a top soldier. to be a soldier was a very important thing in a young man's life and to be not just a soldier but to be a good soldier and to be in combat and. that's where you go on. and that's the southerner in me in time of war that's where you belong. i left him as a set. probably due on my. because. i needed to get out of mrs probably would have.

been arbor michigan to work on the harvest and that work i couldn't do i couldn't make money at it so i came back and while i was in jackson i want to live the induction center there and signed up. this is a cotton mill or there were five textile mill sure and i want to for about two months. looking for a job and finally. one of the whole neighborhood around for years. in the cotton mill. i want straight to the army recruiter. i grew up in the trailer park i grew up in

a little small town called pear land texas near galveston i remember sitting on a callous and watching. the first gulf war. two hours ago allied air forces began an attack on military targets in iraq in kuwait and watching it on the television seeing how quick that win and the hoopla afterward and from the liberated be too. awful great to be an american i had felt the we had lost the ghosts of vietnam. i remember sitting there on the cal said night and thinking most of you know you want to go into you know to go into the military. we got married on the thirtieth of december of ninety six the fire. show and i left on january third of nineteen six to six go on

a vietnam so i got spent more on a moment in vietnam all. we wanted from bonked out to bin was where i dare for what they call red tape. you know to get used to the climate and to actually get used to the sounds of war. the first couple of weeks i was terrified every not. and after my first briefing i went back to my bed and i just couldn't sleep i. think i was going to be going to. the course and next day happened. somewhere at about three or four weeks we had an

operation where they had helicopters i was circling waiting to go in this l.z. or landing zone to put the combat assault. and i heard the radio and the power of the one of the red flight said this is red lead were taken and. now i try to relax and i try to forget about it. and it would scar right by this paralyzing kind of fear of knowing that i had to stop and. you have both hands full. as to. you're looking through a clear plexiglas window at the surrounding. flashes and united people are shooting. from that point. i think i realized

that it is possible. that. we were a bunch of thirty guys in a two and a half ton truck put in. place. and we couldn't find the division. we finally found it in the first thing they said to us when we got there are. there was no. being a replacement which is the most god awful curse you can have on a human being. you're going to come that you don't know anybody they don't care about you and they were scared to death you were going to do something stupid lifter it at the wrong time fire at the wrong time anything to attract fire that

would get them killed. by january two thousand and three. i found myself sitting in the kuwaiti desert waiting to invade iraq. i told myself you know hey we're here to fight a war this is it you know this is show time and this is what eleven years of training and you know has accumulated to my main goal was making sure that my men came home alive hell i didn't care about i had to say it but i didn't really care about anybody that was outside of my platoon and. once we crossed into iraq we were roll into these towns from like

a bunch of cowboys shooting the place. we went into the rashid. there was an actual military compounds in a huge military compound we pulled in there was an abrams tank that was parked at one of the entrances. i started asking me what was going on because there were some demonstrators down the road and. i asked him if any of them at any weapons and he said no. and so what do you think the. you know they're going to stage a coup against sister anything like that and he said no they they're just down there said and you know chant and yell and i go behind my home beat and tear open an m.r.e. and all a sudden i hear a gunshot i step out from behind mom b.

. as soon as i step out from behind mommy my marines are discharging their weapons and the demonstrators so on sling my weapon and i pick the the stock up and. pull out of the rifle stock up on my shoulder and i start firing. and i'm hitting i'm hitting the demonstrators no i am. and of course i'm aiming at the head i mean we. center mass but i don't know who called cease fire all i know is it was kind of like simultaneously we all just stopped firing. the lieutenant he comes up to me and he goes what the hell happened. i don't know you tell me sir you're the lieutenant. i said do you know i heard a gunshot that went over our heads and i said did you hear he's heard i say it was

open fire. i don't know. where when we did the reconnaissance and as we're driving by. as we're driving by the bodies i'm looking down at the at the ground and not seeing any any weapons they were wearing traditional. jolliffe bows and. course they were soaked in red blood. now i thought to myself for a split second i said. you know these people didn't have any weapons we just shot at a bunch of the norm. protestors. and then a little voice and then your head goes off in the service well that's war. that's what happens in war.

i just. chalked it up. i really did i chalked it up to you know. how did we know. so when after we arrived and. we didn't know that we had built a base scout a ball these complex of toggles or so would lose people almost daily by sniper fire or at times of mortar fire.

are felt that we had everything go on against us where there was just the viet cong . creatures of nature itself the snakes. the spiders. i don't know the difference myself. it's basically you win battle i know i've heard many people say you can't smell blood but to me that's a lie. you can smell it i remember early on i think it was then april. sixth the sixth we were out in noble woods and. it was people in

a rice feel that we didn't know what they were the ad on the bike pajamas and it saw at. and we had our end and that show up here at that we were there i did everything in black pajamas was the enemy so we opened fire on them. we were able to go and physically look at them and they had no weapons and they looked to be. teenage children. very. cell you have that doubt in your my one while reality hit you you know. what did i kill that i kill innocent kids i was a call that base of course and that's never answered how. it looked. that

experience of being fired if i had to stop. unnerving so i. asked to be transferred to the armed helicopters because they never stopped they shoot rockets and machine guns. i don't think i really thought about what your job was. but. at some point. you you come upon a situation where you see people that you have to show. and you have a machine we call it because it looks like your conscious brain. seeing people move. and seeing. women and children

go into a house and been told that this is an enemy location. you. have to aim at this building and you have to far either rockets from machine guns and if you're far enough away it's still not quite like shooting people. but i think it presents a problem for most people if you think about taking a gun. and shooting some. most people can't. a soldier has to be trying to do it. initially it was pretty tough i tried to. tout that it didn't hit anybody or you only saw the building explode you didn't see the table.

the day i got hit the weather was exactly like this it was. it was there it was foggy was damp it was september in northern france. for done that morning we were to cross the moselle you were on one side of the river and you were being destroyed by artillery shells coming the other way. i was digging a hole. in the dirt because we knew we were going to be attacked by artillery and i was had my shovel in my hand and inside me i was fly. like a huge huge sledgehammer and it hit me and thrown me way into the air and i didn't know it has come back to the ground i went. in and suddenly i fell back to.

put my hand up and i felt a piece of some in my head and then i looked at my hands and i was just scarlet with blood and i looked at my back at my butt and my butt was. if you could see the white fat in this huge hole in my butt i remember i was lying there and. the many came over and he tried to fix me up and he was leaning over me and i watched the tip of his nose disappear a piece of shrapnel cut out the tip of his nose and then the blood from his nose merged with my nose and the next thing i knew i was in a stretcher i still don't honk yet because i was still paralyzed on my right side and then i had the operation on my head and what i still remember i gritted my

teeth is he i didn't have any honesty here and they drilled with a drill to start taking all the stuff out and i can still remember it felt like i had put my head on a railroad track and the train had run on. what i remember is being treated with the most enormous tenderness and. sometime in may of six this was. a burly general my company was out we were like can a pig where we were to be. a cop an age were converging and wipe an enemy out. there was

a bright night you could. see long distances by them all we had been out for quite a while on this patrol and hadn't seen anything. we relaxed. all i want some bad kong stepped out of the bushes. and it's dago going down to see us there that startled me and. he was firing and i didn't how my weapon was but on the die i'd go on my way up iraq. so i managed to get. hand grenades off my belt. tossed a couple grenades. now the to god. then we could see as far as we could see there would be a call that was coming up to our parameter. and we called in for

and our red fire and couldn't get it we called in for permission to return we couldn't get in because my comment was getting over wrong. so welcome on the toll if you just try to find a place and spend the night there. we told the marshy and he was on the one that was kill and one on a bomb crater and we sat there on night. eventually the mechanizing only came in and we loaded the marshy on. his brains actually fell out of hands will we or we will move on now. i still i still could get through. and remember it said in that corridor on

i with. are grown men but it is a it sounded hollow. but it was easier to go back and kill more that's part of what what drove me. it was very day and. sleep. sleep. sleep sleep.

sleep. sleep sleep. sleep sleep. some people i love animals. deer move for sale or whatever whatever suits their fancy. but i can also tell you that there is no other feeling in the world that comes close to hunting another human being. that's what you're trying to do. the drawback to it is the fact that you want to do it again. because you enjoy it. it's almost like a drug and you become addicted to it but after a while like with any like with any addiction. you know

series you're fired and you get that first burst of enjoyment. they don't last so long and the high comes to a load after wears off if felt to me like everything was muddy dark waters feels like swimming in a in a big well we've referred to in the marine corps as a shit hole and. you find yourself. looking forward to the next. mission or for role. you get all right if it's like oh. i don't know why you

do it but it's first kill is. same are you you think about especially. if you have to kill a close quarter is. it up and you know where i killed with. a weapon i. might hate what it was built in our forty's people and i wanted to kill. i felt good at the time when i when i did it bother me if i. didn't get a chance to kill someone it went beyond answering the call of duty and it turned into something i said. that i hate that i had had growing up in the

solve i think it had expanded. because of what was happening in vietnam because so knows and people. i feel i've become an animal i. feel no remorse. i literally saw young men turn into psychopathic killers. but the great thing about the marine corps is the training process that the young men and women go through gives them all the ability to kill at least one time to put that warrior ethos in effect and then once you've done it. then

it's on you. so many things happen in a war that put you at all odds with your sense of right and wrong. i've seen things that would be described as is war crimes. the sergeant who had the ring of beers who. is not a secret i mean he's walking around with a big wiring with human ears pushed through the low been there all hanging on the ring these are people he has cut off their ears to try to get information. we're. shooting civilians. you don't really call it it's not like you're shooting

a scene. it's like. collateral damage. phyllis you would be so much brighter if you knew about sunni from feinstein pressure inside. these five star totty dot com.

so you school just. due to a chilling pitch to it so this moment this whole you communicate. what you trying to say and don't commute to come to mind when. you.

see. the latest headlines of the top week stories here's our team international threat members of two terrorist cells have been arrested on suspicion of planning attacks on russian cities both groups are believed to have links with global terrorist. startling statistics three decades twenty five million deaths and over sixty million infections much talk about of the international aids conference which starts today. kidnap confusion the u.s. media claims that an iranian scientist says he was abducted by american secret services was spying for washing. and drying up record high temperatures in russia causing widespread crop failure forcing desperate farmers to seek state support.