this is "nightline." tonight, beating the bullies. world series champ curt shilling knows how to throw a fastball but he was not prepared for what happened when he tweeted about his daughter. how this mvp dad went after the online trolls and the consequences for some of the commenters he exposed. he came from detroit to fight isis all by himself. a christian in northern iraq. how this soldier of christ is now recruiting other americans to join the fight. it seems so simple in the movie. but in real life cinderella's dress required much more than just the flick of a wand. tonight, making a gown fit for a

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lots of line drives and locker room trash talk but nothing prepared curt schilling for the response he got when he tweeted about his 17 year old daughter and what schilling did next has some people calling him an all-star dad. here's gino benny tess. >> reporter: he is a good sport when it comes to trash talking, but when it comes to his daughter he's got a different thought. he got a taste of how cruel online trolls can be when he tweeted this message to his daughter after she was accepted into the university. congrats to gabby schilling who will pitch for the seahawks next year. and with that came a barrage of sexually explitity tweets at her. they alluded to lewd acts and

rape. >> i grew up in a locker room playing sports. i know what it means to say dumb stuff. never in my life have i ever uttered half of the words that these guys were posting in the presence of a. would. and i never will. >> reporter: his daughter gabby eventually got wind of the trolling. >> there were so many comments and they got worse and worse. and people were feeding off of them and they were all negative. >> i thought i'm going to get in my car drive three hours and beat the hell out of a couple guys. then i started to think about it. >> reporter: that's when schilling decided to take matters into his own hands. >> he took screen shots off the tweets and posted them on his blogs, redeveloping theirvealing their identities to his fans and asking, is this okay at any time? one of the people named is somebody who used to work here as a ticket seller for the

yankees. not any more. another tweeter has been suspended from school. >> reporter: twitter the problem directly writing an internal memo we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform, and we've sucked at it for we're going to start particularkicking these people off. schilling is not the only one targeted. in fact it's so commonplace that jimmy kimmel pokes fun at it. >> we call it celebrities read mean tweets. >> reporter: asking celebrities to read aloud tweets about them. >> you were better when you wore the spandex instead of >> reporter: and last month, iggy azalea became the latest to

swear off twitter. she wrote, i file the hatred and pettiness i see online at all times is making me be an angry person. she also revealed her thoughts in an interview last summer. >> so i kind of find it really ironic when i see 12 year olds tweet me and being, like you suck. we have a number one. and i'm like you don't have a number one. your favorite artist does but you're 12. writing this from your mom's computer? >> reporter: iggy can hand off her twitter account to her managers, but for the thousands of students bullied online each day, there's often no place to hide. >> you are so gross. >> you are so pathetic it's so funny. it's like what did i even do? >> reporter: last year "nightline" visited with jamie. >> i'm going to throw a rock at your head when you are

cheerleading. you suck at it anyway you troll. they would tell me to kill myself and cut myself. >> reporter: the harassment caused her grades to plummet and made her paranoid in school. she was left wondering which one of her classmates might be an online tormenter. >> i could be walking next to them. it would be my best friend. she could be planning to do it the next night and i would have no clue. >> reporter: they told us they pro actively scan posts and take down offensive content. we reached out for comment but have not heard back at airtime. >> the world the internet creates is alarmingly like what the brain of a psychopath looks like. >> reporter: paula todd is the author of "extreme mean", and says anonymity contributes to this type of cyber bullying. >> we could be living in the mind-set of a psychopath.

and that means not caring about each other. not seeing each other. getting your laughs at the expense of somebody else or really really hurting somebody. that's how a psychopath feels. >> reporter: it took the intervention of parents and school administrators to stop the bullies. she's a different girl than the one who ran away and attempted suicide. she has a close circle of friends and is even playing a part in her high school musical, but not every teen is as lucky as jamie. >> she was so derespondent and depressed that she attempted to take her life. >> reporter: the attempt was two years ago after key anna a high school cheerleader received harassing posts on the same social media site ask fm. >> they threatened her. called her horrible names. even told her that they would help her kill herself. >> reporter: key ahna survived

the suicide attempt, baugh brain injury left her unable to walk. if signed into law, this make cyber bullying punishable by up to six months in jail. >> it will help other people. >> reporter: 34 states have already enacted laws. >> in most cases, non-engagement is the best tactic to use when confronted by these type of bullies. parents have to look at this and realize they may not be curt schilling. and you want to be cautious. what you don't want to do is incite this to grow into something bigger. >> reporter: for curt schilling, calling out the trolls who attacked his daughter is a small thing. >> i think people look at this situation and are a lot more careful about what they say. nobody should be able to get away with saying things like that to a father about their

daughter. >> anyone. >> reporter: not unless you want the father to strike you out. so should there be stricter laws protecting you and your children from online bullying? you can weigh in on our facebook page and tell us what you think should be done. coming up here on "nightline," how one american, a christian soldier is waging his own holy war against isis. and later, cinderella's lilly james sets the record straight about her tiny waist. was it achieved through special effects? this is my body of proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis from the inside out... with humira. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage and clear skin in many adults. doctors have been prescribing humira for nearly 10 years. >>humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections

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tonight, you're going to meet an american holy warrior. a u.s. army veteran and a devout christian who has made it his personal mission to fight isis in northern iraq. abc's chief foreign correspondent terry moran takes us now within sight of the infamous black flag of the islamic state. >> reporter: you've heard of them. americans and europeans who become jihadis to fight for isis. >> the fighting has just begun. >> reporter: now meet a holy warrior on the other side a u.s. army veteran who's come back to iraq on his own to fight against isis in the name of jesus christ. we traveled across northern iraq to the front lines to meet him. so the next towns over are full of isis. >> yes. and you'll -- >> reporter: how far are they? how far? >> less than 2 kilometers. >> reporter: so about an hour.

he asked that we not use his last name to protect his family. he's 28 years old, and he's been here six months now taking the fight to isis. >> here we are sitting outside the cemetery in this area that is now your home. >> it's beautiful. >> reporter: it is. you could die here. >> we might, but it's peaceful. it's nice. >> reporter: are you prepared to die? >> oh, yes. it's nothing to be afraid of. everyone dies. but i'd rather die doing something for other people and serving god instead of sitting home. >> reporter: why you? >> why not? you know, gee sauce says what you do unto the least of them you do unto me. and i take that very seriously. i take that to heart. >> reporter: so brett's mission to protect iraqi christians yazidis. isis hates them with a grotesque passion, just in the past month slaughtering christians on a

libyan beach abducting more than 200 christians from a syrian village. do they attack much? >> oh, yeah. we have positions. this area frequently gets mortared. >> reporter: so this is home now, a deserted christian village overrun by isis last summer taken back by kurdish troops. the black flag of isis flies from the water tower in the next town. the militia fights alongside. we head up to the high positions that brett and their kurdish peshmerga fighters use to scan the no man's land. >> direct the scope over to the water tower in that town. on the top, you'll see flying very clearly, huge black flags, which are isis flags. see them? >> reporter: yeah, i do. they're out there. >> that's our motivation every day. >> reporter: it's an ideal

position, and the fighters here have used it to launch mortars at isis. and there's this rare glimpse, brett's own video of boots on the ground way up here in northern iraq. members of the u.s.-led coalition launch a raven drone. and then coordinate air strikes or artillery fire on isis positions. >> nice takeoff. >> reporter: but the fight is far from over here. and this position remains precarious. how frequently does this place get mortared or shot out from this position? >> a couple times a week yeah. religiously. and if the weather conditions are bad, more frequently. >> reporter: they like bad weather. >> they love it. it's the thief in the night. >> reporter: you hear a lot of scripture woven into brett's conversation. >> this is from the bible. psalm 23. >> reporter: he wears his faith on his sleeve, literally. and he wears his american combat

fatigues from his first tour in iraq. 2006 and 2007 in the infamous triangle of death, we talked about it in a town behind the front lines. those are pretty intense years. did you see a lot of combat? >> oh, yeah. i seen enough to last me a lifetime. i was blown up by ieds. we were mortared numerous times. you know friends, i lost friends, taken head shots from snipers. you know unfortunately, you know,ive he ive've had to take other peoples' lives. it has a lasting impact, i would say. >> reporter: when he got home he had troubles, a diagnosis of ptsd after suffering severe wounds in an ied attack and a job he didn't love. then brett watched as isis swept across iraq inflicting tremendous suffering especially on the christian and yazidi

communities. and it clicked for him. this was his fight again. >> businesses open. restaurants are open. the church bells ring. >> reporter: and this is the victory then. >> this is the real victory. >> reporter: above this time square, the christian monastery, whose bells have rung for hundreds of years, even as it was besieged by invaders. an apparently endless cycle of violence. what do you say to americans who say we're done with iraq. it's broken. they have to fix it. this isn't our war? >> i say shame on them because i was here myself in 2006 2007. we have a responsibility to help rebuild what we broke. >> reporter: and brett is not alone. has already been joined by about a half-dozen others, and he says they are just the tip of the spear. how many are there like you, americans and others westerners christians who are willing to come and fight with you?

>> there's a lot. >> reporter: how many's a lot? >> right now, i mean, my in box fills up every day. >> reporter: hundreds? >> hundreds hundreds many hundreds. it's overwhelming. >> reporter: but does iraq really need more foreign fighters fired by religious zeal? isis says they're motivated by faith. you say you're motivated by faith. what's the difference? >> they don't know god. if they did, they would know that god would never command you to commit such atrocities. they want to rule. we don't want to rule. we want peace, because we know that god rules. >> reporter: a holy war. and in this fight, a soldier of christ, as brett describes himself, must be the most-hated man on the battlefield for then any who know of him and thirst for his blood. you've seen these video, the beheadings, they burn people alive. the atrocities. are you afraid that might happen

to you if they caught you? >> no. >> reporter: why not? it is very real. >> it is very real. but jesus said be faithful unto death and i will give you the crown of life. >> reporter: willing to walk his faith. so he has returned to the valley of death. i'm terry wait until you hear how many crystals went into cinderella's dress? and the controversy over that tiny waist. the"nightline" brought to you by etrade. setting long term goals. diversifying. dip! you got our attention. we did? of course. you're type e* well, i have been researching retirement strategies.

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dresses have been in the news of late. first there was that pearl-studded number stolen from the actress lupita now the cinderella dress. with just a flick of a wand send rell cinderella's godmother creates the dress. they needed much more than magic to get cinderella ready for that ball. >> i've never spent so long on a costume as this ball gown. >> the dress took 20 minutes to get in and 20 minutes to get out. >> 270 yards of fabric.

three miles of hems and 10,000 swarovski crystals. there's no denying this dress is a true work of art. >> they're all looking at you. >> believe me they're all looking at you. >> and yet, it is generating quite a bit of controversy. some say cinderella's waist looks too tiny suggesting they might have used special effects to make her thinner. one tweelter said what happened to cinderella's waist? >> she says it's actually a corset. >> i have a small waist. and i had a corset pull knee to an inch of my life. >> there's the grasslass >> you won't need a fairy godmother. sacks fifth avenue is coming out

with an interpretation. they might not be as dazzling as the gown but at least they will last past the stroke of midnight. cinderella, coming to you from our parent company disney will be in movie theaters, march 13. tune in to gma first thing in the morning. as always we're online 24/7 at abc news.com. goodnight.

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