and they attacked all the cities in vietnam. the ninth division, the only unit south of saigon, had its work cut out for us because there was so many big cities in the delta. the third by -- brigade, the first brigade by land, the second brigade went by water. you go to throw them out. the second brigade threw out people from five or six major cities in the delta. at the end of a month, month and a half, the viet cong were eradicated from the villages and cities. results of tet were interesting. first, it was a big defeat for the viet cong. terrible defeat. yet you wouldn't know it from walter cronkite. second, there was absolutely no uprising. but, third, which is probably more important, that the viet cong infrastructure -- those embedded in the cities -- had to rise up when their battalions attacked, and they were eliminated. so now the government of vietnam controlled all the cities without question, and they wanted to move out in an oil bob sort of strategy in order to pacify the people. and that's what the war in vietnam w

even today's rain brought memories of vietnam monsoons. he says he accepted the medal today for his comrades. >> it's hard for me to accept the term hero, because my heros are in a wall. >> reporter: the women who served in vietnam remember the healing they sought for in their return. >>> remembering the world war ii battle that turned the tide in the south pacific. ♪ let's go out to the dmv ♪ it's ok that we're number four hundred and three ♪ ♪ we'll find ourselves a comfy seat ♪ ♪ and watch some shows and stuff ♪ ♪ ♪ let's follow that lady with the laptop ♪ [ male announcer ] now you can watch hit tv shows on your laptop with u-verse online and on your smartphone with u-verse mobile, included with most plans. or get u-verse tv for as low as $29 a month for 6 months. in the network you can take entertainment with you. >>> for americans of a certain age, just the word vietnam still stirs the soul like no other. everyone all these years after the war and that is particularly true for a lot of women who served there. nearly two decades ago a

coochie vietnam on feb fourteenth nineteen sixty six by a.p. they call it hell's halfacre because of the american boy. that would be and still there counted well and be a koran sniper saddam most of the damage today was no exception on the subcommittee tired of the twenty seventh and for a tree that framed well fall outs and moved out to attack the snipers opened up from such perfect from account of five positions the most of the a copy what the whole day with c. an out of the enemy a sergeant was here in the shoulder and leg as he rode over the third shop were up to his back. a medic groped for cover and rushed to his side as he dropped to his knees to be being given a bullet smashed into the stomach. both the sergeant and the medic to. and out till it up to the lay down to screen a squad going after the wall that the specialist fourth wanted in the help cross the deadly fifty yards without the fallen thieves he was hit again this was no doubt you were there yes it's hard it. they bring back to them well beyond all the birds. christmas certain

vietnam is something that's cost not what may i think of it every day. out of fires back from to memorise still go to counseling for. and. it's is now worth it but what i did do was madness to find some good in that war i think vietnam made me a better person and made me a lot of people more. made me understand that we are all one people to us earth this is sort of not a guilt i think you learn to live with compartmentalize it or unite you rationalize you see my color scheme he says i mean i really don't have to make excuses even. there are things i wish i had not done. but there's no way to change. lad. when you come to the point that you were going to show you actually much more is not the way just so. i disagree. kind of like a place for you to have your night. alone luxury. good luck. a. laugh. so. this is. going to. get. caught. culture is that so much of the taxpayers' money i made a good idea for a real measure a list of issues of relevance and even widget i'm missing as the jostling continues as it will succeed now disgraced company charles kahn

coochie vietnam february fourteenth nine hundred sixty six my e.p. they call it hell's halfacre because of the american blood. that has been spent all their time going to ireland via car and snipers have done most of the damage today was no exception when they saw them but i am twenty seven and for a tree that framed wolfhounds moved out to exact a sniper's over an hour from such perfectly camouflaged possessions but most of the a copy not the whole day without seeing one of the enemy a sergeant was hit in the shoulder in the leg as he voted over a third shop were up to his back. a medic broke for cover and rust or is it as he dropped to his knees to be gained given a bullet smashed into the stomach. of the sergeant and the medic guy and out till a lot was laid out to screen a squad going after the wall that especially his fourth wall in the hip crossed the deadly fifty yards with all the fallen ts he was hit again this was no. you were there yes it's hard it to bring back to minimum. well there no first negative illness so. when they were building u

thing vietnam a me a better person it made me a lot of people more. made me understand that we are all one one people to ottis earth has a certain amount of guilt and if you learn to live with you compartmentalize it or unite you rationalize you can i call excuses i mean i really don't have to make excuses even though. there are things i wish i had not done. but there's no way to change so since. i last. laugh. when you come to the point you're on i'm sure you're actually my house but there are more snow on the way just so. i'm just agreement. like the person you can head toward and i. loathe luxury. with. a. so. let's just. see. this thing that. we're going to. get. culture is the same of the taxpayers' money i made it like this and it will make a list of issues of relevance and even legitimacy as the jostling continues as it will succeed in our disgraced the many charles cullen. was. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around russia. we've got a few jerks covered. again . the. elections. to go.

vietnam a me a better person and made me love people more. made me understand that we are all one not people to us this earth. has a certain amount of guilt a place to learn to live with you compartmentalize it or unite you rationalize you can i call this case is i mean i really know how to make excuses even. there are things i wish i had not done. but there's no way to change. the. last. laugh. when you come to the point it's real nice for you actually much the more snow on the way to saturday. and disagreement. and kind of like the poster you can have your night. clothes luxury. good luck. so. i. think. the thing that. we're going to. get. to do. culture is the same on the taxpayers' money i mean you know i sit here in the real ministry that issues of relevance and even legitimacy as the jostling continues as to who succeed the now disgraced so many trucks on. more than a month. in one of the most extreme environments on the planet this is antarctica and people have to be aware that they are far away from civilization sean thomas discovers

thing vietnam a me a better person and made me while people more. made me understand that we are all one one people throughout this earth. this is sort of not a guilt i think you learn to live with compartmentalize it or unite us as you seem like all the excuses i mean i really don't have to make excuses even though. there are things i wish i had not done. but there's no way to change. lad. when you come to the point that you were going to show you actually much more is not the way to settle. a disagreement. kind of like a place for you to your and i. loathe luxury. with obama. so. just see. this is. the bottom. line. wealthy british style. markets finiteness. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines for an end to kaiser report. is he beat. you. to. see.

thing vietnam a me a better person it made me love people more. made me understand that we are all one one people throughout this earth has a certain amount of guilt i think you learn to live with you compartmentalize it or unite you rationalize you deny call the excuses i mean i really don't have to make excuses even if there are things i wish i had not done. but there's no way to change. lad. when you come to the point that you're not sure you're actually much that the war is not the way to settle. and disagreement. and like the poster you can do more and i. loathe luxury. good luck. so. let's just. say. this is the. least we're going to. get. to do. wealthy british scientists are. split on the title of the. markets finance. find out what's really happening to the global economy with much cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines. is a report on our cheap. subs . if. any is easy to. see if he. gets to. say oh. oh.

actually a came from vietnam veterans. i would talk to them about what i was doing instead i'm writing a book on the tet offensive. many times they would say do we win this time? it goes along with the other old clichÉ that year from the vets, we are winning when i left. they say. so yeah, part of the reason i wrote the book was to try to get the truth out about what happened in vietnam and to honor the men and women who won that war for us before the politicians threw it away. you frequently see tet in headlines these days. whenever anything bad happens in the world, terrorists do some kind of attack or insurgents, some kind of spectacular bombing or something, you'll see a commentator say this is just like the tet offensive. iraq, afghanistan, whatever, i saw a headline about tet refer to northern mexico, as some kind of tet offensive was going on there. "time" magazine said that the wikileaks document dump was just like the tet offensive. i don't place if you can make the analogy, but anyway, the point is that tet is ou

from the civil rights movement to the vietnam war.ctivism over the decades taking part in this rally against the gulf war and participating in this 2005 protest in iraq. here she joined cindy sheehan at president bush's ranch where baez put on a free concert. baez married david harris. the father or -- the former berkeley student president. the marriage would last five years and baez would have one son. >> reporter: whether you call it a demonstration or a riot can depend on your politics. protests in the streets is now a familiar tactic in american politics. and some would say a vital element in a democracy. but do street actions such as these in san francisco a few weeks ago do more good than harm for their cause? do they turn on more citizens than they turn off? do they win hearts and minds? >> these actions did not do so. and i'm not here talks about just civil disobedience. but to go out and target randomly city streets for blockage that have no connection to the war as though somehow you've inherent, because you are upset about

you're helping a lot of vietnam vets. >> yes.ly represent about 20% or so of service-connected disabled veterans. so you have entire generations above and older than current guys who are coming home who are in need just as bad as we are. so we really began targeting that group of individuals that's in the gray area, that their needs aren't being met by the va because they don't qualify for certain extra benefits, or their needs are not being met by other nonprofit groups that are targeting iraq and afghanistan vets. >> you've met obviously a lot of vietnam vets who have had injuries similar to yours. >> right. >> they're also aging, and that sort of exacerbates existing injuries. can you sort of tell me what is the difference between the way you have been welcomed home and they were in terms of the treatment and the help that they got versus you? >> first of all is the family organization, like the fisher house where i was able to stay for a year and able to have my wife and kids in the same room every night, every day. that's co

primarily then it was all vietnam. most of our deployments were to vietnam, and just like the deployments today in afghanistan, ours were in vietnam. >> were you an officer? >> yes i was. i was a platoon leader and an assistant platoon leader and i was privileged to lead 125 -- fine young navy seals. we primarily did actions against the viet cong and infrastructure in vietnam. >> you have at least 12 books you have written? >> it actually is 14. >> how many of those are novels? >> seven of them are novels and the rest are non-fiction. they relate to navy seals, but also i have written on army special forces and i just completed a book on the training of army rangers for the 75th ranger regiment. >> how long have you been writing the story of the seals? >> my first book was a novel that came out in 1990. >> why did you do it? >> as you get to be middle- aged, you realize the things used to do, you are not going to do anymore. i thought it would be fun to write about them. i thought about writing spy books since i had sp

at the vietnam veterans memorial.s derrick ward explains, he was honored for not only success but for what he did after he left the battlefield. >> reporter: another name added to the ward. his wounds came during the '68 tet offensive. he rushed from cover to the line of fire to help a fallen comrade. >> at first he resisted about, but then suddenly jumped up and ran to go get his friend and he could never explain why he did that. as he got to his friend he felt like someone kicked him in the back. >> reporter: paralyzed from the waist down and after coming home and going through arduous physical therapy he would take up yet another fight for the cause of disabled veterans. his new theater of operation, department of labor here in washington and worked with other wounded vietnam veterans, others who understand how the wounds that maime can plague their victims far behind the field of conflict. >> some of it just takes a long time. the injuries catch up with you, particularly parapledgia. >> reporter: it caught up with

the johnson administration altered the bombing of north vietnam in stabilize the ground war this policy reversal was the major issue. it would appear it's difficult to witness history repeat itself numbers show ansi war rallies have significantly decreased over the past years some claim this is because of the election of barack obama to the us presidency as a democrat he rose to power opposing the war in iraq and promising and by august thirty first two thousand and ten. our combat mission in iraq what expectations were high when i bought answered office and after he was awarded the nobel peace prize nonetheless on the sidelines of the nobel committee the ceremony and somewhat pacifists expressed their concern this praise prizes a slap in the face to. sacrifice me for a true peace for years after two years in office many do not see a difference between barack obama and george w. bush at least in terms of foreign policy. neither will leitch has ended and the united scenes is now involved in the military action in libya it wouldn't be the one today has done a wall that interest for across

hundred sixty eight faced with widespread public opposition to the war and troubling prospects in vietnam the johnson administration halted the bombing of north vietnam and stabilized the ground war this policy reversal was a major. turning point. it would appear it's difficult to witness history repeat itself numbers show ansi war rallies have significantly decreased over the past two years some claim this is because of the election of barack obama to the us presidency as a democrat he rose to power opposing the war in iraq and promising and by august thirty first two thousand and ten. our combat mission in iraq. that's. why answered office and after he was awarded the nobel peace prize nonetheless on the sidelines of the nobel committee's sudden lonnie answer to this expressed their concern this priest prize was a slap in the face to. protrude peace for years after two years in office many do not see if between barack obama and george w. bush at least in terms of foreign policy. new though each has ended and then i don't see is not one of goals it's a reaction. it would appear that the

so that's why i spent my on him alone in vietnam alone. we went from the bronx out to ben while we're at daycare for what they call the orientation peter you know to get used to the climate and to actually get used to the sounds of war. the first couple weeks i was terrified every not. and after my first briefing i went back to my bed not i just cannot sleep i like a plate of us are going to be back and we shouldn't have any more because the next day nothing happened. and then. somewhere at about three four weeks we had an operation where they had thirty helicopters i was circling waiting on my turn to go into this l.z. or landing zone to put the conned out of salty. and i are the radio and the power of the one of the red flight said this is regulate were taken far and all i could hear in the background was. now to try to relax and i try to forget about it and it would scan right back this paralyzing kind of fear of knowing that i had to start and be shot at. a helicopter pilot you have both hands full so your gut instinct is to fight it.

and the rest of vietnam that offered a promise for them for a future. and i think ho chi minh was more successful in suggesting to the vietnamese people that the future under him would be brighter for those people. and there was an argument made that the south vietnamese government was corrupt and out of touch with the people. that's not unusual in the world for governments to be labeled corrupt. a great many othe of the governs in the world are corrupt. and i don't know that the north vietnamese government under ho chi minh was not corrupt. that was an argument, and the combination of those things i think created a very difficult circumstance for lyndon johnson and the united states of america. >> and in 1968 richard nixon was elected. he comes to you and asks you to take on the office of economic, and opportunity, one of the crown jewels of the great society, not very popular with the public or nixon basically wanted to dismantle it. not a great career move for you, i think, but you did it. what was your rationale? >> i voted against the legislation w

this was the first step into the vietnam era. even before vietnam. actually what you may not realize, what i did not realize until i wrote the book is how much the vietnam war itself owes to the bay of pigs. if we have time, i'll delve into that more later on. right now, i want to go back a bit in time. back a few years before the pay of bigs and focus on the causes of the invasion. here's the really central question, one we don't have a good answer to even yet. how does something like this happen. my ambitious in this book beyond telling what i think is a fascinating story as well as i could, was to go back once more and look at the events as clearly as possible. with no access to grind, no finger pointing, not trying to blame anyone, not trying to exonerate anybody, just trying to find out as best as i could the truth. so with that goal in mind, i begin my narrative well before the invasion. because i think to understand it, you need to know not just what happened, but the context in which it happened. so i begin two years before the bombs began to

so why a guy spent more on him alone in vietnam. we went from bomb the taliban why we're there for what they call red tape period you know to get used to the climate and to actually get used to the saddam's or. the first couple of weeks i was terrified every not. and after my first reading i went back to my bed i just cannot sleep. all i can thank i was going to be there going to shoot never any more because 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 reply said this is red lead which i can fire and all i could hear in the back was. now i try to relax and i try to forget about it and it would skyrocket like this paralyzing kind of fear of knowing that i have to stop and be shot in. the helicopter pilot you have both hands full so your gut instinct is to try to. hide. but there's no place to hid

history when you're lead to ten thousand vietnam war protesters ended up behind bars but with several wars and a faltering economy topping the agenda today why aren't more people taking their message to the streets. let's say ten years the. freest. environment for the press in the world so i mean well does it now why don't you tell that's of the journalists arrested for exercising a very right to free speech as the globe celebrates world press freedom day we'll look into some of the obstacles facing reporters here in the states. good evening it's tuesday may third eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm lucy cough enough and you're watching our t.v. . and bin laden is dead the man whose actions had a significant impact on u.s. foreign policy and domestic policy over the past decade is now gone what comes next what is bin laden's death mean for the increasingly unpopular war in afghanistan or the seemingly endless war on terror and earlier i posed this question to matthew hoh a former marine corps captain and state department officer who actually became the highest level diplomatic offici

. >>> and vietnam held its first elections for the national assembly in five years on sunday. the tion's economy has grown rapidly in recent years while the political domination of the communist party has remained steady. and observers are watching for any sign of change. nhk world reports from hanoi. >> reporter: communist party general secretary cast his ballot at the polling station in hanoi. he emphasized the significance of the national assembly. >> translator: the national assembly will realize the wishes of the people namely to exercise its right to make law and its right to make important decisions about the fate of the country. >> reporter: the assembly has been criticized as little more than a carbon copy of the ruling communist party. it was in authority in 2001 when it was given the power to dismiss the president and prime minister. in this election, 827 candidates contested 500 seats. about 100 challengers came from the world of business. more than in any previous election. vietnam's economy has been growing almost 7% a year, but problems have emerged including a

vietnam vet, vietnam vet, ron aiello, says not a day goes by that he doesn't think of his canine partner >> my dog alone saved me several times while we were in vietnam. it's a band that lasts a lifetime. lifetime. >> reporter: but he had to leave her behind. now, he wants war dogs reclassified as canine veterans, which would make it easier to adopt them, since the military would have to pay to bring them home. about 300 military dogs are put up for adoption each year. but since the raid on osama bin laden's compound, the military has reportedly received more than 400 applications after cairo, the navy s.e.a.l.s dog helped in that mission. now, he looks like a war dog. the touchstone family considers bagger a hero. with all due respect to the other dog in the house. abbie boudreau. >>> that's what's making news in america this morning. >> stay with us for "good morning america.

is repeating vietnam are valid. what america did in world war ii in korea it did in vietnam, and what it did in vietnam, we are doing in afghanistan. from the perspective of a taliban or al-qaeda fighter or an afghan elder whose family was humiliated by a nighttime raid or relatives were struck accidently or intently, they are invading russia's vietnam, and that's a distinction to be understood. the soviet defeat in afghanistan in the collapse of the soviet union filled the islamic right with fer veer. while the united states could walk away from vietnam bruceed but the world status uneffected, the same is not said for afghanistan and pakistan when the united states has long term interest in gas pipelines and oil, russia, iran, and india, and preventing the region from once again becoming a base for al-qaeda terrorism. what does the united states do now that it has this contradiction where the use of force no longer guarantees security, but underminds the security it was meant to ensure? the significance of this mom

war in vietnam or he's killing ford we visited the meeting police crackdowns in washington d.c. with some of the people who let their them. washington d.c. . may third one thousand nine hundred seventy one more than two hundred thousand protesters and veterans converge in the capital to demand an end to the war in vietnam the idea was to shut the city down because the war would stop and the only way to stop the war was to was to stop the government and that was the slogan of the demonstration and that was by putting their bodies on the road and blocking traffic any better was there with his camera rolling thunder what based circle look like i may third one hundred seventy one we're back in seventy one you know a lot of the people were staying around dupont circle you know actually i was living there off of new hampshire and st and so it was just a block or two to be here and there were just thousands of people that would just converge and then we would disappear back in for places and we knew the turf and we knew the alley way so but the spite that i mean more i think on that da

and very quickly after that sent more men, 400 more men to vietnam, really the first step into did not begin on the beaches of cuba. this gentleman here and then i will come over there. >> thank you. in my mind there must have been some thought of cause that caused kennedy to back away from a second airstrike or even after that first air strike, are you aware or is any documentation of any conversation between john f. kennedy and khrushchev in the day after the first airstrike? >> no. >> calling john kerry didn't back off to? >> no. the conversations were with the secretary of state advise him your khrushchev did on the 18th send a very threatening letter to john kennedy, really saying if you buy the lives of the people you better back off. you know, in the cold war the stakes are always so high. and i think that's why we have to have some sympathy for these presidents who served when -- there were always a few decisions away from nuclear war, at least they thought they were. prince charles said -- i can't quote the letter, it's in the book, but you better get out of cuba or we're goin

lysol our hopes for bringing about a great society disappeared of a quark are of vietnam it was a very sad time a great time costly for those who lost their lives both americans and vietnam vietnamese but it also represented a turning away from the possibilities of building a better society at home. if. very well said if we could move back to the to the media for a second you're the bush appointed kind of thomas as the chairman of the corp of a broadcast and apparently he was a rather regular critic of you on p.b.s. you said there are times when i was threatened by radio stations to tone it down and european are we and actually not even we is is the corporation for public broadcasting in general moving away from programming in the public interest. but i don't see any evidence of that yet the is corporation for you know there are good republicans and there are dangers republicans as there are good democrats and and bad to make arrests in the present president of the corporation for public broadcasting pat harrison is a public minded public spirited republican and i think she is really t

what was going on in vietnam.just thought it was interesting that i could write to a soldier. >> reporter: jim ogelbeck was a 20-year-old medical core man with a marine batallion in vietnam. he says her letters gave him a sense of the normal world. >> it says the prom was fantastic. there were a few complications, he was a half hour late. there were champane spilled on the front of my dress. >> reporter: they never met when he returned. last year moore found the letters, she wrote the screen play, through the internet found her pen pal and invited him. >> she was my sanity in an insane world and i really truly mean it. that's how i felt. >> reporter: ogelback he says last year it was 42 years to the day when he wrote the first letter to her from vietnam. live in foster city, lloyd lacuesta, ktvu channel 2 news. >>> the vatican took another step today to deal with the sex abuse scandal that has plagued the catholic church for years. the pope told the vatican they are to cooperate with the investigation. >>> 35-year

dog alone saved me several times while i was over in vietnam with her.s a bond that lasts a lifetime. >> reporter: but he had to leave her behind. now he wants war dogs reclassified and canine veterans which would make it easier to adopt them since the military would then have to pay to bring them home. about 300 military dogs are put up for adoption each year. but since the raid on osama bin laden's compound, the military has reportedly received more than 400 applications. after cairo, the navy s.e.a.l.s dog, helped in that mission. >> now he looks like a war dog. >> reporter: the touchstone family considers dagger a hero. with all due respect to the other dog in the house. abbie boudreau, abc news, bakersfield, california. >>> to find out how you can adopt a war dog, head to abcnews.com/world news. >>> are the drugs you rely on in short supply? a growing health threat. rely on in short supply? a growing health threat. about bugs. she hasg no, no, no... i do not have a thing about bugs. i have a thing about bugs in our house. we used to call an extermin

humiliation in vietnam. in the 1990s, we saw the stirring rhetoric and the commitment to the people of afghanistan of the 1980s e evaporate as the country descended into civil war and the rise of the taliban. when the u.s. invaded pakistan in 2001, we shook our heads at the iran yi as the -- irony as the u.s. followed the same way to envelope its enemy. with the obama's administration to cross over the duran line and expand war into pakistan, we knew the process we speculated about 30 years ago was completed. there were two main reasons for naming the new book crossing discoer row. one is it's the name given to the duran line separating afghanistan from pakistan by the military intelligence community and also a line that the u.s. fought on both sides of since the 1980s. the other is given its history, the zero line is an inescapable metaphor for the turning point in which the united states finds itself at at the beginning of the second decade in the 21st century, figging a war that's not defined yet cannot a

thirty thousand protesters came to washington with a goal of shutting down the government and the vietnam war it was a scene unlike anything you'd see today and our scale and for remembers this historic thing gets perspective from those who were there. washington d.c. . may third one thousand nine hundred seventy one more than two hundred thousand protesters and veterans converge in the capital to demand an end to the war in vietnam the idea was to shut the city down because the war would stop and the only way to stop the war was to was to stop the government and that was the slogan of the demonstration and that was by putting their bodies on the road and blocking traffic at the back or was there with his camera rolling i mean what haste circle look like i'm a thirty nine hundred seventy one we're back in seventy one you know a lot of the people were staying around to answer you know actually i was living there off of new hampshire and st and so it was just a block or two to be here and they were just thousands of people that we just converged and then we would disappear back in for space

what was going on in vietnam.was interesting that i could write to a soldier. >> reporter: jim ogelbeck was a 20-year-old medical core man with a marine batallion in vietnam. he says her letters gave him a sense of the normal world. >> it says the prom was fantastic. there were a few complications, he was a half hour late. there were champane spilled on the front of my dress. >> reporter: they never met when he returned. last year moore found the letters, she wrote the screen play, through the internet found her pen pal and invited him. >> she was my sanity in an insane world and i really truly mean it. that's how i felt. >> reporter: ogelback he says last year it was 42 years to the day when he wrote the first letter to her from vietnam. live in foster city, lloyd lacuesta, ktvu channel 2 news. >>> the vatican took another step today to deal with the sex abuse scandal that has plagued the catholic church for years. the pope told the vatican they are to cooperate with the investigation. >>> 35-year-old james dunba

so we face the problem we had in vietnam. we have a sanctuary across the border from afghanistan where terrorists or insurgents can freely move back and forth. people will ask why don't you seal the border? and i say let's seal the border from maine to key west because that is the length of the border between pakistan and afghanistan. so roughly speaking, that is an impossible task. we need the cooperation of the pakistani government to stop the cross border insurgency. the problem is from their perspective they are quite satisfied to fight the pakistani taliban. they do not want afghan taliban to be their war. they do not attack very energetically anything having to do with the afghan taliban. there are other terrorist groups and insurgent groups and smugglers who operate across the same border. they also are not necessarily at war with pakistan. they are at war with us or so it seems. we have not declared war on anyone. there is a great ambiguity there and that is a possibility that could lead to a negotiated settlement. it

i was in vietnam. i was privileged to lead 12 fine young navy seals verio -- navy

we escalated the war in vietnam. we put the wagons around any but the official view of reality, and even tacked -- even attacked and criticize and demeaned the reporters in vietnam who were reporting. what is the truth? you can debate that, but the facts are not debatable. you are entitled to your own opinion but not iran fax. people -- but notyour own facts. people call me a liberal because mainly by reports of evidence they did not want to hear. my opinions are really based on the evidence that i have gathered, but this no longer -- this is no longer a society that honors the facts or the evidence. there was a study, university of michigan, that show people, confronted with facts that they know are right, will nonetheless not allow those facts to change their opinion because their belief, their positions are based on their beliefs, not on facts. this is why you get a majority of republicans watching fox news who believe that obama was born in kenya or a majority of republicans listening to rush limbaugh who think o

vietnam, i'm not sure, many people criticize as war powers today who think vietnam was constitutional becausenk of gulf of tonken resolution. many people say lyndon johnson lied to get congressd to pass a statute.o but congress passed thee. statute. every year there were significant increases in the military voted by congress. so the president and congress agreed on vietnam for a long time. congress acted every year. they could have easily stopped. year. how did the vietnam war end? congress cut off funding, and the war ended just like that. sometimes we confuse lack of political will for some kind of constitutional defect. i think the house and senate just did not want to use that ample powers they had in vietnam. >> nixon said it was unconstitutional, and that is why he vetoed it, but for a different reason than you indicate. i do not think it says the president can do anything he wants for 60 days. it just as the constitutional powers of the president to introduce troops -- hostilities may only be exercised pursuant to a declaration of war or national emergency created by an attack

but >>> the annual memorial day rolling thunder motorcycle ride roared into washington and to the vietnamemorial today. but, this year, the bikers' annual tribute to those who served was overshadowed by politics. as knee said, a possible presidential candidate joined the ride. >> reporter: 250,000 motorcycles rolled through the streets of washington, d.c. for the rolling thunder event. but one rider got most of the attention. former alaska governor sarah palin took photos and shook hands near the pentagon. >> we are veterans. >> reporter: she and her entire family hopped on motorcycles for the entire journey for a stage near the vietnam memorial. this is the start of the palin's family bus tour of historic sites on the east coast which she is promoting in a new youtube video. >> the future of our country. >> four vietnam veterans started rolling thunder to bring attention to prisoners of war but it's not a political event. the hundreds of thousands of participants had mixed feelings about sarah palin's presence. >> she is a political influence. >> i think she is very intelligent and, i th