i think what it wants to do is create a de facto separation of these territories from ukrainian government control and then play out a legal process over time as to what happens. they have referenda, they seek independence from russia and those things have the veneer of public process even though it's not case. >> before going south in ukraine did the president handle this meeting with putin effectively?

would it have been better to at this point just have gotten together and had a real meeting, formal meeting, maybe a meeting that included other leaders, possibly german chancellor geecialg whangela merkel who spe putin frequently, she speaks russian, he speaks german. >> he doesn't see anyone pushing back to stop him. i think what obama maybe would have been better off doing was using that g-7 meeting they just had not to warn that gee, there might be further sanctions if russia keeps going but to put in place very tough sanctions right now that would cause putin to want to lift them and then it would require some change in russian behavior to get those liftedas owned to russia continuing as it is now.

>> you were a form he ambassador to ukraine. >> it's difficult that's the work that needs to be done. i think sitting down with putin when he is not taking seriously any response from the west is not going to achieve very much. i think sitting down with merkel and hollande, that's the work that ought to be moving forward, that's where we need to lean in. >> in the meantime, a lot of people are dying and suffering in eastern ukraine. ambassador, good to have you on the show. >> thanks antonio. >> and now to other stories happening around the world. we begin in afghanistan, where abdalla abdalla, the front runner in the nation's presidential election just survived a suicide bomb attack at a campaign rally. six people were killed including abdalla's bodyguard. abdalla reassured his supporters

and his enemies that he will continue his campaign. >> translator: the enemies of afghanistan failed in their plot today but unfortunately we have lost a number of our countrymen. the response to today's attack is going to the ballot boxes and we will continue our election campaigns as normal. >> in the u.s. a copy of hillary clinton's book, hard choices, has been leaked. one of the revelations is she disagreed with president obama over the war in syria. overruled by obama is arming the force against bashar al-assad. >> we end with a look at, jeff's bomb sniffing dog sena, became available for doops after completing her term of service.

with the help of the nonprofit group mission canine rescue she was brought back from afghanistan. after years of protecting marines, saving countless lives from ieds, her only concern is getting to know her sisters. eyewitness testimony, why are so many innocent people going to prison? we show you tests you might fail. also, the incredible edible world of marijuana. a reporter's frightening experience. what do you think? join the conversation @ajconsiderthis and on our facebook and google plus pages. >> i'm joe berlinger this is the system i'd like to think of this show as a watch dog about the system... to make sure justice is

being served. with our personal liberties taken away from us, it better be done the right way. is justice really for all? if i told you that a free ten-second test could mean less waiting for things like security backups and file downloads you'd take that test, right? well, what are you waiting for? you could literally be done with the test by now. now you could have done it twice.

this is awkward. check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. trwith secure wifie for your business. it also comes with public wifi for your customers. not so with internet from the phone company. i would email the phone company to inquire as to why they have shortchanged these customers. but that would require wifi. switch to comcast business internet and get two wifi networks included. comcast business built for business. >> mistaken eyewitness

oifertions are sending down -- identifications are sending countless people to prison. outdated police procedures are often contributed to terrible miscarriages of justice. >> when eyewitness cases are overturned, 40% of the time the witnesses who got it wrong were members of a different race. >> what went round in my case, they had a hispanic man, remembered seeing a black guy. cross racial, long haircut, middle age, medium height. how many black men are you describing? you are describing a majority of the men in america. >> problems go fire beyond race. christopher scott served nearly 13 years based on this false i.d. before he was released last year. chris is working to free others

who suffered the same fate. dr. jennifer dysert is an eyewitness researcher. the system airs sun at 9:00. chris, based on an eyewitness identification, you were absolutely stunned when all of a sudden you were arrested, and all those years in prison you kept claiming your innocence. did you lose hope? >> i didn't lose hope. a person gave me a million in one chance to try to make it. to help other individuals in my position. >> you sought out help. you were eventually freed when someone else stepped forward and said, he was part of the robbery and identified the shooter. the house of renewed hope. what you're trying to do is help

people who were unjustifiedly convicted. >> takes another year in 2012, and it's just a personal mission i was on since i've got out to try ohelp individuals that couldn't help theirself because i'm actually a guy that was in the position that needed help. there really wasn't too many people there so i knew it was my duty to get out and try to help other guys. >> it's a very important mission what he's doing because when you look at the statistics, reportedly more than 70% of people who are exonerated from dna are people who have been identified improperly by eyewitness testimony. you do some fascinating work at john jay college. classroom of students as you're seeing here and you brought in one teacher leaves and then someone else comes in.

takes the laptop, has a brief conversation with the students. let's see what happens. >> what i can remember, i think he was wearing a blue collar under his black sweater. >> white collar, tall. >> grayish hair. >> brown hair. >> and blue jeans. >> black pants, brown shoes. >> he was a little bit over medium build. >> sort of heavy. >> i don't remember his facial features but his eyes are gray. >> when you think about it most of these answer he are pretty vague. in fact they could be describing just about any middle aged white man in america. >> this guy walks in the classroom. it should be easy, you think it would be easy, for them to identify. this confusion is common. >> they knew they were there for an experiment. they didn't know they were there for eyewitness misidentification. not unusual things happening.

but what we see with those participants are things we see with real eyewitness identification. >> brings back the movie 12 angry men. you also do a penny test. >> yes do i. >> you show people a series of pennys. describe what refnl refntion r t has. >> multiple choice test they pick one. but the trick of the test is actually that the real penny is not there. but what we know is that witnesses and people in general really want to pick, they really want to choose. and it's the same thing that happens when law enforcement calls up a witness and says hey,

you know, we've got some things in your case, can i show you some pictures? >> they show six pictures at a time instead of individual pictures. >> the individual believes that their job is to find it, just like with the penny. individuals make choices by picking up the one that's the best. >> chris, your case has led to changes at the dallas police department. what have they done to fiction your case? >> they can't bring the person that the crime was committed against and walk them up to you, and said this is person that actually committed the crime. that's how i got committed. walking the lady up to me and saying, there is the person who killed your husband, and she said yes. she never saw me a day before in my life. that's how i goth -- got

exonerated. >> signal who the person is, who they think the person should eyewitness identify. people should watch this episode because it's really fascinated. christopher com scott, dr. jennifer dysert, a pleasure to have you with us. the system, on al jazeera america. new york times columnist, has caused quite a stir. maureen dowd wrote an op ed piece about a candy bar laced with marijuana, she ate too much and thought she'd died. dowd's story is putting the national spotlight under growing concerns about the safety of edible forms of marijuana. joining us from colorado, matt

brown, he worked with maureen dowd whether she went to colorado to research the marijuana industry, a visit that led to her column. two deaths have been somewhat linked to marijuana, and growing number of cases of children and adults who have gotten sick by edible marijuana. is it a danger compared to smoking pot? >> very similar danger and we need to be clear that we're not talking about the sort of overdose death risk danger like you'd see with alcohol. somebody getting so drunk that they just die. what we see are people who are not familiar with this product, particularly some of the edible products and don't take appropriate precautions in their own use as they goin experiment and then have some sort of unwanted side effects and in some cases don't know how to handle that. emergency room in particular are

probably more often people having a same response of not being aware of what's going on and not being comfortable, being more proactive rather than a life or death situation. >> if you do read dowd's column it's pretty frightening. she said she felt like she had died after eating too much. she was hallucinating. not moving too much. >> she did it does sound like have a i have -- a bad night, one very bad night. and thankfully her really bad night didn't have a risk of actual death but it sounds like it was certainly a scary enough experience that certainly for maureen and anybody else who have heard this story, will take the appropriate precaution. you need to use the appropriate precaution and approach this with responsibility as an adult and -- >> yes. >> how about the drug industry, marijuana industry itself, what kind of responsibility does it

have? it does seem that maureen dowd didn't seem to be putting the industry down but should labels be better? should there be better information when somebody buys an edible? >> uh-huh. colorado already has the most sophisticated labeling and the industry has been proactive going for five years now. lab testing could scientifically tell you how many milligrams of thc is in a product. people see numbers on a product and try to equate that with proofing of alcohol. 75 or ten milligrams of a particular product may have one response in one person, five or ten milligrams of another product may have a difference response, or 500 milligrams of that product may not have any effect on someone who does smoke the product. how do we put more context to

the number of milligrams of thc in a product? thankfully, episodes happened to her. and people will take even more precautions when they begin to experiment with these products, when they visit or those who live in colorado go to the store for the first time. >> she may be doing colorado a favor with this column. she says i take responsibility about not knowing enough on what i was doing, i was focused more on the fun than the risks. i'm probably like other people descending on denver. it is probably at this point too easy to make a mistakes, especially eating a candy bar, as it's easier to eat more of it as opposed to smoking a joint. >> there's more there and it affects the body differently. when you smoke a joints, you will feel the effects

immediately. worst case scenario, you can fall asleep on the couch. when a person feels it, there is a massive amount of thc coming behind it for that person's body. in that sense there is very much a responsibility. it's important to remember colorado is the focus of the story because colorado leads the country in this discussion. this is the fourth year in a row that our legislature that is discussed at length, what needs to be done on the part of the consumer to make sure that there's an appropriate amount of personal responsibility and again that mindfulness that a serving size with an infused product of marijuana is something you do need to take carefully and there may be other serving sizes that you ignore but this is one you need to take your time. i think when it comes to the tourists in particular, maureen dowd was here fob for such a short period of time, coming in on deadline, she had to squeeze

a huge amount of experience in a short period of time, much like tourists do over a weekend. >> she raises interesting questions then. as you ask say it's going to be a learning process, hopefully a quick learning process. there are reports of kids having access to the edibles arounds whether there's a dictate of driving, you wouldn't have wanted maureen dowd driving in that ction. a lot of questions raised. matt brown, good to have you with us. hope you'll be back as we see this continue to dwof in colorado. thanks. >> thank you very much. >> the stream hosts a very interesting series, on the episode of global politics on the field. the top cia agent that ran

charlie wilson's war. also gauging the wealth of billion airs by how much real estate they could buy. turns out bill gates could purchase one of the biggest cities in america with cash left to spare. 70 years after d day we relive the battle of normandy. only two people are going to be on this beach, the dead and those about to die. die.

>> spies make a habit of keeping secret. from fictional tv stations like home land and the proliferation of nonfiction cia memoirs. a new book from a 32 year vets ran of cia who served as a spy himself and the cia's top spy

master, shows a unique perspective. involved in the agent's biggest successes and failures. the 1980s, the 1973 coup in chile, the iran contr contra sc. the author of good hunting, an american spy master's story. jack, good to see you. conventionaconvention you are 6a small guy. >> i notice you had a picture of me in 1970, long hair and mustache and american hustle pants. now, the only thing i can say in my defense of those pants, you couldn't see the color, they were yellow.

it doesn't matter whether you're tall or short, it's that you're going to carry something out in a way that people are looking at you. it's about magic, where you find those points in time that nobody is watching you. >> that's not easy to find. >> lot of hard work, traij, trade--- training, it's call trade-craft. you're trained in it and practice it. >> flies in the facing of conventional wisdom, you would think that spy craft and clandestine services would be more important in the correlated war but you think it's more important today. >> it's fairly consistent having the need for high quality information. the part that there's always been a lot of tension even inside the cia is the role of the action part where you influence foreign governments, where you get involved in paramilitary or propaganda.

that's part i think as we pull back in afghanistan, we've pulled back already in iraq, we're still left with a world that's going to have a great deal of instability and our interest at stake. and in that environment i think we're going ohave to increase the amount of covert activity that we'll have to engage in. >> and you're advocating that at a time when the cia has taken some pretty big hits, especially what's happened with torture in the aftermath of 9/11 and with drones, the consequences of our operations with drones. on there you're split. on torture you don't follow the company line. you disagree with torture. >> i just don't think it's right. i think it it's effective, i just don't think it represents our best traditions. on the drones, i was here on 9/11 in the middle of that white clouds. i know how we all felt

afterwards. how is this powerful country with the best armed forces in the world in are history how do we deal with terrorists on a small scale that can wreak such havoc. there was conversation about asymmetrical warfare, if you are in a hut and you're a terrorist you don't know if you you're going to be sitting there. >> should it be part of the debate? >> i have my own view of it, in my view, the military should have predominance, where there shouldn't be intelligence on the ground, the cia should be in control. >> in chile a very difficult time when socialist salvador allende was in power, there was a coup a successful one in 1973,

you say the u.s. was not involved. in fact you were the one who notified president nixon and the leaders in washington that the coup was going to happen. >> in 1970 the cia wasn't, they were told to do it anyway. right after that fiasco, the white house took a different position, do not plot with the military, do not plot a coup with them. that remained constant until allende was overthrown. all this has been fully documented. we were in there. but when you look at what really happened, i would say allende fell from his own weight. the military did its own thing, we found out the records will show, we only found out three

days before that. >> let's move forward another decade and the beginnings of what's happened in afghanistan. you were one of the people in charge of implementing what was in the movie charlie wilson's war, arming the muja hadin to get the soviets out of there. in the long run, what happened, that was the beginning of osama bin laden. >> afghanistan today, driving the russians out represents what i consider good covert action, mission accomplished, drove the russians out. charlie, it wasn't charlie's war, he was a great contributor. but when you look at it, the question was, should we have stayed behind, should we have supported the muja hadin longer in that time frame?

charlie and i thought you should. but as i thought bit over the years i think i was wrong, just flat wrong. i think it was time to leave. so when people point the finger today, if we had only stayed, it wouldn't have happened. i don't think that's true. the lessons that are necessary to apply as we pull outer of afghanistan, we need to look at what happened when the russians left. >> talking about hollywood and its for trails of the cia, that's one thing you're pretty clear about. you don't like a lot of what hollywood does and the whole thing of portraying these constant rogue cia agents. >> it took me years to either watch a movie and i've read almost nothing of what ian fleming wrote. but to be totally honest, who doesn't -- if you look like me you sure as heck would like to look like sean co connery, righ

the fact that it's an influencing ant important part, and when you look at the movie james bond is patriotic. so if you pull back, cia and its practitioners actually benefit from it. pretty 76thed, at the end of the day, they know whul hollywood-ize -- when you hollywood-ize something its blown out of proportion and they can deal with it so i'm not so critical. >> the book has certainly a lot more than we can talk about today. in fact you trained with aldridge aimes, one of the biggest spies in cia history, and you talk about edward snowden in interesting terms in an article you wrote rently in politico, so it's a lot of fascinating things we brought up. thank you for coming.

>> thank you for having me antonio. >> d day, once hear the story of the men of the big red one. it's rumored that walmart is so wealth, they could buy, something from our data dive next. the game's really really grown. >> gaining popularity. >> people are crazy for it. >> is now the time for u.s. soccer? >> anything is possible. i believe that this u.s. team, we can beat anybody. >> the stream, tomorrow 5:30 eastern. only on al jazeera america.

>> today's data dive buys into incredible wealth. red fin nanlzs, forbes billion airs and figures what cities they could buy. that is buy, in the world. bill gates, could buy every home in the city of boston p red fin looked at all listed sales of single family homes town houses in the city to estimate a total value then they cross referenced those numbers with the net worth of the richest americans. the results are eye-popping. altogether, the waltons who own the walmart chain, could buy seattle, washington, and orlando, orlando would be pock change. former mayor michael

bloomberg could buy all the residential real estate in anaheim, california for about $31 billion. he couldn't add in disneyland which is in town but he could buy tickets for a quarter of the people who visit every year. jeff bezos is rich enough to buy the city of napa. you can't buy the wine and drink it too. the northern california city of bridgeville became the first town the be sold on ebay. credit the winning bidder, bought the town for $2 million but when they saw it, they gave it back. then kim basinger bought most of brazelton.

bought it to turn it into a tourist center. but five years layered she declared bankruptcy. declared bankruptcy. i'm john siegenthaler. d day remembered. 70 years later, the president pays tribute to the soldiers who storm normandy. one of the best on broadway, my conversation with tony award winning director susan stroman after this.

the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america. >> friday marks the 70th anniversary of the allied invacation of western europe. d day, allied forces began to push the germans back across france. john mcmanus, if you book, the dead and those about to die, d day, the big red one at omaha beach recreates the courageous and harrowing assault on omaha

beech by the first e--- beach by the first infantry division. general bradley insisted they kept fighting. if only the first division had been involved. >> general brand thought of the first division as the first team. one that could be a handful while off the line but one that had a lot of experience assaulting and taking hostile beaches. so when it came to preparing and planning for this vast enterprise, this most important of all invasions there was no question in bradley's mind he had to have the first division. and more importantly than that he had to have the first division for what was the toughest part of the mission, taking omaha beach. >> if the big red one was so

important, why then has so many other players on that day gotten more attention? you know we see saving private ryan which did not focus on the big red one. it seems like it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. >> omaha beach is a vast battle. five mile long beach, crescent shaped, heavily defended. a lot of our fixation as historians is going to the western part of the beach. in saving private ryan. not overlooked but overshadowed, and what has happened is the first historians who cover the aftermath of d day and interviewed the survivors did primarily focus on the right side, 600 pages of accounts on

this and 83 pages of of the big red 1 and the first division. followed that paper trail. >> as you talk about what happened on that day, that just horribly brutal day you bring up that there were really real -- there were big issues with planning about how the soldiers got bogged down on the beach. >> yes. the plan of course is elaborate but human beings planned the invasion. loading down the soldiers with way too much stuff we load our soldiers. weapons and equilibrium equipment, that's way too much. they're wet they're tired they're seasick they get ashore and they're not prepared to fight because they're so overloaded. there's all sorts of planning

problems with preinvasion bombardment. there are oversights as to how many germans are at omaha beach and which units. it kind of goes on and on. >> the title comes from what a commander told soldiers on the beach. two are on the beach the dead and those about to die. >> george taylor, who commanded the 16th assault unit, and one of the things i found for my research on the book, taylor was thinking about this speech, well before d day. he had written that sort of line in a memo. he is almost obsessed with this notion and i felt that phrase really sums up what omaha beach was all about and what ultimately was going to lead to success. taylor is one of the people who is sort of unsung in the long

reach of omaha beach but one of the major people that makes a real difference that morning. >> as you were saying, first division was widely seen as one of the best in the army. general dwight d. eisenhower called them his pretorian guard. >> first division was a regular unit. which meant that it had a lot of professional soldiers, a lot of hard core guys who had quite a bit of experience, quite a bit of know-how in terms of dealing with combat and how to lead other soldiers. so you had a nice kind of bone structure around which to flesh out the division with draftees and replacement and new volunteers in the wake of pearl harbor. so the first division by d-day is a mixture of really jaded and cynical and heavily combat -- experience guys who have fought in the mediterranean and the new guys, who tried to live up to

the the esprit de cowrps. corps. >> one of the many stories you tell in the book was about bernard freedenberg, who ended up having to decide who could live and who to die. he used some powerful words, it was a decision that only god should make, but where was god? i don't think he was on omaha beach that morning. >> right. his experience was emblematic of a lot of corpsmen on the beach. these medics are circulating around the water line, where

generally the dragging the wounded towards the enemy rather than away, of course, and they're disprilt tryin desperaty trying to cave lives, ultimately having to decide who lives and who dice. you can see why combat trauma tends to be very heavy among medics, freedenberg is an example. >> one review of your book said, it reminds us that freedom is not free. the book the dead and those about to die, d day and the big red one at omaha beach. john freeden. thank you. >> harnessing the trillion dollar spending power of children for a good cause.

and who decides what foods may be on your plate? the show may be over but the conversation continues on @ajconsiderthis. we'll see you next sometime. ime. >> hi owner. this is al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. 11 in the east, eight in the west. you're watching the only live newscast at this hour. [ bugel ] >> forever grateful on the 70th anniversary of d day. president obama and the world leaders honor the heroes who change the covers history. bank of marijuana, the first for colorado's booming pot business