captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> logan: what were the orders you gave your men? >> orders were fairly simple: find al qaeda and kill them. >> logan: in the world of espionage, hank crumpton is legendary. just ask his old boss, cofer black, the former chief of the c.i.a.'s counterterrorism center. when a career c.i.a. officer or someone like yourself says hank is the kind of guy you can bet your life on, you mean that literally. >> literally. this is not working for wall street law firm. dog eat dog and nobody dies.

>> stahl: over the past decade, scores of charter schools have popped up all over the u.s. all sharing some common features. most of them are high-achieving academically. they stress math and science. and one more thing: and one more thing: they're founded and largely run by immigrants carrying out the teachings of an islamic cleric from turkey who lives in seclusion, in of all places, the poconos. will he come out? will we get to see him? >> martin: it's not often a movie star walks into a city council meeting to ask if he can put on a concert to raise money to build a home for a badly wounded veteran. >> i hope that you will grant us permission to come here to temecula to celebrate the service of juan dominguez. >> martin: you must have people who would do that for you. why do you go to a city council meeting and try to get a permit?

>> i wanted to make it hard for them to say no. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." [ female announcer ] e-trade was founded on the simple belief that bringing you better technology helps make you a better investor. with our revolutionary new e-trade 360 dashboard you see exactly where your money is and what it's doing live. our e-trade pro platform offers powerful functionality that's still so usable you'll actually use it. and our mobile apps are the ultimate in wherever whenever investing. no matter what kind of investor you are, you'll find the technology to help you become a better one at e-trade. i wish my patients could see what i see. ♪ that over time, having high cholesterol plus diabetes... or family history of early heart disease...

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hi, honey. how's the camping trip? well, kids had fun, but i think i slept on a rock. what are you doing? having coffee. ah, sounds good! i thought you'd say that. ah. ♪ the best part of wakin' up... ♪ you're the best! wake up to the mountain grown aroma of folgers. ♪ ... is folgers in your cup! >> pelley: in the netherworld of espionage, henry crumpton is legendary. he was deputy director of the c.i.a.'s counterterrorism center and chief of one of the agency's most secret divisions. he is known to u.s. presidents,

african rebels, and afghan tribal leaders by just one name, "hank." in interviews with lara logan, hank crumpton guided "60 minutes" on a tour through the shadowy world of clandestine operations. among the many things she learned is that crumpton has a unique perspective on the war in afghanistan, because it was hank who was in charge of the covert u.s. response to 9/11. >> logan: what do you make of where afghanistan is right now? >> hank crumpton: it reminds me of a greek tragedy. you've got so many mistakes, many of them inadvertent, like the burning of the... of the koran on the u.s. side, and you've got a feckless, corrupt government on the afghan side. i am really more pessimistic now than i've been in a long time. >> logan: hank crumpton, now 55, spent 24 years in the murky world of the c.i.a. clandestine service, including a year on loan to the f.b.i. and a decade

at c.i.a. stations across africa. we first met hank crumpton three years ago. that's when he agreed to return to afghanistan with us and tell "60 minutes" about the capstone to his career as a spy, how the c.i.a. forged a secret alliance with afghan tribal leaders, and how fewer than 500 americans-- 110 c.i.a. officers backed by teams of u.s. special operations forces-- toppled the taliban after 9/11. what were the orders you gave your men? >> crumpton: orders were fairly simple-- "find al qaeda and kill them." >> logan: cofer black was chief of the c.i.a.'s counter- terrorism center, and for a quarter-century, he was crumpton's boss and mentor. he personally chose hank for the most important mission of his life. >> cofer black: why did i pick hank crumpton to lead the c.i.a. team? because we want to win.

hank's the kind of man you can bet your life on. >> logan: when a career c.i.a. officer or someone like yourself says, "hank's the kind of guy you can bet your life on," you mean that literally. >> black: literally. let's not... this is not, you know, working for a wall street law firm, you know-- dog eat dog and nobody dies. we're talking where the life and well-being of your colleagues are at risk. >> logan: the c.i.a. was given the lead role in prosecuting a war for the first time in history, and black promised then-president george w. bush the agency was up to the task. >> black: and i said, "mr. president, by the time we're through with these guys, they're going to have flies walking across their eyeballs. this isn't a joke. this is a statement of fact of what's going to happen." >> logan: and he responded? >> black: he asked me again to validate whether i could do this. and i said, "mr. president,

there's no doubt in my mind." there was no doubt in my mind. i knew our planning. i knew our people. i knew hank crumpton. >> logan: what was your first meeting with president bush like? what did he say to you? >> crumpton: i sat down with some maps and walked through what our initial strategy was going to be. he asked good questions. at the end of the meeting, i remember we were walking outside. we'd left the... the building at camp david, walking to the cars. president bush came up. he put his arm on my shoulder. and he told me to go get them. and i said, "yes, sir, i will." >> logan: the world was expecting a conventional response? >> crumpton: they expected that we would not respond in any meaningful way. >> logan: weakness? >> crumpton: weakness. and the enemy thought the u.s. was weak. the last thing they thought is that we would drop commandos, c.i.a. and special forces behind their lines, and we would assume the role of insurgents, and forge these deep alliances with these afghan tribal leaders,

these non-state actors. and in the matter of 90 days, subvert and overthrow the taliban regime and... and kill large numbers of al qaeda. >> logan: crumpton fears the return of al qaeda in force to afghanistan if the u.s. withdraws too quickly, but he and cofer black believe the original american mission changed after the taliban was defeated. >> black: my mission was not to ensure that little girls go to school in afghanistan. my mission was not to establish, you know, a legal system in afghanistan. that was not my mission. my mission was to destroy al qaeda. and to do that, we had to overthrow the taliban. >> logan: that mission actually began five years before 9/11. that's when the c.i.a. set up what became hank crumpton's special unit, tasked with finding osama bin laden. >> crumpton: from '98, '99 all the way up to 2001, the warnings

were there, the in... >> logan: so through the clinton administration to the bush administration... >> crumpton: yes, yes. we had extensive human networks in afghanistan, afghan sources that had been reporting on al qaeda, on the presence of bin laden. >> logan: but crumpton says the clinton white house didn't trust the c.i.a.'s afghan sources alone and they wanted u.s. eyes on the target. >> crumpton: so we were driven to look at various technical options. and we looked at a range of things. long-range optics-- they were too heavy, too cumbersome to get over the mountains. we looked at balloons. the prevailing winds would take those balloons to china. that would be a bad thing. we scrapped that. and then we stumbled across the u.a.v.s, particularly the predator, and sure enough, wasn't long before we had the predator in theater over afghanistan-- the predator unarmed at the time.

and our human sources took us to a village far... not far from kandahar. >> logan: and what did you see there? >> crumpton: we saw a security detail, a convoy, and we saw bin laden exit the vehicle. >> logan: clearly? >> crumpton: clearly. and we had... the optics were spot on. it was beaming back to... to us, c.i.a. headquarters. we immediately alerted the white house. and the clinton administration's response was, "well, it will take several hours for the t-lams, the cruise missiles launched from submarines, to reach that objective. so you need to tell us where bin laden will be five or six hours from now." the frustration was enormous. >> logan: so, at that moment, you wanted to kill him? >> crumpton: yes. >> logan: but you couldn't get permission? >> crumpton: correct. >> logan: he couldn't get permission to do anything, including allowing the c.i.a.'s afghan agents on the ground to attack bin laden's compound.

that missed opportunity in the late summer of 1999 led crumpton and his c.i.a. team to figure out how to arm the predator drone with hellfire missiles. so the predator drone strikes that take place in the tribal areas of pakistan today are a direct result of what happened when you had osama bin laden in your sights in afghanistan and no way to kill him yourselves? >> crumpton: it was a response to the lack of response on the part of the administration or d.o.d. so the handful of c.i.a. officers that we had, in great frustration, we began the discussion of "okay, we find him again, we will have to engage ourselves. and we'll have to do it right then, right there." >> logan: crumpton pointed out, though, that the c.i.a. was never able to get a predator shot at bin laden, even after agents shadowed his courier to the house in abbottabad, where he was killed a year ago by u.s. navy seals.

is it conceivable to you that the pakistani leadership did not know that osama bin laden was in abbottabad on pakistani soil being sheltered there? >> crumpton: i would be surprised if some leaders, particularly in the military, were not aware of his presence there. >> logan: and not just not aware, but facilitated it? >> crumpton: yes. >> logan: even with bin laden dead, crumpton warns that al qaeda and its affiliates, including al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, remain a potent danger to the u.s. homeland. >> crumpton: they still pose a threat. i'm particularly concerned about al qaeda in yemen, which is fractured as a nation state. the sahel, if you look at al qaeda in islamic maghreb, they pose a threat, and in somalia. those are the places i'd be concerned. >> logan: hank crumpton is one of the most seasoned and accomplished c.i.a. officers of his generation. that's why, after his success directing the agency's

afghanistan campaign, the c.i.a. chose him to become chief of its national resources division, one of the smallest but most sensitive secret operations of the clandestine service. you probably don't know this, but the division has covert c.i.a. offices across the united states. >> crumpton: a particular u.s. company can provide cover for a c.i.a. officer who's deployed overseas. a u.s. executive who's traveled abroad can come back and agree to a debriefing from the c.i.a. a foreign institution may have a relationship with an american institution, and that might be a pathway for the c.i.a. to acquire foreign intelligence. >> logan: doesn't that go against the public perception of what the c.i.a. is... is tasked with doing? i mean, under your charter, most people think of the c.i.a.'s

responsibilities as lying outside of america's borders. >> crumpton: yes, i agree. i think many americans view it that way. the c.i.a.'s responsibility in the u.s., though, is very specific. while inside the u.s., the mission is exclusively and totally focused on the collection of foreign intelligence. >> logan: so you can recruit foreign agents on u.s. soil? >> crumpton: yes. >> logan: clandestine c.i.a. officers also run so-called "technical operations" against enemy spies in the u.s. >> crumpton: you can eavesdrop. you can bug. you can intercept their communications. >> logan: but you can't do that to americans? >> crumpton: absolutely not. again, the focus of national resources division is the collection of foreign intelligence that happens to be inside the u.s. >> logan: what about counterintelligence? >> crumpton: it's a critical issue.

if you look at the threat that is... is imposed upon our nation every day, some of the major nation-states-- china, in particular-- very sophisticated intelligence operations, very aggressive operations against the u.s. i would hazard to guess there are more foreign intelligence officers inside the u.s. working against u.s. interests now than even at the height of the cold war. >> logan: hank crumpton has written a book about his life as a spy because he thinks the role of intelligence is misunderstood, and the c.i.a. has often been misused by presidents and policy-makers of both parties. he wants to set the record straight. and his book, "the art of intelligence," will be published tomorrow. in it, he tells how he learned about insurgency firsthand from african rebels. he learned about blood feuds

from afghan tribal leaders, and he learned that al qaeda terrorists and enemy agents from north korea all seem to share a particular weakness. >> crumpton: i never met a north korean that did not like pornography. >> logan: is there a lot that goes on in the world of espionage, as a c.i.a. officer, that surprised you? >> crumpton: every day was something different. every day, there was not only an operational judgment, there was a moral judgment. is this the right thing to do? >> logan: for example, supplying porn to north korean diplomats? >> crumpton: right. supplying porn to a north korean official to entice them to spy for america, along with money or whatever else it might take. well, for me, the answer was yes, i was willing to do that. >> logan: he hasn't been a covert operator since 2005. that's when he became the coordinator for counter- terrorism at the state department with the rank of ambassador. but we noticed hank crumpton

still has the tics, the habits and reflexes of a man who's always aware of his situation, eyes sweeping the area and looking over his shoulder. what makes a good spy? >> crumpton: i think that you have to have an intense intellectual curiosity. i think also it requires a willingness to deal with ambivalent situations, a certain degree of creativity, physical courage. >> logan: are you a good spy? >> crumpton: yes. i was a good spy. >> logan: are you still a good spy? >> crumpton: no. i retired. and that was more than seven, eight years ago now. >> logan: they say you never really retire from the c.i.a. >> crumpton: oh, i've retired, all right. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by:

>> . >> glor: good evening. three executive at jpmorgan chase are now being ousted in the wake of risky trades that cost the bank at least $2 billion. yahoo c.e.o. scott thompson will step down amid continued controversy over trumped-up credentials on his resume. and gas prices are down 5 cents in the past week. i'm jeff glor, cbs news.

>> stahl: over the past decade, scores of charter schools have popped up all over the u.s., all sharing some common features: most of them are high-achieving, academically; they stress math and science; and one more thing: they're founded and largely run by immigrants from turkey, who are carrying out the teachings of a turkish islamic cleric, fethullah gulen. he's the spiritual leader of a growing and increasingly influential force in the muslim world known as the "gulen

movement," with millions upon millions of disciples who compare him to gandhi and martin luther king. gulen promotes tolerance, interfaith dialogue, and above all, he promotes education. and yet, he's a mystery man. he's never seen or heard in public, and the more power he gains, the more questions are raised about his motives and the schools. hi, everyone. >> hi! >> stahl: this is the harmony school in houston, part of a rapidly expanding chain of 36 charter schools in texas. they serve mostly underprivileged students, and they all emphasize math and science. >> inside there is an elastic collision between the gas particles. >> what this is a static electricity generator. >> stahl: class work stresses hands-on experiments and competitiveness. students made this hovercraft out of leaf-blowers for a science contest.

it's great. being a charter chain means these are public schools, costing taxpayers nearly $150 million a year. so you don't even have a driver's license yet. >> but i have a robotics license. >> stahl: julie norton is an administrator with the harmony chain of schools. >> julie norton: so, we have about 20,000 students. >> stahl: is there a waiting list? >> norton: yes, we have a waiting list. we have approximately 30,000 students on our waiting list. we have more students on the waiting list than we have enrolled in the schools. >> stahl: the education here gets high marks, as students get state-of-the-art technology and extensive one-on-one tutoring. do you get excited to come to school? >> yeah, i wake up, like, "whoo!" ( laughter ) >> stahl: the enthusiasm is hard to miss, as is the fact that many of the teachers are turkish, some just recently arrived and hard to understand. when did you get here, to the united states? >> ( unintelligible ) >> stahl: there are a total of

about 130 charter schools like harmony in 26 states. together, they form the largest collection of charter schools in the country. here's what's curious-- they're founded and run by immigrant businessmen and academics from turkey. why are they building public schools here? well, the answer seems to lie with this mystery man, the turkish imam fethullah gulen, who tells his followers that to be devout muslims, they shouldn't build mosques, they should build schools; and not to teach religion, but science. in sermons on the web, he actually says, "studying physics, mathematics, and chemistry is worshipping god." so gulen's followers have gone out and built over 1,000 schools around the globe, from turkey to togo, from taiwan to texas. >> alp aslandogan: his message is that, if you want to solve any social problem for the longer term, the solution has to go through education.

>> stahl: businessman alp aslandogan chairs a foundation in houston that advances gulen's teachings. it's so counterintuitive that people from turkey would come here to... to get involved here in education. >> aslandogan: people do go to other countries, including africa. the united states, especially in math and science, is not really good, and many parents complain about that. so there is a need for skilled teachers in the united states in that fields. >> stahl: we went to turkey to learn more, and found gulen's schools are everywhere and considered the best. they're often multimillion- dollar high-tech facilities, where girls are equal to boys and english is taught starting in first grade. >> ♪ you do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around ♪ that's what it's all about. >> stahl: gulen didn't only influence education. starting in the late '60s as a young imam, he urged crowds of middle-class turks to learn from the west and embrace its values, including an unexpected one--

making money. in this internet sermon, he even told followers... "if you don't seek ways to be wealthy, that is a sin in the eyes of god." so his disciples in turkey became successful businessmen and built a multibillion-dollar gulen empire that, beyond the schools, includes tv stations, a major bank, turkey's largest trade association and biggest newspaper. >> andrew finkel: they love capitalism. it really is very much a business network as much as a religion, in many ways. >> stahl: andrew finkel, who's been a freelance reporter in turkey for 25 years, says gulen tells his followers to reach out to people of other faiths. >> finkel: tolerance is a very key, key part of their message. and, you know, it's not about the use of force. >> stahl: it's as far away from most osama bin laden as you can get within the religion? >> finkel: very, very different, yes. >> stahl: so i guess one of the

big questions is, what kind of an islamic leader is gulen? >> finkel: he leads by his own charismatic personality. >> stahl: would you call it a personality cult? >> finkel: yes. >> stahl: to his followers, gulen's like a living prophet, and he used his influence to change the course of turkey's politics, helping to make it a functioning moderate islamic democracy. one thing we couldn't find in turkey was gulen. actually, very few people ever see him in person. he preaches via webcasts from a prayer room in an isolated and unlikely location. for over a decade, gulen has been living in self-imposed exile and seclusion in, of all places, the poconos in this gated pennsylvania retreat. so, does mr. gulen live in this building? >> bekir aksoy: yes, in this building. >> stahl: to our surprise, bekir aksoy, who heads the retreat, invited us in, even though gulen

had turned us down for an interview. so this is the prayer room. oh, is that mr. gulen's seat, his chair? >> aksoy: right. whenever he comes out of his room, he sits there and he speaks from there. >> stahl: and that's where he lives, behind the door? >> aksoy: that is the door behind which mr. gulen lives. that is his private room. >> stahl: gulen lives there alone-- he's never married. the pile of medicine bottles are a reminder that, at 70-plus, he's diabetic with heart and kidney problems. will he come out? will we get to see him? >> aksoy: for the last five, six months, he's very, very ill, really. when he is ill, he does not accept visitors. >> stahl: when gulen came to the u.s. in 1999, it was for medical treatment. but then, this video surfaced in which he seems to order his flock to surreptitiously take over key government positions in turkey in a stealth islamic coup.

accused of treason by the government at the time, gulen decided to stay in the poconos, even after he was cleared in 2008 in absentia. why is he still in america? >> finkel: well, i think if he were to come back, then there would be such a brouhaha and it would, i think... he would be afraid of being seen as being too powerful. >> stahl: too powerful because it seems his followers have taken over key positions in the turkish government and the police. >> finkel: you know, if he says "jump," people jump. there's no doubt about that. >> stahl: you know, we have confronted real fear about this movement, particularly when we've tried to get critics to give us an interview. what are they afraid of? >> finkel: there's a fear of reprisal. i mean, it is the case that two or three people who've written books highly critical of the gulen movement are now in jail. >> stahl: seeming to have such power, this wizard-of-oz recluse invites conspiracy theories that he's running turkey from the poconos and is bent on global muslim domination.

his movement does lack transparency-- its funding, hierarchy, and ambitions remain hidden, leading our state department to wonder in cables between ankara and washington if gulen has an "insidious political agenda." and now, some of the suspicion revolves around the u.s. schools. do they serve a function other than educating our kids? one accusation involves immigration fraud-- that the schools are providing work visas for hundreds of gulen followers from turkey. that the whole idea is just to get turks to come into the united states and this is an easy avenue for them. >> david dunn: which is just categorically not true. >> stahl: david dunn of the texas charter schools association says that, because of a deficit of qualified americans, the schools bring in math and science teachers from turkey, as this list of visa applications indicates. problem is... we've seen that some of these visas for turkish teachers to come here are for english... for

them to teach english. how does that make any sense? >> dunn: i'm not aware of that. i don't... i can't... i can't comment on that. i don't know. i have not looked intimately into the visas they bring in. >> stahl: we have english teachers in this country. >> dunn: english teachers are typically not part of the critical... or the deficit. >> mary addi: our tax dollars are paying for them to come over here and take our jobs. >> stahl: mary addi was fired as a teacher from a school in cleveland, ohio, part of a gulen-inspired chain of 27 charter schools in the midwest. >> addi: they want to give you the impression that they're just hard-working guys over here to try to educate our kids because american teachers are just too stupid. >> stahl: as far as you know, why is an islamic imam, which gulen is, interested in setting up schools in the united states? >> addi: because it's a great money-making operation.

>> stahl: gulen's followers can make money through contracts to build and maintain the schools, but addi has gone to law enforcement with charges that the schools also make money by bringing in foreign teachers in order to take a cut of their salaries. she says she learned this after marrying a turkish teacher. >> addi: and that's when he told me that, every pay period, he would have to cash his check and give... he had to give 40% of his check back because... >> stahl: 40% of his salary? >> addi: 40% in cash, yes. >> stahl: and you've turned documents over to various federal agencies that you say proves this on paper? >> addi: yes. >> stahl: the schools dismiss addi's claims, calling her a disgruntled employee. but federal authorities told us they take her seriously and are looking into allegations of immigration fraud and misuse of taxpayer money in various states, and whether it's somehow being funneled to the gulen movement.

then, there's the internet, where there are incendiary blogs accusing the schools of secretly promoting "an islamic agenda." you know there are various blogs that have accused these schools of being backdoor madrassas. >> dunn: yes. >> stahl: so, do you think there's a little bit of islamophobia involved? >> dunn: i think there's clearly some anti-islam bias involved in these blogs. >> stahl: actually, we looked into this, and islam is not taught at all. that would be illegal, since these are public schools that go out of their way to distance themselves from any religious affiliation, even denying a connection to the gulen movement. >> dunn: i think what matters is the results in the classrooms. are kids learning math, science, reading, writing at a superior level? and clearly, in these schools, that's happening. >> stahl: it is happening-- "newsweek" voted two harmony schools among america's top ten. more of these schools open every year across the country, and waiting lists just keep getting

longer. gulenists tell us the schools are about reading, writing, and arithmetic, not religion. and bekir aksoy in the poconos says the man behind the door has no hidden agenda. fethullah gulen hasn't even visited any of the schools. >> aksoy: he does not want to see the fruits of his work. he just speaks and encourages people to be good human beings. >> stahl: that's interesting, because there are schools in pennsylvania, i mean, not that far. >> aksoy: he has not seen any of them, believe me. he does not leave that room. it's very important to understand how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical, he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards. that's where the interest in engineering came from.

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>> now cbs news correspondent david martin on assignment for "60 minutes." >> martin: everybody, myself included, will tell you meeting the wounded from america's wars is a life-changing experience. that's certainly what happened to the actor gary sinise. you may know him as detective mac taylor, the character he plays on the cbs series "csi: new york," or as lieutenant dan, the gung-ho army officer who loses both legs in vietnam in the film classic "forrest gump." but you probably don't know he plays bass guitar in a band

named after lieutenant dan that will give nearly 50 concerts this year to raise money for wounded warriors, or to just plain entertain troops and their families. sinise has been acting professionally ever since he was in high school. he's played presidents and astronauts, criminals and cops, but it was lieutenant dan that turned into the role of a lifetime. >> let's hear it for gary sinise and the lieutenant dan band. ♪ ♪ do you remember ♪ >> martin: since his first u.s.o. tour to iraq in 2003, gary sinise has entertained nearly a quarter-million american troops and their families. >> gary sinise: we've been all over the world. i bet you we've been on more bases than you have. >> martin: but there was a time when he couldn't even get the u.s.o. to return his calls. >> sinise: i'm not sure the u.s.o. knew who i was back then, because i kept... kept calling and i kept trying to... to reach

them. >> martin: so he dropped a name the u.s.o. was sure to recognize. >> sinise: i'm lieutenant dan taylor and welcome to fort platoon. i'm the guy that played lieutenant dan, if they don't know who gary sinise is. >> martin: lieutenant dan taylor only appears in "forrest gump" for about 20 minutes, but with the exception of forrest himself, played by tom hanks, he is its best known character... ( explosion ) ...an over-the-top army officer who sets out to win glory in vietnam and ends up losing his legs. >> lieutenant dan! >> martin: he is mired in booze and depression and headed straight for the bottom, only to be saved by the invincible innocence and optimism of forrest gump. >> sinise: god-damn bless america he's angry at... at god and angry at life and all of that, but he's able to put that all in perspective and move on. and at the end of the movie, he's rich and he's... and he's married and he's standing up on

two legs and he's a whole different guy. >> martin: that was 1994, when movies about vietnam vets didn't have happy endings. >> sinise: i thought i'd try out my sea legs. >> tom hanks: but you ain't got no legs, lieutenant dan. >> sinise: it's, i think, probably the first time that a vietnam veteran had been portrayed as somebody who could overcome his obstacles and his challenges and move on from the vietnam war. ♪ >> martin: today, lieutenant dan lives on in the form of the lieutenant dan band, and the concerts it gives to raise money for wounded troops like marine corporal juan dominguez, who lost both legs and an arm to a roadside bomb in afghanistan in 2010. you were not expected to live. >> corporal juan dominguez: died five times. >> martin: died five times? >> dominguez: blood loss. i had to have three

transfusions, blood transfusions. instead of reviving me with air, they had to revive me with blood. this is the one that's a pain in the butt. ( laughs ) >> martin: dominguez is now back at his home base in california, spending much of his time in physical therapy, struggling to walk again. it's a slow and painful process, but he's not going through it alone. he's engaged to alexis gomez, whom he met after he was wounded. they currently live in a cramped townhouse, where everything is more difficult than it needs to be. >> dominguez: i can't really get to... because my wheelchair is so bulky. >> martin: but later this year, they plan to move to a new home custom-built to dominguez' needs, which is why a movie star asked the city council of temecula, california, if he could put on a concert to raise money for the house. >> sinise: i hope that you will grant us permission to come here to temecula, and to celebrate the service of juan dominguez by bringing the community together

to raise money though this particular concert, so that he knows that he's got a community that's welcoming and that's going to look out for him for many years to come. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. sinise. ( applause ) >> martin: you must have people who would do that for you. why do you go to a city council meeting and try to get a permit? >> sinise: well, wanted to make it hard for them to say no. ( laughs ) >> martin: they said yes. and so, before the concert, dominguez-- still a drummer, despite his wounds-- was back at his townhouse practicing for the show. >> sinise: well, guess what? we have a special treat. let's bring juan dominguez right out here. he's going to play with us. ( cheers and applause ) ♪ ♪ >> martin: sinise and his band of professional musicians are teamed up with a foundation

honoring a new york city fireman who died on 9/11 to raise money to build houses for dominguez and nine other wounded veterans this year. but that's the easy part. >> sinise: let's say we build somebody a house, and now they've got a home to live in. well, what happens then, you know, when you have no arms and no legs? do you... you know, where's your job? are you just going to stay in that house and hide? >> martin: the real point of this concert is to make sure that doesn't happen. >> sinise: you need community support if you're going to make it, and that's why coming into these towns around the country and playing these concerts to make sure that the town and the community understands what we're dealing with here. somebody you see on television, you know, every week has come to your small community because it's important to support this wounded warrior who lives among you. >> sinise: life is like a box of chocolates.

you never know what you're going to get. >> martin: it always comes back to that role of a lifetime that made him something of a patron saint for amputees. is it the lieutenant dan thing that works for them? >> sinise: sometimes, it's lieutenant dan now, because they recognize me as somebody that maybe knows what they're going through because i played a guy who's lost his legs. sister blanche cannot be annoyed with business details right now. >> martin: by the time he played lieutenant dan, sinise was already an accomplished actor, having founded the steppenwolf theatre in his hometown of chicago, and starred in productions from "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" to "of mice and men." >> sinise: that was my destiny and you cheated me out of it. >> martin: but it was lieutenant dan who changed the course of his life. >> sinise: the movie opened july 4, 1994, and about two weeks after it opened, i got this call from the disabled american veterans. they wanted to give me something

for playing lieutenant dan, for playing a disabled veteran. >> martin: the award is now on the wall of his offices in l.a. that's talking very specifically about lieutenant dan. "nor will we forget that character's heroic struggle to rise above his anger to become not only successful, but an unequivocally good human being." >> sinise: there were 3,000 people in this ballroom. those that could stand were all standing, giving me an ovation, and i was, you know, i... i was so moved by it and really caught off guard by the emotion. >> martin: what do you think it was that so moved you? is it real amputees applauding a pretend amputee? >> sinise: i'm an actor, i'm not a... i play parts, you know. these people lived the part that i played and were wounded, and severely wounded, some of them,

and... and they were applauding me for playing a part. >> martin: as of may 1, there were 1,459 amputees from the wars in iraq and afghanistan. 439 of them lost more than one limb. dominguez is one of 39 who lost three. >> dominguez: i basically thought i was worthless until one of the quad... quad amputees that was there, he was walking around like it was nothing. >> martin: that was marine corporal todd nicely, one of five surviving quadruple amputees. >> corporal todd nicely: i have a feeling, ten years down the road, i'm not even going to remember what it was like to have arms and legs. >> martin: he and his wife crystal are about to move into a new house being built just for them in lake of the ozarks, missouri, paid for in part with money raised by sinise at a concert last memorial day. what does this house mean for you? >> nicely: for me, it means getting my life back, you know, being able to do a lot of the things on my own. >> martin: it's impossible to imagine what the nicelys have endured since the day in march

of 2010 when he stepped on a booby-trapped bridge in afghanistan. >> nicely: i remember thinking, "if i just keep breathing, i'll make it home to my wife, so..." >> martin: you know, you can't sacrifice much more for your country and live to tell about it. >> nicely: yeah, that's true. >> martin: in addition to his devastating wounds, they had to deal with a sometimes insensitive military culture. >> crystal nicely: their superiors, they look at them like they should be able to function like they did before, like, we had an instance where a gentleman got mad because todd didn't shave his face. you know, that's probably not something that should be on your priority list of things that todd should have to do. >> todd nicely: living without hands is the hardest thing i think i've had to... >> martin: you're clean shaven this morning. >> todd nicely: yeah, that took me a while to learn how to do that. before, i had cuts all over my face. i'd be bleeding all over, so... >> martin: there may always be frustrations for the nicelys, but at least he will not have to worry about stairs in their new home. it will have its own elevator. when you get that, what

difference is that going to make in the... the way you live in this house? >> todd nicely: it's going to make life ten times easier. >> martin: sinise set up his own foundation to help build homes for the severely wounded, except triple amputee bryan anderson, who doesn't want one. you're not getting a smart home for yourself. >> bryan anderson: no, i'm not. >> martin: why not? >> anderson: i'm good. like, i get around just fine. i do everything i want to do. i don't need it, so give it to somebody that would take it, and i would feel guilty taking something away from somebody that could actually need it. >> martin: but that hasn't stopped him from becoming friends with sinise, a relationship he literally fell into when he stumbled while trying out his new prosthetic legs in the physical therapy room at walter reed. >> anderson: i just put my arms out and i landed on the first person that i could grab, and then i look up, i'm, like, "oh, holy crap, it's gary sinise." and he looks at me, he's like "holy crap, the real lieutenant dan."

and i'm just like, "no, no, no, no, you'll always be lieutenant dan." and he's, like, "come over here, let's have a talk." and then, we just started talking about everyday things, and it was like he was talking to me as a person and not just a wounded soldier. >> martin: anderson is definitely a person. and one of the writers on "csi: new york" was inspired to turn him into a character, a very unlikely murder suspect. >> anderson: what do i think? i'm not going to let you stand here and accuse me of murder. >> sinise: the gag was we hid him from everybody, and then we showed him and he gets himself up on his legs by himself. >> martin: a gymnast before he joined the army, anderson carries on like any other 30- something. the last thing you would call him is wheelchair bound. you're obviously in a very good

place for a guy that has sacrificed as much as you have. >> anderson: i am in a very good place, yes. >> martin: do you think gary sinise is responsible for any of that? >> anderson: gary's responsible for the beginning. i've done a lot on my own for myself. gary was the one to show me that i can do everything, that it is possible. he really showed me that i can still do anything. it doesn't matter that i'm in a chair. if this guy can see that, why can't i? >> martin: it's his role of a lifetime, and it keeps sinise on the road most weekends. >> sinise: thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank all of you for what you do for our country. it's a part of my life. it's a part of my... what i think is important and what makes me feel that i can contribute. >> martin: you're a big-shot actor, but this is what makes

you feel important? >> sinise: it gets you out of yourself, you know. ( laughs ) it puts everything in perspective real good. >> go to 60minutesovertime.com to hear a conversation with david martin about his decade of reporting on wounded warriors. sponsored by viagra. [ male announcer ] you're at the age where you don't get thrown by curveballs. ♪ this is the age of knowing how to get things done. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. this is the age of taking action.

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