CNN/Time

The Pope's Rabbi; Dogs of War; Just a Bullet Away

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME. Tonight, "The Pope's Rabbi."

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CHARLES GLASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: His was the rarest of visits to an ancient and holy land.

DAVID ROSEN, RABBI: For him, it is the crown in a way or the jewel in the crown of his pontificate.

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ANNOUNCER: But it wasn't a Christian who helped clear the way for the Pope's historic journey to Israel. It was an Orthodox Jew.

ANNOUNCER: "Dogs of War." They had names like Hobo (ph) and Clipper.

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JOHN BURNAM, U.S. ARMY VETERAN: Clipper and I were on the patrol near the Cambodian border.

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ANNOUNCER: More than companions, they were brothers in arms.

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BURNAM: And he saved a lot of people's lives as a result of his alerts.

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ANNOUNCER: And their reward for this heroic service? The U.S. military left many behind.

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KARL GROSS, U.S. MARINE VETERAN: Days on end, you -- you would think about him or wonder what happened to him.

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ANNOUNCER: "Just a Bullet Away." He's on the run.

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FRANCISCO SANTOS, COLOMBIAN REPORTER: They were going to shoot me.

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ANNOUNCER: A crusading journalist crosses the line and becomes a target for assassination.

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SANTOS: I never thought it would happen to me.

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ANNOUNCER: From kidnapping to exile, a reporter's story in his own words.

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SANTOS: Colombia is a country that have so much values that -- that even heroes are forgotten very easily.

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ANNOUNCER: CNN & TIME, with Jeff Greenfield and Bernard Shaw.

BERNARD SHAW, CO-HOST: Good evening, and welcome to CNN & TIME.

This week, Pope John II travels to Israel, the first papal visit to the holy land in nearly four decades. The pilgrimage follows the pope's unprecedented apology for the sins of Catholics over the last 2,000 years, including their treatment of Jews.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CO-HOST: But despite the pope's millennial act of repentance, there are many Jewish hard-liners who say he is not welcome in Israel, and yet one of the strongest supporters of the papal visit is a well-respected Orthodox rabbi.

That story now from Charles Glass.

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CHARLES GLASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): David Rosen is not everyone's idea of the typical Orthodox rabbi.

DAVID ROSEN, RABBI: I never really decided to be a rabbi. I grew up in a modern Orthodox environment feeling an heir to two world cultures, to my Jewish heritage and to world culture generally.

GLASS (voice-over): His mission is building bridges, first of all to modern secular Jews. He conducts interfaith dialogues with Muslims, including the president of Indonesia, and he has preached in a mosque, and the International Conference of Christians and Jews made him their president, and when Pope John Paul arrives in the holy land this week, one of the few Israeli rabbis he will recognize is David Rosen.

ROSEN: He has always referred to his dream of being able to visit the holy land and how he prays and looks forward to fulfilling that particular dream.

GLASS: Rosen was the rabbi in the Vatican, meeting the pope frequently and taking part in talks on the holy see's recognition of the State of Israel.

ROSEN: I wouldn't describe myself as a -- as very much a kind of a new age person, but as I was walking there into the Vatican, I had that feeling millions of eyes of my ancestors were looking down at me in absolute stupefaction, "Our little baby going into that place," which -- if you came out intact -- physically intact -- at all, would your soul still be intact? Because that's what it represented throughout the -- the centuries of history.

GLASS: David Rosen was born 50 years ago in Great Britain and educated at a school founded by his rabbi father. He emigrated to Israel, and unlike most rabbinical students who receive military deferments, went into the army. He completed his service in the occupied Sinai, and then went back as a rabbi.

In 1973, Rosen moved with his wife, Sharon, to South Africa. In Capetown, as head of one of the largest Orthodox congregations in the world, Rosen denounced racial discrimination from the pulpit.

ROSEN: I would say that Judaism is color blind. I would refer to Prophet Amos that says, "Are you children of Israel not unto me like the children of Ethiopia? In other words, God is not only present in the history of all peoples, he doesn't care a hoot about the color of your skin.

GLASS: In the 1970s, white South Africans did care about skin color. When Rosen joined Christian and Muslim activists who opposed apartheid, the establishment reacted.

ROSEN: I think the government decided I was a dangerous person to have around, and the phone was tapped, death threats, and those sort of things that took place, and there was -- we had to make a decision.

GLASS (on camera): When you say you received death threats, what form did they take?

RYAN: One day a phone call came through to our help in the house saying, "Kiss the children goodbye. We're coming to kill them." It's bad enough when you get threats directed at yourself, as I did often in the mail and things like that. When people threaten to kill your children, there gets to be a little more worry.

GLASS (voice-over): In 1979, when the South African government refused to renew his visa, Rosen moved to the Republic of Ireland. The almost entirely Catholic country has only a few thousand Jews, but, as their chief rabbi, Rosen became a diplomat, representing Jews to the government and to the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

ROSEN: It just meant I was getting much more involved with the church. I felt that I was also contributing a great deal to a better understanding of my community and to develop better understanding between Christians and Jews.

GLASS: Rosen and his family wanted to return to Israel and, in 1985, moved to Jerusalem. In the Jewish state, however, he did not give up the dialogue with Christians. He made it his goal to overcome two millennia of mistrust and even the Vatican's 19th-century hostility to Zionism and its founder Theodore Hertzel (ph).

ROSEN: Theodore Hertzel notes in his diaries Pope Pius X's response to him when he asked the pope for his support for the Zionist enterprise, and according to Hertzel, Pius X said to him, "I cannot recognize you, for you have not recognized our Lord. I can't stop the Jews returning to Palestine, but if they do, our priests will be there with holy water to baptize them all."

GLASS: When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, the Vatican refused to recognize it. Many Israelis blamed anti-Semitism, but the church blamed Israel for expelling thousands of Palestinians, many of them Christians, during the war in 1947 and '48. When Israel made Jerusalem its capital, the church accused it of violating U.N. resolutions making Jerusalem an international city.

Then in the early 1960s came the second Vatican council. The church changed its attitude toward the Jewish people. Nowhere is this more obvious, Rosen says, that in the evolving role of the Catholic Sisters of Zion. When they were founded by Jewish converts to Catholicism in 1842, this order tried to convert Jews. Sister Patricia Wadsen (ph) is director of the order's house just outside Jerusalem.

SISTER PATRICIA WADSEN, CATHOLIC SISTERS OF ZION: The best thing we thought to achieve God's plan would be that the Jews would come to accept Jesus as Messiah and, therefore, become Christian.

GLASS: Today, their role has changed dramatically. These nuns now pray in Hebrew and work for Catholic-Jewish understanding.

ROSEN: The result of the second Vatican council on its total transformation and its teaching and attitude toward the Jewish people was that the Sisters of Zion were given the responsibility to educate Christians about the Jewish roots of Christianity. So this is an incredible transformation.

GLASS: No one has done more to improve Catholic-Jewish relations than Pope John Paul. A Pole who lost Jewish friends in the Nazi death camps, he warned Catholics never to commit a grave sin, anti-Semitism. He opened the door to the negotiations that began in 1992 and finally led to diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican. Among the negotiators for the Israelis, Rabbi David Rosen.

ROSEN: Basically, there was an awareness on the other side of the table on not only diplomats and legal experts but men of the cloth, and we thought it would be a good idea to have an interfaith expert on our side.

GLASS: At the Vatican, Rosen and the pope discovered they had something in common. Both their families came from Poland's Krakow region.

ROSEN: From my mother's side, our ancestors were heads of the ecclesiastical court. In other words, leaders -- religious leaders in the Jewish community in Krakow, so that, obviously, interested him a great deal.

GLASS: The pope told him he could not forget what happened in Poland during the war.

ROSEN: And he spoke primarily about the -- about the holocaust -- that was his initiative -- and what it meant, how it impacted on him, how it must -- is the most important -- not only tragic but the most important event of all times and throughout history.

GLASS: Israel and the Vatican achieved a concordant in 1993. For the first time, the holy see recognized Israel, and Pope John Paul would be able to fulfill his dream of visiting the holy land.

Many Israelis remain suspicious of the pope, something he will face when he arrives. Israeli writer Cidra Israji (ph), a longtime friend of David Rosen, explains.

CIDRA ISRAJI, ISRAELI WRITER: I think that there still are many, many Israelis who can't let go of the sense that Catholics really do expect the Jews ultimately to convert and, therefore, to fulfill a Catholic vision. I think that somewhere lurking behind most -- the minds of most Israelis who give some thought to it is the sense that this has not really been relinquished, and David is one of those who believes that it has.

GLASS: Some Orthodox rabbis condemn the pope for planning to say mass in Nazareth on a Saturday when Jewish security guards should be observing the Sabbath.

ROSEN: There's also -- a majority of Israeli society doesn't have a problem with the pope holding a mass on Saturday that involves the police force as being called out in such large numbers and taken away from maybe their day of Sabbath rest. But there are areas which are not basic which these quarters have not opposed. For example, soccer games are played on Saturday. They also involve police and security and paramedical facilities, et cetera. They don't make an issue over that.

GLASS: "The Jerusalem Post" ran this cartoon suggesting the pope wants to expel the Jews from Israel.

(on camera): What -- what is the point of a cartoon like that?

ROSEN: First of all, it's very ignorant if he doesn't understand how far we've come since the period of the crusades. If he's still living the 11th century, then he's got a serious problem, or she, whoever did that -- made that particular cartoon. If this was their interest, then why on earth would they have established a fundamental agreement and a formal concordant and put their institutions under Israel law and recognize the integrity and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland? So it's nonsense. It's nonsense. Deplorable and condemnable nonsense.

GLASS (voice-over): On the evening of his visit to Israel, while not apologizing for any specific event, the pope asked for the forgiveness of the Jewish people. He said that the church was deeply saddened by the behavior of those who had, in the course of history, caused these children of yours, meaning the Jews, to suffer.

(on camera): Does it make any difference that now that -- now in the 21st century that someone says I'm sorry for what happened a thousand years ago?

ROSEN: It says to the Jewish people, "We are cognizant of -- of the terrible things that we've done in our name. We consider these to be a desecration of God's name, blasphemous, and we are determined to do our best not to allow these things to happen again." That creates a sense of trust and confidence, and I hope that these words will come through from the pope very powerfully.

GLASS (voice-over): The Israeli holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, is on the pope's pilgrimage. His presence here may be more significant than any papal apology, in the view of former Catholic priest and writer James Carroll (ph).

JAMES CARROLL, FORMER CATHOLIC PRIEST: I don't think that the apology as such is the issue. The apology has become a symbol of whether the church is serious about not just reconciling with Jews but changing itself so that the problems of the past are never repeated in the future. Whether the pope were to apologize, for example, at Yad Vishem, during his visit to Jerusalem in some new way is much less important than the fact that he's there.

GLASS: Last month, the pope traveled to Egypt to visit Mount Sinai where the Bible says Moses received the Ten Commandments. Now he'll visit the Biblical sites of Jesus Christ's ministry and his crucifiction. The pope will also meet Muslim and Palestinian leaders.

POPE JOHN PAUL II: John Paul II -- he also loves you.

GLASS (on camera): Efforts at dialogue among the three faiths -- Islam, Christianity, and Judaism -- will go on here, enhanced by the papal visit, but so too will the conflicts that keep them divided.

(voice-over): For the Jewish people and the pope, this still includes aspects of the holocaust. Although he has prayed at Auschwitz, John Paul II supported the canonization of a woman who died there, Sister Edith Stein (ph), a Jewish convert.

ROSEN: It's not the business of the Jewish community to tell the Catholic Church who its saints are, and it just showed a degree of ignorance not to understand the way the Jewish community sees both the question of apostacy as well as the fact that she was killed because she was a Jewish woman, not because she had become a Catholic nun. GLASS: Despite such disagreements, David Rosen continues his work toward interfaith understanding and respect, and the visit of the pope is vital both to that cause and, he believes, toward John Paul II's desire for reconciliation.

ROSEN: For him, it is the crown in a way or the jewel in the crown of his pontificate. So it's important as a statement about the Catholic Church in the world today for him. It's important as a statement about the Catholic Church's relationships with its historical roots in the Jewish people. It's important as a statement of the relationship with the Muslim world as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: In addition to his stops in Israel and in Palestinian-controlled areas, Pope John Paul II will also visit Jordan.

Coming up, death threats, kidnappings, and exile. A journalist runs the gauntlet.

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ANNOUNCER: Coming up on CNN & TIME, they ran point, guiding American troops through the horrors of Vietnam.

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JOHN BURNAM, U.S. ARMY, VIETNAM: His head went up, his ears popped forward, he turned around and looked at me, and I just got down immediately. It was the strongest alert I had of the day.

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ANNOUNCER: The Dogs of War and why they were left behind, as CNN & TIME continues.

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SHAW: Bob Dole survived the bullets and battles of World War II, but, last year, the former senator barely made it out of Los Angeles International Airport. Dole's United Airlines flight narrowly avoided slamming into an Aeromexico jet.

Even more disturbing is that Dole's experience wasn't all that uncommon. The FAA estimates there have been almost 650 so-called runway incursions in this country over the last two years. Is it possible that planes and their passengers face a greater risk on the ground than they do in the air?

Some answers in tonight's "Dispatches."

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SALLY DONNELLY, "TIME" CORRESPONDENT: A runway incursion is basically a near miss on the ground. It's when two airplanes miss each other by a very small distance. What's actually unusual about this -- these runway incursions, these near collisions on the ground is that passengers might not even know there's a problem, and that might be the most frightening part about it, that these things are happening nearly every day, and most passengers don't even know it.

We're trying to put too many planes on basically the same amount of real estate. Yhere's only been one major airport built in the last 10 years in America while the number of passengers has risen dramatically over that time.

Part of the problem with airplanes coming close together on the ground is just like a rush hour problem. There is an increase in -- in these incidents, and the pilots that I've spoken to tell me that there's just too much aluminum -- too many whales as they call big airplanes -- in a small amount of territory in a small amount of time.

Controllers who I have talked to talk about trying to just move airliners around a small space and trying to get them in and out. Pilots I've talked to, for example, say, "You never ask a controller who is busy during rush hour for help," because he will tell you to take your plane and park it in the grass and he'll get back to you.

Controllers and pilots have a mutual kind of blind trust. For example, in Providence, Rhode Island, last year, on a dark and foggy night, a USAir pilot had gotten cleared from a controller to take off, to go ahead and go down the runway and take off, but, in fact, he didn't. He refused that clearance. The controller could actually not see the down the runway and, in fact, down the runway, there was a United plane who had gotten disoriented in the fog. The U.S. Airways pilot did not take off and saved many lives on both airplanes.

You have to understand that the worst aviation accident in history took place on the ground. Many people forget that. It was in 1977 in Tenerevee (ph) when two fully loaded 747s essentially ran into each other on the ground. Six hundred people were killed at one stroke. What people most are concerned about, it seems today, is -- is airplanes having problems in the sky, but what federal officials are most concerned about is airplanes running into each other on the ground.

People at the FAA tell me that what's needed is a range of solutions from Windex -- I mean cleaning airport lights and taxiways -- to high level, high technology radar systems so that controllers and pilots can see virtually the other planes on the ground around them. You need better signs. You need better information. But what you really need more of is paint. They want more paint on the runways. They want more paint on the signs. Just give them some paint.

One pilot told he -- admittedly, he is a young one. He's been in the business only 18 months after coming out of the military, but he says it's scary out there. There are planes and controllers and other pilots all around you expecting you to do something on a second's notice, and he says it's very, very frightening out there.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: For more on America's crowded runways and the hazards planes and passengers face just getting off the ground, read "Time" magazine this week.

Next, they were loyal, determined and, above all, fearless.

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CARL GROSS, U.S. MARINES, VIETNAM: I just yelled stay and looked all around in front of Hobo, looked between my legs, and there's the tripwire on my back -- my right foot.

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ANNOUNCER: The four-legged forgotten heroes of Vietnam when CNN & TIME continues.

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GREENFIELD: Welcome back to CNN & TIME.

In his famous tribute, Senator George Graham vest said, "The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have, the one that never deserts him is his dog."

Those sentiments from 1884 are echoed today by a unique group of Vietnam veterans. But their praise is tinged with regret, regret because many of the American war dogs who ensured the return of those GIs were themselves left behind.

Here's Linda Patillo.

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JOHN BURNAM, U.S. ARMY VETERAN: The enemy was amassing attacks all over the countryside, and there was a lot of counteroffensives going on. So it was a very brutal period of the Vietnam War.

LINDA PATILLO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John Burnam was 20 years old when he arrived in Vietnam in 1967. The U.S. Army assigned the young soldier to one of the most dangerous duties in combat.

BURNAM: The job was walking point right out in from of a platoon and leading them through the jungle or through the different terrain that we had to travel through.

PATILLO: Burnam did not lead the platoon alone, however. An 85- point German shepherd dog named Clipper was at his side. Clipper was one of 4,000 scout dogs who served in Vietnam with U.S. forces.

The scout dogs could smell snipers and pick up the scent of the Vietcong on tracks, tunnels and land mines. They could detect deadly booby trips by hearing the wind vibrating the trip wires.

BURNAM: When the dog alerted, say on the base camp deep in the jungle, his ears came up and his neck rose up and his nose popped up in the air and he started sniffing, and you knew something was out there.

PATILLO: Burnam trusted Clipper more than his rifle.

BURNAM: Clipper and I were on a patrol near the Cambodian border, and Clipper alerted really strong. His head went up, his ears popped forward. He turned around and looked at me, and I just got down immediately. It was the strongest alert I had of the day.

And right as soon as we got down, the sniper opened up about 300 yards away. So Clipper had actually alerted on that sniper and saved the patrol from walking into that or myself or him from getting killed.

PATILLO: 10,000 young soldiers and Marines handled and cared for the scout dogs during combat in Vietnam. They carried the dogs' food and water into battle, huddled with them in fox holes during mortar attacks, and read them perfumed letters from home when they were lonely.

They tended them when the dogs were wounded and buried them in a small cemetery when they were killed in action: Nearly 300 scout dogs died in combat.

BURNAM: It was like a brother, you know. It was like a fox hole buddy. He was my best friend. He was my companion. He was my partner. He would take care of me, I would take care of him.

KARL GROSS, U.S. MARINE VETERAN: I arrived in Vietnam in July of 1969. I was 20 years old.

PATILLO: By the time U.S. Marine Private Karl Gross got to Vietnam, his scout dog, Hobo, was already a veteran, wounded in combat with his previous handler.

GROSS: No one assigns a dog to you in the Marine Corps. You have to pick it. It's your own choice.

I walked down and there was Hobo just standing there, quiet. He seemed older. He seemed more mature. He'd rather walk than run, but he was very confident.

PATILLO: The scout dog teams were so effective that the North Vietnamese put a bounty on the heads of the dogs and their handlers. The Vietcong were rewarded if they brought back the tattooed ears of the dog or the arm patches of their handlers.

It made walking point even more dangerous for Gross and Hobo.

GROSS: We could go out with as many as 12 Marines in a squad or walk in front of a whole company movement of up to 90 Marines. Heavy burden when you're walking point, knowing you have to protect all those Marines.

PATILLO: Like every handler, Gross vividly remembers the day his dog saved his life.

GROSS: We were at a place called Liberty Bridge. It was a Marine outpost just before the border. It was abreast of Danang (ph), and the area was loaded with booby traps.

We were just simply searching a particular area, going on a patrol when Hobo had sprang up and I just yelled, "Stay!" and looked all round in front of Hobo, looked all around in front of myself -- looked to my rear, looked between my legs, and there was a trip wire on my back, my right foot.

He did find it, and that was a difference of a millisecond of us getting, you know, me tripping the trip wire and blowing us up.

PATILLO (on camera): How did you feel about Hobo right after that?

GROSS: I knew we were a team. I knew it worked. It can't work any better than that.

This is Hobo and (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...

PATILLO: You were 20 years old.

GROSS: Twenty years old, yes.

PATILLO (voice-over): Twenty-five years after the war ended, that bond is still unforgettable.

GROSS: There he is wearing my bush hot out at the CAG (ph) unit. I'm sure he didn't like taking that pose. He's probably saying, "I'm going to get you later."

PATILLO (on camera): You were always together?

GROSS: Always together, yes, inseparable.

PATILLO (voice-over): The dogs were used to such companionship. The U.S. government had recruited them from thousands of American families who donated their pets to the military for training.

BETH FRANZ (ph), DOG DONOR: Having lost a friend already in Vietnam, this was my way of saying, "I'm in support of our men over there."

PATILLO: Beth Franz was 17 years old when she donated two of her pet German shepherds.

FRANZ: I loved this dog, Barr (ph), and he was a very special dog and a very emotional time for me to make the decision.

I'll never forget it. A big truck drove up and he rolled up the back of the truck. And there were two huge dog crates in there, and on them it said property of the U.S. government. And I remember standing in the driveway thinking, "I hope this makes a difference," because it was so emotional for me to see both these dogs leave. And they were looking out of the crates at like "Where are we going?" And then he pulled the door down and they drove off. And I sat down in the driveway, I remember, and just cried.

PATILLO: The troops had trouble saying goodbye, too. Although many of the handlers asked to take their dogs home with them when their tour of duty was over, the dog had to stay on in Vietnam to continue service with another handler.

GROSS: Days on end, you would think about them or wonder what happened to them, but you would always, you would always say to yourself, "Well, do you really want to know what happened to them?"

PATILLO: After the war ended, everyone -- the dog's original owners and the handlers who fought side-by-side with them -- thought the dogs had been brought home to America. In World War II, where thousands of dogs also served, dogs were either returned to their original owners or their military handlers could petition to keep them.

FRANZ: I think anybody that had donated a war dog at that point would certainly hope that these dogs had come back to their handlers, military bases, that the dogs were certainly brought out of Vietnam, with the troops.

PATILLO: But over the next few years, word gradually spread that when U.S. troops pulled out of Vietnam, the dogs were left behind along with surplus equipment.

Military records show that of the more than 4,000 dogs who served in Vietnam, only 200 were brought home. Of the dogs that survived combat, nearly a 1,000 were turned over to the South Vietnamese army and an uncertain fate. The rest were euthanized.

GROSS: Why an animal like that, that did so much for so many people would have to be put down, it's beyond any dog handler. And there are some that won't even talk about it. I think most of us would rather find out they were killed in action.

PATILLO: The official U.S. policy stated the animals could not come home because they were potentially vicious and might bring diseases back to the United States. Military veterinarians at the time disagreed on whether disease was really a threat. Many of the veterans believed the dogs were left behind for a different reason.

GROSS: I guess because of the times and the political sentiment toward the war, I imagine that a program like the War Dog Program was something they would just like to sweep under the carpet and do away with and get out of Vietnam and put it behind them as quickly as they could.

PATILLO: So the story of the Vietnam war dogs became one more secret never talked about by many Vietnam veterans.

Occasionally, it surfaced, like in a chance encounter 10 years after the war ended when a prospective customer walked into Beth Franz's business and overheard her say her maiden name. FRANZ: And he said, "Are you Beth Franz from Asheville?" And said, "Yes." And his eyes filled with tears, and he said, "I had your dog." And I said, "Excuse me." He said, "Beth, I had your dog in Vietnam." And he said, "I ran scout with your dog."

And I was stunned. And I said, "How do you know he was my dog?" And he said, "Beth, you donated a dog to the military, and his name was Barr." And he said, "I was in Vietnam," and he said, "I was assigned your dog and he saved my life and he saved the lives of men in my platoon." He said, "He was a great dog, and I can't thank you enough for what you did."

This man came home because my dog protected him in Vietnam. It came back to me full circle that the decision to donate the dog made such a huge difference.

PATILLO: Best friends Karl Gross and John Burnam along with hundreds of Vietnam veterans all finally decided to break their silence at a February reunion of Vietnam dog handlers.

JOHN HARVEY, U.S. MARINE VETERAN: We had sent a tunnel rat into check out what was in the particular bunker complex.

PATILLO: In one of many reflections, Karl Gross' platoon leader, John Harvey, talked to his war buddies for the first time about losing his dog Prince in combat.

HARVEY: Prince took a couple of pieces of shrapnel in the liver and ended up living for about 45 minutes until he finally passed away. He essentially saved my life.

I carried Prince for almost a day and a half on my back, because Marines do not leave their wounded and dead in the field. We bring them home.

PATILLO: Upset that a public memorial has never been built to the dogs, the veterans finally raised the money themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unveil the war dog memorial.

PATILLO: At the reunion, they dedicated a private memorial of their own, a bronze statue of a Vietnam dog team that stands across from a veteran cemetery in Riverside, California.

Twenty-five years after the war ended, the forgotten heroes were finally recognized.

BURNAM: We think it's an important story, that the American public should know what these dogs did and they should know what the military did to these dogs after the war. But they should know that these dogs should be recognized as heroes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GREENFIELD: After Vietnam, the American military changed its policy concerning war dogs. Now, all surviving dogs that serve with U.S. troops abroad are returned home to await further assignments. And if you're wondering how America's fighting canines are trained today, you can see for yourself at CNN & TIME online. Just go to CNN.com/cnntime.

We'll be back in a moment.

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ANNOUNCER: He's been kidnapped, targeted for assassination, and now forced into exile.

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FRANCISCO SANTOS, JOURNALIST: It's hard seeing people you love, you care about, your colleagues living or dying, and it makes you mad too.

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ANNOUNCER: For Francisco Santos and other Colombian journalists, censorship is "Just a Bullet Away," when CNN & TIME continues.

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SHAW: For journalists, 1999 was the year of living dangerously. According to one media watchdog group, last year was one of the deadliest for reporters around the world. And 2000 isn't shaping up to be any better.

Just ask Francisco Santos: A leading journalist in Colombia, Santos says he was forced to flee his homeland last week after assassins were hired to kill him.

Santos, you may recall, gained notoriety in 1990 after he was kidnapped and held hostage for eight months by the Medellin drug cartel.

This weekend, Santos, in self-imposed exile, agreed to talk with Mark Potter.

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MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): How quickly did you leave? I mean, did you just pick and go?

SANTOS: Yes, in a couple of days.

POTTER: What did you bring with you?

SANTOS: Clothes, clothes and a computer. That's all I can bring.

POTTER: Just that quick you had to go?

SANTOS: Yes. Yes, I did.

POTTER: What was the sign? How did you know you needed to go?

SANTOS: You feel the circle closing.

POTTER (voice-over): Francisco Santos is chief editor and crusading columnist for "El Tiempo," Colombia's leading newspaper. He is also a political activist, heading organizations against violence and kidnapping, problems that run rampant in Colombia and that Santos knows too well.

In 1991, he was released from eight months of captivity by drug traffickers. Now, once again, he fears for his life, which he says has been threatened by a faction of the left-wing guerrilla group known as the FARC.

On Saturday, March 11th, Santos fled Colombia to the United States.

SANTOS: Exile, it's a horrible thing. It makes you feel so lonely and so, so small and frustrated, very frustrated.

POTTER (on camera): Tell me what happened. Why are you here?

SANTOS: I found out a couple of months ago they were following me. Then I was able to get, you know, some very clear information that -- that Front (ph) and the FARC that has action over Bogota had built a very big kidnapping ring, an extortion ring. We uncovered that. We told the police what was happening. And they -- they decided that I was stumbling block doing business. And they ordered an assassination attempt on me.

POTTER: And you have no doubt that they were going to kill you?

SANTOS: No, I have no doubt they were going to kill me.

POTTER: How good was your information?

SANTOS: Very, very good.

POTTER: So what were they going to do to you?

SANTOS: They were going to shoot me. They had -- they had already hired gunmen and the order to was kill me.

POTTER: And you're taking that very seriously.

SANTOS: Very, very seriously. And when you have four kids and Colombia is so full of dead heroes, we don't need more dead heroes. We need -- we need people who are alive and work for the country. But being alive, Colombia is a country that has so much violence that even heroes are forgotten very easily.

If we are trying to rebuild the country -- we're in the middle of a negotiation in which we all want to create different political and economic structures: a country that has more social justice. That cannot be done with a gun to your head.

POTTER: What's the hardest part?

SANTOS: The loneliness. They've torn a piece of my life away, they've taken it away, and it hurts.

POTTER: Well, how long, Francisco, before you think you can go back?

SANTOS: I wish -- I wish I could go back tomorrow, take the next plane and be there, and hug my kids and my wife and my friends, and be back to the job the next day.

POTTER: But in reality, how long do you think it might take?

SANTOS: It probably will take a long time, because -- because I've stepped on too many toes and I'm very -- I'm stumbling block to a lot of the criminal activities that are happening down there. And -- and I don't know. That's killing me.

POTTER: I've traveled to Colombia many times over the -- over the years, first traveling there in 1981. And one of the things that always struck me was how the journalists kept going. It was very humbling for me as an American journalist.

SANTOS: You get used to it, you know, and you tend to forget. It's always on the back of your mind. When you write, you're saying, all of a sudden, you know, after you read it two times or three times, you're saying: "Who am I stepping on?" You know, "What interest which is armed am I affecting?"

And it makes it harder, but yes, we keep going, and we have to do it. We -- if we -- if we don't follow through, then we're lost, and I think journalists understand that.

POTTER: So many have been killed in Colombia. How many have you known who over the years have been killed because of their work?

SANTOS: I have some journalist friends who are in exile now too, by -- because of threats by the paramilitaries. It's -- it's -- it's tough. It's hard seeing people who you love, who you care about, your colleagues leaving or dying, and -- and it makes you mad too. You feel anger, you know. You feel, Jesus Christ, this can't be happening.

POTTER: I remember in 1990 when it crossed the wires Francisco Santos had been kidnapped -- I knew you by then, and that was shocking news. Tell us what happened. Why were you targeted?

SANTOS: I was targeted because -- because I belonged to the family who owned "El Tiempo," because I was a news editor, and because I had an editorial column that was very hard on Escobar. So he...

POTTER: Pablo Escobar the trafficker.

SANTOS: Yes, yes. Pablo Escobar the trafficker.

And he -- he read a lot. He read a lot, and he knew what position everybody had.

I remember a lot of my columns, I would send them to my cousin Enrique. He said, "Watch out, guy, watch out, guy." I never paid attention to that. And I -- I -- those phrases, while I was, you know, kidnapped, they just coming and coming and coming.

POTTER: You kept hearing Enrique.

SANTOS: Yes, and he was right.

POTTER: Tell me more about how you were kept and how you were treated and how you kept yourself together for those eight months.

SANTOS: I was kidnapped going to a non-smoking -- non-smoking clinic, which obviously didn't work. And my driver was killed. I was kept in a house in a small room, 3 meters by 2 meters. I was chained to a bed. And what I came to realize afterwards is that when you're in such a tough situation, your survival will -- I think that instinct that has human beings in charge of the world comes out. And through power -- a power that you don't know where it comes from that you survive.

POTTER: And over time, how did that experience change you?

SANTOS: It changed my life radically. Me and my wife created the nongovernment organization that fights kidnapping. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) involved into the peace movement. So it's put me in the thick of things.

POTTER: Most journalists are on the sidelines, and then you crossed over and became an advocate.

SANTOS: In a country that has so many problems in Colombia, as Colombia, you have to do that because it's impossible to stay, you know, to stay behind the line, and like a surgeon, you know, be totally aseptic. And -- and the turn of events just involves you, and sometimes there's no choice but to become involved.

POTTER: I want to ask you one last thing, which is about an editorial you wrote in 1992.

SANTOS: I wrote that "Censorship is just a bullet away," and I think that happened in the late '80s, early '90s, and it's happening in Colombia now.

POTTER: What have they done to your voice?

SANTOS: They've hurt (ph) it. They've put it on another level. They've taken away a lot of information that I use in Colombia to write my editorials, my editorial column. But they will not silence me. I'll keep on writing. I'll keep getting information. And -- and my voice will be heard, rest assured.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SHAW: If you're wondering just how dangerous it is for journalists in Colombia, consider this: The International Press Institute says Colombia is the most violent media assignment in Latin America. Of the 87 reporters killed worldwide last year, seven died in Colombia.

And that's this edition of CNN & TIME. I'm Bernard Shaw.

Jeff, I'll see you next week.

GREENFIELD: Thanks, Bernie. Coming up next, CNN's encore presentation of the documentary series "COLD WAR" continues. Tonight, "The Berlin Wall."

I'm Jeff Greenfield, and for everyone at CNN & TIME, good night.

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