how can we in shield cope with having inflicted that kind of pain. yes to defenses the first is dark it's the moment it's the opportunity it's the knowing that. probably nothing's going to happen to me the second is familiar i was a soldier following orders. and i believe that's how i dealt with that. everywhere you can find it was on our troops that are that's true but you have any hesitation about killing unarmed i people i definitely have hesitation about killing one of the. that i shoot. i say that i shot. until i realized what was wrong and when you say you shot you mean you shot villagers i'm not going to say whether i sat villagers around in a small statement given during the investigation of the massacre another soldier

recall seeing ten barring villagers while saying i don't want to shoot them i don't want to shoot them but i have to because were ordered to bring canon kong together kinda face called sorrow kong to ask the questions that have tormented him all his life on march sixteenth one thousand nine hundred sixty eight at six am u.s. helicopters landed on the rice fields of our beautiful village mr kong i was here that day back in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight when the helicopters landed . and when the soldiers came they started killing everyone was to kong i was part of the americans that landed here and helicopters and i want to apologize to the people of me i i'm sorry that it happened. i ask myself all the time why did this happen. i don't know.

an angry feeling a rising up in my heart. the u.s. soldiers killed my mother my older sister and my younger brother. how did you feel when you shot into civilians and killed was it hard for you like i say the only thing i can do now is just apologize for it how many people did you kill that morning i don't know. i don't know i don't know. i don't i don't even know if i killed anyone. that's not a reasonable answer your soldiers put all our people together in one place and shot directly at them you said you don't know whether you've killed anyone i cannot accept that i wasn't with that group i was in and outside a village. you stayed back at the edge of our village but my house my family was located at the edge of the village so maybe you came to my house and killed my

relatives. in vietnam we had the tradition that we let bygones be bygones but in our hearts we cannot forget if i didn't care i would have come back and i know words don't heal your heart but. that's that's all i can do now each man is deeply shaken. you should educate your younger generations your children not to do it again and not to make war anywhere in the world. well those are fine words. i wouldn't want war i would stop war today if it was possible. now that i'm older i can see this. but when i came to vietnam i was very young i have never acknowledged. to any great extent that i was it me a lie. but i'm here today to tell you what was done here was wrong.

i can't fix your heart. i can't bring your people back to life. i'm sorry. he says he knows one reason charlie company groups of unarmed villagers the training they got before we came to be almost didn't think it c.b.s. news as people. think keeps a few photos of the party they held when the murder charges were dropped but they had little to celebrate in the years that followed. those soldiers members of the company have not survived self examination. and are free to get out and kill right going out of the factory and on my meter and eternity. so make sure you are not there now when you're sure i want to. thank you for what i'm doing in direct order to shoot and if you know i'm sure. the russian people know front and i know i shot a rabbit. and i went to answer no when i was

a baby and our. first responders were killed in between twenty and twenty for twenty five. person. to could no throats to scalp and. to hear this. idea that. some like for nardo simpson could not live with those memories even medications could not hold them back i'm certain songs are you know. i can't promise that when you come again. because before you came i get out of this rufus so the sun for thirds of. simpson committed suicide in one thousand nine hundred seven. is or a sense of relief that you finally got to confront someone. so long ago.

he tells us he's been a terrible night he does. he wept he was angry he was filled with sorrow he visited the graves of his family and confessed his conflicting feelings standing there murmuring to my father my mother and my brothers and sisters i said that yesterday i met one of our former enemies who killed you but i could not do anything i could not beat him or strike him or kill him because that is against the laws of vietnam qin shi all knows he is not giving kong the answer he needed the why some of his questions the way he wanted to answer because there is always a one. way to answer and i was we were following orders just call it your job make it right no it doesn't make it right in your mind are you a murderer you know. in your heart. no i'm not

a murderer i'm our king shield told us he was eager to return to me lied to set the record straight about his unit me lie was an isolated incident for our company. we didn't do that with every village that we went through he specially wants his grandchildren to understand that they were not evil that bad things happen in war and throughout our days there was defense of. you have me to break down and cry. but at the last moment. this is our crew was boarding a plane to a different destination kid who had to remain in the airport for a later flight did break down and cry and our vietnamese translator who lost a brother in the war went back and hooked. there is

a cycle in war. aging soldiers expressed sorrow regret they apologized to their victims they say never again they say let us raise our children . to love peace not war but their sons and daughters are already engaged in the next the next killing. they're talking anger hate fear they're taught to kill. and they betray their own goodness and they too will hate. and they will say how could we have done this this. should never have happened. and never. is a cycle of war broken. heart of darkness from two thousand and eight a moving and very personal fellow well we're joined now from washington by josh

rushing himself a fifteen year veteran of the u.s. marine corps josh thanks for speaking to us on a rewind can you take us back to that moment in the film when you brought together ken she'll along with one of his victims what was that moment like when ken came he came a belief i remember was like straight from the airport that's my first time to meet him you see it on camera me shaking as as he gets out of the van. we had just planned kind of let's just walk around a bit see what you remember kind of put you back in the place and while doing that kong saw us and came over and started to enquire about you know who killed was and where he was there in vietnam and it all started to unfold before our eyes and this really emotional moment that i would not have set up in such a way. because of the motions were so high but we couldn't quite stop it he

really seemed to struggle though when you were questioning him he struggled answering your questions what do you think was going on through his head at the time i one hundred percent believe that in order for ken to continue to live his life that he had made a very intentional twice to silo what had happened in vietnam he had the memories but there was no way that he was going to engage with the morality of it i just had the sense that he feels like if he started to even a bit he might not be able to control the flood of emotions and guilt and everything else that would come with it and at the time he was only nineteen years old and he was clearly believing that he was just doing this he was following orders so josh let me ask you this as a former soldier yourself how difficult is it when you're actually in the field in your order to do something that you morally disagree with i think. it's easy to sit

back and and judge that situation and think that you would act differently but the reality of it is when you go through boot camp they they really break down who you are and they build you back up into this other thing for me it was this u.s. marine that was my identity and so you had this kind of ultimate trust in your leadership that you're not going to be given orders that are illegal and so of course you follow them then you take that person and put it in a place like vietnam where everything you ever learned about a moral compass seems to be thrown out of the window there and so you don't you lose a sense of what's right and what's wrong in that that kind of environment and yeah you end up following orders but i still think there's that bit of humanity in you that says that this is it right in the court documents we kynge someone testify that they saw him firing into

a crowd of civilians while saying i don't want to do this i don't want to do this so clearly he was struggling with it but the thing about war as we sing young people to fight these wars who don't have the wisdom that we gain as as as older people you know there's a reason there's not a bunch of forty and fifty year olds fighting wars the entire marine corps one hundred seventy two thousand people if you take the average age including all the four star generals in the marine corps the average age is still just over twenty years old that's how many young people at the bottom of that pyramid and now it at my age forty five looking back at a nineteen year old kid that is a child and yet we give them weapons and put them in the most complex situations you can imagine and have a make life and death decisions and i make a side note here that actually no are no survivors the village i mean i wasn't even a meal i was name something else that was the meal i was a misnomer on an american map so that original village named in survive no one really survived to the village that they conned is

a completely different humor. that he was before that happened in that shape who he end up becoming the soldiers that we tried to get to go none of them really survived either the ones who didn't kill themselves there weren't really complete pictures of human beings that they would have wanted to be but those who do survive war and get old enough to realize it's atrocities and how wrong it is it's already too late because the next generation the next generation young kids will the there are already there fighting the next one well what i've done to me a lie i like to think i've done the right thing but. i don't know i will say they were heroes to come out of the lies well i mean i was stopped by an american officer or an officer you thompson who literally lowered his helicopter in between americans who were far machine guns into the crowd of civilians vietnamese and he told his door gunner on the helicopter that if they didn't stop fire the americans to open fire on them and that would've been the only case i've ever known of u.s. troops intentionally firing on each other but that's the level it was was that to

to stop what he witnessed that day thompson was and his crew that i mean they were heroes to come out of that josh rushing thanks for speaking to us rewind and that's it for this week if you want to see a longer version of that interview you can check out the rewind page at al jazeera dot com but for now until next time by. rewind returns can bring your people back to life i'm sorry we've run you updates on the best of al-jazeera documentaries. i was the floods and the like and the other student rewind continues with children of conflict we'd love so peace in the school or especially. children. right here rewind on al-jazeera.

you stand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world. al-jazeera five families fight to survive in twenty first century america i live off my credit cards when i don't make enough money the last couple months it's been minimum balances can only keep their heads above water in a tough economic climate companies have had to lay off thousands of workers if you want to go to school he'll be paying for his classes and books and all of that he can't do that on while he. called. zero. zero zero zero zero. zero zero. zero. zero. zero zero. it's very difficult as a chef

a restaurant or to buy shrimp with the confidence that what you're serving is going to be good seafood by nature is a high risk sometimes for it was raised using production drugs. that are not approved for us the f.d.a. simply isn't testing enough on the imported market to really find all of these violent president takes no one else's no. the u.s. president warns turkey of severe consequences if it carries out a military offensive against kurdish troops in northern syria. hello i'm the star and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. president

both believe the ongoing dispute the region has dragged on too long a call for unity among gulf countries and an end to the blockade of qatar for the sake of regional security. anger and frustration in zimbabwe as the president doubles the price of fuel clocks. on jonah hill in hungry where homelessness is now a criminal offense as the government projects power over the powerless. us president donald trump has threatened to devastate turkey's economy if its forces attack kurdish fighters in syria it's the latest political fallout from the u.s. leaders announcement that he plans to pull american forces out of syria threats came in a tweet in which he said the u.s. still plan to attack i still while leaving syria he said starting the long overdue

pullout from syria while hitting the little remaining isis territorial caliphate hard and for many directions will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms will devastate turkey economically if they hit kurds create twenty mile safe zone his treaty follows the mobilization of the syrian army around men bridge at the request of kurdish y p g forces taki is threatening an imminent offensive views the kurdish group as a danger to its southern border how these are castor has the latest from washington d.c. . trump also warned on twitter that the currents should not provoke turkey but it was the president's words saying that he would devastate turkey economically if that country were to attack the us kurdish y p g allies that have really cop people's attention because turkey is a nato ally and this significantly escalates the rhetoric since relations took

a negative turn between turkey and us last week that's when turkish president race of ert of on refused a meeting with u.s. national security advisor john bolton after that came after bolton had said that the u.s. withdrawal from syria would be contingent on turkey pledging not to attack kurds in syria erdogan called that a serious mistake on the part of bolton turkey views the y. p.g. kurdish militia in syria as terrorists and immediately after trump's tweet on sunday night a spokesperson for word of on took to twitter as well responding that turkey saw no difference between eisel and the y p.g. and evaluating that turkey will continue to fight against all of them well robert pearson is a former u.s. ambassador to turkey and a nonresident scholar with the middle east institute he says statements on twitter have confused the issue further i do very difficult to say what the

impact will be downstream but the impact immediately is going to make the turks extremely angry and they will certainly repeat their engines to attack the kurdish forces in the north east i'm serious so unfortunately i think we. could use the issue even more than it is already had the u.s. is in a very contradictory position right now with mr trump insisting that withdrawal of these troops actually doesn't change the influence or impact of the united states in the region and it's going to make mr pompei us job more difficult as he travels through the region trying to explain how it is that we're withdrawing and also maintaining an aggressive stance in the region as well the pentagon hundred years.

defense minister mattis had done a very good job of trying to keep the turks engaged in very close indeed conversations over months and years to manage the relationship the work of ambassador jim jeffrey was intended to accomplish that same kind of objective i'm afraid this tweet if it's taken seriously in the turks will treat it as if it were serious will just make this the relations more difficult and make the year ahead for both countries extremely extremely difficult i think there is a strategy of personality to be honest with you there's mr trump's strategy there is mr bolton strategy there is mr pompei o a strategy and so far those three don't sound as if they are coordinated and that is the difficulty and so it confuses the allies if he says everybody in the region it confuses the americans that he would get visas supporters of mr

trump's own party so i think that's the difficulty right now we're going to have to see if the turks decide to make them assault that is i will call it. largely symbolic so they can prove that they do it that's one thing if the turks launch a major assault into the region and. as a consequence another conflict another war if you will along their border down would have a major consequence i think in reality that turks problem is no order the united states i think the turks problem is with the russians and the syrians will ask turkey not to do it and i think both those countries are not interested in having turkey. launch a major incursion into syrian territory right now but we'll have to wait a few days to see how that plays out the iranians certainly support damascus and

russia but they are going to remain as they absolute for a crew most of this crisis since late december largely silent well the us secretary of state has arrived in riyadh on the latest leg of his middle east tour micron peo will be holding talks with saudi crown prince mohammed bin sound than they are left for riyadh from cata which has been blockaded by saudi arabia the united arab emirates bahrain and egypt since june twenty seventeen he called on the countries to end their disputes saying it's gone on for far too long. has will. mike bomb paling qatar where the message to the gulf countries and their dispute the west political crisis in decades for the gulf cooperation council president and i both believe the ongoing dispute in the region has dragged on too long and the dispute benefits adversaries and harms our mutual interests the emir of qatar

shaped i mean been hammered out than he greeted bomb peo after discussions with qatar's foreign minister said mohammed been a little fanny both countries say they are keen to consolidate trade and military cooperation that includes expanding the largest u.s. military base in the middle east dade near the capital doha is home to the forward operating base of u.s. central command. and then we have discussed all the issues of interest for our countries regional issues starting with the gulf cooperation council and the peace process in the middle east as well as the reconsolidation in afghanistan as well as other issues such as syria and counterterrorism. landed in qatar from the united arab emirates after visiting egyptian and behave in his flying to sandy arabia which have all imposed their eighteen month long land and sea blockade on qatar

the accused the title funding extremism allegations strongly dismissed by the qatari leaders. america's top diplomat has also visited jordan and is due in amman and kuwait on his middle east tour it's being seen as a time to rally support among key players in the region to counterbalance the growing influence of iran and i don't think that the administration plans for dealing with iran by virtue of trying to organize a larger coalition are going to work simply because most states do not agree with us in our policies canceling the joint comprehensive plan of action that would have prevented iran if implemented from ever attending a nuclear weapon the u.s. is due to host a conference in poland next month to discuss ways to curb iran's activities in the region and ensure middle east stability the u.s.

is keen of building a bridge an alliance to counter what it considers to be a growing iranian influence in the gulf but that may be impossible as long as the diplomatic crisis in the g.c.c. continues. doha al-jazeera senior political analyst milan bashara gave us some insight into what mike pompei or we'll be discussing with mohamed bin soundman and why the u.s. secretary of state's visit is so crucial. in particular he is now secretary of state. but when the gulf crisis first broke he was director of the cia and i'm sure he would be looking and b.s. mohammed missile man in the eyes and would say we know we know what you've done how you manufactured a crisis with qatar and went on to blockaded on the basis of false information and in the process tried to deceive or president meaning thrown in order to take your side against qatar i think it's very clear for secretary perform pale former

director of the cia what exactly went down here just as it is. quite obvious for his successor mrs hasp of the director of the cia today how riyadh or who in riyadh is responsible for the murder of journalist in the saudi consulate in istanbul so all of that knowledge all of the information is available to the secretary of state when he meets his counterparts or when he meets the crown prince and the king of saudi arabia just as he did yesterday by the way when he met the crown prince and i would not be the question is whether he would be using that information the american leverage with the saudis and the him or ickes in order to end those misplaced to say the least reckless policies carried by riyadh and while he's in riyadh is expected to bring up other sensitive

issues many online are hoping that human rights will be among them for him how that has no. well iran and the wars in yemen and syria are expected to be discussed so is the backlash against the murder of saudi journalist jamal khashoggi and this opinion piece in the new york times is attracting not so social media attention the sister of a women's rights activist jane who is currently in a saudi jail gives a detail account of assistance or deal who's calling on pompei or to raise the plight of all activists in saudi jails she describes how sister jane has spent months in prison without being charged with she says she's been beaten water boarded given electric shocks and threatened with rape now to jane was arrested last may along.