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 this is probably one of the land. i came up to ben arbor michigan to work on the harvest and 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 the induction center there and signed i believe. august p. and you see me. this is a cotton mill area there were five textile mills sure 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 should 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 to. a group in israel for i grew up in a little small town called apparently in 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 and seeing how quick the women and the reply afterwards i am 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 i and think in my eyes of you know you want to go into you know to go into the military. be doing

. we got married on the thirtieth of december of ninety six the fire 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 all. we wanted from bonked out to ben 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. 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 or four weeks we had an operation where they had helicopters i was circling waiting to go in this. 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. this to.

clear. the surrounding. 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 i remember that. 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 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 the hell out of 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 been like a bunch of cowboys shooting the place. we went into the rashid. there was an actual military compounds and 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 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 my home be. as soon as i step out from behind the mom 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. 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 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. 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. bunch of one arm. protesters.

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 i'll be honest with you i chalked it up. i really did i chalked it up. you know. how did we know. so on after we arrived in coochie we didn't know that we had built

a basic out above these complex of toggles time so would lose people almost daily by sniper fire or at times of 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 the spiders. and i know it's a different smile. it's space that 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 hat 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 and. 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. so you have that doubt in your my.

while reality. you know. what did i kill innocent kids i was a call that and that's never answered how. it looked. to me. that experience should be fired if i had to stop. unnerving so i. asked to be transferred to the armed helicopters because they never stop 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 because it looks like your conscious brain thanks to 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 shooting 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. initially it was pretty tough.

to hope that it didn't hit anybody or he only saw the building explode you didn't see the people. 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 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 sledgehammer that hit me and thrown me way into the air and i didn't know if i was come back to the ground and. then suddenly i fell back to. put my hand up and i felt a piece of. saltman my head and then i looked at my hands and i would 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 and my but i remember i was lying there and. the medic came over and he started fixed 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 way. neighborly jim my company was flat 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 bad 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 i got. then we could

see as far as we could see there would be a call that was coming up to our parameter. we called in for and direct fire and couldn't get it we called and for permission to return we couldn't get in because my comment was getting over wrong. so welcome on the told to 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 i remember it said in that corridor on i was. aggro on them 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. was very day and.

sleep. sleep. sleep sleep. sleep. sleep sleep. sleep. sleep. some people i love animals. deer move to 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. 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 ship pool and. you find yourself. looking forward to the next. mission or for a combat role. you

get all right if it's like oh. i don't know why he 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 would build 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 i threw in a 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. as 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 his 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.

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market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser reports. this is r t tonight moscow proposed to ratify the new strategic arms reduction treaty with washington already approved by the u.s. senate the deal praised by both sides is proof of a new level of trust. peace on the edge north korea says it's ready to unleash a sacred war on the south al due to its nuclear deterrent angered bustles massive going to three drills one across the border. living with leprosy russians in a remote village feel the battle is no longer with the disease but with the stigma which society imposes on.

you watching r t the international broadcaster from moscow our top story with me kevin owen at one am moscow time presidents medvedev and i have discussed the new start nuclear arms cuts treaty by telephone after u.s. senate approved approval remove the last major hurdle to the deals eventual ratification russian lawmakers are poised to say yes after studying aspects of the vote in washington which include additional provisions outside the treaty itself both presidents said the senate decision as cemented the year of efforts to improve relations he's following the story on both sides of the atlantic with a gun if you can in washington and i have a bennett in moscow. we could see russia's ratification of this new treaty as soon as tomorrow actually because both chambers of parliament the state duma the lower chamber and you have a chamber the federal council over.