They thought they would stop the bombing.
A martyr's death? Geeze, that's a 15th century concept, dude. We just wanted to stop the bombing. Dying sucks.
Ya know?
Pass the bong.
/sarcasm
For anyone who hasn't seen it, I recommend Spalding Gray's "Monster In A Box" on film in the highest possible terms. It is an AMAZING monologue; I think it's his best.
At one point he describes how, in continual procrastination to avoid writing his novel, he took a job with HBO to go down to Nicaragua during the time of the Sandanista regime and film a documentary. Accompanying him were a number of human-shield types that the Nicaraguans routinely refered to as "SANDAL-istas," for the Birkenstock sandals they all wore. One of them was named "Leon." As Spalding put it, "something was WRONG with Leon."
Anyway, it seems the Communists arrange this town meeting in which the peasants come in and describe all the horrible things the Contras supposedly did to them. And it's boiling hot, and Spalding's drunk on warm beer and sick from rotten third-world pork, and these old women are detailing all of these horrible tortures, and all the Americans are falling asleep - EXCEPT for Leon, who sat at rapt attention, poured in sweat, throughout.
Afterwards, Leon confronts Spalding and FLIPS OUT: "WAS I JUST PUT ON TRIAL FOR BEING A COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY?!?! OH, GOD!! THE CIA!!! THE CIA!!!" Etc. He goes BERSERK, almost to the point of being put into a Nicaraguan insane asylum. Spalding's tasked with staying with him and trying to keep him calm - a task at which he proves himself totally ineffectual: "I felt like HIS insanity was leaking into MINE!"
The story ultimately resolves with one of the Sandalistas, a psychiatric nurse by profession, taking Leon aside and asking him, "Leon: What were you taking in the United States, that you didn't bring with you here?"
Ladies and Gents, I present to you, The Human Shields.