back you're watching r t here's a reminder of the top stories peace deal in danger syrian rebels failed to provide written guarantees they will hold violence something the government says as the main condition for army withdrawal the pull out is scheduled for tuesday according to the truce flamborough heard by special envoy kofi anna. boycotts protests and marches shake america's brought to just gun lobby as anger over a car versus shooting off avon martin gathers pace going over into

a debate over the country's remarkably blacks firearms lost. and south korean media hype sufferers of a new nuclear test planned by the norms just as less foreign journalists see for themselves the final preparations for its much discussed rocket launch so the top stories here on c.n.n. next as we promised we're bring you part two of our special report on how some u.s. troops are being mistreated while on duty and get out of steam. we. live in a long sound. but we don't like being on the baseline like you know i think. you guy who's kill me or

go inside the base is very nice guy who took me two or to all the side of base also the area where my son supposedly die. i'm part of these this people they help much about the area but he told me about eighteen seventeen two year cycle there were toilet everything was the same but different position this guy is a new guy you don't know if you know about two years ago or because really years coming through months ago. i don't see how to keep it to you know inside his toilet when my son is now i. before i think you know is a world small or something for you know i see real real is a big guys pay for five six thousand people or more. and now in my in my head is something more and more sure you know somebody shot

their way most on the side and they shot. back i go back to. everything you know. different in my head space you know i would talk to my family what i see inside the base hallways see this all this old you know are. as one was updating his family about his trip we were meeting with friends a candle lighting expert. whose findings were about to change the course of our investigation. and went specifically like you. know john shore is very. well the dynamics of the writing are very consistent he has a print script we can see it in his samples we have some. looks like school know with chapter notes it's called chapter twelve so i don't know what i'm still but there are there are notes that he wrote and then we have some other.

governmental government related. documents to compare and i have a significant number of times so i was able to nail down some of the key ingredients in his own handwriting to compare so these are some of the characteristics there were two which is not as important as the because it's clearly. his kind of identifier. and so we've got the word doctors if we take his known writing we've got it we're doctors in his known writing are right on the money. we've got the word meanness known writing. to which our connector. and we've got pain. which i can i can find.

yours and this pain here. you know so we have it here and here and we have appearance well we always have to keep in mind the idea that writing is never exact every time you write there's a little variation in your writing evolves over time but it always has variation within it and so unless you're understanding the dynamics of the writing you might see something being not exactly i think it's different it's not within the context of the writing. and so these are just a few of the characteristics that stand out as being. the highlights of this very early on the identifiers for the printed with no definitive proof of why john was suffering and only veiled references the lariam in his unit's taking of a drug we decided to request all of his medical records and the freedom of

information act but in the two years since his death his records at all disappeared they have not been sent to the appropriate storage facility by his unit when contacted a representative from his unit said they had nothing to send according to witnesses weeks after john's death and then in suits came to the units office and cleared of all personnel when they left there was no paperwork left with the name john torres and in fail to sign a receipt is required and witnesses were unsure who they were the most believe they were from the sea id i contacted the cod and asked if they had taken the records from the unit in a written response they simply stated you will have your sources to confirm their allegation i have addressed your questions as they pertain to see id good luck with your production. as a last resort we requested what few documents may still be on file with army medical command who managed the medical records of active duty soldiers they

informed us that they would send a packet containing a few documents they still had a pointed out that what they were sending had been included in the criminal investigation report we had received when the packet arrived and included the mental health evaluation cited but missing from the c. id report it was redaction free and it first glance became clear why didn't purged from the copy sent to the family the mental health evaluation was written by major robert endlessly m.d. an army psychiatrist who served in with the two fifty four the medical attention that back room when john died the c. id report stated that john committed suicide is the result of anxiety and unresolved sematic pain but according to major n's lee's evaluation his sematic anxiety symptoms were not sufficiently severe based on objective findings to perceptive such an extreme response his psychological stressors were likewise mild especially in contrast to the very promising future that would have begun in earnest in just two months with relatively minimal psycho social factors present

a biological basis may be the primary precipitant if toxicology reveals the presence of methyl quinn specialist tours this case should be viewed in light of other suicides suspected to be associated with the drug that document is the first military document i have ever seen that seems to suggest that the army was aware that lariam may be causing suicides in the field and they were tracking i've never seen that before i've only seen the army say that there's absolutely nothing to this that linus is safe is asked for in his two thousand and four congressional testimony general pete testified that normally suicides have been linked to lariam acknowledge the drug was received poorly by army personnel. you know if you look back at history whether it was combat during world war two whether it was agent orange in vietnam the military has been always slow to react to

negative things and they did things that could affect the soldiers for instance agent orange for a while that we didn't believe agent orange caused the cancer then we later learned to be good so then now we have lariam which the military created in the army invented learning walls and was methadone and then army invented it so the pharmaceuticals wrote pharmaceutical sales of the military so it's kind of hard for then at least my perspective it's hard for the military acknowledge we were a problem with this drug. until it finally takes years of people unfortunately dying in the case that you have. dying from larry in toxicity i think about lariam that you have to remember is that it's from a class of drugs called clinton's quinolones actually are relatively unusual that they cross the blood brain barrier so in other words if i take tylenol it was in my blood it goes through my body it passes through this goes in to the brain it is

absorbed into the brain like that and that is why these former russian officials have told me it gets in there and for certain people once it's done is damage inside the brain the damage is done inside the brain. when a medication is taken in pill form like math like when we look at how much is absorbed and that's it's got very good absorbed gastrointestinal absorption and it turns out that it's really heavily concentrated in patients throughout the body liver kidneys pancreas and that includes the brain so when we're talking about neuro psychiatric symptoms or go so far as even to talk about brain toxicity then the brain has some protection from what's in the plasma with regards to the blood brain barrier

and obviously if a medication doesn't cross that blood brain barrier then it can't get into the brain and cause damage but mefloquine obviously does concentrate in the brain as a dozen other tissues. concentrates you know very much. according to roche only one in ten thousand users suffer side effects from the drug but a study published in one nine hundred ninety six by the british medical journal found that one and one hundred forty travelers taking mefloquine can expect to have a nurse a adverse event unpleasant enough to temporarily prevent them from carrying out their day to day activities. in march of two thousand and eight the malaria journal published a study conducted by the armed forces medical surveillance center. study examine the medical records of over eleven thousand active duty military personnel deployed to afghanistan in two thousand and seven of that sample the report states that

almost ten percent showed evidence of a contraindication to lariam with females more than twice as likely as males to suffer significant side effects if the military continued to use the drug. the mental health evaluation also questions the care afforded john before his death ensley notes that john's medical records indicate he sought help for his symptoms and that after repeated doctor visits failed to find anything physically wrong with him john asked to be sent to germany for further testing his request was denied and he was sent to see a psychiatrist you know after repeated trips to the bases hospital and multiple meetings with the psychiatrist and medical staff still missed the warning signs of lariam toxicity according to police report specialist tours complaints apparently dated back to the beginning of his deployment possibly coinciding with his treatment course of lariam but it is medical visits no link was made between this medication and this medic symptoms even when he was diagnosed with some form of

anxiety there was no mention of larry's potentially causing or exacerbating the problem. military medicine does nothing with wonderfully well i mean they get people off the battlefield very very quickly you know if you get your legs blown off god forbid in iraq and your wonderful job one of the things that military medicine is i think many critics would agree on is they are just bad at side effects whether it's lariam side effects or the anthrax shot side effects it is just not information that gets out in the field is not emphasized it's not something that people are me aware of and it's a it's a it's a real problem because a lot of these soldiers are totally full of drugs and vaccines and they have problems and some of the problems are deadly. remember when you join the military you give up certain rights and certain rights that you give up as sort of free choice you are required to follow your community orders and that's what the military is based upon and that's why we can send soldiers into combat we can say

go take that hill go face enemy fire because they're following orders and that training begins very early when you enter the military you are trained to follow your commanders orders and commanders orders can be not only go ahead take the the hill charge the enemy but you'll take this pill because at the time you know they're concerned with the soldiers getting malaria and so if the soldiers get sick with malaria that reduces combat efficiency so as a result they say take this medication we don't want you getting malaria so the soldier has no choice whatsoever he takes the medication well i think that individuals listen to what they need to listen to so if you put if you put an individual in harm's way they're going to acutely listen to what they need to know to keep them alive so you can bet that when somebody goes through basic training there they're paying attention to the kinds of things they need to know like how to

maintain their rifle how do how to handle the. rocket launcher how to throw a grenade. those are things that people need just to learn to stay alive if you told a soldier that they're taking their medication which could also potentially result in our death they would pay attention to you sadly john's case and his parents' experience is not unique my son's. death has devastated my life i. have moments when i'm happy i don't think i've realized a joyful moment and six years. i really believed in a very naive way that if i never gave up and that if i was diligent and vigilant enough and that i could succeed in having the military acknowledge that this is a toxic drug that should not be used to date i have not. been sexed successful in doing so i continue in my efforts and as many people who know me my friends and my

family know i have said to them i'm more than one occasion that christopher had lost his life in combat that i would not miss him any less but i could except that i could understand that it would be a real event we knew it was always possible maureen palmer son christopher sherry a lieutenant in the united states marine corps and a member of its elite special forces committed suicide aboard a navy transport ship and was returning home after an eight month appointed to the middle east his mother's investigation into was there including an autopsy and other testing would lead to a finding that chris had been suffering from lariam toxicity but six years ago when i sent my son to the marine corps an event that would have never been possible was

that he would take his life and so in answer to your question it continues to be a huge open wound in my life. by an intellectual level i understand what happened to christopher that he had evolved because the drug was in psychotic state and psychotic break he was not in possession of his good mind when he took his life. but there is a part of me that as his mother of twenty eight years still doesn't understand how such a sound stable. vital happy young man could have devolved that fast. and that far three days before his death chris quit breathing stop shaving and his behavior became erratic he also confided in a fellow officer that he wanted to kill himself yet no one intervened. christer was

very concerned with other people he picked up the moniker nine one one when he was in power school and continue to follow him to college and so the marines nine one one shay anytime anywhere for anybody one of the things that's hurtful and most to me is that when i continue to review and review in my mind the days that led up to the instance of christan no one was there for him it's one of the pieces of this i find hardest to accept after his death the marine corps claimed there had been no warning signs chris was suffering a psychotic break i was in danger yet when his mother received a copy of the eulogy delivered aboard the ship it was clear his condition was known good afternoon as with a sad and heavy heart that i speak with you today as the commanding officer of india company i would like to thank those of you outside the company for joining us

on our official day of mourning for lieutenant crochet we are not here today to memorialize or condone the way to ten and she took his life rather we are here to memorialize the man we knew and worked with this last year i would ask that you not judge second lieutenant shays final act and act so completely uncharacteristic of the man we knew i feel confident that pending investigations into his death will reveal that some chemical imbalance in lieutenant share took over his mind and caused him to make the ultimate irrational decision. a decision that has left all of us who knew him stunned the highest compliment a marine can receive is to be told that you would want them on your flying in a fight chris she was the kind of man you would want on your flank in any fight that is the man we will remember and nothing that lieutenant shay had done in the last seventy two hours will change that fact i do have a concern whether or not the highest reaches of the command structure have some degree of a conflict of interest. because it took the united states army

a long long time to acknowledge the toxicity of agent orange i mean i remember or piano v.a.'s a medical student where it was not. this ability whereas it is now routinely. so i think that there. may be a worry. about opening up pandora's box and i think there's no question that the the medical military command structure is subordinate to the commander through the line command so i don't think that you know surgeon generals of the army or navy or air force. you know speak out of turn i think there are they have a clear. obligation to their superiors as far as the army is concerned that sure

about the navy the air force the stars the army's concern they've moved to it's called combat teams brigade combat teams with the never gate combat team you'll have a brigade surgeon never gave certain can be a catheter in major weld the battalion commanders of the ten around for brigade commander as a colonel all out rank the brigade surgeon brigade surgeon will make recommendations to the battalion commander other brigade commander but that's all the our recommendations the brigade commander doesn't have to follow the recommendations or the battalion commanders not to follow recommendations i know from my personal experience i was a trial counsel for several years meaning that as a military prosecutor i was in charge of prosecuting crimes that occurred within a particular for gay and as a result i would have direct contact the brigade commanders the commanders the company commanders. i also attend staff meetings and i saw the interaction between . the group commanders and commanders and the staff and i think there is

a. i don't want to say a bias well maybe there's a bias that supports the attorneys the doctors make their recommendations but the line officers they'll take that recommendation and whether they agree with it or not we'll consider the recommendation but ultimately it's their own decision and what they will do and then i guess as it should be however the problem is that there's a bias against what the lawyer of the doctor is recommending and for instance his other commanders are saying we don't believe that lariam stuff or we don't think it's a it's a medical risk or the research is really not completed then they discount there's a warning they just count that warning the other thing is true members the hierarchy again the medical command and some jurors to some military post will fall under the division commander so you think about an umbrella you have a division commander is the big umbrella underneath that is all the units and if they're in there they're in the reporting chain so for instance if they're in the

chain in which they're being evaluated any which way by the division commander there's always a concern about what you do what you report the chain of command and how it affects you to. your own job you can receive a negative rating you received negative comments from your own command as a result of what you reported out. or you. think again you know they are. chilling on. the mental health evaluation also put to rest the rumors surrounding john's death. into lee rowe do the unexpected nature of his suicide special stores this case attracted a number of rumors suggesting

a cover up most of which were dispelled in the course of the investigation. rumors that leads had sent to my dear john letter were unfounded and surfaced as a means of explaining his suicide. ideations of rampant drug trafficking with the theory that specialist torres was murdered because he knew too much were dramatic over baelish minutes who sources included individuals associated with the two females who actually were sent back for illicit drug use. somebody you know they don't know they don't know what they did. become a thing you lost your son in them a week or two weeks later they say oh you know what your son killed himself. you know what if this. was i work in some pain to your other sixteen eighteen hours because we need the support my family support a future i'm

a kids other finally i think. we're you know we have a future i'm a kid from a. beautiful girl you know she's professor you know she's a. architect my study was accounting and very smart boys say ok we are latino i go for the other contrary. american the real help two hours ago we were can bury her and if your tour thing is close but no. american dream it's all.

the salmon. would sell and blood sacks. seven. salmon cod gather. salmon salmon. would sell.

all. i get off sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know what i'm charging welcome to the big picture. above.