veterans who went through the brutality of war caught up in a conflict between their duty and humanity that's up next in our special report. 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. that's where you belong. and that's the southerner in me in time of war that's where you belong. the officer said. probably due on my. because.

i needed to get out of mrs probably would have. been arbor michigan to work on our base 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 a adoption 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 and looking for a job and finally. one of the whole neighborhood around for years said. i want to strike 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 the wind and the hoopla afterward and from the liberated be too. awful great to be an american i had felt that we had lost the ghosts of vietnam. i remember sitting there on a tile said i and think in my eyes of you know you ought to go into you know to go into the military the big. boys got married on the start at the 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 the bomb tower to bin was where i dare for what they call red taishan peter 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 the next day happened. somewhere at about three or four weeks we had an operation helicopter i was circling waiting to go in this. landing zone to put the combat assault. and the radio and the power of the one of the red flight said this is red lead. and. now i try to relax and i try to forget about it. by this paralyzing kind of fear knowing that i have to stop and. you have. to. clear. the. flashes and united people are

shooting. from that point. i think i realized that it is possible to. get 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. there was no. being a replacement which is the most god awful courage. being. you're going to combat you don't know anybody they don't care about you and they were scared to death you were going to do something stupid and lift your head 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 so tough 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 hello to me care about. i had to say it but i didn't really care about anybody that was outside of my platoon. once we crossed

into iraq we were roll into these towns 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. and started asking me what was going on because there were some demonstrators down the road and. i asked him if any of them mad any weapons and he said no. and so why do you think that. 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 my home be. as soon as i step out from behind mom be my marines are discharging their weapons and the demonstrators so on sling my weapon and i put the the stock up and. the butt 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. center mass but i don't know who called cease fire all i know is it was kind of like simultaneously we all just stop 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 the open fart. i don't know. where when we did the reconnaissance and as we're driving by. as we're driving bob the bodies i'm looking down at the at the ground and not seeing any any weapons they were wearing traditional. jaala pose and. of course they were soaked in red with 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 one arm. protesters. and then a little voice and then your head goes off in

a sort of well that's war. that's what happens in war. i just. chalked it up. i really did i chalked it up plus a you know. how did we know. so when after we arrived in coochie we didn't know that we had built a base scout a bald faced complex of toggles i'm so would lose people almost

daily by sniper fire or at times of mortar fire. i felt that we had everything going against us where there was just the viet cong. the creatures of nature itself the snakes face spiders. and i know it's a different smile. its face live you were in battle i know i've heard many people say you can't smell blood but to me that's a lie you you can smell it i remember. early on i think it was in 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 that and we had an hour and in that short period that we were there that everything in black pajamas was in a me 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 are very are. you sell you have that doubt in your my. while reality hit you yell. what did i kill did 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 the rise on irving so i. asked to be transferred to the armed helicopters because they never struck a shoot rockets and machine gun which. i don't think i really thought about what your job was. but. at some point. you come upon a situation where you see people that you have to. and you have a machine we call it down because it looks like

a constant strain. seeing people move. and seeing. women and children go into a house and being told that this is an enemy location. you. have to aim. at this building and you have to far be the rockets from machine guns and if you're far enough away it's still not quite like shoot people. but i think it presents a problem for most people if you think about taking a gun. and shooting since. most people can't. a soldier has to be trying to do it. initially it was pretty tough. to hope 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 it was foggy was damp it was september in northern france. for done that morning we were to cross the moselle 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 that hit me and thrown me way into the air and i didn't

know it as come back to the ground. and then suddenly i fell back. put my hand up and i felt a piece of some in my head and then i looked at my hands and they were 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 off 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 grit 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. neighbor allegiant my company was found out. we were like can a pig where we were to be hit and the cop unaids were converging and

wiping the 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 day a kong stepped out of the bushes. and it's dog over him to see australia and it startled me and. he was firing and i didn't how my weapon was but on the die i brought my way up here off. so i managed to get. hagrid age off my belt. cost a couple grenades. dealt with it but a guy. 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 in direct 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 tollers we 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 at 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 as well we were we were moving in.

i was still a still good pitcher you know and i remember it said in that corridor on i was. a grown man let 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. sleep some people i love animals. deer move or sail 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. and 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. it only lasts for so long and the high comes to a load after wears off it felt to me like everything was just muddy dark waters it was 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 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 that close quarter is. it up and you know where i killed with. weapon i. my he was was building up forty 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 always happen and 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 their warrior ethos in effect and then once you've done it. then it's on you. there's 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.

shooting civilians. you don't really call it it's not like you're shooting a scene. it's like. collateral damage. the. question is that so much as i was about defending i think if you have a really inspiring story is true and you make our western ideas coming straight even democracy in the balance and what model.

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