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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Portraits of America

Aired July 04, 2005 - 22:00   ET

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

AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, again, and happy Fourth of July. American was founded 229 years ago today, and we here at NEWSNIGHT thought we'd take a birthday snapshot tonight; a portrait of America, if you will, looking at things big and small that define us as a people, and some others we just found interesting.
We begin tonight just a few miles south of where we sit now, with a 15-story backdrop to the annual fireworks celebration. Closed to the public for nearly three years after the attacks of 9/11, the Statue of Liberty reopened last august as a tourist attraction. But she is, of course, much more than that for many of us. And precious to those who glimpsed her years ago as they sailed into New York Harbor, and the promise of America.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SILVIA ROSEN: It is so hard to really explain the emotion that you felt when you saw the Statue of Liberty. Freedom at last, safety, and America. I was born in 1914. And we came here in 1923. And I think even if you were 2 years old, you would remember the Statue of Liberty, and the excitement, and the tears that everyone just shed. It was very, very late afternoon. And we suddenly saw people running up on deck. And the excitement, and they said, we're here. We're really in America. Look at the Statue of Liberty. Look at that lovely lady. And people began to cry, we're really here, we made it. And it was a very emotional scene. I will never forget it.

ROSA TATZ: The Statue of Liberty was like a new life for me. A beginning. I went up to the top, and (INAUDIBLE), and I couldn't believe it, that's the Statue of Liberty. I couldn't believe it, that we're going to have a life here.

SARAH NEUMARK: I have always, always been touched by the poem: "Send me your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free." I think that is really remarkable. And at one time I knew it very well. Now, at 93, a lot of things I forget. I was married in 1944. It's part of the romance that led to my marriage. I went with this young man. And not only did we go there but we went all the way up in a torch, to the very top step. It was exciting. It was something very thrilling.

NELLY ANDERSON: I arrived February '39. I was 29 years old. And America was just my dream land before. It was pure joy. We came in late at night. And the statue was all bathed in light. And in the background, were the lights of New York City. And I was just so excited. I stood at the railing and I felt like screaming. The Statue of Liberty was joy for me. It was freedom. It was light. It was simply unbelievable. I'm old now, but that moment...

Missing all that I left behind, my family, my parents, and still, I was overjoyed to be here. And that feeling stays, because the world has changed so much. That nothing is holy anymore, but when I get down to the Hudson and look at her, it's the same feeling that I had in '39 when I arrived. She protects me. I don't know whether she'll be able to do it forever. Right now, she still does.

I've gone back time and again. I was there about four, five weeks ago, on one of the nice Saturdays. I walk down the Hudson and greet the Statue of Liberty, my girl.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: There are nearly as many types of jobs as there are Americans. From digging worms to deciding on the flavor of decaffeinated tea. Photographer Christine Hauber spent three years crisscrossing the country to capture how we occupy ourselves for her extraordinary book, "Working in the USA."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE HAUBER, "WORKING IN THE USA": "Working in the USA" is about the working people of America. Not just the blue collar workers, but every aspect of the American worker. Everything from the fisherman and the farmers to the scientists working on Alzheimer's genes. I wanted to really find out and share with the world who real Americans are, what we really do.

We do struggle. We do have jobs that are hard and that we work with our hands. And we're not all rich, good-looking, blonde people with fancy cars. That we are a very diverse nation.

I've kind of captured the diversity, everything from the worm grunter, who picks worms out of the ground, all the way up to the archaeologist who works the land in a different way. So it's really that diversity of the people and the occupations that keep the pictures very different from each other.

I try and photograph about an average of seven people per state. And usually those people, at least some of them, are people who represent major industry within that state.

Being a native of Colorado, I decided that I was going to focus on some of the Colorado industries, one being Celestial Seasoning, and so I traveled to Boulder where I found the blendmaster, Charlie, and photographed him.

I've traveled approximately 52,000 miles. I've looped the United States two times. The first year was spent traveling the outside -- the perimeters of America, doing all the border states. And then, the second year, for a year-and-a-half, was spent more on the -- more of the inside states.

I photographed this particular lady in Nevada. She is considered a legal prostitute at the brothels that are in Nevada. She's actually in one of the bedrooms, sitting on the bed. She wanted to make sure that her high heels were showing. In Taos, New Mexico, I found a silversmith. His clientele used to be primarily the ranchers and the farmers, doing silver work for them. And he says his clientele has changed quite a bit. Now, it's primarily the yuppies and the more wealthy people who are looking for jewelry.

Some of my favorite images that I've captured on the road are usually the people that have been in their jobs for most of their lives. This particular man I found in Texas. He is a roughneck working on a big oil rig down in Texas. He's been working this ever since he came back from the Vietnam War and still bounces up and down the stairs of the platform like a gazelle.

What I learned most is that 98 percent of the people are absolutely wonderful, sweet and caring and will do anything for you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Imagine having a whole town to yourself, the whole thing. That's the case for one pioneer family in the desert of Oregon, in what is one of the smallest and most certainly most peaceful towns in the country.

Here's NEWSNIGHT'S Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the high desert in central Oregon, a picture of small town America, really small. This is Millican, Oregon, population seven, all members of the Murray family.

Two years ago, after a family deli and bakery went bankrupt in nearby Klamath Falls, the Murrays were looking for a place to make a new start.

JAY MURRAY, MILLICAN, OREGON: We saw an ad in the paper, it said two homes and a store front for $800 a month. We came out and this place was a dump.

PATRICIA MURRAY, MILLICAN, OREGON: I wouldn't even come in this room here. It smelled so bad. There were dead cats and stuff in here. And i was walking around and could just see it as a little town.

NISSEN: The way it used to be, just after the turn of the last century. The town was founded by homesteader George Millican in 1868. At its peak, it had a population of about 60.

J. MURRAY: At about the time the Model A was showing up out here, they did have a garage, two schools, the motel and a blacksmith.

NISSEN: But water ran short. People moved on. By the 1930s, the population of Millican had dwindled to Billy Rahn, who was featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" as the one-man town. One of Rahn's successors, Bill Mellin, also lived here alone in the 1980s until he was shot to death in the store in 1988. Millican went into slow decline, was finally abandoned to fugitives and transients until the Murrays arrived, 21st Century pioneers.

DANIEL MURRAY, MILLICAN, OREGON: In America now, most things you hear are people that have already made it. And to hear about someone that is doing something out of nothing is -- it's rare anymore.

NISSEN: For months they lived without electricity, hauled water from a cistern. They still chop wood for heat. Wood stoves warm the front rooms. Back corners are stuffed with newspaper to keep out the winds that can reach 90 miles an hour. They slowly rebuilt, restocked the store. It now just breaks even selling snacks and cold drinks and hot coffee to local ranchers, passing truckers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How far are you going?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rochester, New York.

NISSEN: Money for bills and groceries comes from son Daniel who works as a chef in Bend, Oregon, 30 minutes drive away. A few wind- blown chickens provide some eggs. Patty grows what vegetables she can in her garden.

P. MURRAY: Pick some for dinner.

Didn't think anything would grow in this soil, it's so sandy. But it just takes water and seed and sunshine.

NISSEN: The Murrays take care of basic community services in Millican, from sanitation to schools. Daughter-in-law Katie home schools, 6-year-old Jacob.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: DO you remember how to write a 9?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good job.

NISSEN: There is no sheriff in town. Jay is teaching Patty to shoot a .22, although wolves have been more of a threat than crime. There isn't much the Murrays miss about what others call civilization.

J. MURRAY: We are on the Internet. We have satellite TV. We've got three phone lines. We're plugged in.

NISSEN: Yet they are miles away from air pollution, rush hour traffic, noisy neighbors.

KATIE MURRAY, MILLICAN, OREGON: When I was little and I read the "Little House on the Prairie" books, I always wanted to live in a house where you didn't see your next door neighbors right out your window.

NISSEN: This is what they see out their windows. And this. And this. The Murrays would love to scrape together enough to buy the two-acre town and the 80 acres around it, build back the original store fronts.

P. MURRAY: We could be a like lighthouse in the desert here. We could help people. We could serve people. We could make something out of this mess.

J. MURRAY: This little area out here is not going to change the world. But it's a little piece of history that we can hold together.

NISSEN: Beth Nissen, CNN, Millican, Oregon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Since that story first aired here last fall, the Murray family has expanded its homesteading to another small town, another son and daughter-in-law still mind the store and their children in Millican. But the seven original residents have moved on, like the homesteaders of yore, to another tiny town just down the road, in Hampton (ph), Oregon, where they've already opened up a grill and a small bakery, hoping to build another beacon for travelers. Another American town.

We have a lot more to come on this Fourth of July, as we continue sketching out our portrait of America.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Why the Marines enlisted Navajo Indians during World War II and their language.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Once it was determined what was happening, no longer would English be accepted over the radio.

BROWN: His name isn't famous, but he's being compared to someone who is. He's being compared to Einstein.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He spends a lot of time thinking, and he spends a lot of time floundering around.

BROWN: And what makes this man unusual for his profession?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is unique about me and what I do in drag racing, I have no sight at all. I'm totally blind.

BROWN: And he's also one of the best at what he does. We, on the other hand, just keep plugging along, because this is NEWSNIGHT.

RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, again, everyone. I'm Rudi Bakhtiar. Some late and not very encouraging developments in the search for 9-year-old Dylan Groene. CNN's Sean Callebs joining us now from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with the details.

Sean, what can you tell us?

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, without question, it's a very grim day here in northern Idaho. For days, investigators have been telling us that they indeed believe that 9-year-old Dylan Groene is dead. Now they have been searching northern Idaho and western Montana for Dylan for the past couple of days.

And this afternoon, the Kootenai County sheriff, Rocky Watson, held a news conference, and delivered some very grim, very sobering news to the media here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROCKY WATSON, KOOTENAI COUNTY SHERIFF: During the search of one of the possible locations in western Montana, investigators have located what they believe to be human remains. The remains are being collected and sent to the FBI lab in Quantico for DNA analysis to confirm the identity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLEBS: Now, the remains will be taken, as you mentioned, to Virginia. Authorities tell us it will take at least 72 hours to identify those remains with DNA testing.

There was a major break in this case over the weekend. That, when authorities found 8-year-old Shasta Groene, Dylan's younger sister. She was discovered by some sharp-eyed employees at a local Denny's, when she was seen entering that restaurant, with a 42-year- old man around 2:00 a.m. The man is now under arrest. He is in a Kootenai County sheriff's office. He is a sexual predator, authorities say. He is someone who has been convicted of child molestation, someone who spent the greater part of his adult life in prison for sexually assaulting children.

Tomorrow afternoon he is expected to make his first appearance in court here before a judge. Right now he is charged with kidnapping in connection with Shasta as well as being a fugitive from justice. He is someone who had been wanted in other states. Authorities say that more charges could be pending against Duncan. They're trying to put together some kind of time line about the crime, the grisly triple- murder that led to the disappearance of those two children -- Rudi.

BAKHTIAR: Tragic, tragic story. Thank you, Sean Callebs, for Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

To some other news now, something of a holiday tradition actually for the president. For the third time in four years, he paid a visit to West Virginia. This time, Morgantown. Speaking at West Virginia University, the president echoed the themes of his address last week on Iraq. In short, stay the course.

In the meantime, two more roadside bombings today in Baghdad. Also, clashes south of the city. And no word of the Egyptian envoy abducted over the weekend.

To Scotland now, a little rough and tumble on the streets of Edinburgh in advance of the G-8 summit on Wednesday. Business is at a standstill in parts of the city, and, as you might imagine, so is traffic. Police telling local merchants to close and workers to stay off the streets. Finally from us, the good stuff. Fireworks. And in this case, from the Mall in Washington, D.C. Beautiful, beautiful stuff. Happy Fourth of July, everyone. That's it for now. NEWSNIGHT continues right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It sounds like something a Hollywood screenwriter might make up, but this story, this long-kept secret, is true, remarkably true. Our country was at war. So we sent in the Marines. But the enemy was intercepting our transmissions. So the Marines enlisted the Navajo Indians.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): In the early days of World War II, the fighting in the Pacific could not have been more intense, or could it have seemed more distant to the people whose ancestors have lived in this place for centuries, lived in the isolated splendor of the American southwest.

Then, the Marines showed up. And the Marines were looking for Navajos.

ROY BROWN, NAVAJO CODE TALKER: Especially the boys, the boys that graduated from high school. And I began to think, what the heck are they after? You know?

BROWN: What they were after were smart, young Native Americans who were fluent both in English and in the ancient and unwritten language of their own people, the Navajo language, men who would accompany Marine squadrons and communicate secretly; the idea of a Marine officer who had lived on the reservation as a missionary's son.

R. BROWN: We talk about the word, "A," why don't we use "ant" (ph) for "A." In Navajo it means (SPEAKING IN NAVAJO).

ROY HAWTHORNE, NAVAJO CODE TALKER: We would say the word, pronounce the word in Navajo, and then we would say, using the alphabet, it begins with this letter and ends with that letter. And so, no room for error there.

BROWN: What they did was develop a code, a code no eavesdropping Japanese could ever break. And they used it in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific, from 1942 to 1945. They were the code talkers.

HAWTHORNE: Goes out at night, very quiet. And so we said, well, let's call it an owl, (SPEAKING IN NAVAJO). That would be reconnaissance plane.

BROWN: Roy Hawthorne was a code talker, one of the 400 Navajos who were selected. Today he is a Baptist lay minister.

HAWTHORNE: Take a tank, and we would consider the characteristics of that tank: slow-moving, has its own armor. And so we said, well, that's a turtle, a desert turtle.

BROWN: In the Pacific, that language saved lives again and again. During the battle of Okinawa, Roy Hawthorne remembers that desperate Japanese officers speaking fluent English tried to direct U.S. battleships to fire on the American Marines.

HAWTHORNE: They were wanting to put it on the American forces. And so once it was determined what was happening, no longer would English be accepted over the radio.

BROWN: Hollywood discovered the code talkers before the rest of America did. This brief movie moment was made in 1954. But officially, what the Navajos did was kept secret by the government for 25 years.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today we mark a moment of shared history and shared victory. We recall a story that all Americans can celebrate and every America should know.

BROWN: The government finally held a ceremony for the code talkers, officially honoring them for what they did. John Brown Jr. was there shaking hands with the president and receiving a standing ovation.

Out here, where the sun sets and the rising of the moon can take your breath away, the code talkers say they liked the recognition they're finally getting, but they don't really need it.

HAWTHORNE: Many times we're asked, well, why did you fight the war of this country since, you know, there have been over 300 broken treaties by the federal government? Why did you do it? And so because we have very intimate ties with the land, and we would do everything we could to keep the Japanese or any enemy from possessing the land.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up, our portrait of America continues. He's blind. He owns race cars. And he pitches in with the repairs.

And she was America's heroine. Then her story got more complicated. Whatever happened to Jessica Lynch? On the Fourth of July, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In truth we love this next story. It is a great American tale of overcoming adversity. It's the story of a man who loves race cars. Who, despite being blind, followed his dream to inspire others to do the same. Our story was told by CNN photojournalist Bob Crowley (ph).

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAY BLAKE, "FOLLOW A DREAM": The first time to see a drag race is mind-blowing. It's ear-piercing. The ground literally shakes. It just hits you and you feel it. The car I run is called an alcohol funny car. I am the owner and crew chief of the race team. What is unique about me and what I do in drag racing, I have no sight at all. I am totally blind. I move around the engine and around my tools all by feel.

I guess I'm not driving today, huh?

I truly love getting my hands dirty, putting the tools in my hand and working on the car.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You feel the single wire tight?

BLAKE: Yes, I did, yes, right there.

TOM HOWELL, ENGINE TUNER: When you have got a guy that deals with what he deals with every day...

BLAKE: Fire it up, ready to go?

HOWELL: ... it makes it tough for us to start whining about things, you know?

BLAKE: I've been a fan of drag racing for most of my life. And after my accident, I decided that I was going to follow my dream and start my own racing. With the right attitude, you can do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Ray (ph), the new driver for Jim and Jay Blake. Jay, the car owner, lost his sight in an industrial accident.

BLAKE: This program is about helping people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The "Follow a Dream" concept, which pretty much means exactly like it says in the race car.

BLAKE: I go out and I will do presentations and talk about things that will happen in life. But it's how we choose to handle them and what we do with that that makes up the difference.

I was sighted for 31 years and I didn't think I could do half the things I'm doing.

Yeah, baby!

I am one of the luckiest guys in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jay Blake, the marvelous run.

BLAKE: Just doing what I'm days is awesome. I love it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: This past April at the O'Reilly Spring Nationals in Houston, Texas, Jay's team won, won its first national title.

Still to come on this 4th of July portrait of America -- he may be the smartest person on the planet. Meet the American many are calling today's Einstein.

And 150 years after Mark Twain piloted these waters, these men still do the same job. Life on the Mississippi, 2005. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: No portrait of America would be complete without a celebrity, one who made "Life" magazine's list of most-influential baby boomers. Admittedly, you won't find Edward Witten in the pages of "Entertainment Weekly" or even "Fortune" magazine. His power resides in his brain, answering questions most of us mere mortals can barely comprehend.

CNN's Candy Crowley tonight, probing the mind of the man called today's Einstein.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Tell me what you do all day long.

EDWARD WITTEN, INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY: There isn't a clear task. If you're a researcher, it means you're trying to figure out what the question is, as well as what the answers. You want to find a question that's especially easy that you might be able to answer it, and yet, sufficiently hard that the answer is interesting.

CROWLEY (voice-over): He works at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

(on camera): Do you know what your dad does?

RAFE WITTEN, WITTEN'S SON: Yes. I know what my dad does.

CROWLEY: No, I mean, like how would you explain it?

R. WITTEN: To the (INAUDIBLE), I sort of understand what my dad does, but I'm -- my explanation would be so horribly incomprehensible that I won't even try.

CROWLEY (voice-over): Dad works at the kind of place where the bulletin board does not advertise used futons, the hallways are very quiet, and the people are very smart.

E. WITTEN: Is there something here that gets turned on?

CNN meanwhile has come to monitor our skill with the audio/visual equipment.

CROWLEY: These are the kind of people flummoxed by a computer- driven projector, but totally versed in the incomprehensible.

E. WITTEN: So we're happy to welcome Greg. He is writing his title on the black board. Testing some black hole, topological string conjectures. CROWLEY: The institute is where thinkers come to think. Einstein thought here. Now, Witten does. It is frustrating business.

E. WITTEN: You spend a lot of time thinking, and you spend a lot of time foundering around.

CROWLEY: Between Oprah and Bill Gates, Ed Witten is number six on "Life" magazine's list of most influential baby boomers.

DR. NATHAN SEIBERG, PHYSICIST, INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY: He combines the rigor of being precise as a mathematician, with the intuition of a physicist. But what's really remarkable about him is the clarity of his thinking.

CROWLEY: He's won a lot of medals, including the Fields award -- sort of like the Nobel Prize for mathematicians, which is not bad for a physicist -- and the National Medal of Science.

They are husband and wife. They are of like minds. They met at a physicist summer school in Italy. She's a physics Ph.D, too.

DR. CHIARA NAPPI, WITTEN'S WIFE: Sometimes I have an impression that in Edward's mind, there's no darkness whatsoever. So he sees everything very clearly.

CROWLEY: He's been called the world's greatest living physicist, even the greatest physicist of all time.

MICHIO KAKU, AUTHOR, "PARALLEL WORLDS AND HYPERSPACE": I do believe there really is a category for a genius who is a supernova. A supernova that lights up the entire scientific landscape. And that's Ed Witten. I think he's as close as you're going to get to a living Albert Einstein today.

CROWLEY: Wow.

E. WITTEN: Well, one thing is that people do tend to exaggerate. I can tell you a little bit about what we're trying to work on, though.

CROWLEY: Witten's work is what eluded Einstein, reconciling two enormously successful but incompatible theories: The theory of general relatively, used to describe gravity in the cosmos, with quantum mechanics, using probability to describe the atomic nucleus.

Let's try that again. Ed Witten has devoted most of his adult life to the search for one rule to explain all the fundamental laws of nature. The work is as slow as the ages, not particularly lucrative, and heaven knows, he's not in it for the glamour.

E. WITTEN: This is for the love of understanding how the world works, what it really is.

CROWLEY: Laymen call it the theory of everything, the holy grail of physics. It could be years. It could be ions. It could be never. But it would be big. KAKU: In the history of our intellectual development, this will represent the crowning achievement of 2,000 years of investigation into nature of matter, space and time.

CROWLEY: The most promising arena is called superstring theory, which holds that the fundamental particles of the universe are vibrating loops. Further explanation would require discussing 11 dimensions.

The point is, Ed Witten is the superstar of superstring theory.

(on camera): When you look in 100 years from now, is Ed Witten going to be one of those names that one remembers, like an Einstein?

SEIBERG: I think in perspective of 100 years or maybe 300 years, his name will stay. It will not be forgotten. His contributions are lasting contributions, which will stay there.

CROWLEY: No experiment exists that could prove or disprove superstring theory. And ultimately, it could be that he will have spent a lifetime working on, for lack of a scientific word, hokum.

But Ed Witten, a man of science, keeps the faith.

WITTEN: Because I just think that too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all wrong. Humans don't understand it very well. But I just don't believe that there's a big cosmic conspiracy that created this incredible thing that has nothing to do with the real world.

CROWLEY: It is enough to keep looking for the right question.

Candy Crowley, CNN, Princeton, New Jersey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Coming up on this 4th of July, how the stars changed our stripes. The effect 9/11 had on Americans' relationship with their flag.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BAKHTIAR: Good evening. I'm Rudi Bakhtiar with the headlines from around the country and the world. We begin in Afghanistan, with an update on the missing Navy SEALs. Here's CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): So far, only one member of the four-man SEAL team has been found alive. A statement confirming the Saturday rescue said the U.S. commando was given medical treatment at Bagram airfield, and was listed in stable condition.

Sources told CNN his wounds were superficial, and said he'd provided some details about what happened to the rest of the team. BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, U.S. ARMY (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This is a team that is very close to each other, because of the conditions they have to go through to survive. And so, picking up the one individual will give them some very interesting information.

MCINTYRE: Meanwhile, the U.S. military is confirming a number of Afghan civilians were killed Friday, when a U.S. B-52 bomber dropped six satellite-guided bombs on a compound believed to be an operating base for militants who shot down a U.S. helicopter last week, as it attempted to extract the Navy SEALs.

LT. CINDY MOORE, SPOKESWOMAN, U.S. FORCES, AFGHANISTAN: I think certainly U.S. forces regret if there is a loss of innocent lives. And we follow very stringent rules of engagement, specifically to ensure that noncombatants are safe.

MCINTYRE: A statement put out by the U.S. military blamed the deaths on the militants. "When enemy forces moved their families into locations where they conduct terrorist operations," it said, "they put these innocent civilians at risk."

(on camera): The U.S. military knows a lot more than it's saying about the fate of the missing SEALs, but insists making the information public now would serve no purpose, while the rescue and recovery operation is still under way.

Jamie McIntyre, CNN, the Pentagon.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BAKHTIAR: On to Italy, now, where the government is denying allegations that it was informed before the alleged kidnapping of a radical Egyptian cleric in 2003. A Rome newspaper today quoted the former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden Unit, as saying that Italy's secret service authorized the operation. Italian prosecutors have accused 13 purported CIA officials of kidnapping the cleric known as Abu Omar, on a Milan street and then sending him to Egypt, where he reportedly was tortured.

Today in Atlanta, leaders of the United Church of Christ approved a resolution endorsing same-sex marriage. It is not, however, binding on member churches. A little more than a million people belong to the denomination, which has a long tradition of tolerance when it comes to gay and lesbian issues.

And some late-breaking news out of Indonesia. Reports of a strong earthquake, magnitude 6.8. It struck off the northwest coast of the island of Sumatra, about 240 miles south-southeast of Banda Aceh. A tsunami watch was issued, but so far, experts believe there is only a slight chance of any damage on shore.

And finally from us, on a much, much brighter note -- what else -- here are some fireworks for you. In this case, from New York City, where millions of people turned out to watch.

Happy 4th of July. That's it for us. Back to NEWSNIGHT. BROWN: The Mississippi River is the vein running through the heart of America, funneling the waters of 31 states. Young Mark Twain spent three years piloting boats along the Mississippi's 2,300-mile length. One hundred and fifty years later, men still steer that same course, living the lonely, itinerant life. Though as CNN's Jeanne Meserve found, the amenities do seem to have improved.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAPT. SHAWN WILMOTH, TOWBOAT MARTHA INGRAM: When you're southbound in a boat like this, it's like driving a coal (ph) on ice.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Captain Shawn Wilmoth uses current, cunning and 23 years of experience on rivers to thread the towboat Martha Ingram and its one-quarter-mile-long string of 30 barges through the piers of a bridge.

WILMOTH: Anytime you're look in front of you, there's something, if you don't make course corrections, you'll hit -- you're going to crash.

MESERVE: It is not like navigating on open water, where Wilmoth began his career.

WILMOTH: I started working on boats when I was 9 years old, on the East Coast, with my grandfather. It's in the blood, I guess.

MESERVE: The Martha Ingram is one of the most powerful towboats in the U.S. Its three engines, locomotive engines, really, put out more than 10,000 horsepower, to move barges of vital commodities, day and night, up and down the inland river system.

Members of the 10-man crew work, sleep and eat on the towboat, for 28 days at a stretch.

For the deck hands, it is rugged work, requiring strength, agility and endurance.

But if the work is hard, the living is easy. The home-cooked meals are immense, prepared in a kitchen that could have come out of "House Beautiful," granite countertops and all. There's even a turkey fryer.

And as the second mate showed us, there are other amenities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the laundry room.

MESERVE: There is a treadmill and a well-equipped lounge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have TV, VCR, DVD. Surround-sound.

MESERVE: Upstairs are the bunk rooms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the mate's room.

MESERVE: There is even a guest room with private bath, featuring complementary toiletries.

Some things are forbidden -- drinking, drugs, pornography. And one very important thing is missing -- family.

WILMOTH: I miss them. And they miss me, and I miss them a lot. Every time I go home, my boy's a little bigger and has done a little something different. And they're growing up fast. You know how it is.

MESERVE: When the crew does go home, they go home for almost a month. It can be a shock to the system.

WILMOTH: You would think a fellow with 28 days off would have plenty of time to have fun. But when I get home, I'm 28 days behind. So I have got a lot of catching up to do.

MESERVE (on camera): A lot of "honey, do this thing."

WILMOTH: Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. You sure have.

MESERVE (voice-over): It's a pretty good living. And for some people, a pretty good life, rolling on the river.

For CNN's America Bureau, Jeanne Meserve on the towboat Martha Ingram.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: She was a young Army private, critically injured, taken prisoner in the early days of the war in Iraq. And her story riveted the country. As part of CNN's anniversary series, "Then & Now," we look back tonight at Jessica Lynch and where she is today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The story of "Saving Private Lynch" lifted the spirits of Americans in the early days of the war in Iraq. Nineteen-year-old Jessica Lynch was a supply clerk in the Army's 507th Maintenance Company, when it was ambushed. Her dramatic recovery nine days later from an Iraqi hospital became instant legend.

But later, some of the facts surrounding her capture and rescue were stretched by the military.

JESSICA LYNCH: I was definitely a little angry at a couple of stories, because it wasn't the truth and I wasn't going to allow myself to sit there and let a lie kind of build.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She came home with a broken body, but a new- found celebrity status.

Jessica was everywhere. She helped write a book called "I Am a Soldier, Too" and was the subject of a TV movie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you see that, first sergeant?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LYNCH: I don't consider myself a hero. I don't consider myself anything higher than a soldier who was doing my job in the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jessica is now 22 years old, and will soon retire from the military. She plans on attending college this fall, to become a teacher. She still walks with a cane, has no feeling in her left foot, and undergoes daily physical therapy.

LYNCH: I am the former prisoner of war. That is how people recognize me. But that's not all I am.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As part of our 25th anniversary, CNN will revisit and update a lot of compelling stories we've told over a quarter of a century of bringing you the news.

Still ahead -- the most colorful and patriotic bails of hay you've ever seen. And more. Old glory in all its post-9/11 shades and permutations. But we'll take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Since 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii obtained statehood, the design of the American flag hasn't wavered. And maybe some of us began to take it for granted. But in the days after September 11th, instinctively, spontaneously, Americans of all stripes clamored to display their colors, from barns to bikinis. Photographer Don Pogany has captured this new wave of patriotism.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON POGANY, PHOTOGRAPHER, AUTHOR, "OUR FLAG WAS STILL THERE": I was on my way to work in Chicago, exactly a week after the attacks. And I had my camera with me. And I saw all the flags and ribbons that were displayed in my neighborhood. And I decided I want to take photographs of these as a way to remember the response following the attacks.

And over the next few days, I took more and more photographs in the city of Chicago, and started thinking about putting together a collection of photographs.

I think a lot of people across the country felt the same way. The attacks obviously touched them emotionally, but they wanted to show something positive and patriotic and something from the heart as a response.

It became apparent to me that no matter where I went, I would see a tremendous amount of support. And it also became apparent that no matter where I went, it would be a little bit different in each particular place.

There were these hay bails down in Ft. Valley, Georgia, outside this peach orchard, and I think it was representative of how original we are as people and how innovative we are as people, but also how diverse we are as people.

Meeting the people behind all the displays was definitely the best part of the journey. So many people along the way were affected by the tragedies, and they were so far, in terms of proximity to the events, from them.

One that's become my favorite, is a photograph of a man I'll call a drifter in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This picture of this man represented so much about America to me. He seemed free, in this grand sense, but he felt this real, real deep attachment to his country, so much so that he has wanted to display the flag literally on his back.

There's a guy in Harrington, Delaware. His name is Clarence Barlow (ph). And for the last 10 years, he's painted his barn roof -- it happens to be in the flight path of Dover Air Force Base -- and he says that every once in a while, pilots flying back into the air base will actually sort of dip their wings in salute to a flag that he's painted.

I always looked forward to going into a different town, because I knew there would be some expression of patriotism from kids there. It's amazing how emotional children are, actually, about our country. And there are some very tender and poignant and sad responses from children about the attacks.

As Americans, we were somewhat at a loss as for what to do, and to extract some sort of positive meaning and to be able to preserve it in some way is meaningful for people, it's meaningful for me, and it's meaningful when I see others see the photographs, and they see another part of the country. And for them to be able to take these memories forward and say, yes, that was a special period, it was a sad period, but the way we responded was good.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Good to have you with us on this 4th of July. We hope you had a terrific holiday weekend. We'll see you tomorrow. Until then, good night for all of us.

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