Chapter 1. Our story begins with a murder." "A murder that should never have happened." "But it did." "And from this one event would come the ripples of a chain of events that would change the future of everyone involved." "There's a chain of events that must happen to one man to the point of no return in this story and this story is a man's story, and his name is David Vincent." "He began life on June 29, 1963, a Monday." "By July, he would begin the journey of what we call a lifetime." "But on that day, June 29, he was a boy, not yet 8 years old." "And on that day, he did something without thinking of the consequences." "And this would change the course of his life." "He would pay the price for this act, he would pay the price for it with something we call justice." "He would pay the price for it and pay the price again." "What was this chain of events?" "This is it, the beginning of his life." "David Vincent was the first son born to the Martin family." "He lived in a quiet corner of North Texas in a suburb of Dallas." "The suburb of Oak Lawn." "His father, a school teacher, was a quiet man and an active Republican." "But he became active when he saw his Party betrayed by some of its own." "In 1962, when the presidential candidate Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Bill." "The elder Vincent joined with his high school classmate and friend Jack Martin, and other conservative Republicans to form a new political party called the "Freedom Party."" "They were not radicals." "They were, in fact, staunch supporters of the Republican Party." "But they would support Goldwater, the only candidate to oppose the Civil Rights Bill, at the convention in 1963." "They would be so successful that" "Goldwater would receive more than 10 million votes, in the primaries, on his way to a landslide victory in the election." "As a result, he and his supporters would be called "The New Right."" "His opponent, Johnson, received only 2 million votes." "No one predicted the political realignment of the South." "It was not only the South." "Johnson carried only one state in the north, his home state of Texas." "Barry Goldwater carried the states of the old Confederacy, and with them, the election of the South." "In his next term, he would be a major obstacle in the path of the civil rights bill, once again, because of him." "But that's how this country worked in the sixties." "Only a few years ago, they were the Greatest Generation." "The most respected and honored group of men." "In 1941, when he graduated from high school," "David Vincent had no intention of serving his country in World War II." "David was, of course, very proud of his father, his country, and his family." "They were what he called "The Good People."" "And the good people did not go to war, unless they were forced." "His decision to join the Army was purely voluntary, after all, David was, of course, 18." "It was an attempt to avoid the draft, a rite of passage for college students and for his generation." "David Vincent fought a war that was never officially declared, and a war that we won without even fighting." "It was a war of ideas." "And what was the war of ideas?" "It was a war to put an end to what the younger Vincent, and many others of his generation, thought of as, the "Bad War."" "It was a war that never should have been." "That is, a war that was fought with other means of power and might, and not with ideas." "The young men of his generation had not only never seen such atrocities, they were young." "There was no World War II for them, and the war they fought, was, the war they won." "It was called the "Good War."" "They were the ones that fought in World War II and they were the ones who saved the world." "And with the help of the Allies, brought down Adolf Hitler." "They were the ones that liberated Europe from the tyranny of the Nazi's, and the Nazis, were the most evil nation on the earth." "All of which, created a sense of gratitude in them." "They came home after the war." "Their great war had been won." "They were then called upon to be a great force for peace." "And many of them embraced this idea and devoted their lives to helping those less fortunate than themselves." "David Vincent was such a man." "He was born in 1963, the son of a soldier, at the height of the Vietnam War." "As soon as he could, David went to The Citadel." "The first person to teach him, that one of his fellow students, by the name of Bobby Lee, had volunteered for the infantry." "They were not close." "For David, his years at the Citadel," "was to be, a time of study and discipline, but more, a time of self-discovery." "David had thought that he knew who he was, but then, at the Citadel, he learned, for the first time, that he didn't know who he was." "Or who he should be." "He was part of the Silent Majority, those of you who do the right thing and who respect our flag, but didn't like the way things were going." "And the way things were going were far from right." "The young, they couldn't believe it." "To them, it was a sin, a crime that the youth would go against their generation and serve in a war they were too young to understand and too young to fight." "And he was a product of Vietnam." "And he would say, later in life, that his entire generation was made up of veterans, who had fought in that war, and it drove them nuts that people didn't understand that the war was, not just a war that was unwinnable, but a war that was immoral," "that cost a great many lives." "But he saw the war for what it was, a war that had been corrupted by the government." "And although he had never been to Vietnam, when the war began, he felt he was in a war that never ended." "The Cold War." "He was a soldier, but he was also a Vietnam-era student." "And a conservative." "If you were a conservative in the 1960's, you were a patriot, and you were for the war and the army, and you were against the communists." "And now, in the late 1960's, a war was beginning to brew that pitted students against the police and the army." "In the spring of 1968, violence broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago." "The police were brutal." "All summer, David Vincent had been following the trials on the nightly news." "This was the first time that he saw his country at war." "When he and his parents saw the news coverage of the riots, he began to realize the great divide in his country." "And he also realized, that the people who were supposed to protect him, had failed." "David Vincent now knew what the police and the army didn't know." "He knew why his peers, and the children of the veterans, were rebelling against the country, and the forces that he thought were there to protect the values of that country." "He now also knew that he would have to become involved." "He was never again going to be part of the Silent Majority." "And now, as an active patriot, he began to speak out against the violence, that was tearing apart the country." "At that point, young David Vincent was confronted by the realities of America." "He could understand why people were rioting." "He'd had nightmares all his life." "And it had never occurred to him, that we were the ones that were out of step." "And he was convinced that the country, that we were out of step." "He was convinced, that the whole population was out of step." "And he wanted to change that." "He said, that's a good beginning." "I really believe, David Vincent said, that if we ever start thinking right again, and start acting right, we'll never lose another war again." "But he needed to tell other people." "Who better to tell than someone who would understand?" "And who better than someone who was also trying to do the right thing?" "So David Vincent joined the Army." "But not as a soldier, as a recruiter, a recruiter for the Army's R.O.T.C. program." "Recruiting men to save the world." "David Vincent soon found himself in the streets of Vietnam." "The war was in its sixth month, and after three years, the American public had begun to doubt that it was winnable." "For three years, we had been fighting against a very determined foe, and one who had been winning every single battle they had fought." "The North Vietnamese Army and its supply lines and the Vietcong, their army, were able to move and live in the areas they controlled, because that's where the people of Vietnam had been living for the past ten years," "under the control of the communist Vietcong, led by the North Vietnamese Army." "In World War II, it was the Nazis and the Japanese, that we fought." "