well you guys lose. the old. renewed elitist unsigned system certainly some of. the future. and this is on c.n.n. these are the week's top stories. on the channel that called luggage denies charges of genocide a mass murder in front of the hague tribunals wilde said he awaits to see if time to go over well will do anything for the e.u. membership cards. deployment of a tight helicopters in libya under a three month extension to the mission spots russian concerns that the military campaign could be moving its tech closer to ground operations. also in the

program spain's already troubled economy takes another blow up with state and german accuse ations let's punish vegetables caused the deadly e. coli outbreak sent the country's exports into a nosedive. in the mountains especially shooting a prominent russian journalist on a political skating two thousand and six has been charged with murder investigations claiming to have enough evidence to prove the treasure of a fugitive pulled the trigger. as they cheered for special report on three generations of american soldiers and they tell their stories of how they were led to the military and how it changed their lives for good while that piece has right now here on alt. down and down and it's mounted on duty. to be a soldier was

a very important thing in a young man's wife and to be not just a soldier but to be a damn good soldier and to be in combat to. the county. that's where you belong. and that's the southerner in me in time of war that's where you belong and. i had left mississippi. probably due on my junior year because of the anger i had to call it out i needed to get out of mississippi are possible the same way. we came up here and then hop a mission here 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 went to the adoption

center there and signed up i believe i believe. i have to say i am pained you mean . this is a cotton mill and they were found 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 and prerogative job in the cotton mill. i went straight to the army recruiter. the candidate to come. by griffin's report i grew up in a little small town called parrot land texas that's 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 that win and the hoopla afterward and from the liberated be too. awful great to be an american i had filled with the we had lost the ghosts of vietnam. i remember sitting there on the tiles. and think unless you want to go into you know to go into the military. we got married on days thirtieth of december ninety six if i so and i left on january third of nightrain six the sixth one a vietnam so it was right gospel and monument in vietnam.

we went from bonk our to bin while we wait there for what they call the orientation period you know to get used to the climate and to actually get used to the sounds or war. the first couple of weeks i was terrified everyone. and after my first briefing i want back to my bad luck i just couldn't sleep i. think i was going to be there to shoot that in and of course the next day nothing happened. and then. somewhere at about three or four weeks we had an operation where they had thirty helicopters i was circling writing on my turn to go in this l.z. or landing zone to put the combat assaulting. and i heard the radio and the

power of the one of the reply said this is red lead which i can fire and all i could hear in the background 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 had to stop and be shot at. 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 and the surrounding will and you see little flashes and you know that 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 but a bunch of thirty guys in are going to have to learn truck put in as replacements trained 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 why'd you take so long there was no welcome. being a replacement which is the most god awful kershaw you can have morning 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 lifter it 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 show time this is what eleven years of training you know has accumulated to my main goal was making sure that my men came home alive well i didn't care about what 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 so. we went into the rashid. it was an actual military compound to the huge military

compound we pulled in there was an abrams tank that was parked in 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 at any weapons and he said no. and so what are you going to. you know they're going to stage a coup against a store 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 be and the terror of 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 my humvee my marines are discharging their weapons and the demonstrators so on sling my weapon and i post 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 being out the head i mean we. center mass but i don't know who called cease fire all i know is it was colic 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 that you're heard it's a war the open fire. i don't know. we went in we did the reconnaissance and as we're driving by. as we draw the body

bodies i'm looking down at the at the ground and not seeing any any weapons they were wearing traditional. jalapenos and. course they were soaked in red blood. you know 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 on the. protesters. and then a little voice and in your head goes off and says 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 as a you know. how did we know.

so when after we arrived in coaching we didn't know that we had built up basic our . tastes complex and tolerance and i'm so what it was people almost daily by sniper fire or at times a mortar fire. or felt their way at everything going against us where there was just that car on. the creatures of nature itself the snakes. hey spiders.

i don't know it's a different smile. and place where you went oh i know i've heard many people say you can't smell blood but to meet us over. you you can smell it i remember early on i think it was then april. sixth the sixth we were out in the old woods and. it was people in a rice field that we didn't know what they were to add on the bright pajamas and this so i asked and we had our and that's our prayer that we were there and everything in black pajamas was the enemy so we opened fire on them.

we were able to go and physically roca them and they had no weapons and they looked to be teenage children young very young. so you have that power in your mind when one reality hit you you know. what did i kill that i kill innocent here or was it a call that place of course and that's never answered. all .

that experience of being fired yes well i had to stock price on irving so i. asked to be transferred to the army all cotton because they never struck they should 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 hear. and you have a machine gun we call it hasan and brown because it looks like your conscience for . seeing people move. and seeing women and children go into a house and being told that this isn't in any 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 it can think about taking a gun and shooting some. most people can't. a soldier has to be trying 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 explode you didn't see the people. the day i got hit the weather was exactly like this it was cold it was there it was foggy was damp it was september in northern france.

we left 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 getting off. in the dirt because we knew we were going to be attacked. and i was had my shovel in my hand and inside me i was flying through the air like i.q. sledgehammer that hit me and thrown me way into the air and i didn't know it has come back to the ground i went up. in the seventy and 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 always lying there and. the many came over and he sort of fixed 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 hadn't harker 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 you see i didn't have any honestly 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 over. what i

remember is being treated with symbols and formulas tenderness and. sometime in may of six the state. of origin of my crop and it was signed out we were like can it takes where we were to be hit and the other coffin is welcome or and quite an enemy out. there would surprise night you could. see long distances by them. we had been out for quite a lot on this patrol and and saying anything so we relaxed

all at once something stepped out of the bushes. and it startled them to see us there and it startled me. it was firing and i didn't have my weapon was on the guy i call my way up here off. so i managed to get. hang grenades off my. house a couple grenades. then we could see as far as we could actually there would be a call that was calm enough to our program and. we called in for and our right to fire and couldn't get it we called in for permission to return. because the company was getting over run. so welcome our metro if you just try to find a place and spend the night there we took the marshy and he was on the

one that was killed and one other bomb crater and we sat there on the i. eventually mechanizing they came in and we loaded the marsh you know. his brains actually fell out hands when we were over there. that's still i still could picture you will remember it said in the corridor on night with. our grandmother it is here sounded how long.

there was a reason. to go back and kill that's part of what drove me. was very good and. the states. say. the.

same. thing some people love to hunt i love to hunt 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 it comes close to harming 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 kind of like a drug 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 for so long and the high comes to a low. after wears off if felt to me like everything was just muddy i'm

dark waters it's like hell swimming you know in a big well we've heard her too in the marine corps as a ship. and. you find yourself. looking forward to the next. mission or for combat role. you get all right if it's like over time i don't know why you do it but it's first kill the. same are you you think about his question. if you have to

kill it i close quarters. it up and where i killed with. well for knife by. my race we build in our forty's people and i wanted to kill. i felt good at the time when i when i did it didn't bother me if i. didn't get a chance to kill someone it went beyond and out for no call of duty in a tar and in a soft and i said. that i hate that i had growing up in the south i think had expanded. because of what was happening in vietnam because so knows and people.

i feel i've become an animal i. feel 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 or at least one time to put that 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 yours who. is not a secret i mean he's walking around with a big wiring with human ears pushed through the window but 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 there it's like. collateral damage.

all.