By Abbie Boudreau
Special Investigations Unit Correspondent

A group of 13 soldiers left Iraq holding on to a secret – the murders of four detainees at a Baghdad canal. They were told not to say a word, and for nine months, they kept quiet.

Then, one of the 13 soldiers reported the crime and the secret was out.

But what if that soldier hadn't come forward and reported the murders? What if years had gone by, and these young soldiers were still holding on to this battlefield secret?

Especially for the 20-somethings who are fighting this war – how do they keep a secret in a day and age where people from their generation are encouraged to live such public lives?

They are taught from a very young age to "talk it out," and why it's unhealthy to "keep it all inside." And now, with easy access to social networking sites, it's almost expected for people to splash their private lives, and personal photos all over the pages of Facebook and MySpace. We share our lives with just about anyone who will listen – we expose our fears, our likes and dislikes, and even our secrets to a community of on-line strangers.

Yet, for soldiers who might come home, holding on to real secrets – big deal secrets – What happens? Where do they turn? And how do the secrets affect them?

Sometimes stories raise more questions than answers, leaving uncertainty above all else. One example - my recent story on former Marines who now have male breast cancer, and worry their very rare illness was caused by time spent at Camp Lejeune.

A large question remains - will there ever be a day when scientists will have conclusive evidence to prove there is a link between the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and the Marines who say that contamination caused their cancers and other illnesses?  Who knows?

Records show there was water contamination at the base for decades. The Corps admits this contamination was serious – toxic chemicals, which are classified as probable carcinogens, meaning they are believed to cause cancer in humans. Experts reported the tap water highly contaminated as early as 1980 and 1981. But it took until late 1984 for the Corps to begin testing all the wells and shutting down the contaminated ones. But scientists and researchers now cannot seem to figure out whether there is a conclusive link between illnesses and the contamination. 

The Corps says it is cooperating with scientists to try to research if there is a link. So that means, you have a group of former Marines who are forced to wonder what has made them sick. – knowing they share at least one common thread:  they all lived at Camp Lejeune for a period of time, and drank the water.  These Marines want answers… they say they want the Marine Corps to help them figure out what made them so sick - with such a rare disease for men.  Yet, despite their years of military service, they feel the Marine Corps has abandoned them.  And I think that’s what hurts some of these men so deeply.  They say they gave years of their lives to proudly serve the country – but now wonder where is the loyalty and compassion when they need it the most?

How many more former marines are out there with serious illnesses, possibly not even aware of the concerns over the contaminated water?  And I have one final question for the Marine Corps: Is there anything more you can do to help these former Marines, or children of Marines, uncover why they are so sick?  If you had the chance, and had only one question, what would you ask?

Recently, I met a 16-year-old boy named Christopher. He is autistic, and his parents told me he has the mental capacity of a three to five-year-old child. I happen to have three nephews all under the age of five. Leo is four, and the twins are three. In some ways, Leo seems to have more verbal and social skills than Christopher. But still, like many four-year-olds, when he gets frustrated, he throws a temper tantrum. He flails his arms, he raises his voice, he even falls to the ground sometimes. We’ve all seen it, and we all know that is what four-year-olds do sometimes. When that happens, his parents don’t pounce on top of him, and hold him face down on the ground. They do not physically restrain him.

When Christopher gets frustrated, and cannot express himself by using his limited vocabulary, he acts very much like Leo. He might fall to the ground, and throw his arms up in the air, or even shout. His parents told me that when he acts like this at home, they give him his space, and then they console him. They never said it was easy, but insist they do not physically get on top of him to hold him down. But when Christopher acted like this at school, his teachers wrestled him to the ground. They pinned him down. I saw the video. It looked painful. He looked confused.

Christopher is special. He is a young child, trapped in a tall, strong 16-year-old’s body. This case is not unusual. There are six million special needs students in the U.S. But for some reason, there are no federal standards or guidelines about how teachers should handle special needs students when they act out in the classroom.

My question to you is not whether physical restraint should be used in the classroom. At this point – most people already know the argument.

I can only imagine how challenging it is for teachers these days – I think most people recognize that, but this is my question: Where is the basic compassion and empathy for students who need extra help?

Convicted "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, who terrorized the country with a series of mail bombs over nearly two decades, is fighting to stop a public auction of his diaries and other personal possessions. But Kaczynski's five-year legal battle will come to an end soon unless he can convince the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

The property that is up for auction includes tools, typewriters, knives and a hatchet; Kaczynski's degrees from Harvard and the University of Michigan; and the glasses and hooded jacket made famous by an artist's rendering of the suspect. But experts say the most valuable items probably will be the 40,000 pages of Kaczynski's diaries and other writings.

The only way that the Unabomber victims are going to receive any sort of restitution from Ted Kaczynski is if the government auctions off his personal belongings. At this point, Kaczynski owes four victims $15 million.

What do you think? Should the Unabomber’s possessions be auctioned off? If so, would you ever want to buy any of these items? And if your answer is yes – how much would you be willing to spend?

Watch Abbie Boudreau’s video blog and let us know what you think.

Police say nearly half of the student killings in the Chicago Public School district this school year are unsolved. Some people blame the police. Many blame the prosecutors. Others blame young community members for not speaking up.

While working on this report, I spoke with many parents who told me that witnesses in their slain child’s case were not coming forward with key information that could help lead to an arrest of the assailant. These witnesses, in some cases, were friends of the victims. No clues – no conviction. There is no justice. And the murderers are free to kill again. All because there is an unwritten rule in this community that teaches people to mind your own business and keep your mouth shut.

Well, I cannot pretend to understand what it’s like to see a friend shot and killed. I cannot pretend to understand what it’s like to be a teenager who fears getting shot on my way to school each morning. But Patricia Brown understands. Brown’s daughter, 17-year-old-daughter Patrice was gunned down in her own neighborhood in 2007. Brown says there were witnesses. She is convinced someone knows something. But no one will speak up. She says she understands why these young witnesses won’t come forward – she says they likely fear retaliation – they are afraid. But she says people need to be more afraid of the killers who are roaming the streets, free to kill again.

Brown wants justice. And that is what the other parents I talked to want as well. Justice equals power. But unless the kids who witnessed these crimes step forward with information, there will be no justice, and the killers will be the only ones with power.

Do you think these young witnesses have good reason to fear coming forward with information? Beyond possible retaliation, why would these kids not want to identify their friend’s killer?

As I was reporting this story, the one thing I heard quite a bit from people who oppose the Indian Street Bridge project was that they truly feel their voices will no longer be heard now that the government is stepping in with stimulus money to build this bridge.

For more than 20 years residents of Palm City and Stuart, Florida have been debating whether this bridge was a good idea or a total waste of money. Remember, there’s already a bridge connecting these two communities less than a mile away.

Depending upon who you ask, the reason for the new bridge is because there’s too much congestion on the existing bridge, and a second bridge down the street would reduce the congestion. However, many of the people who oppose the bridge feel traffic congestion is not the problem, and don’t want more growth in the area. The debate could have gone on for many more years, and maybe it still will. But does it really matter anymore? This project was approved by the Florida legislature and soon Martin County officials will receive a stimulus check for $128 million.

Here’s my question to you: Do you feel the government’s mighty checkbook is silencing the voice of the people?

Also, do you know of a controversial project that is now getting stimulus money, whether people who live in the community like it or not?

We received a tip about the United States Postal Service buying a $1.2 million mansion from a former postmaster in Lexington, South Carolina, who voluntarily relocated to Carrolton, Texas for a job as a customer service manager. Right away we wanted to know more.

The same day we got that tip, CNN aired a story about Postmaster General John Potter getting job perks, and receiving a salary that some critics say is far too high.

In January, Potter testified to Congress that the Postal Service was experiencing a "severe financial crisis," and needed help with its finances. At the hearing, Potter said he had cut travel, and frozen executive salaries.

The Postmaster told members of Congress he feared USPS would suffer a $6 billion deficit for this fiscal year, and he was even recommending a cutback in the number of days USPS would deliver mail.

Despite all of this, it wasn’t until last week that the Postal Service said it would set a new limit on how much it would spend on houses purchased in its relocation packages.

In the past, there were no limits. In one case, the USPS paid $2.8 million for a home.

If you compare this home purchase policy with those of various government agencies, you can see just how generous it really is. For example, the Food and Drug Administration has a $330,000 cap for home purchases when an employee is relocated. The Department of Homeland Security tells CNN it would rarely pay to move an employee, but if it did, the total cost would not exceed 25 percent of his or her salary.

I wonder what we would find out if we compared the way USPS home purchasing and relocation policies compare to the relocation packages of Fortune 500 companies.

With the economy in a recession, and the housing market struggling, do you think USPS should buy million dollar mansions, while at the same time, increase the cost of stamps, and cutback on delivery days? Would your company buy your home in a market like this? I bet you wish it would.

Steven Kazmierczak was a sociology major at Northern Illinois University. He later went on to study social work as a graduate student at the University of Illinois. He was surrounded by professors who studied criminology and were experts in criminal behavior. His friends were also counselors-in-training.

When I first reported this story, one year ago, I met some of the people closest to Steven Kazmierczak. I asked them if they had seen any warning signs. I asked them if they thought he was capable of mass murder. They all told me they never saw this coming.

But why didn’t they? Two of the people closest to him told me they knew he had problems, they knew he was off and on anti-depressants, and that he was anxious and had obsessive compulsive disorder.

It makes me think that if a group of criminologists and counselors in training didn’t pick up on what some people would call “warning signs,” than what luck would an average person have at detecting strange behavior?

One year after the shooting, police records obtained by CNN show a much different story than the one his college friends, and professors told me.

The documents show that Steven Kazmierczak was spiraling out of control. As a teenager he attempted suicide on several occasions. He was hospitalized nine different times, prior to 2001.

He was kicked out of the Army for lying about his mental health problems on his application.

He suffered from OCD.

He was an insomniac.

He was off and on anti-depressants.

He loved horror movies, and began to identify with the sadistic killer “Jigsaw” from the movies “Saw.”

He got a large tattoo of “Jigsaw’s” alter-ego riding a tricycle through a puddle of blood on his forearm.

He owned multiple guns.

He had sex with several women he met on Craig’s List.

He was confused about his sexuality.

He loved on-line, first-person shooter games.

He was obsessed with studying serial killers – and seemed to admire Adolf Hitler and Ted Bundy.

The list is lengthy – and this doesn’t even come close to covering it all.

Of course, it is much easier to look back at someone after a tragedy like this, and ask yourself, “What did I miss?” I mean, what’s so wrong with loving horror movies? What’s wrong with being a gun owner or having tattoos or being obsessed with serial killers? Who is to say that any of this means someone is about to snap?

In this case, some of the people closest to Steven Kazmierczak were studying psychology – and many of them focused their work on how the criminal mind functions and operates.

So, my question is if none of them could spot a killer, how could any of us?

When you think of critical infrastructure projects, what do you think of? I would guess, most people think of crumbling roads and bridges, or renovations to schools and water treatment plants. Recently, the U.S. Conference of Mayors created a list of “Ready to Go” jobs and infrastructure projects. It’s more than 800 pages long. The group believes emergency federal money should be used to help start around 11,300 critical projects, and it’s asking Congress for $73 billion.

But the report seems to read more like a wish list for cities throughout the country. If you read the list carefully, you will find plenty of projects that are raising red flags. We found cities asking for millions of dollars to build skate parks, horse trails, a duck pond, and a dog park. We also found cities asking for a new, $1.5 million ride at a water park, a nearly $5 million polar bear exhibit, and a $20 million minor league baseball museum.

Don’t get me wrong, these projects all sound great if you live in that community, but should the federal government be using emergency money to pay for a $3 million mural in Long Beach, Calif.? My producer and I contacted many of these cities to ask about their projects, and all of them felt they were critical infrastructure projects, though several city officials told us these new projects would not necessarily create new jobs.

We noticed on the list a proposed project in Fayetteville, Ark. Officials there are asking the federal government for $6.1 million to build new hangars for corporate jets. We asked the director if they had any corporate jets using their airport, and he told us not yet. But just like the movie "Field of Dreams," he said, "If you build it, not only will they come, they will fight over it." So, what do you think? Does this smell like pork to you? Let us know your thoughts.

Are we a nation of procrastinators?  Why is it that so many of us – even our very own elected officials – seem to wait too long before addressing a problem they may have known about for years? 

In this case, America's infrastructure is literally falling apart.  It's not a new problem, it's an old one.  And it's one many transportation officials say has been overlooked and ignored for years. 

Fast forward to now.  We have roads and bridges decaying, and because state officials have opted not to spend enough money to rebuild and fix America's eroding infrastructure over the years, we are faced with one big question:  How do we fix the problem without the billions of dollars necessary for the fixes? 

Well, some officials say the answer is to ask the federal government for more money – a bailout of sorts for states to fix their roads.   Many transportation officials say not only would it be a good idea to ask Congress for money to make road repairs, but it would also stimulate the economy by creating millions of new construction jobs.

Critics say that it's a horrible idea.  Pete Sepp from the National Taxpayers Union argues states and localities should not be rewarded for making "careless budget choices."  He believes only the private sector can create lasting jobs that can sustain the economy.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, the one thing for certain is the worsening condition of our roads.  I'm sure I'm not the only one dodging potholes and worse on my way to work.  I'm curious about the roads in your community. 

Please send us pictures and videos of problem roads or bridges in your neighborhood.  We would love to take a look.

iReport.com: Are roads and bridges crumbling near you?