troops. didn't really get it right when i started out as a very conservative republican like every person in my army community and upstate new york in the fifty's. my father was a member of the john birch society he was very opposed to the new deal labor unions catholics jews i thought. he was actually not that

unusual and my dad for those attitudes to prevail. because i was a good athlete good in school and good in my church and a good boy scout of my time i was really proud of. in one thousand sixty-six as the u.s. military began ramping up its forces in vietnam brian wilson was drafted. i enlisted in the air force for a four year program to go into the army as an induction. and then i got my orders to become an air force sure ranger officer commanding a unit of forty minutes. and so soon i found myself in vietnam. my duty was to go and assess the six. yes or failure bombing missions.

and in one week. we went visited five targets. all the targets were inhabited fishing again. saturday. i defended. fishing. these villages were bombed at two hundred fifty to three hundred feet five hundred pound bomb suspension shop to take off. so everybody needs filesystems either dead or just about dead and they were all blocked it is burnt finish off i watched as far as i could walk before the bodies were show think they could walk any further and the found my feet. and i saw

a young bean mees woman holding three children in her arms her eyes are opened her eyes are just staring up i was looking at my sister. when i looked into his eyes and it was all lies or was a lie and i suspect that everything i had ever been taught was a lie. my life completely radically changed. i do not know why i am. i was in somebody else's village nine thousand miles from my farming village in upstate new york. oh are they doing there. are we doing there. i want to form our religious act we saw the same scene. then i realized i don't need to do this if cliff is. pct. these are mothers.

these are small children. and if you elderly. they were killing villagers in villages. and calling in receipt please please please please please said i was on the wrong side of. this is how could this be good for you i'm on the wrong saeed. jalili story an honor society student council. all conference athlete. did everything right. and was all wrong. why must this nation. has and its interest and its power. for the sake of

a people so far away. we fight because we must fight. if we are to live in a world. where every country can shape its all if it. has been training regime believe all these years that there are enemies out there. keep it charged to protect ourselves from the evidence and realize we are the enemy. during brian's four years in the air force the vietnam conflict think recently polarize the american public. on the lord and his commanders about atrocities he had witnessed his reports were ignored he emerged from the military and vietnam with a profound sense of alienation. to

go to a country to. commit genocide and to still be with our. people . much more two of. the officers treated. people born on the fourth of july like brian run kovac received a bronze star for valor and a purple heart after being wounded leading an attack in vietnam that. even though i was paralyzed. in many ways i see that it was a blessing in disguise i've been able to recognize. that peace is so much more important in war. standing and compassion respecting the lives of each and

every human being how many more bombs are we going to have to drop how many more people are going to have to die we've got a profoundly change i turn in my branch barack took work on art i locked my leg and yet now i am not totally opposed this war or carrying on over there i'm struck by what they've got going on in l.a. stop telling your brothers they're the traitors stop. states wage its own official war for nearly a decade. one nine hundred seventy one former military analyst daniel ellsberg released the pentagon. the start of. the course of. the world war two.

and nothing's going to bloody still. felt the wish to get out of the sale of this information for twenty five years has now led to the deaths of fifty thousand americans and several hundred thousand vietnamese in the last few years a couple of million over twenty years of his involvement. and i think fifty the odds have been weighted in favor of secrecy the classified department of defense files revealed that since one thousand nine hundred forty five presidents truman eisenhower kennedy and johnson had misled congress and the public about unconstitutional military actions those beginning in the one nine hundred sixty s. included secret raids on cambodia laos and north vietnam richard nixon i know is to sit in much the same way with continuing the war while presenting to the public that he was on the process of getting out and we speak of america's priorities the first priority must always be peace for america and the work.

revelation of the secret pentagon documents for street protests and anger spread across the country decorated war heroes and civilians marched together protesting the unconstitutional undeclared war asked the united states has been at war under every president since nine hundred forty one. ever since the end of world war two us presidents have authorized the illegal and unconstitutional wars of aggression. according to the us constitution only congress can declare war but presidents have consistently found ways to wage war without congressional approval. between one nine hundred fifty and two thousand the us government was overthrown sixty democratically elected governments dropped bombs on over thirty nations and attempted assassinations of over sixty foreign leaders. million. die in these

undeclared wars. years old and i was looking at. pictures in a book. i said to myself what a crazy way try to solve it. as the years are gone by. then. that seven year old. fear of communism remained at fever pitch in the early one nine hundred eighty s. . common president reagan turned his focus to the resource rich countries of central and south america central america. the effect of security and it will be. and central america is much closer to the united states than many of the trouble

spots the concerns we knew. through. the system because for one hundred years two hundred years safe and three dollars. for every dollar we've invested so is for the tremendous source code for the. for forty years the united states received first choice on the ninety percent of nicaraguan exports in return the us government supported the dictatorship of the some most of dynasty the family used land confiscation and political repression to rule over the nicaraguan people. in one thousand nine hundred seventy nine the samosa was were driven out after a long war waged by the popular sandinista party led by daniel ortega.

one thousand nine hundred two in an attempt to thwart president reagan's plans to overthrow the nicaraguan government congress passed the boland amendment which prohibited u.s. military aid to the contras one thousand nine hundred four daniel ortega was elected democratically this government implemented new social services for providing free education health care and land reform. reagan used ortega's socialist policies and economic aid received from the soviet union to start a covert war using the national security council the administration sent secret aid to the mercenary soldiers known as the contras. despite the passage of the boland amendment the arming and support of the contras became the most ambitious paramilitary and political action mounted by the cia since vietnam.

ortega's knew sandinista government turned to the american peace activists for help . with the request. to bring people down she says look. we want people to know who. their country.

have anissa. put them to i don't want or i can't if i may as well and nation to know that i will move to hear that yeah i am classy boom get to feel that he had a ticket as you claim he made a move out of all the world that he i want to go to both what i think. we should starve if you to discuss where we can put chancellor merkel runs has said we have built up a lot of riches between germany and europe and russia and through the story of bridge truth is quite easy and really forced. but to me proof would take a whole lot of.

when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murder i would prefer it be when the death penalty just because i think that's a fair think the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict just found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying who's just know it hasn't been that we're even many victims' families want the death penalty to be abolished the respect they get pell hears because that's what murder victim's family is what that's going to give them peace that's going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite enough we've been through this this isn't the way. i knew that other u.s. americans were going to they're going to i were out and i'm serving in a war zone and we literally some thousands of people to see the war. nicaragua they

would come home and speak in their churches right up to and so on reagan was forced to admit that the us was actively working to overthrow ortega's democratically elected government. to gain political support to the president presented the contras as a people's democratic movement as a condition of our aid i would insist on civilian control over all military forces that no human rights abuses are tolerated that any financial corruption to be rooted out that american aid go only to those committed to democratic groups is. what i want to nag and i were nineteen eighty six i was a johnny come lately. more than the first week the contras these u.s. funded terrorists attacked three charring whopper chairs each to rest early and killed eleven eleven compas chinos. i saw five of those compazine i was coming in on

a horse drawn wagons to us to the rest of the cemetery and open caskets and horse drawn wagons. the main contra targets of consistently been civilian homes busses or trucks which has helped destroy any public support they may have had. eight civilians were killed in this truck when ambushed by counter machine guns the sandinista government says that in the past six years over ten thousand civilians have been wounded kidnapped in the country. the contras also known as the nicaraguan democratic force maintained affronted by a civilian adult. who would earlier worked as the cia informed of the type of war we fight. street prisoners. but what i discovered really for the first time my fists oleander stood the pattern of us balls. to destroy people our movements. and i was one of the people i know was

a power it is a fact that the policies of the united states of america are you know a legal both international and domestic law. and in fundamental standards of decency is understood by people all over the world being men opposition to the power coming out of my own country. why are you walking against fear against your. own things. because its main dangers player countries. yes their country is in one thousand eighty six and one nine hundred eighty seven brian m. and other veterans participated in more veteran peace action teams of the past

teams war through nicaragua's war torn diligence gathering proof of human rights violations by the us back country. so who do need to stay to. bed noting abstract he still who made his station. in the sound of the war in central america. anything is going to happen to you it was going to be responsible for the. well there's only one country that's a war in its united states we are there farming. areas. and so i think the terrorists from the states are responsible in the course of. true for what we were doing to. ensure to emerge through. i mean it brian wilson. we were talking about the situation about what we could do to protest.

so. we started. a number of. alarm. and charlie. murphy. decided to bring attention to the issues.

on sunday evening president reagan urged the american people to support his aid package to the nicaraguan contras he asked for one hundred million dollars seventy million of which is military. government a cancer. beachhead in north america and. international you know the truth about them. our founding fathers and the brave men and women of the french resistance we cannot turn away. is not right. it is right versus wrong. for culture. to pressure the leadership.

and this up to me. and there's. a good. and. we both were. totally opposed to the war talk to me about. charlie. was planning to do a fast death. and opposition to the us backed consul. before i did the fast i decided that a significant. could be. you know those very prestigious medal over the water and in protest of u.s. foreign policy and central america.

as the most powerful statement but i felt that i could make outside of actually some way give you know your life well then following up on the game the fast brian and. fast needs to have strategic objectives. brian was really determined that the objective of this fast was to change u.s. foreign policy toward nicaragua. and people so. i went to washington as many did to support the veterans. steps of the capitol and i remember the inspiration of. charlie bryan. george. they were doing something that was. we were talking about. what we were doing here but it was bigger than.

central america. of course himself. and how this is all being carried out with. this. president last week. not. just. as a fast thirty five and forty days and that's approaching the time when people began from fast like this and although they were being monitored they were getting weaker and weaker and we were quite alarmed by they were.

i. think. the question can come up relative to fasting well is is human life to take your own. are can to my own life if i want to want to know this my life for a. fast. approaching. wish led to the. i five hundred solitary actions around in states that were seen in concert whether . it was called conspiracy conspiracy to change. you organ. actions were.

we were just well fasting from. the move to classify the veterans fast as terrorism triggered a reaction from an unlikely source the f.b.i. agent assigned to investigate them twenty two year bureau veteran jack ryan. i was in charge of investigating for the f.b.i. . foreign counterintelligence and i get a lead that says investigate. for fasters there fasting on the steps of the capitol jack ryan reviewed the veterans fast for a life. and also those of other u.s. nationwide solidarity groups the investigation wanted to find out who was this group veterans fast for a life and they were called terrorists under the sabotage statutes.

ryan concluded that the fasters were nonviolent and refused to investigate further his superiors put him under review the bureau just came down on me when i likened it to killing a flea with a shotgun yet i was fired ten months shy of getting a pension but they came down big on those of you who voted for aid i want to say i have yet to receive an explanation that speaks from a place other than beer bordering on a paranoia reminiscent of the. the idea that we were terrorists and. that it was it is ridiculous. in a terrorist has no regard for human life whatsoever in the past i don't see how they can possibly be construed as hurting someone else.

why go to camp sundown camp for people that can't go. in there like so tired to have. safe housing as they don't have to talk about what they go through with us because we understand our daughter katie was diagnosed with a very rare son sensitive condition if i get sunburned i feel she doesn't feel patients are going to have problems with the walk to talk to your son the brains that are actually shrinking inside the skull gets thicker in the brain still small . the pain is indescribable it's feels like a really really bad chemical burn but it goes through your skin in your muscle all the way down to the bone. there is no relief. so we're just not sure this is just.

responding in this hour the need. arise to hold the power but. yeah as this diagram how do you. think i'm going to employ is going to go it's a pretty. good unless i go over and the other most a month and o.c.d. i mean look if you get to thump and you know has it funny because you don't love million. right on the bank all the work on the base walker chemical lies and as our business is going to go they would develop a new treatment there in time there is no market know that these industries out of polluting your dissenting. ignored. that mother.

and the mother of the. day in this. today's news the week's top stories. with a temporary freeze in the.