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. probably do on my. because. i needed to get out of most of the water that. ben harbor

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 leave the 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. 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 bear 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 the wind and the reply afterwards i am 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 the cal said night and thinking most of you know you ought to go into you know to go into the military the big. boys got married on the thirtieth of december ninety six the fire show and i left on january third of nineteen sixty six go on a vietnam so i got spend more on

a moment in vietnam all. we wanted from bonked out to ben was where a day or for what they call the orientation period 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 i just couldn't sleep i. think i was going to be going to. the course the 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 all i could hear in the background was. now to try to relax and i try to forget about it. and it would scan right by this paralyzing kind of fear of knowing that i have to stop and. you have both hands full. as to. how. you're looking through a clear plexiglas window at 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. there was no. being a replacement which is the most god awful curse you can 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 been like a bunch of cowboys shooting the place.

we went into the rashid. there was an actual military compounds and 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 why do you think that. you know they're going to stage a coup against a store anything like that and he said no they they're just down their set 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 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 may be 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 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 bob the bodies i'm looking down at the at the ground and not seeing any any weapons they were wearing traditional. jalapenos 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 the service 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 basic out above these complex of toggles. so we 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 the spiders. i don't know it's a different smile. its face lift you when babel 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. six the sixth we were out in noble woods and. it was people in a rice feel that we didn't know what they were to add on the bike pajamas

and this 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 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. you so you have that doubt in your my mind while reality hit you you know. what did i kill did i kill innocent kids i was a call that of course and that's never answered how. it looked. that

experience of being fired while i had to stop. unnerving so i. asked to be transferred to the army helicopter potomac 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 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 told that this isn't in any location. you. have to aim at this building and you have to far even rockets from machine guns and if you're. 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 it. initially it was pretty tough. to hope that it didn't hit anybody or you only saw the building exploded and see the people. the day i got hit the weather was exactly like this it was cold it was that it was

foggy was damp it was september in northern france. we left the gun 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 to the air like a huge huge sledgehammer to get me thrown me way into the air and i didn't know it as come back to the ground going up up up and then suddenly i fell back. put my hand up and i felt the peace of. some in my head 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 always 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 on hawkeye 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 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 he was being treated with the most enormous tenderness and. sometime in may of six this way. neighborly to know 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 the moment we had been out

for quite a while on this patrol and hadn't seen anything so we relaxed. all i want them there kong stepped out of the bushes. and it startled him to see us there and it startled me and. it was firing and i didn't how my weapon was on the die or my way ok. so on my own is to get. hang grenades off my belt. tossed a couple grenades. now the to put a guy. then we could see as far as we could see there would be a call that was common up to our parameter. then we called in for an 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 dug 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 mechanized unit came in and we loaded democracy on. his brains actually fell out hands where we were we were moving in. the still a stilted bit surreal i remember it said in that corridor on i with. aggro on them but it is

a it sounded hollow. but it was easier to go black 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. 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.

it only lasts for 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 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 think. my hate was with building up 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 a certain a call of duty and it turned into something i said. that i hate that i had had growing up in the sol 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 the earth. who. is not a secret i mean he's walking around with a big wiring with human ears punched 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 top stories of this week the u.s. senate approves a key nuclear arms reduction deal with russia the start treaty is hailed as a major achievement by the leaders of both countries but it is still to be passed by the russian parliament. the korean peninsula reaches a crisis point souls' war games provoke young young into threats of retaliation and a nuclear strike. aviation experts would back the findings of a russian investigation into the plane crash that killed ninety six people

including the president of poland and many of the country's senior politicians earlier rejected the finding said the pilot error was to blame. and right now power is being restored at moscow's airport after a day of flight cancellations and delays caused by severe weather. the domestic flights up and running. mean that people are still being affected. broadcasting live from moscow where it is two o'clock on a monday morning this is thomas i'm glad to have you with us on wednesday the u.s. senate finally approved a landmark strategic arms reduction treaty with moscow russia's lawmakers have followed suit and gave the new.