tonight on "nightline" -- forever young. women in their 20s in increasing numbers are turning to botox to fend off sags and wrechkles you can't even see. america's obsession with youth. how far is too far? one dark hour. they say he walked a mile and went door to door, hunting women and children. tonight, did one american soldier in afghanistan snap in a way that could change the course of the war? and upper lip unstiffened. when the british royals toured the world in recent decades they were either stoic or stodgy or downright loopy but never cool.

then along came harry and everything changed. good evening. i'm bill weir. in the eternal search for that youthful look, there is no shortage of tonics, scrubs, injections with or without to c toxics, micro derm abrasion, lasers and the scalpel. what if you have that youthful look because you are what doctors call young? in moves designed to derail the aging process before it start, younger women are undergoing elective procedures to correct imperfections no one can see. here's abc's claire shipman. >> reporter: they're young women in the dewy blush of youth. even in a celebrity world that demands perfection, sagging and

wrinkles for them should seem a far off future battle. >> if you look really closely, she's just starting to get crow's feet so maybe she should do a little preventive bo fox. you see she's very heavy lidded. you could do that around her eyes, tighten up her lips. >> reporter: no one's saying the young beauties have had anything done but we're picking apart their picture because unbelievably they'd be considered candidates for the latest trend in cosmetic procedure, preventive aging. it's official. we've become a society so obsessed with youth that women in their 20s are taking dramatic and expensive measures. >> then we have this one here. >> reporter: -- to stop aging before it happens. if they have the means. this doctor, a dermatologist on new york's tony fifth avenue advises her young patients to start early. >> it's going to totally improve. >> reporter: because for better or worse, it does work. >> if you're in your 20s and you start to see lines coming, then why not do it early and prevent

it? and to me it's just like exercise. >> reporter: that was jane's thinking as well. a new mother and aspiring actress with no overt need for any boosting or filling -- >> hi, jane. >> reporter: -- she decided to make a substantial investment in stopping the clock at 31. she's having a treatment to tighten and lift skin that's all the rage in hollywood. >> i went on an audition recently and i was supposed to portray a young mother, which i am actually, but every young mother that came in really looked 19 so i looked like way, way older. >> reporter: thermage literally draws the collagen into overdrive. the results can be starting. it sounds like the new wonder drug. >> it really is. it tightens your skin. there's no downtime. but it is expensive. for example, to do a whole face could be $3,500.

it's an expensive investment so it's not for everybody. >> reporter: are a lot of these treatments now so common place that they come up as topics of conversation with young women? >> i think so for sure. and you'll see it in the media, in magazine articles. hey, have you ever heard of this, i'm trying this. >> reporter: and is it something you talk about with your friends? >> uh-huh, all the time. >> reporter: the doctor says thermage is so popular that the latest trend is the full body treatment. you can fix almost anything that sags without surgery. >> we've had people do their entire bodies. >> reporter: are the results dramatic? >> dramatic. >> reporter: dare i ask the cost of a full-body thermage? >> you may. $25,000. >> reporter: wow. >> yeah. >> reporter: jaliman is the author of a new book. which in addition to wrinkle zapping technology also offers less costly basic advice for any young woman looking to fend off signs of aging.

>> making sure you get enough sleep. making sure you eat right. i can't tell you how many people come to me to correct all these problems that they wouldn't have if they followed some of the simple rules. >> reporter: most important, she says, avoid sun ex-spoposure an tanning beds. >> we know sun damage is cumulative. five minutes a day is enough to give you skin cancer. it's also enough to break down the collagen, the elastic tissue. >> reporter: still, a lot of young women want more. if thermage is out of reach, there's preventive botox. when you get the botox, does it hurt? >> there's other things i think women do that are more painful. >> reporter: that's what katie came in for. >> when you are 25, you have that mentality of, one, it's never going to happen to me or i'll always look this great. i won't be one of those people that does that. then it happens. >> reporter: katie was just 28 with wedding bells in the offing when she decided to put her toe in the botox water. >> i wanted that pop in my eye and i wanted just the extra perk of my eyebrows.

>> reporter: so you looked at katie and you saw what? where were the -- >> so she was starting to get forehead lines. she was getting them early. some people have very strong muscles and facial expressions. it's a very expressive face. >> reporter: expressive face. >> so an expressive face will start to show lines. once those lines etch into the skin, they start to scar down. >> reporter: though it may make you cringe, if you still can, botox is up 10% among 20-year-olds to 29-year-olds just in the last year. so it doesn't surprise you anymore to see twentysomethings coming in for botox? >> not at all. botox has been around now for almost 20 years. it's relatively painless. it's quick. it's easy. it's an office visit. it doesn't require any surgery. and so many people are willing to do it. >> reporter: katie says she was thrilled with the result and has since been stopping back once a

year for maintenance. but katie and most young consumers still aren't that eager to go public. you didn't tell your husband you were doing it? >> i didn't tell anybody. >> reporter: you didn't tell anybody? >> not till now. >> reporter: she didn't even tell her husband. >> that's a common thing. we have a lot of people ripping up receipts in our office, right. >> reporter: all of it, katie thinks, worth the investment. >> i'm not going to look like i'm 25 years old but if i can look, let's say, you know, if i'm 35 and i can look 30 or if i'm 45 and i can look 40, i think there's something to be said for that. >> reporter: especially in this age of not aging at all. for "nightline," i'm claire shipman in new york. ♪ oh. let's go. from the crack, off the backboard. [ laughs ] dad! [ laughs ] whoo! oh!

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there are around 90,000 americans in afghanistan tonight, and many of them have spent many years trying to prove to the locals they're the good guys. that effort took a massive step backwards this weekend when a lone soldier put on his night vision goggles, walked to a nearby village and allegedly murdered 16 civilians including 9 children. as presidents and generals wrestle with the ramifications, there's new scrutiny of the suspect's home base. here's abc's martha raddatz. >> reporter: when he wasn't at war, the 38-year-old staff sergeant accused of massacring innocent afghans was based here, joint base lewis-mcchord outside tacoma, washington. a base that is seen as one of the most troubled in the military. a history of violence during deployment and after. sergeant calvin gibbs, convicted

of murdering afghans for sport, leading and organized soldiers into what was called a kill squad. 24-year-old iraq veteran benjamin barnes made it back to lewis-mcchord but after a shootout at a new year's party this year, he fled to nearby mt. rainier and gunned down a park ranger. last year, this sergeant poured lighter fluid on his wife and set her on fire. and the list goes on. but now the community is faced with the worst crime of all. trying to understand how a married father of two could, as officials say he did, slaughter afghan women and children. >> i can't think of anybody in the world who would say going and killing 16, 18 civilians, children, is okay, anywhere in the world. much less when you're wearing that american flag and that u.s. army -- it's just completely -- >> reporter: unacceptable but

all too real. the images from half a world away chillingly clear. 16 afghan citizens dead. 9 of them young children. some just babies. their bodies wrapped in blankets by the killer and burned. "are my children taliban," this grieving woman asks. "is my 2-year-old taliban?" the massacre allegedly began in the middle of the night saturday. 3:00 a.m. when officials say the soldier, donning night vision goggle, left his remote combat outpost southwest of kandahar. he allegedly walked one mile through the darkness to the village of balandi and there, they say, went house to house. four were killed in the first. none were armed. in the second house, the soldier allegedly killed 11. four girls, four boys and three women, many of them in their sleep. "they're all my neighbors and

villages," this man says. "you've wiped out an entire family." but the shooter wasn't done. officials say he then walked back passed his base to another village killing one more unarmed victim in his final brutal act. >> what happened, what caused this soldier to snap, that will need to be determined in the days and weeks to come. >> reporter: the staff sergeant enlisted in the army just two months after terrorists brought down the world trade towers on 9/11. a trained sniper. he spent the better part of the past decade at war. four deployments. three deployments to iraq from 2003 to 2004. 2006 to 2007. and the last in iraq from 2009 to 2010. it was in 2010 that the soldier suffered a traumatic brain injury when his vehicle rolled over in iraq. he was later treated and cleared again for combat. but when he returned home, officials say he had a hard time

adjusting to home life. there were marital problems that officials say have persisted. yet he continued to clear routine behaviorioral health screenings. he was sent to afghanistan in december 2011. >> this is unprecedented, where our professional military has been at war for so long. >> reporter: no matter the motive, this could not have come at a worst time. only weeks after the country exploded in the wake of the accidental burning of korans by american soldiers. today, president obama urged patience. >> as we transition to afghan lead, we don't rush for the exits in a way that could end up leading to more chaos and more disaster. >> reporter: but it has now been over a decade of war. and the strains are evident everywhere. more than 76,000 cases of posttraumatic stress disorder have been identified in the army alone. investigators will look at the

staff sergeant's background and what care he got in the field and back at joint base lewis-mcchord. the army medical facility there, madigan, is already being accused of reversing more than 200 ptsd diagnosises in order to save money. but the army today released a statement saying "to take a small number of unconnected incidents over time and present them as evidence of a troubled military community does a disservice." the murder charges against the staff sergeant are expected any day. then we'll know his name. for now, he has retained a lawyer and is saying nothing about what happened. for "nightline," i'm martha raddatz in washington. >> martha will have much more on this story as details become available. coming up, how prince harry is changing the way royals roll. ♪ [ male announcer ] the 2012 m-class continually monitors blind spots,

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the british royal tour abroad. long a stodgy, stoic, completely predictable and at times unintentionally entertaining affair. until the queen's youngest grand son got a hold of it. in an age where you don't dare touch the queen, harry is a hugger and the royal subjects are eating it up. here's abc's nick watt. >> reporter: the british royal family has finally discovered a perfect role for prince harry. they sent him on what they call a royal tour.

but harry kicked it up a notch. not just meeting the people, but actually partying with them. and some of the drinking he's done, the dancing. >> reporter: he's been doing what he does best. >> i'm speechless right now. >> reporter: short on expertise, long on enthusiasm. >> out of 10, 7. the 5. >> reporter: he's hugged the jamaican prime minister. kissed a brazilian model. outrun the world's fastest man. >> cheated. cheated. >> he can't sit there with a stiff upper lip and not get involved. we knew from the start these countries were going to be fantastic fun. i've never taken myself too seriously. >> reporter: our own royal watcher unbuttoned and embracing the mood. >> it's quite a relief after ten days being as tired as i am that it's only ten days, not three months of this. >> reporter: the queen's been

doing this 60 years. >> the queen had to be offered the gifts due to a distinguished traveler, teeth, a roast pig. >> reporter: she's visited 129 countries by plane, train and automobile, accompanied by flunkies, fiaining excitement wherever she went. >> i'm delighted to be amongst you all. >> reporter: she's been to canada 22 times. around the world she's witnessed no one knows how many traditional dances. >> i always find these setpiece royal tours rather strange. >> reporter: sounds tacky but the royals are basically brand ambassadors for britain. using their super powers, their regal glow, to persuade foreigners to visit this mack kronistic theme park of beautiful princesses. >> royal advisers would tell their principles do not sing, do not dance, do not be seen to be

drinking anything and try not to be funny because you might not pull it off. >> reporter: the tours are pock marked are awkward moments. charles sporting a wig in jamaica. the queen snoozing through a dull seminar. >> there's always something that goes wrong. >> reporter: suggested she's 200 years old. >> you helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -- in 1976. she gave me a look only a mother could give a child. >> reporter: canada 1998 gave us a glimpse of the future. charles wears a hat and looks like a tool. william pulls it off. the teeny princes were met with this. >> i touched harry. >> william and harry have got that rock star quality that others don't have. >> reporter: and harry's just rewritten the rule book on how to be a royal tourist. not bad for the kid once written off as the party