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By Mark Potter, NBC News correspondent

TUCSON -- On an isolated ranch 10 miles from the Mexican border in southern Arizona, Tangye Beckham worries about what the night will bring.  That's usually when her family's 100-acre ranch begins to crawl with drug and immigrant traffickers from Mexico heading north into the United States. 

"They're belligerent, they carry weapons," she said. "It's a nightly problem with them being on the property. They've already tried to break in." 

Recently, as she was closing one of her gates in the pre-dawn hours, Beckham found herself surrounded by a group of illegal immigrants and feared being attacked.  By running to her car, she said, she was able to get away, badly shaken. 

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Two mountain ranges away, ranchers Christin Peterson and Sonny McCuistion have the same problem with armed Mexican smugglers crossing their properties. "It's upsetting and there's a lot of them. It hasn't decreased; there's a lot of traffic," said Peterson.

 

 

All three ranchers scoffed at claims from Washington that crime along the U.S. side of the Mexican border has dropped dramatically and that the area is safer than ever. "They don't know what they're talking about," McCuistion replied.

Beckham, a flight paramedic and firefighter, urged Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to pay a visit to her ranch. 

"I'll show her it's not a secure border," Beckham said.  "I'll have her talk to my kids.  And they can tell her how afraid they are, that they don't wanna go out after dark."

Southwest border among ‘safest areas in the United States,’ Napolitano says

Along the Mexican border, an easy way to get into a fierce debate is to ask a simple question:  "How much violence and crime linked to Mexican drug traffickers has spilled over into the United States?" 

As it turns out, the answer varies wildly and depends on who you talk to, especially in a presidential election year when border security and immigration are sensitive topics. The argument is further complicated by the failure of federal and state law enforcement officials to even agree over how to define spillover violence and other related crimes.

"The danger in not having an accurate accounting of spillover violence is that we fail to see that our cities, American cities, are permeated by Mexican drug cartels who are heavily armed, who are criminals involved in multiple different enterprises," said Howard Campbell, an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has studied the drug cartels extensively.

The Obama administration, joined by some local officials and sheriffs, claim that because of a sizeable increase in the federal law enforcement presence along the border, crime there has dropped dramatically and the border is safer than it's ever been. 

“Everything that we are seeing along our nation’s Southwest border point to a much safer border today than it has been over the last 20 years,” said David Aguilar, acting commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “It is not a war zone; it is not a border completely out of control.”

Federal officials cite the FBI Uniform Crime Report, which includes data on murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, when claiming that border-area crime has actually dropped by more than in other cities far from the border.

"This [Obama] administration has deployed unprecedented resources to the Southwest border," said Napolitano during a news conference last month in McAllen, Texas.  "The violent crime in these areas has gone down significantly.  These are among the safest areas in the United States."

The Homeland Security Secretary said the horrific violence from the Mexican drug war, in which it's estimated that as many as 50,000 people have been killed, is a serious security concern for U.S. authorities.  But she insisted that very little of it has spilled over into the United States. 

"That kind of violence we have not seen," Napolitano said.  "While we may not be able to prevent every murder from occurring, I think we can be ahead of, and will be ahead of, any kind of systemic violence." 

During a speech last year in El Paso, President Obama noted the U.S. Border Patrol now has a record 22,000 agents along the Southwest border. "We have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible," he told a cheering crowd.  "We have more boots on the ground on the Southwest border than at any time in our history."

Obama even joked during his speech about Republican critics who call for even tougher security measures along the border.  "Maybe they'll need a moat, maybe they want alligators in the moat.  They'll never be satisfied.  And I understand that, that's politics."

Opposing view: border ‘more dangerous than it’s ever been’

In Cochise County, Ariz., which shares an 84-mile-long border with Mexico, Sheriff Larry Dever was among many border officials who did not laugh at President Obama's joke about moats and alligators.  "I can't tell you how angry it made not only me, but my constituents, to make a mockery of one of the most serious situations we face in our entire lifetime," he said. "I'd say the border is more dangerous than it's ever been."

Dever has lost four friends -- three police officers and a rancher -- to cartel violence, and insists Mexican traffickers crossing into his county are well-armed and much more aggressive now than they were just a few years ago. "We're getting overrun from the south, because the federal government isn't doing its job," he said.

The long-time sheriff argued that the FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics cited by the White House fail to include many of the crimes committed by traffickers, including kidnapping, extortion, public corruption, drug and human smuggling, and trespassing. "I invite them to come down here, come live with us and go camp out at some rancher's house and see what happens at night," he said.   When asked if anyone from Washington had ever agreed to do that, Dever said,   "Heck no, they come for photo ops.”.

Cherry-picking border statistics?

At the Austin headquarters for the Texas Department of Public Safety, director Steve McCraw, a former FBI supervisor and counter-terrorism specialist, studied a chart on the wall filled with red and green dots indicating where drug and money seizures have been made around the state.

"The border's not secure, clearly.  I think by any indication it's not secure," he said.  "We've identified 25 murders that are cartel-related, we've identified 124 kidnappings and extortions that are cartel-related.  We know of 61 instances in which cartel members shot at police officers while they're on the river trying to interdict trucks."

McCraw agreed with Dever that federal officials often use incomplete statistics to defend their arguments about border safety.  "You can't cherry pick your statistics," he said.  "We've got a duty to be very accurate about what's going on now and how we see the current threat."

According to Congressional testimony in 2009 and 2011, the current federal interagency definition of Mexican spillover violence is:  "…deliberate, planned attacks by the cartels on U.S. assets, including civilian, military, or law enforcement officials or physical institutions such as government buildings, consulates or businesses. This definition does not include trafficker on trafficker violence, whether perpetrated in Mexico or the U.S."

Many state officials say trafficker on trafficker violence should not be excluded, because cartel shootouts seen in Texas, Arizona and other states can put civilians in danger and in fear for their lives.  "That's ludicrous," said McCraw.  "Any time there's a murder, an assassination, or the death squads of ‘sicarios’ come over here and try to do a takeover like that, there's always consequences in that neighborhood." 

McCraw, Dever and other regional officials argue that all crimes linked to Mexican traffickers should be gathered to assess the true scope of border threats so that law enforcement needs can more accurately be determined. 

With presidential elections scheduled this year in both the United States and Mexico, the successes and failures of border security efforts have also come under intense scrutiny by the political campaigns.

"I think political assessments of the border have been very slanted, whether it be Democratic or Republican -- Democrats claiming everything is peaceful and quiet, no problem, Republicans arguing that the situation on the border is out of control with spillover violence," said Campbell of the University of Texas at El Paso.

Campbell said even though there have been relatively few homicides in the United States committed by Mexican traffickers, there is definitely a lot of other crime.

"There has been a spillover of crime and drug trafficking culture and a greater amount of violent encounters between Mexican drug traffickers and U.S. Border Patrol agents and other agents of the U.S. government," he said.  "I think claiming the border is safer than ever is absurd."

As for the failure between federal and state officials to agree on how to define the problem, Campbell says it is important to understand the issues in a "scientific, clear way," and to make effective policies based on that.  He also suggested that collecting crime statistics is not the only way to gather this important information.

"I think it would be better to talk to people who actually live on that border that experience this on a day to day basis," he said. 

 

 

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GULU, Uganda – Young Jacob Acaye’s declaration that he would rather die than continue to lead his life in fear has broken the hearts of the tens of millions of people around the world who have watched “KONY 2012,” an Internet advocacy documentary about the misdeeds of a Ugandan warlord.

But about nine years later – and just a week or so after the video became an online sensation – one of the most talked-about people of current days is a picture of anonymity.

In his hometown in northern Uganda, the 21-year-old seemed relaxed, and perhaps a little reserved, as he wandered down the street where he used to huddle under blankets along with up to 800 other children for protection from advancing rebels.

I stood with him, gazing down a busy sidewalk waiting for someone to catch his eye – to question him, to thank him or to embrace him. There's nothing.

We had traveled to Gulu to assess reaction to the 30-minute video, which has become one of the most successful online campaigns of all time. As of this writing, it’s up to 78 million views on YouTube.

But tweets, status updates and trending topics mean very little here. In downtown Gulu, it has pretty much missed many of those people who have been most affected by the bloodshed.

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Western campaign
It shouldn’t be a surprise. With access to the Internet limited, very few people here have seen the “Invisible Children” campaigners’ call to make Joseph Kony famous, a move they hoped would, in turn, make him infamous.

After all, he is already despised in these parts:  His face and his name are known by everyone and have haunted this place for decades. It seems that everyone can name one of his victims – someone who was slaughtered, orphaned or abducted by his army of thugs.

Why make Kony famous? Video rubs some raw Ugandan scars 

In fact, many people in Gulu are far from excited by the campaign; they have heard it discussed on local radio and feel that it has its heart far from the dusty roads of rural Uganda. This is a campaign by Westerners, “the white men,” said one resident.

What divides opinion is whether that really matters. To Jacob it doesn’t, he would welcome attention from anyone, anywhere. To many others it feels like a patronizing challenge to national pride. “KONY 2012” doesn’t really feel like their campaign.

In Gulu, there are memorials to a series of massacres, the most recent in 2004. But while the legacy of fear created by a generation of violence certainly endures, in many ways this place has moved on. Confidence has grown with peace.

Moving on
Sitting around making small-talk, a group of men asked me to join them. Their conversation is about Kony, as often seems to be the case. Fueled by bravado and, perhaps, a little beer, they said it would be impossible for the warlord to return. They spoke of him only in the past tense, despite rumors that he was in the area over Christmas for a brief visit.

“We don’t expect anything. We don’t expect him anymore in the country,” said one man, who is convinced that Kony is in hiding in the Central African Republic or South Sudan.

In other parts of the town, some told me that there is no need for a campaign at all, as Kony’s men have moved on. Others don't want to hear his name. “Why re-open these wounds?” one man asked me once he learned of my reason for being in Gulu.

Some fear that too much talk of Kony might bring him back and risk their community's relative calm. Others worry that their homeland is being characterized around the world purely as a place of terror – “Konyland” as one aid worker described it.

Most of all, they wonder why the world has suddenly started to worry about them now? It’s not necessarily that they don’t welcome the attention, but many cannot subscribe to the newfound enthusiasm of the campaign’s supporters abroad. They have long tired of asking for attention and being ignored.

Acaye, however, is as passionate as when he was as a boy and believes that the video is important and valuable.

“Kony has not yet stopped killing young ones,” he said. “Kony has not yet stopped abducting people. Kony has not yet stopped forcing young girls into sex slaves.

“And that is what we are fighting for. We want it stopped.”

By Charles Hadlock
NBC News

DALLAS --  A volunteer program that has welcomed home thousands of U.S. soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan at the Dallas-Fort Worth International airport has come to an end.  The last flight bringing soldiers home for two weeks of rest and recuperation landed Wednesday, greeted by a cheering crowd. 

As the drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan continues, the military is consolidating future R&R flights to the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where the general public will not have access to greet returning soldiers.

The end of the flights is bittersweet for Donna Cranston, the volunteer coordinator for DFW’s “Welcome Home a Hero” program.

“These troops are sacrificing and serving for us and I want them to know we are grateful,” said Cranston.  “The other side is, it means we don’t have as many troops that are deployed.  And that’s a good thing.”

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Every day for the last nine years, a sort of patriotic flash mob has gathered at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.  Like clockwork, people from all over north Texas arrived at Gate B23 carrying signs, banners, balloons and, of course, American flags.

They stood quietly in a line near baggage claim until they saw the first soldiers emerge from their long plane ride from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Suddenly, the crowd erupted into applause and cheers.  A boom box played John Philip Sousa marching music.  The soldiers, who were still bleary-eyed from a 24-hour flight, seemed pleasantly stunned by it all.

Volunteers have welcomed home soldiers from each of the 2,700 chartered R&R flights since the very first one on Nov. 2, 2003.  The airport estimates that 920,000 soldiers have been personally greeted by volunteers.   The flight arrival times varied day by day and so did the number of volunteers who greeted each flight.  Sometimes there were as few as 30 greeters; sometimes there were more than 300.

Sgt. Hank Slaughter, 47, who returned from Kuwait earlier this month after serving in Iraq, smiled and shook hands with each of the 50 strangers who had come to greet his flight.

“This is great.  This is definitely more than I expected to see,” said Slaughter.

When Slaughter mentioned that he didn’t have a ride to his home, volunteer Pat Brown, 80, offered to take him.  “He’s from Fort Worth and I’m from Fort Worth, so I’m going to take him home,” Brown said, laughing.

Brown has been cheering soldiers at the airport every week for six years.  If she missed a week, she’d make it up by going twice the next week.

“It makes you feel great,” said Brown.  “I feel like it’s a blessing that I live here where it’s happening. They don’t do this anyplace else like this.”

DFW International Airport made it easy for the volunteers, providing them space and free parking each day.

“I’ve never met a more giving people in my life,” Jim Crites, executive vice president of operations at DFW, said of the volunteers.  “What they do is from the heart.  What they’ve given is off the charts.  This is what America is all about.”

Tom Downey, 71, arrived each day at the airport with flowers.  He would hand each female soldier a red or yellow rose.  “Many of these soldiers haven’t smelled flowers in months,” Downey said.  “You have to look at their faces.  There was one colonel who lifted me off my feet she was so surprised.”

Adam Sage came to surprise his fiancé, who was arriving on one of the last flights. Just a few months before, Sage had experienced the same welcome home greeting when he returned from Iraq.

“People just honestly don’t know what it means to all the soldiers who come back, especially single ones who don’t have a lot of family here,” Sage said.  “It means the world to them.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Defense officials have told NBC News that the Army staff sergeant who allegedly shot and killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, admitted his actions to fellow soldiers just before he was taken into custody.

"I did it," he is said to have told them.

According to the officials, a search party that included helicopters was formed after an Afghan soldier reported the American had left their small remote outpost in the early morning hours. In the meantime, the base received word that a number of civilians had been killed in a shooting spree at a nearby village.

---

Overhead surveillance first spotted the soldier on his stomach in a field, either attempting to hide or crawl toward the base.  He eventually stood up and walked a short distance to the base where he was confronted and asked about the shootings at the village.  The officials say the staff sergeant replied "I did it."  At that point he was disarmed and taken into custody.  He then asked for a lawyer and has refused to talk ever since.

 

The officials also said they’ve received reports that the soldier was having marital problems and had recently received a troubling letter or email from his wife. According to one official, after four combat deployments it’s not unusual there would be stress on the family.

Defense officials also told NBC News that investigators have reason to believe that alcohol "may" have been a contributing factor in the shooting spree.

The investigation found bottles of alcohol on the small remote base where the staff sergeant was deployed.  The officials emphasize "may" because they say that nowhere in the reporting from the field is there any indication the staff sergeant was inebriated.

The soldier, reportedly married with two children, enlisted in the Army soon after the terror attacks of Sept. 11 and did three combat tours in Iraq before arriving in Kandahar, near where the shootings took place, in December 2011.

US soldier accused in Afghan massacre had brain injury history

Reports that the soldier had received post-traumatic stress disorder examinations are not unusual, since every soldier coming out of combat is routinely screened for PTSD.

The soldier suffered some minor traumatic brain injury in a rollover in Iraq in 2010, but that part of his medical history does not appear at this point to be a factor, according to the officials. They also said the man has a clean medical and behavior record.

Obama: Killing Afghans as serious as killing Americans

Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Kabul, told The Associated Press a 48-hour probable cause assessment has been completed and that the service member continues to be confined.

Additionally, the officials told NBC News that the the military is considering capital murder charges against the soldier, meaning he could face the death penalty if convicted. They said the military also intends to conduct his court martial hearing in Afghanistan. Not only would it send the right signal to the Afghan people, officials said, but trying him in the United States or another country in the region would also present a logistics nightmare given the number of witnesses that would be expected to testify.

Military investigators in Afghanistan hope to file charges and release the identity of the soldier by the end of the week, but warn it could take another two weeks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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NEWS ANALYSIS 
At the moment, we know only that a 38-year-old U.S. Army Staff Sergeant left his post and shot to death 16 civilians in Afghanistan, including nine children and three women, and surrendered soon after the incident. Others were wounded and may not survive. The sergeant's wife and children in the United States have been relocated and are under the protection of the American government. 

News of the attacks has spread slowly across the country, but thousands of people took to the streets in the eastern Afghanistan Tuesday to demonstrate against the killings, burning an effigy of President Barack Obama and chanting “Death to American.” 

There have been NATO casualties in the area in the wake of the incident, but most of the American activity is not daily active combat with the enemy, but instead public works projects and the training of Afghans. In this regard, it is telling that the sergeant was able to walk unaccompanied and unmolested to the sites where the civilians were killed.

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Protests break out over Afghan shootings

He is in American custody and, pursuant to the agreement between the United States and Afghanistan, will be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This means that a General Officer, probably John Allen, who commands U.S. forces in Afghanistan, will appoint an officer, almost certainly a military lawyer, to investigate the incident. The investigator will interview witnesses and
then make a recommendation to the commander about how to deal with the case.

This process, called an Article 32 Investigation, is the military equivalent of a grand jury, but unlike in a civilian procedure, the accused can be represented by counsel and cross-examine witnesses. The commander can follow the investigator's recommendation or not, as he sees fit, but in this case if the investigating officer recommends a trial by court-martial, you can bet the sergeant will be tried.

There has been much discussion about the fact that the non-commissioned officer was on his fourth trip to Southwest Asia, implying that the stress of repeated deployments may have been the proximate cause of a breakdown that resulted in this tragic violence. While we should not be sanguine about the huge demands we place on our undermanned and overtaxed forces, specious arguments justifying the outburst are easy but dangerous to construct.

Most murderers have not served in the armed forces, and there are many thousands of American troops who have murdered nobody, but have more deployments than this suspect. Coincidence is not causation.

NYT: An Afghan elder comes home to find a massacre

Breakdown in the chain-of-command
What seems most striking about the incident is the failure of this sergeant's chain-of-command. The camp is guarded all the time, and particular attention is always given to security at night, when this soldier departed. There is a sergeant of the relief, supervised by a sergeant of the guard, supervised by an officer of the guard, supervised by an officer of the day and a field officer of the day.

Furthermore, troops live together continuously, often in close quarters, and it is impossible to envision a situation in which nobody had any inkling of his propensity for violence. He worked for another sergeant who worked for a lieutenant or a captain, all of whom lived with him. The investigation will include interviews of his comrades, his leaders and his family. His snail mail, email and social sites will be scoured, and all of it is likely to reveal that his commander either did know, or should have known, that this violence was possible, or even probable, and that this man should have been removed from the unit.

If this sounds familiar, it is because the situation is similar to that of Maj. Nidal Hasan. His supervisors knew that he was unstable and did nothing about it, and in 2009 Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.

For the moment, the National Command Authority has reiterated its commitment to the mission in Afghanistan, with some withdrawal of conventional troops slated to begin in 2014. But with an increasing number of influential people, including prominent Republicans, convinced that we should withdraw sooner rather than later, it's certain that there is already a plan for an accelerated pull-out beginning in 2013, soon after our national election.

Nevertheless, whether troops are in Afghanistan or the United States or anywhere else, the stringent and vital requirement of good leadership is the same. Being in the uniform of the U.S. Armed Forces is not just another job and indeed is like no other endeavor in the world.

Yes, we ask far too much of brave people who are willing to sacrifice for us, but when their leaders forget or ignore their awesome responsibilities, the result is often tragedy.

Read more from Col. Jack Jacobs

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Outrage is continuing to spread over a U.S. soldier’s rogue shooting of 16 Afghan civilians in the middle of the night. Local officials say the shooting spree killed nine children, three women and four men.

While the news slowly trickles through Afghanistan, U.S. officials are rushing to contain the damage from the tragic attack, promising to punish whoever is behind the incident.

But there are fears that the attacks could spark even more violence from an Afghan public already angered by the U.S. and NATO presence in their country.

NBC’s Atia Abawi is in Kabul covering the story. Earlier today she answered reader questions about the attack and the Afghan reaction to it.

Click below to replay the chat.

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By Rehema Ellis, NBC News education correspondent

MADISON -- Three years ago Todd Bol came up with an idea to remember his mother, a teacher who had loved books and encouraged people to read.  At his home in Hudson, Wisc., he built a box, made it waterproof and filled it with books.  It looked like a miniature one-room schoolhouse, with a sign underneath that said “Free Book Exchange.” Bol put it on a post outside of his house and invited neighbors to take a book, and return a book. 

That’s when something happened Bol says he never could have imagined.

“People of all ages, men, women, kids came up and just loved the library,” he said.  “They got excited and they started coming up to me saying, ‘I’ll build one, do you need books?’”   

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The idea has mushroomed.  Bol now encourages people to visit his website for suggestions on how to build their own library.

Today there are Little Free Libraries in at least 28 states and six countries including Ghana, Australia and Afghanistan. And people from more than a dozen other countries have expressed interest, Bol said.

On Bol's website he offers suggestions on how to build the libraries and sells kits for a fee starting around $100. Money donated to his non-profit helps build libraries in needy communities and developing countries. The website says, "If you need help let us know.  Don't let money get in the way."  

You can find the little libraries not just in front of homes, but also outside of health centers, coffee shops, bike paths, bus stops and store fronts.   People are encouraged to send in a picture of their library so it can be posted on the website.  In return they get a "Little Free Library. Take a Book, Return a Book" sign to post on what they've built, as well as a Little Free Library Charter number.

Each library is unique. 

"I've worked with people who will take pieces of their home or their old farm and they'll incorporate it into a library," Bol said.

Some are made from old cranberry crates, or metal milk cartons, with hinges from old refrigerators.  In New Orleans, La., Bol said some libraries have been built using debris from Hurricane Katrina.  People will decorate them based on themes from their favorite books, such as “Jack and the Bean Stalk.”

And each one has become more than just a place for getting books and leaving books. Bol said the little libraries have fostered a greater sense of community.

“There’s a primal need,” he said, “for people to be a part of their community.  We have people tell us all the time in seven days of having a Little Free Library I’ve met more people than I have met in 20 years in my neighborhood.”

In Madison, Wisc., Meghan Blake-Horst put a little library in her front yard. "It's a continual conversation piece," she said. 

Terri Connolly Cronk, who also lives in Madison, said people in the neighborhood who never stopped and talked before are stopping now because of the library that rests on the corner of her property.  The library is not just encouraging readers, it's giving neighbors opportunities to get to know each other.

Part of the allure of the Little Free Libraries, Bol said, is that you don’t need a library card.  There are no fees, no fines and no operating hours.  The Little Free Libraries are open for business 24/7.  So any time of day, people can get a book or share a book, hopefully a page turner.

Now one can only imagine that in this age of electronic books, Todd Bol’s mother would have loved how his story to honor her is turning out.

 

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OTSUCHI, Japan – When 79-year-old Junko Takashi saw the tide fast receding in the bay below her house, she remembered the warnings of her mother and her grandmother, that this was a sign of a tsunami.

But still she hesitated.

"I lived on high ground, on the hillside," she said. "I never thought the water could reach here."

She decided to take no chances, and leaving all her belongings behind her, she climbed to higher ground. She didn't see the tsunami rolling in, but remembers the terrible noise – like a waterfall, only far, far louder, she recalled.

By the time it was over, all that was left of her house were its foundations.

Some 70 percent of her town, Otsuchi, was destroyed and 10 percent of the town’s population of 16,000 are dead or missing. Its fishing industry, the backbone of the local economy, was obliterated.

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Yellow flag marks sign of life
One year on and Takashi lives in a temporary home, consisting of a tiny living room, narrow kitchen and bathroom. It's one of a cluster of 80 temporary homes erected on the outskirts of what remains of Otsuchi.

She lives alone, her belongings neatly arranged in little cubicles around her. We could barely squeeze into her living room as she pointed to the television, fridge, microwave and heater, all donated by charities who were at the forefront of a massive aid operation in the weeks and months after the disaster.

Now much of that initial support has gone. "We're on our own now," she said.

"You've got to be positive. I am 79-years-old, who knows how many years I have left."

She told me that before the tsunami she was pretty self-sufficient, since she had land to grow all the vegetables she needed, and her two brothers were fishermen. Now she had to buy everything with her pension, while trying to save for an uncertain future.

But free temporary housing, in which 2,000 of Otsuchi's people now live, is only available for two years.

Outside her home, and outside those of many of her neighbors, flutters a little yellow flag. I asked her what that was for.

"They are for everybody over 65 and living alone," she replied. They are asked to put the flags out in the morning and take them down in the evening. If no flag appears in the morning, then officials will come and check on them.

Mountains of debris and uncertain plans
Otsuchi appears to have made great strides in cleaning up the twisted wreckage that was once their town, and removing the fishing boats flung inland.

Looking down from the surrounding hills and all you see is a flat plain with a dusting of snow, just the foundations marking where buildings used to stand.

But the remains of the town has essentially been scooped up and piled into vast mountains of debris, which will take years to dispose of.

Takashi believes she will be allocated a new apartment once she leaves her temporary home, but the town of Otsuchi has been slow to draw up plans for the future. There is still no blueprint for what will replace a town virtually wiped from the map.

The local mayor has pledged to build a new 50-foot high seawall, more than twice the height of the one tossed aside by the tsunami. But there is no agreement as to where any new town will be built, nor how it can be made economically viable.

Elderly people, who dominate many of these small coastal towns, are wary of grand plans for new (and more economically sustainable) towns. They form an important political group.

"I want to live where I used to live," Takashi said. "I was comfortable there."

Staying positive
The future looks daunting, but Takashi is remarkably upbeat, showing me photos of some of the charity workers and celebrities who have visited over the months.

"I like visitors. I like to talk with people," she said.

"It's always been my policy to be positive about what lies ahead."

By Richard Engel
NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

It’s what an insurance company might call “a write-off” – a place that seems beyond salvation, and certainly too expensive to fix. I’d never thought of land that way. You smash up a car, and then it’s compacted into a square and maybe even recycled. Finito. But land? 

Last year, Japan’s disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant contaminated the land around it so badly that the area was effectively a write-off.  It’s been excised from terra cognita, uninhabitable, unwanted. Today the radiation-infected area is known by a name Ray Bradbury would like: “the exclusion zone.” 

With radiation detectors clipped to our white hazmat suits, we drove into this decimated pocket of our planet. 

Before we could get inside, a policeman stopped our car. There are checkpoints all around the exclusion zone, which extends in a twelve-mile radius around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. 

The people who lived in the zone left in a hurry. They had no time to pack up their homes and businesses. Only recently, and with special permission, the Japanese government has allowed former residents to return to collect family heirlooms, important documents or equipment. The former residents are only permitted to stay for a few hours. It’s a grab-and-go operation.

We joined a man who was returning to his factory to pick up expensive cutting tools he needed to manufacture electronic components. Without the machines, he can’t run his business.   

The man showed the police officer at the checkpoint his identification and permission. With a polite and decisive wave, the officer let us pass. We drove into the zone.

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Suburban scenes
When I first imagined the exclusion zone, I pictured a desolate open-air microwave. I thought of burned trees, scorched earth, crumbed houses. Maybe it was the name that conjured up the image of a nuclear wasteland. I had movie-fed visions of the radiation leaving me glowing. Friends, only half in jest, offered suggestions as to how I could use tin foil to protect myself and potential progeny.

But the exclusion zone didn’t look like that at all. Instead, it was a suburbs-fringed town surrounded by cattle farms. There were neat three- and four-bedroom houses on half-acre plots. There were tricycles and big-wheels on the driveways. There were swing sets in the yards. The only thing missing was people. If space travelers arrived after an extinction-level event, this is what they might find. A traffic light on the main street blinking red cautioned drivers who weren’t there to slow down.

I walked down the center of the street. It’s an odd feeling to walk down the middle of a main street, down the dotted line. I walked into a large drug store. The door was open. It was an American-style drugstore that sold everything from candy bars to razors to toilet paper. The shelves were still stocked. There were half-filled baskets in the aisles. It was silent. No people. No cash registers. No background music. Nothing.

A sushi restaurant was next door. It was locked. The menu on the front window showed the lunch special, a combo of sushi and miso soup, that was offered on the day of the explosion.

I walked into a man’s home. I opened his fridge. It was full. The food was rotten. 

There was a laundromat nearby. There were carts half full of clothing in front of the washing machines. 

But suddenly we heard movement. Cows, which have broken out of their enclosures, have taken over the town. They seemed more wild and aggressive than usual. The cows were led by bulls. We had to hide behind a tree as the bulls raced past, cows charging behind them. They ran so quickly I saw a cow slip on the street and crash into storefront. She scampered to her feet and joined the feral herd.

Good schools
The town is Okuma. A year ago it had a population of around 10,000. It was a fairly wealthy community, not rich but comfortable middle-class. It had some of the best schools in the area. There was a popular softball league. A lot of people worked as engineers and technicians at the nearby nuclear plant.

The radiation levels are high in Okuma, but I learned that the real danger is the dust. Don’t touch your eyes in the exclusion zone. Don’t rub your mouth. Don’t pick your nose. And never, under any circumstances, eat anything at all. 

When the Fukushima plant was destroyed, billions of microscopic particles of radioactive cesium were shot into the sky like a volcano belching ash. The cesium mixed with steam into what were effectively radioactive clouds. Then, it started to snow. The snow brought the cesium to the ground. 

The cesium is still all around, even though you can’t see it. It’s on the trees, on the roads and on the houses. It’s on the cows, and it’s in the cows. It’s in the wood and the dirt and the worms. Every time it rains, the cesium moves around. It’s in the water too.

We were dressed in white oversuits. They don’t do much to protect against radiation per se -- they’re not made of lead like the blankets that cover you during x-rays – they’re more like waterproof slickers. They zip up to your chin and down to your shoes, all in an effort to keep off the dust particles. The tiny cesium particles are light enough that if you stir up dust as you walk, the cesium will swirl in the air. You don’t want to breathe it in.

Deadly particles
During our trips into the zone – we went three times – we used radiation detectors to test different areas. Radiation isn’t constant. It all depends on the particles. Where they collect, there’s more radiation.

Paved surfaces generally had low levels of radiation. The wind blows off the dust from the smooth pavement. Our detectors showed that the grass and bushes had much higher concentrations. The plants grab the dust. Gullies, depressions and gutters were even worse, since the cesium tended to collect there. The feral cow dung was bad, too. I thought of all the cesium in their stomachs and intestines and throats. Don’t step in the dung in the exclusion zone.

An exclusion zone, of course, is just a line. The radiation doesn’t stop at the checkpoint. Fukushima City is just 40 miles away. With a population of about 300,000, it was never evacuated. Cesium fell on Fukushima too.  But instead of abandoning the city, the government is trying to clean it up. It is a monumental task.  

It is like dusting every nook and crack in a city to remove an invisible powder. So how do you even try?

A lawn buried
First, the city will hose down your roof to wash off the particles. They use high-power hoses, like the ones window washers use to reach upper floors. Then, you or a city official cuts all the leaves off all the trees around your house. Then you dig up the top two inches in your lawn, removing the grass, pebbles, topsoil, shrubs, flowers and everything. Finally, depending on where you live, the city will either collect your radioactive lawn, or you have to dig a big hole in your yard and bury all the debris there.

The process does reduce radiation levels, but residents complain it doesn’t make the radiation go away. When it rains, the water seems to find nooks that were never washed out. Particles get blown in from other areas. Particles run down hills. They run through gutters. You might wash your house, but get particles from a neighbor upwind.

I kept thinking about how hard it is to keep the dust out of my apartment. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like if I worried the dust would kill me over time. This is the procedure for a single house. Fukushima is trying to clean an entire city.   

A year has passed since the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. The Japanese government hopes to reduce radiation in Fukushima to a level on par with other cities. But some activists say, in the meantime, all children should be evacuated from Fukushima. They’re even educating parents on how to leave. The government hopes to reclaim some parts of the exclusion zone that show low levels of radiation. Residents we spoke to thought that would be difficult, if not impossible. What’s certainly clear, however, is that Japan will be dealing with this for a long time to come. Japan is an organized, wealthy, industrial, disciplined country. It has bullet trains that always seem to run on time. Japan is struggling with a cleanup that may be impossible. Many other countries would probably fare even worse.

Editor's note: Click here to watch Richard Engel's full report, 'The Fallout,' from NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams.

By Kevin Tibbles
NBC News

He's a high school senior whose studies include everything from discussions on water management to agriculture. He plays sax in the school band. He tends a flock of sheep and a few head of cattle on a small family farm. And, oh yes, at the ripe old age of 18, Jeremy Minnier is the mayor.

"This is my hometown. Born and raised here. Proud of it all the way,” Minnier told “Nightly News.” “I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else."

That hometown is teeny tiny (the townsfolk would agree) Aredale, Iowa: population 74.

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Aredale has a few issues facing it: the loss of the post office, a dwindling population, and water and sewage problems. It's a tall order for a kid who still lives at home with mom and dad.

But this town is hoping Jeremy Minnier, a wiry young man who’s both quiet and confident, can help them turn the corner.

"I want to spruce Aredale up," Minnier said. "Make it a better place. Make it so people want to come and see."

The new mayor didn't need a million dollar Super Pac to get elected. In fact, he was a write-in candidate who won by a whopping 24 votes to 8, beating 76-year-old incumbent Virgil Homer.

"We have a little hope for the future," said resident and town councilor Deb DeBerg. "Some fresh blood may see things differently."

And the new mayor says he's willing to do whatever it takes to get Aredale working.

“One of the main things right now is our septic systems in our homes as they're not up to state codes,” he said.

He'll even roll up his sleeves to help sweep and weed the town’s Main Street.

“We'd like to do some more landscaping in front of the City Hall, possibly add a flagpole, and purchase some new signs as ours are all rotted and chipped and faded,” he said. “Being the mayor doesn't mean that you just sit back and tell other people what to do. You gotta be there helping. I'm gonna be sweeping the streets out there with a broom and shovel just like they are.”

Back at Hampton-Dumont High School, the young mayor's got a lot of fans.

"I'm hoping he inspires a lot of our kids to step up when they see something that they think they might be able to do," Principal Steve Madson said.  

A fellow senior at Minnier's high school, Tanner Brolsma, said, "He's a pretty low-key guy, but it's a pretty cool thing to have going on at our school."

So when will Mayor Minnier find the time to run his town? Well after his chores and homework of course.

 “It's not a job when you wake up every morning and just love what you do," he said.