eastern europe and the balkans. >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. also ahead this friday, mark shields and michael gerson analyze the week's news. plus, our science correspondent, miles o'brien, after reporting from japan inside the crippled fukushima nuclear plant, suffered a life-threatening injury in the philippines and his left arm was amputated. tonight, he discusses living, working, and coping, after what happened. >> i really like to ride my bike, i like to fly airplanes and i want to get back to shooting video. these are my three o criteria. they're, like, no problem, we have attachments for all of that. >> woodruff: some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the bitter cold that's gripped much of the nation and hit some economic sectors hard, apparently didn't have a huge impact on jobs. today's labor department numbers exceeded economists' expectations. employers added 175,000 jobs last month. and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.7%, because more people were trying to find work. >> woodruff: but for stocks on wall street it was a day of fluctuation, with the job news sending them up, and uncertainty over ukraine sending them down. in the end, the dow jones industrial average gained 30 points to close above 16,452. the nasdaq fell nearly 16 points to close at 4,336. the s & p 500 rose a point to close at 1,878. for the week, the dow and nasdaq gained more than a 1.5%. the s & p 500 was up nearly 2%. for a closer look at today's jobs numbers, i am joined by diane swonk. senior managing director and chief economist for mesirow financial. >> diane, welcome back to the "newshour". so, despite the miserable weather, job creation was up. how do you explain it? >> well, actually, february is the beginning of a hiring spree for most firms. vaccinesly, it's when we tend to have a big upswing even during the height of the crisis in 2009, february had the least losses. it is the time w start hiring, particularly in the education sector. this is encouraging because we'd seen draconian cuts of teachers during the last several years as state and local governments tried to balance their budgets. finally, we did see teachers come back in this month and that's very good because it means balance sheets are healing at state and local level. wele also saw an imprint of the weather on the composition of job growth, so call it migration and hibernation. we saw department stores actually lay people off because people were not walking through the malls or going out. it was really cold here and i know in washington as well, and people just hibernated. on the other side, those who could migrated, they went to resorts, ski resorts, sunny locations and leisure and hospitality increased. we did see the imprint on the weather even on the composition of the job gains and were able to, despite the weather, have a seasonal upswing and have a healing in the u.s. economy. >> woodruff: what you're saying is the job creation appears that it's going to continue. >> i think we are going to see job creation continue. another big storm is predicted for march of next week, so we're going to see displacement here. what we're seeing from the weather is deferred, displaced and actually because it destroyed some things is creating economic activity on the road. a lot of potholes have to be filled in the midwest, a lot of tires are blown out and pent-up demand is strong for vehicles that are very old and many plain died in this weather because of the cold. >> woodruff: diane swonk with me sirow financial. thank you. >> woodruff: in other news, russia's government threw it's support behind the upcoming referendum in crimea, where voters are due to decide whether to break with ukraine and join russia. meanwhile, on the ground in ukraine, there were reports a military base in crimea was sieged by russians. jeffrey brown has more on the day's developments. >> brown: the sign reads in cyrillic, "crimea: russian land," and tens of thousands of russians flooded red square for a government-sanctioned rally to urge the crimeans to join russia. >> ( translated ): it is our land, our grandfathers and grand-grandfathers shed their blood there. crimea should be part of russia. >> brown: the crimean parliament has set a march 16 up or down vote on leaving ukraine to become part of russia. late today, the associated press reported that a ukrainian military post in crimea was under siege by russians, but no shots were fired. and today, leaders of both houses of russia's parliament said that they would welcome crimea becoming russian. valentina matvieynko is speaker of russia's upper house. >> ( translated ): if the people of crimea expresses their will at the referendum and make a decision to join russia we, as the upper house of parliament, will of course support such a decision. >> brown: but the interim government in kiev, the united states and the european union have all denounced the vote as illegal. president obama reinforced that message in an hour-long call last night with russian president vladimir putin. today, russian foreign minister sergei lavrov spoke with secretary of state john kerry. in a bluntly-worded statement, the russian foreign ministry said that lavrov: but speaking in dublin, german chancellor angela merkel reiterated that sanctions would be levied. >> ( translated ): we said very clearly what sort of sanctions were to be adopted, if there were further attacks on ukraine and its territorial integrity then we will respond with a broad range of measures. >> brown: after meeting with european leaders in brussels, the ukrainian prime minister urged russia again to leave crimea >> ( translated ): in order for our russian neighbors to become our partners, they first of all have to withdraw their troops. they have to abide by bilateral and multilateral agreements which russia has signed. >> brown: one vital agreement with russia involves fuel supply, and today russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, gazprom, said it may suspend its supply to ukraine, after it failed to pay for february deliveries. for now, it will continue transit shipments to europe. >> woodruff: a congolese rebel leader was convicted today of murder and pillage. germain katanga appeared before the international criminal court in the hague for his role in the 2003 massacre of more than 200 villagers in eastern congo. katanga was cleared of committing sexual crimes and using child soldiers. it was only the second conviction made in the court's 12-year history. a new study found malaria moves to higher elevations during warmer years, and creeps back down when temperatures cool. the findings were published in "science magazine," and analyzed data from ethiopia and colombia. researchers from the u.s. and britain said it was the first hard evidence of a link between climate change and malaria, and it could lead to a significant increase in places where people are more vulnerable. malaria currently infects about 220 million people a year. the kansas supreme court ruled today that the state's current levels of public school funding is unconstitutional. it said that poor school districts in kansas were hurt when the state decided to cut payments because of falling tax revenue during the recession. the justices said the state had failed to provide equity in education. it sent the case back to a lower court to determine what the new funding should be the generation of americans known as millennials are more likely to lean to the left when it comes to politics, even though they describe themselves as independent. a survey by the pew research center found that half of all adults aged 18 to 33 are democrats or lean democratic, the highest share for any age group in the last decade. the survey also found more young adults remain single, and are less religious than previous generations at this stage of their lives. still to come on the newshour: our exclusive, extended interview with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; mark shields and michael gerson on the week's news; plus, our own miles o'brien, on living and working after losing his arm. >> woodruff: the crisis in ukraine, budget battles, the wind down and uncertainty of u.s. troops in afghanistan and the increase of sexual assaults in the armed forces and what to do about it. these are all front-burner issues for the highest ranking uniformed member of the military, chairman of the joint chiefs, army general martin dempsey. in a rare television interview, he sat down with me earlier today at the pentagon. general martin dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs, thank you very much for talking with us. >> excited to be here today. >> woodruff: the united states is sending more military material, forces into eastern europe, f-15s into the battlics, forces into the black sea, what message is the u.s. sending to russia? >> almost sending a message almost exclusively through diplomatic channels so that i have an open line to my russian counterpart i've used in the last two case days. we're trying to tell them not to escalate into eastern ukraine and allow conditions to be set for some kind of resolution in the crimea. but the message we are sending is to our nato allies. one of responsibilities at times like this is to reassure our allies. the deployment you mentioned into the baltic air mission and into the aviation detachment in poland, the deployment to have the ships are intended to reassure our allies. >> woodruff: so the u.s. is saying to the allies, if this were to come tole some sort of military conflict, the u.s. would back up nato? >> well, don't forget, actually, we have nato treaty obligations under article 5 for collective defense and, so, when they ask us for reassurance or they ask us for contingency planning, we respond, and we do have obligations with nato. >> woodruff: but if there were to be a misunderstanding of some sort, if there were to be an accident that were to lead to something bigger, has the administration thought through the consequences of what that means, the two countries that are the greatest armed powers on the planet involved? >> well, that's why we're seeking aggressively to resolve this diplomatically before we would reach the point where there could be a miscalculation. it's probably worth mentioning why this is so unsettling to the eastern europeans. you know, we in america sometimes don't understand the realities of geography and demographics in eastern europe. if russia is allowed to do this, which is to say move into a sovereign country under the guise of protecting ethnic russians in ukraine, it exposes eastern europe to some significant risk because there are ethnic enclaves all over eastern europe and the balkans. i'll tell you one example. there are 400,000 ethnic rue main yans in the ukraine. so this is enormously unsettling. >> reporter:. >> woodruff: the russians are saying they have an historic relationship with crimea and they're saying the crimean legislature has voted to have a referendum and they're saying what the government in kiev did was illegal. >> of course, they are. they're trying to roll back to the february 21 agreement and this they're trying to suggest really the collapse started on february 25. those are matters of diplomacy. our role as the military is to seek ways to influence this without it being escalated. i have this open line with my russian counterparts so everything we've done, i tell them, here's what we're doing and why we're doing it. we disagree fundamentally about your claim of legitimacy, but as militaries let's try to avoid escalating this. >> woodruff: but there's a chance of escalation. >> yes. >> woodruff: is the u.s. prepared if that happens? >> that's a question that deserves to be reassessed and refreshed as this thing evolves. but remember, we have treaty obligations with our nato allies and i have assured them that if that treaty obligation is triggered we would respond wood >> woodruff: how much of your time is spent on this issue, general dempsey? >> quite a bit. there are other things going on in the world and we had this little matter of the budget. so as much as i need to spend on it, i'm spending on it. >> woodruff: speaking of the budget, the administration announced and the pentagon announced just a few days ago that we would like to have a downsizing of material and troops back to a size that we haven't seen since before world war ii. because of what's going on right now in eastern europe, any second thoughts about that? >> well, i'm not sure that if we had a million-man army that it would have made any difference in the russian calculation to enter ukraine. with that said, we do have an obligation to deter conflict and prepare for what could occur. and we are reaching a point because of not only the depth of the debt reductions but the mechanism, the draconian way it's applied, where we can't move money around or balance the budget in any responsible way, that is affecting our readiness. so if you're asking me, you know, does this increase the urgency with which i articulate the risks we are beginning to accrue, sure, it does. >> woodruff: i ask because i'm sure you know there has been a crescendo of criticism, the chairman of the house on services committee, the congressman said he called the downsizing immoral. hoe says u.s. adversaries are growing bolder because of it and talks about china and russia arming up while the u.s. is preparing to arm down. how do you answer this? >> look, even at the budget level that has been submitted by the department, which is about $115 billion over the budget control act, most commonly known as sas sequestration, at that l, we can still be the most powerful power in the world in 2020. there are more than a million men and women in uniform and almost 2 million in the guard and reserve. we have forward operating bases, close and strong alliances. this is not a military in decline. it would be at the level of budget we submitted. but if we're driven to the full reductions of the control act, called sequestration, we would have what i think would be too much risk. >> woodruff: the question on the other side which you know well, a number of republican and even democratic deficit hawks are saying this budget doesn't abide by the lower budget numbers of the past, that it ignores the deficit, blows a hole through it. we've got critics coming from that side. what do you say to them? >> you know, i'm trying to actually manage the criticisms on both sides and do what i think is right for the country, and i think we've done that in the way we've articulated this budget submission and what we would do both to be more fiscally responsible. i'm a citizen as well as a soldier and i understand the fiscal constraints the nation faces. we can actually do this, that's my message. we can't do it at sequestration levels, i've said that clearly, but we can do it at the level of submission. we have to have the flexibility to make the hard decisions. >> woodruff: afghanistan, the president said that the u.s. is prepared to pull out all american troops from afghanistan. if you can't get that security agreement you need from afghanistan's leaders. current president karzai saying he's not going to do it and, right now, the afghan government announced they're dissolving a critical guard force that protects supply convoys, international aid groups. what does all this mean for the future of the u.s. commitment in afghanistan? >> right. we do need a bilateral security agreement and we need it because we need a demonstrated statement of commitment from the afghans that they're going to treat us like partners and not, on occasion, accuse us of being occupiers. if you're asking me how i think this will resolve itself, i think we're probably in a position where it's unlikely we'll get it from the current president and probably more likely we'll get it after the elections, which will begin to constrain our options post 14. but i'll also tell you that when i was over there we had a very candid conversation with each other about the fact that, although there's uncertainty in '15 and beyond, we have a lot of work to do in '14. so we're focused on '14. some of these things president karzai has done with releasing prisoners and dissolving this protection force, those are disturbing because they violate agreements we've already made with them and they're risky because of increased danger that they pose, but they're also risky in the message it sends about, you know, their ability and willingness to live up to agreements as they're made. >> woodruff: well, then, i'm going to turn back so much to ask you about, but i do want to ask you about a couple of other things that have gotten attention in the united states. a number of embarrassing incidents in the last few years involving the u.s. military personnel, suspicions of cheating on exams by sailors at a nuclear training program, air force officers accused of cheating on different qualification exams, sexual scandal involving senior navy commanders and other incidents. what's going on in the armed forces? is this the kind of thing that's always been happening and it's just now coming out, or is this a different period? how do you see it? >> i think what happened is we've gotten more careless and sloppy in the last ten years with the mechanisms that used to provide oversight, checks and balances, a safety net, if you will, for professionalism. we became consumed with preparing to go on a deployment, going on the deployment, coming back and getting ready to go again. we stopped sending young men and women to a professional military education when they should have gone. we stopped doing things like command climate surveys. we got sloppy with contracting oversight, and we've got to go back -- i tell you what we've got to do, we've got to go back to the small disciplines that really make a difference in defining ourselves as a profession, and we will. >> woodruff: there are some analysts who have been out there saying you have been surprisingly low key on this issue. in essence, they said they've looked to you to speak up more about it, to admonish the forces more about it, and they have been surprised no one's been publicly fired over these incidents. what do you say? >> what i say is don't characterize my public persona with my level of interest and the urgency with which i deal with this internal to the profession. and by the way, we have to separate out these different issues. some of them are actually criminal. some of them are ethical and behavioral issues. some of them are sophomoric, cultural issues, and some of them are just plain stupidity, and each of those has to be dealt with in a different way. you can't lump all of that together and decide, you know, one size fits all. >> woodruff: another issue, there's been a lot of public attention recently around the problem of sexual assault and abuse in the military. just yesterday, 55 united states senators voted to take the prosecution for this kind of thing out of the chain of command. not enough to pass, but a majority of the senate said this. what does this say about the confidence of our senior political leaders and their ability to handle this? >> even though senator gillibrand's bill was defeated, a majority of the senators expressed a lack of confidence in our ability to solve this ourselves. i respect greatly what senator gillibrand and mccaskill have done to put a constellation of reforms around uniform code of military justice to help us. we are currently on the clock, if you will. the president of the united states said to us in december, you know what? you've got about a year to show me you can make a difference, and we understand that, you know, just because senator gillibrand's bill was defeated yesterday, doesn't mean in a year from now it might not be reintroduced. if we haven't shown to make a difference we deserve to be held to the scrutiny and standard. >> woodruff: one other thing, general, news reports that a far larger number of troops are being kicked out of the armed forces with less than honorable discharges. just in the last couple of years, many more so than in the past. that means, of course, they are not eligible for veterans benefits. people who follow this issue say many of these are folks who are getting kicked out because they've acted up, but they're acting up because of psychological trauma during afghanistan and iraq and they're not getting the treatment they need in the services. how do you see this? >> first, i see it ivment second of all, the mechanisms in place to make sure that we are both administering justice, if you will, for indiscipline and misbehavior, which we have to do, but, at the same time, understand the pressures that we've been under the past ten years. there's an appeals process that actually extends well into retirement. what we can't do is begin to excuse indiscipline, misconduct and criminal behavior because of the possibility that it was created by the conditions of posttraumatic stress and other things. the point here is we've got to watch both of those, and i think we've got in place -- i'm confident, in fact, we've got in place mechanisms to allow us to try to really unpack what has gone on. but that's not to say there won't be the occasion where we maybe miss something, but we do see it, just as you described it. >> woodruff: general martin dempsey, thank you very much. thank you for your interest. >> woodruff: our conversation continues online, where general dempsey tells us what books he's reading, and about his love of literature and poetry. >> woodruff: and to the analysis of shields and gerson. jeff is back and in charge of that. >> brown: that's syndicated columnist mark shields and washington post columnist michael gerson. david brooks is away today. gentlemen, let's go back to the beginning of the interview and just remark the nato treaty, the commitment to come to the aid of eastern european countries, a confrontation with russia, cold war type of talk. >> well, i think the gravity of the situation was very much underlined by general dempsey and he was serious. he didn't pretend it wasn't. he didn't want this to be the guns of august that we stumbled into something and said he's keeping open the lines of communication that has come apart in russia as well as urging and emphasizing diplomatic efforts. >> brown: i jump to you, michael. >> it struck me how scared the eastern europeans must be. all these things, talking about article v, talking about troop movements that's needed but it's frightening they're needed. vladimir putin want to re-litigate the end of the cold war. that's one of his goals, and he uses tools of intimidation in what he regards as his sphere of influence and that intimidation is working. i think that interviewed indicated it needed to be reassured. >> brown: what is your sense of how much the stakes are raised for the u.s., inpolitically, in this last week, as the move into crimea has happened? >> oh, i think -- let's be very blunt about it, foreign policy is not a front burner issue to the american people right now and has not been, and the economy remains so, trailing health care. but it is obviously getting more attention, and understandably so, because the stakes seem higher and the possibility for -- i don't want to say catastrophe, but for crisis certainly have increased. i think politically we've seen a change in this country. the reality is this, there is minimal enthusiasm for another war in this country. i mean, we're told we're going to be treated as overriders, false information and told it was going to be a cakewalk and it hasn't worked out. so i think the american enthusiasm for military engagement is pretty limited. >> i want to throw in because what has been an increase this week of criticism from the offices of president obama. john mccain said this is a result of a thankless foreign policy in which nobody believes in american strength anymore. >> the threats of the world don't care if americans are interested or not. they rely on their own timing and america needs to be prepared for them. i think that mcgai mccain and gm have mid a tough critique. this could have happened with teddy roosevelt or ronald reagan in power. you don't know. the case they're making, however, is there's a cumulative case against this administration. when you look at defense cuts, when you look at the reset with russia which ended the isolation of the russians after the georgian invasion, when you look at the president constantly talking about a nation building a home, six years of rhetoric, talking about retreat and retrenchment, the case is this does matter. if you look historically, a sensed weakness in the relationship in the summit they had in the disaster in the cold war, khruschev started building the wall two months later. these kind of things can matter in the calculations of foreign leaders. >> i could not disagree more with michael on this. first of all, john mccain and lindsalindsey graham with use tr rhetorical words. we're not hiring someone who's going to do a bad imitation of clint eastwood and say make my day. president obama is a rational, thoughtful, serious approach. he's not somebody who speaks in lambastic terms or hurls thunderbolts rhetorically. the reality is the reset with russia and i am second to none in my dislike of putin but the reality is that we would not have had an election in iran, in my judgment, without that reset with him that led to a more moderate leadership there and a chance for denuclearization. as far as the syrian situation is concerned, i don't think we would have gotten as far with their chemical weapons without putin's involvement. the reality is there is no action statement that any of these people have. they say, let me tell you, this is too much, putin's a bum and this can't stand and -- all right, what do we do? what do we do? >> a long-term strategy of isolation against russia where we're imposing sanctions, working with the europeans who are less willing than we are to take the set of actions. >> brown: these words stem from a feckless foreign policy. >> the situation is we had a previous russian invasion of one of it's neighbors, georgia. there was a creation of isolation. that isolation was ended. that's what the reset meant. it's not irrational for vladimir putin to say, i can outlast this isolation as well. we need to say that's not the case, that he can't outlast this isolation like he did the last one. >> i don't know, militarily, beyond what has happened so far what would lead to the united states engagement and involvement, and i don't how the sanctions are going to be employed absent european cooperation. are we going to cut off gas europeans depend on? that means u.s. has to export and the united states will have to lift the ban on exporting gas. there are a lot of complicated parts and it seems to be a glee on so many on the republican side now led by rudy giuliani who ex told putin as an admirable leader, someone who decides what he wants to go, gets it through parliament and 30 minutes later it's done. an anti-democratic endorsement. by kic dick cheney who says bark obama would rather spend money on food stamps than troops. there just seems to be sort of an eagerness to la las eagernesk obama. >> the analysts saying is we are increasing the isolation of russians. that he is moving to consolidate his game on the referendum to incorporate crimea into the russian empire. >> i have a problem with. this the people of crimea, i assume, were going to say they should have some right to self-determination if this is done legally and constitutionally. >> it's not legally. f it's done legally and constitutionally under an international model and they vote to associate, identify with russia, then what is the united states -- isn't that what iraq was about? self-determination? wasn't that what we were going to have there? that's what the war was about. >> brown: one last word and then -- >> that was precisely dempsey's point. if you were to allow russian self-determination across eastern europe you would have endless conflict and chaos. this can't be allowed. we can't allow russia to reassert its roll in what it regards as its influence against pro western governments like the ukraine. >> i'm not recommending that or suggesting it as an alternative. i remember times when the united states of america -- >> i'm going to -- the dominican republic to protect american citizens which was a smith and we did it. and that was recent american history. >> brown: i want to turn to one other very different subject here. senate majority leader harry reid has twice gone to the floor to have the senate to denounce coke brothers, major contributors, and called activity un-american and accused them of trying to buy the country. michael? >> first, when a powerful political leader uses his office to attack private citizens engaged in political speech that's a problem. he didn't use these issues to talk about finance campaign reform. he said "i'm after the two brothers." that's intimidation and abuse of power by a public official and typical of a con spi conspiratol narrative. you know, i think people should engage in arguments, not question the motives and funding of their opponents. >> brown: what do you think? it's unfortunate senator reid has become un-american. lives were trashed by that epithet. the american public and political financing is a disaster beyond a scandal, beyond a tragedy. we went through elections from 1976 to 2008 in this country where candidates for president accepted limits on what they could receive and what they could spend and then accepted public financing in the general election, and that was broken -- let it be noted -- by barack obama in 2008 under the myth that john mccain was going to raise more money than he did and he raised twice as much as mccain did. from that point forward, brings in the citizens united case which said mistakenly if any of the judges would have run for sheriff they may have known the truth, said corporations were persons, the total opposite of anything teddy roosevelt and republicans stood for and we have now opened this up to people like the coke brothers or anybody else, the left, right, and it turns the candidates into ideological people. >> brown: the tactic, the problem is the tactic, right? >> i think there are disturbing elements about this system, but they're not distributed by ideology. you have the coke brothers, the union and the chamber. and that the system you may not like but it does not privilege one party or one ideology and we generally believed in a marketplace and ideas -- >> i'm talking about the fact candidates spend all of this time -- more time raising money and the more money we raise, it narrows your issues because you end up taking money from so many sources you're not going to raise issues. >> brown: we ended up with our first agreement. michael gerson, mark shields, thank you you both very much. >> woodruff: as we reported last week, our science correspondent miles o'brien suffered a life- threatening injury while on assignment for us in the philippines. during an emergency surgery, his left arm was amputated above the elbow. we'll talk with miles about what happened and his recent reporting. but first, this is pledge week on p.b.s. this break allows your public >> woodruff: miles o'brien has traveled the world for the newshour. and at times to very dangerous places. as he did for his current series of reports from the crippled fukushima nuclear plant in japan. the third installment in that series will air on tuesday, the anniversary of the tsunami that destroyed it. after leaving japan, he traveled to the philippines for other upcoming stories. there he dropped a heavy camera case on his left arm. the injury became life- threatening and, during emergency surgery, miles' left arm was amputated above the elbow. he's now back home and joins us to talk about what happened. plus, what he learned at fukushima. miles, we are so glad to see you. >> judy, it's good to be here. it's good to be anywhere, to be alive. >> woodruff: people think reporting is a glamorous profession. you over in asia reporting in japan, you were doing your own camera work, sound, your own reporting. you're in the philippines, and then this accident happened. >> yeah, you know, being a one-man band comes with its own set of risks, being a journalist comes with its own set of risks. i suspect if we had been talking about this before the accident we would be thinking about a trip to the fukushima nuclear plant or a war zone and sometimes it's a heavy case filled with gear you need to be careful of and that's what i found. >> woodruff: it landed on your arm, you eventually got to the hospital. >> it began as a bruise and it just got a lot worse after about a day or so, and the pain got worse, and it -- there was swelling and it got me increasingly nervous when i saw some discoloration and ultimately numbness in my hand. when nat happened, i couldn't deny i had to get medical help. >> woodruff: by the time you say a doctor, they quickly identified it as acute compartment syndrome. >> that's correct. i literally had to wiki it with my phone because i never heard of compartment syndrome. i'm very grateful the doctor there saw it for what it was because it's very much a life-threatening situation. essentially i found out quickly that your muscles and veins and some of your tissue sits inside kind of a sheathing which is like the insulation on wire cable, but that sheathing doesn't expand and if there's some sort of inflammation or something that causes swelling inside there, the pressure builds and there's no place for the blood to go. the blood flow cuts off and the thing to do is an emergency fasciotomy which cuts the sheathing. that was the goal. they told me, if things don't go well, you might lose your arm. i, of course, hoped for the best. when i woke up, i thought i felt my arm but unfortunately things did not go for the best. >> woodruff: so, miles, for the last two weeks, you have been without your left arm and with a lot of pain. >> yeah, what happens -- it's interesting, the pain, when you lose a limb, is phantom limb pain. what's interesting on one level, is the way your brain is wired. i feel it more acutely than i had it. it's like it's in a vice and can be extremely painful. >> woodruff: so you're feeling it. >> absolutely. >> woodruff: how you dealing with this? i know you have limitless energy, always on the go. how you coping? >> well, you know, it's interesting. it's a little bit about focus. off choice in life wherever you are in life to kind of, you know -- i love what winston churchill said, if you're going through hell, just keep going. part of keep going is there's real wisdom in that. here i was in a situation where one of my first thoughts was here i went to japan, went to the fukushima nuclear plant, i felt strongly about getting the the stories out, and i didn't want to lose the opportunity. so i started focusing on my work and it was really an important and good tonic for me. i have to pay the piper later, but it got me through a tough time just by focusing on doing these stories. >> woodruff: and you're a science reporter, so you have been looking at what happened to you closely and you told me you have been getting a lot of advice from people who have heard about this. >> it's interesting -- of course, one of the things you think about in a situation like this in a country like that, would things have been different if it had happened in the u.s., would i still have my arm. i asked my doctor that question and he said probably not because the way this compartment syndrome manifests itself, the symptoms show up kind of late in the game. then i heard from a lot of people who had been through it and had their limbs salvaged and they live a life of great suffering because the limb is so damaged and painful. so those are the kind of things that, when the thing happens, you just have to move on and not second guess those kinds of things. >> woodruff: but here you are, back reporting, you finished -- you ran two with pieces on fukushima on the "newshour", you're working on another piece. you're a pilot, miles. how do you think about the future? >> well, there are things that, you know, i've conquered. i can do my stories and -- i tied this tie today. i'm very proud of that. the little things. >> woodruff: looks beautiful. thank you very much. i do like to fly airplanes. i was up in the national rehabilitation hospital the other day, a fantastic facility here in washington, and i said i really like to ride my bike, i like to fly airplanes, and i want to get back to shooting video, those are my three big criteria. they're, like, no problem, we have attachments for all of that, like inspector gadget or something. so part of my science and technology mind as a reporter is thinking this is kind of interesting, how this all works and the technology and the savvy and the reason the technology progressed so much is because of the wars and the losses associated with that and i, fortunately, will benefit from some of that technology. >> woodruff: what do you say to all the people who are watching, whose hearts go out to you, who want the best for you? what do you say to them? >> well, first of all, thank you. i haven't been able to get back with everybody. i've heard from so many, all of them out there, and i just appreciate the concern and the show of love and, you know, this is not the way you want to find out that you're loved, but it really -- it was wonderful. but i want people to know, more than anything, not to worry about me, that i will be okay. i can figure this out. it's surmountable. it's not fun. it's not something i would wish on anybody, but it can be done. >> all of your friends are absolutely in yeah of you, miles. miles o'brien, thank you for coming by. we look forward to many, many years of continuing to work with you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. u.s. employers added 175,000 jobs in february. and there were reports pro- russian forces tried to seize a ukrainian military base in crimea using stun grenades. the russian government supported crimea's plans to vote on whether it breaks away from ukraine. in an interview with the newshour, general martin dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, said russian moves into crimea pose a significant risk to eastern europe. on the newshour online right now, a great white shark named lydia is on the verge of making history. using a satellite tag, she could be the first of her species to be seen crossing the atlantic. watch a video showing the scientists tagging the great white. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week, which airs later this evening. here's a preview: ifill we dig into the dilemma in ukraine, the history, the options and the fraught relationship between the u.s. and russia. plus a peek inside the republican party's presidential cattle call. later tonight on washington week. judy. >> woodruff: tomorrow's edition of pbs newshour weekend looks at the key role germany could play in resolving the crisis in ukraine. and we'll be back, right here, on monday with a look at the push to get the u.s. to ratify an international treaty to ensure the rights of those with disabilities around the world. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by -- >> thestreet.com. featuring stephanie link who shares her investment strategies, stock picks and market insights with action plu. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. help wanted. hiring was surprisingly strong in february. more jobs were created than expected. does this signal the economy's not only growing but perhaps accelerating? skilled workers. one aviation firm needs them and has a unique plan to train them to ensure it can meet the dement of the fast-growing industry. and market monitor. our guest tonight explains why buying defensive stocks may be your best offense now. and he's got some names to