welcome back you're with here is a look at the top stories of the week lebanon season weapons aboard a ship within its waters a cargo was said to be destined for syria's opposition fighters that is explosions in damascus deal another blow to the u.n. sponsored peace. sarkozy reaffirms his pledge to drastically cut immigration after losing the first round of french presidential ballot to socialist candidate from. its national france far right votes that are now up for grabs during the may six runoff. and online anger ready to boil over a new cybersecurity bill could allow the u.s. government to obtain people's private information from internet companies the pact has passed the u.s. house of representatives but is now threatening to be vetoed by president obama.

this with top stories of the week up next special report on how soldiers feel when they have to kill on the battlefield. i'm going on that at this moment on duty. 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 damn good soldier and to be in combat and shit and the fan out combing. the granite that's where you belong. and that's the southerner in me in time of war that's where you belong i know i think. i had left him as a separate. probably due on my chill new year because of the anger i had to go

out i needed to get out of necessity or probably want to settle and. i came up to you ben arbor michigan 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 want to live the induction center there and signed i believe comedy. i want to say i'm paying you to me. this is a cotton mill area there were five textile mill sure and i want to run for about two months and looking for a job and finally one of the old neighborhood grapes had been around for years had for i get a job in the cotton mill. i went straight to the army recruiter. i'm not coming. in i'm ready to go.

by group and trailer park i grew up in a little small town called para land texas that's 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 that it went and the hoopla afterwards from liberated featured to. also great to be an american i had felt that we had lost the ghosts of vietnam. i remember sitting there on the couch said knight and thinking to myself you know you want to go into you know to go into the military. or got married on the thirtieth of december of ninety six if i so

and i laugh on january third of one thousand six to six going to vietnam so i got spend monem moment in vietnam of all. we went from bontoc to bin was worried there for what they called already taishan payor 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 ever not and after my first briefing i went back to my bed and i just could not sleep. all i could think i was going to be

they're going to shoot i mean in the 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 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 the one of the red flight said this is red lead were taking fire and all i could hear in the background was. now a try to relax and i try to forget about it and it would scare right by this paralyzing kind of fear of knowing that i had to stop and. you have both hands for 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. flashes and you know that people are

shooting to dissipate they don't hit you. from that point. i think i realized that it is possible. that. we were a bunch of thirty guys in a two and a half ton truck put in as replacements. 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 did it take so long there was no welcome. being a replacement which is the most god awful kerschl 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 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 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 like a bunch of cowboys shooting the place. we went into the rashid. it was an actual military compound it's in a huge military compound we pulled in there was an abrams tank that was parked at 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 humvee 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 a humvee my marines are discharging their weapons and the demonstrators so on sling my weapon and i pick 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'm aiming at the head i mean. center mass but i don't know who called cease fire oh no 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 i do know i heard a gunshot that went over our heads and i said did you hear me say yeah i heard and i said well who opened 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 seen any the weapons they were wearing traditional. jalapenos 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 an arm. protesters. and then a little voice and then your head goes off and this is 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 gucci we didn't know that we have built a basic out above these complex of toggles i'm so what are those people almost daily by sniper fire or at times

a 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. they're spiders. and i know it's a different smile. it's special if 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 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 field that we didn't know what they were the ad on the black pajamas and so at and we had an hour and in that short period that we were there i did everything in black pajamas was in a me so we opened fire on them. we were able to go and physically look at them and they had no weapons and they looked to be teenage children young very young. the cell you have that doubt in your my mind while reality hit you you know. what did i kill that i kill innocent kids i was a call that base of course and that's never and said. look. i

. am. that experience of being fired is why i had to stop the rise unnerving so i. asked to be transferred to the armed helicopters button 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 you come upon a situation where you see people that you have to shoot. and you have a machine gun we call it goes on down because it looks like your conscious brain.

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 that 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 so. initially it was pretty tough i tried to. time out that it didn't hit anybody or you 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 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 then suddenly i was flying through the air like a huge huge 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 sudden 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 i was 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 and my but i remember i was lying there and. the medic 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 hawk 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 to i didn't have any understudies year and they drilled with the 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 enormous tenderness and passion. sometime in may of six the stakes. neighborly channel my kompany with santa. we were like can a pig swear we were to be it and the other cop unaids were converging and

wiping the enemy out. there was a bright night you could. see long distances by them on we had been out for quite a while on this patrol and and saying anything so we relaxed all it wants something kong stepped out of the bushes. and it startle them to see us there and it startled me and. it was fired and i didn't have my weapon was on the guy i'd call my way of. so i managed to get. hangry maids often run bell. tossed a couple grenades. but i got. there and we could see as far as we could see there would be a kong that was common up to our parameter. and we called in for

and direct fire and couldn't get it we called and for permission to return we couldn't get it because my problem was getting overrun. so my commander told us to just try to find a place and spend the night. we took the marshy and he was sailing along that was kill and one on a bomb crater and we sat there on i. eventually the mechanized unit came in and we loaded it democracy on. his brains actually fell out and i as well we all we were moving in.

that still i still could get to know them and them barritt said and crater our night with him. but i did say it sounded hollow. but it was easier to go back and kill boy that's part of what what drove me. was very day and. sleep. sleep. sleep sleep.

sleep. sleep sleep. sleep. sleep sleep. well some people love to hunt i love to hunt animals. deer sail bear 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. and 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 just 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 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 is same hard you should think about especially. if you have to kill that close quarters. it up and you know where i killed with. weapon i think. my boys 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 answering the call of duty

and it turned into something i said. that i hate that i had had growing up in the sol 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 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 ears 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. it is.

all.