you blown. and that's the southerner in me in time of war that's where you belong. i had left mississippi. probably due on my junior year because of the anger i had to go it out i needed to get out of necessity or i probably would've said no and. i came up to ben 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 leave the induction center there and signed i believe. i'm going to be in you mean. this is a cotton mill area there were five textile mills and i want to run for about two months and looking for a job and finally. one of the old neighborhood greats had been around for years

had very i get a job in the cotton mill. i went straight to the army recruiter. plan on coming. here and i'm ready to go. by group and trailer park i grew up in a little small town called parent land texas near galveston i remember sitting on the couch 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 reply afterward and from the liberated be too. awful great to be an american i had felt 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 fi so 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 of all. we went from bomb tower to bin was where i dare for what they call red tape here and 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 sleep i. think i was going to be going to. the course next happen. somewhere at about three 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 so. as to. clear. the. flashes and you know that 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 going to have on a human 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 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 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 rasheed. it was an actual military compounds in a huge military compound we pulled in there was an abrams tank that was parked in one of the entrances. and i started asking me what was going on because there was 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 sudden i hear a gunshot i step out from behind mom be. as soon as i step out from behind the mom the ranger discharging their weapons and the demonstrators so on sling my weapon and i put 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 colic simultaneously

and 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 the 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 the weapons they were wearing traditional. jolliffe bows and. 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. bunch of an 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 as a you know. how did we know.

so when after we arrived in coochie we didn't know that we had built a basic out above these complex of toggles time so we would lose people almost daily by sniper fire or at times mortar fire. or felt that we had everything going against us where there was just the viet cong. the creatures of nature itself the snakes they spiders. i don't know the difference my all. it's space and if 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 his saw a hat and we had an hour and in that short period that we were there i did everything in black pajamas was in a mean so we opened fire on them. we were able to go and physically loka them and they had no weapons and they looked to be. teenage children.

very are. so 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 this of course and that's never answered how. it looked like. that experience of being fired if i had to stop. or i was on irving 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 come upon a situation where you see people you have to show. and you have a machine we call it down because it looks like your conscious brain. seeing people move. and seeing. women and children go into a house and being told that this is an enemy location. you. have to i. had 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 shooting people. but i think it 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 so. initially it was pretty tough i tried to. not see or to hope that it didn't hit anybody or the only cell the building exploded didn't see the people. the day i got hit the weather was exactly like this it was cold it was dead it was foggy was damp it was september in northern france. we left for done that morning we were to cross the moselle we 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 michele in my hand and then suddenly i was flying through the air like a huge huge sledgehammer that hit me and thrown me way into the air and i didn't know it has come back to the ground and went up and up and up and then suddenly i fell back. put my hand up and i felt the piece of. some in my hand and then i looked at my hands and my would just scarlet with blood and i looked at my back at my butt and my butt was the you could see the white fat in this huge hole in my but i remember i was lying there and. the medic 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 are not hawk 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 the drill to start taking all the stuff on 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 may. neighborly to know my kompany was flat out. we were like can a pig swear 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 the moment we had been out for quite a while on this patrol and hadn't seen anything so we relaxed. all i want some bad kong stepped out of the bushes. and it's dog over him to see us there that startled me and. he was firing and i didn't how my weapon was but on the die i brought my way up iraq. so i

managed to get. hand grenades off my belt. tossed a couple grenades. dealt with it but our 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 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 as well we were we were moving in. the still a stilted bit surreal and 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.

was very day and. sleep. sleep. sleep sleep. sleep. sleep sleep. sleep. sleep. sleep some people love i love animals. dear sale or whatever whatever suits your 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 it felt to me like everything was muddy dark waters was like swimming you know 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 combat role.

you get all right it's like oh. i don't know why you do it but it's first kill is. same hard you should think about especially. if you have to kill the clothes cordy's. it up and you know where i killed with. 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 and outside of the call of duty 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 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 yours 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.

discovery. communicate with the want to. become free.

and of talk start of action the u.s. senate wraps up a debate on the nuclear treaty with russia leading the way for a final vote expected to take place as soon as this wednesday. reports that the u.s. is planning to expand its afghan campaign with ground raids in neighboring pakistan threatened to strain relations between washington and islamabad. from sealing a multi-billion dollar deals to exploring the ball would film industry report on the second day of president medvedev visit to india. was revealed record profits of tones of credit calls for christmas the business news is in for when.

you're watching r t coming to you live from the russian capital welcome to the program now the final vote on the nuclear arms reduction treaty between moscow and washington is expected in the u.s. senate on wednesday it brings to one and months of debate on capitol hill where the deal faced strong opposition from republicans. has more from washington. the chairman of the foreign relations committee john kerry said they would vote as early as in the afternoon on wednesday he also said he sure the democrats have the sixty seven votes of approval needed to get the trade ratified. this would not have happened without bipartisanship and i'm very grateful to a number of senators i'll talk about.