live from moscow this is our t. is thirty here now these are the top stories serbian general cold blooded chappelle's is a tradition to the european court and widespread public anger over his arrest crowds rallied in belgrade accusing the government of giving up a national hero for security membership. british apache helicopters prepared to cruise the libyan skies as the u.k. steps up pressure on colonel gadhafi and it's feared nato personnel could also be in significantly more danger. and the u.s.

government now has got a system that can send a much and c. takes the sting of the one that critics say it's just great. perpetuating rather a climate of fear in the country. coming up next we follow the journeys of four war veterans and explore how being a good soldier has become synonymous with been able to pull the trigger without hesitation it's in our special report. not on. a soldier was a very important thing in a young man's life. not just a soldier but could be a good soldier and appear in combat. i mean.

that's where you belong. and that's the southerner in me in time of war that's where you belong. and. governesses said. probably join my junior year because of the. growing up i needed to get out of my success probably with the family. came up then harbor michigan to work on a harvest and that work i couldn't do i couldn't make money at it so i came back at me while i was in jackson how white told the adoption center and signed. this is a cotton mill if there were five textile mills and i want to for about two months and looking for a job and finally. one of the whole neighborhood greats of the round for your

support i get a job in the economy. i want straight to the army recruiter. by griffin trailer park i grew up in a little small town called bear land texas near galveston i remember sitting on a 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 hoopla afterward and from the liberated beaches. so great to be an american i had filled the we had lost the ghosts of vietnam. i remember sitting there on the tiles. and thinking

less of you know your to go into you know to go into the military. or got married on day thirty if it's the same or ninety six the friday so and i left on january third of nightrain six to six for one of vietnam so that's why i spent not a moment in vietnam alone. we went from song power to ban was there for what they call the whole red tape period you know to get used to the climate and to actually get used to the sounds or.

the first couple weeks i was terrified every not. and after my first reading i want back to my day. i just cannot sleep i like a plank i was going to be going to shoot them in the course and next day nothing happened. and then. somewhere at about three or four weeks we had an operation where they had forty helicopters i was circling waiting on my turn to go in this l.z. or landing zone to put the combat assault in. and i heard the radio and the power of one of the replies said this is red lead were taken fire and all i could hear in the back was. now i try to relax and i try to forget about it and it would scan right back this paralyzing kind of fear of knowing that i have to

stop and be shot in. the. helicopter pilot you have both hands full so your gut instinct is to fight it. but there's no place to hide you're looking through a clear plexiglas window at the surrounding woodland you see little flashes and you know the people are shooting to decide if they don't hit you. from that point although. i think i realize that it is possible. that. we were a bunch of thirty guys in a two and a half ton truck put in as replacements no real training and we couldn't find the division. we finally found it in the first thing he said to us when we got there i remember why did it take so long there was no welcome. 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 and 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 it 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 you know has accumulated to my main goal was making sure that my men came home alive hell i didn't care about how 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 rolling into these towns 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. 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 what are you going to. do 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 change and yell and i go behind my home be and tear up an m.r.e. and also not hear a gunshot i step out from behind my humvee. as soon as i step out from behind my humvee my marines are destroying their weapons and the demonstrators so on selling my weapon and i put the the stock up and. the top 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 mean you know the head i mean we. center mass but i don't know who called ceasefire all i know is it was kind of like

simultaneously we all just start 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 i do you know i heard a gunshot that went over our heads and i said you're heard to say well who opened fire. i don't know. where when we did the reconnaissance and as we were driving by. as we draw the bar the bodies i'm looking down at the at the ground and not seeing any any weapons they were wearing traditional. dollar pose 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 a bunch of the norm. protestors. 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 i'll be honest with you chalked it up. i really did i chalked it up plus a you know. how did we know.

so on after we arrived and called we didn't know that we had built the basic out. these complex of tolerance and i'm so what was the problem or sedately by sniper fire or at times and mortar fire. i felt that we had everything going against us right there were just that the car on. the creature is a major it's the snakes. it's spiders. i don't know it's a different smile. especially if you were in babel i know i've heard many people say you can't smell blood but to me that's all i you

know. you can smell it i remember early on i think it was and april. sixth the sixth we were out in noble woods. it was people in a rice feel that we didn't know what they were at and on the bright pajamas and it's so hats and we had our and that sharpie or that we were they had everything in black pajamas was the enemy so we opened fire on them. we were able to go and physically roca them and bad no weapons and they looked to be teenage children young

very young. so you have that doubt in your mind when one reality hit you you know. what did i killed that i kill innocent here or was it across the base of course and that's never answered. all. that experience of being fired while i had to stock price on irving so i. asked to be transferred to the army helicopter because they never struck 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 you have to share. and you have a machine gun and we call it hasan unveiled because it looks like a constant spraying thanks 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 either rockets or 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 so. most people can't. a soldier has to be trained to

do it so. initially it was pretty tough tried to. not see. out that it didn't hit anybody or he 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 there it was foggy stamp it was september in northern france. for john 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 getting off. in the dirt because we knew we were going to be attacked america over and i was had michele in my hand and then suddenly i was flying through the air like a huge sledgehammer that hit me and thrown me way into the air and i didn't know it as come back to the ground i went up. to the suddenly i fell back. put my hand up and i felt a piece of something in my head and then i looked at my hands and they were just scarlet with blood 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 always lying there and. the many came over and he tried to fix me up and he was being over me and i watched a clip 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 hadn't heart yet because i was still paralyzed on my right side and when i had the operation on my head and what i still remember i grit my teeth you see i didn't have any honesty and they drilled with a drill to start taking all this 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 or most tenderness and.

sometime in male sex the stakes. are really my prop and it was signed out we were like can a pig swear we were to be hit and the cop unaids welcome birching and wipe an enemy our. it would surprise night you could. see long distances by them oh we have an arc for quite a while on this patrol and hadn't seen anything so we relaxed all it wants something stepped out of the bushes. and it startled them to see us and it startled me and. it was firing and i didn't have my weapon was behind the guy i crawled my way up here are. so i

managed to get. hangry maids off the belt. tossed a couple grenades. but i got. there and we could see as far as we could see there would be a call that was coming up to our program that. we called in for end our fire and couldn't get it we crawled in for the mission to return them because no problems getting over on. so well commander told us to just try to find a place and spend the night. we took the marching he was on the one that was killed and one of the bomb crater and we sat there on i.

eventually mechanizing and they came in and we loaded the marshal on. his brains actually fell out and swore we were moving in. that still but still could patriot and remember a second and a crater on i with. them but it was a it sounded hollow. but it was easier to go back and kill that's part of what drove me.

well very good and. some. say. the. same. thing some people love to hunt i love to hunt animals. do your movies for 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 trained 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 trial and you become addicted to it but after a while like with any like with any addiction. you know as soon as you're fired and you get that first burst of enjoyment. it only last so long and the high comes to a load after wears off it felt to me like everything was just muddy dork waters feels like old swimming in a in a big well we've referred to in the marine corps as a ship. and. you find yourself. looking forward to the next. mission or for

a combat role. you get all right it's like oh. i don't know why he do it but it's first kill is the same are you you think about it specially. if you have to kill it close quarters. it up and wear a kilt to work. with a knife like. my he raised with children out 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 our friend the call of duty and it turned into something i said. that i hate that i had grown up in the south i think had expanded. because of what was happening to be enough because of. the pool. and i feel i've become an animal. i got killed with 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 puts you at odds with your sense of right and wrong or. i've seen things that would be described as is war crimes. that 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 logan they're all hanging on the ring these are people he has cut off for years to try to get information. on the shooting civilians. you don't really call it it's not like you're shooting a scene. it's like. collateral damage.

question was that so much of the taxpayers' money to me was it ever real. issues of relevance and even legitimacy as the jostling continues as it will succeed now disgraced so many chance come. mission three couldn't taste.