men who were nurses signed up because they knew if they were drafted, the army might decide they make good infantrymen as opposed to good nurses. so that explains men's motivation. women were, obviously, quite different. >> to watch this program in its entirety, go to booktv.org. simply type the title or the author's name at the top left of the screen and click search. >> philip dray presents a history of organized labor in america and the role unions played in changing the political and social landscape of the 20th century. mr. dray also examines the reasons for the diminished size of union membership today. philip dray discusses his book at the tenement museum in new york city. the program is 40 minutes. >> i'd like to provide some historical background from the performance that you just saw and talk about the events of

1909-1911 here on the lower east side. you know, those years as the performance suggested, those years were a real crucible of change and also tragedy with the shirt makers' strike, the quilt makers' strike and the fire of 1911. .. >> basically an agricultural country. and the example of industry in

europe and england had not been a very pleasant one. people living in slums, working and living under -- under miserable conditions permit leaders were unsure whether their budgetary courage it. when they did at lowell they that up what they thought was a model example. it is basically to have a benign paternalism safeguard these young female workers in mostly came off arms. for them this was their first option to to work for wages. is very exciting for them. there was a system of boardinghouses with dan mothers to guard the morality. lectures with ralph waldo emerson. a very undergraduate atmosphere up there at lowell. people came from all over the world to see it because it was so amazing. charles dickens, president andrew jackson, davy crockett came from down south. it was considered that much of an unusual turn of events that

you could have industry in search of a pleasant atmosphere. the workers would be well treated and the industry would be profitable. that lasted for about a generation before the women workers began to up sort of resent the conditions under which they were forced to work. they amplified their feelings in a journal they themselves created called the lowell offering which was the first magazine written and published by women in america. it had been a great advertisement for the lowell miracle to show that workers are so enlightened and happy. they can actually produce this literary journal. of course it turned out to be a bit of a facade. the workers began to complain. there being not to work 12 and 14-hour days. the air was filled with cotton dust. they did not use the word strike. they said turnout. they're was literally turned out of the factory, marched down to

the town comment. at that time in the 1830's and 40's it was not common for women to speak in public. so when the strikers would come into the town and start making a speech denouncing the owners of factories, you can imagine the kind of reverberation it set off. it was big news. that was in no way an antecedent to what happened here in new york in 1909, 1910, 1911. you also had on the way to get here a number of other sharks to american society from labor. in 1877 after the civil war there was a huge buildup of the nation's rail network. it was the pride of america. the pounding of the golden spike in 1869, a nationwide network of railroads that was an incredible thing. however, workers were pretty much to street, poorly paid. safety measures were haphazard. it was thought that if you had

all your fingers and work on the railroad you were probably being lazy. there was a kind of spontaneous strike. it was remarkable in that it was not really organized. it just broke out first in west virginia and in pittsburgh individual chicago. there was a great deal of violence and destruction. essentially what happened is the workers shut down the nation's railroads. this was an amazing moment for both capital and labour because both realized that, yes, you can have this national rail network and be proud of it, but the workers are capable of completely stopping it. that is the thing about a railroad from the union's point of view. if you stop one hub or one part you can bring the whole thing to a halt. so that was a moment of great clarity for america. everybody saw that this was a situation. labor and industrial relations or something that needed better attention.

again, this happened about a decade later in chicago at the haymarket riot of 1886. the 8-hour day was a very compelling argument. basically saying we want to be good citizens pretty want to go to church. want to be consumers so that we have time to go buy goods that we create. the argument was very sound. even the anarchist of chicago came to embrace it. of course it led to the famous haymarket riot of 1886 in which several policemen were killed by a bomb thrown by whoever. it was never really shown who had done it. a lot of anarchists were rounded up, put on trial, and eventually executed. the trial that led to their execution has been a dark stain on american jurisprudence. there were basically convicted based on the words of anarchist writers that appeared in publications. there was no physical evidence.

haymarket also kind of a depressing moment as labor tried to move forward. it's aroused the ire of america. and you see a very much constant capitol resistance to labor, this idea of changing labor with radicalism, communism, bolshevism. 1892, the homestead strike. you saw a tremendous violence between pickers and agents and workers that also kind of got a lot of attention nationwide again focusing this problem on what we could do to make industrial labour relations more peaceable. finally the pullman strike of 1894 which not only at federal troops into income but the federal government used court injunctions to us stymie the activity of labor unions, which was considered sort of a not playing by the rules because they used the sherman antitrust

act which had been designed to use against its large corporations. they used it against labor unions. by the time you come to 1909 the progressive movement in new york was eager to find solutions to these kind of problems. they saw that people were living in slums. workers at the door recourse. in those days before social security, unemployment, the fdic, it was really pretty serious. and so the muckrakers, the progressive settlement house workers, social scientists were the same. they felt that they wanted to take action to rectify it. well, overriding this with these questions about what to do with the large number of immigrants who were pouring into new york and the question of what government role would take. teddy roosevelt mediated a coal strike, but there was some question about what further steps government could take. the conditions in new york, the

garment district down here on the lower east side, fairly abysmal. my friend chris nelson asked me how hot it was in the sweatshops the thing is, they aren't really about the temperature so much as what we call sweated labor, which would be a way of subcontracting labor down and down and down between cut -- contractors all the way down. very little by the time they got the seamstresses. they put up with a lot of horrendous conditions. they worked with irregularities. there were no guarantees. you could be fined for tardiness for taking a smoke break, destroying the fabric. sexual harassment. a lot of what it was about was not just wages and hours, but also about basic worker dignity.

one thing about that strike that the opera alluded to was the involvement of people outside the labor movement. there was an organization called the women's trade union made up of upper-middle-class new york women who wanted to join women's labor issues with other issues such as suffrage, temperance, and education. they got involved with the ilg w to help with the fund-raising, and organizing for the strike, helping mass rallies. most importantly they went down to the picket lines. also female college students walked and serve as witnesses to what was happening to the yen seamstresses, which was pretty brutal because the companies had hired thugs to police the picket lines. there were a lot of very violent

encounters. this played into the hands of the labor costs because the newspapers which were often critical, these are images that they really could not ignore and help but feel sympathetic with. young teenage women being beaten up by thugs who had been hired by the company. so you began to see a kind of public opinion trending in the direction of the seamstresses. that particular strike ended in 1910. it was somewhat successful. it won union recognition in some shops, but not all. part of the problem was that the factories had successfully of sourced a lot of their work to other cities. they weren't being terribly hurt by the strike as much as would have been desired. the next year the male cub makers strike which was called the great revolt of 1910. in this instance you had another

progressive element, in which was called industrial democracy. one of the key people behind it was louis brandeis, who was later a supreme court justice who worked with a man named abraham lincoln xylene who was co-owner of a science department store which was known for its very progressive policies and had been for years. these men believed in something called scientific management. a social science, labor industrial relations could be reasonably manage to what they called collective bargaining, way of bringing labor and management together to work out in advance. there would be no strikes were stoppages or boycotts or packaging, but rather these matters would be handled call me and without any kind of confrontation. and so brandeis' came to new york and managed to work through with the various local garment factories here. also it was a very elaborate and

deliberate process that took many months. they could not agree on a full recognition of the ilg w you. they came up with something they called the preferential shop. basically it is a shop where the management would hire union workers. they would prefer them to any other workers as long as they were available. that was compromised. and overall this sort of method was compromised, known as the protocols of peace. it was all a little bit of a forerunner to the new deal, and other words, a way of democratizing labor industrial relations and bringing the constitution is in chile into labor-management. the one weak spot in their regime established by the protocols was a factory safety and worker safety. this had always been in that -- in the preceding decade this had

been a bitter subject. just a flock there was a man who owned a bakery. reformers in new york passed something called the bait shop packed which is limited the hours that workers could actually work in a bakery. conditions in most bakeries were horrendous. a lot of them were intended basements. there was no inspection of the health or sanitation. of course this not only endanger workers, but anyone who consumed these goods. so the bait shop packed at initially been very popular, but successfully sued and won in supreme court basically saying that the state legislature of new york had no business telling him how to operate his business or how to deal with his workers. that was a very crucial thing in their resistance to unions. what they called liberty of contract. the idea that companies, just

like people, have certain rights. a large company in dealing with even a single worker demand there was something called liberty of contract that the two enjoyed and no one had the right to interfere with. this is kind of a lopsided arrangement since a huge concentrated capital and industry versus one loan working person really was not very fair, but the decision froze the idea of government regulation on factories and stores and places of this kind on the industry overall. so this is where we come to the trying bolster weight by air. of course the building still stands out by nyu. the trying to company had resisted all efforts at unionization. they survived 1909 and 1910 strikes without capitulating. they also then, workers were working on saturday afternoon like a lot of other workers had that day off. they were working -- saturday

afternoon was march 205th in 1911, and a fire broke out on the ninth floor of the factory that occupied the eighth tonight, and tenth floor. i'm sure a lot of you are familiar with this history. we don't have to go into it too much. was a horrendous fire that consumed the upper floors very quickly. the memory is kind of haunting forever because of the image of young women, workers leaping from the top one does of the building. some were on fire. it really was a moment in labor history that galvanized, as you can imagine, the outrage about this, the stubbornness of the triangle shirtwaist managers who, by the way, were acquitted. it turned out they had locked the doors, they have been like from outside. there were a number of other safety violations that tended to do the workers inside, they themselves escaped culpability.

brought about several of these meetings. a committee to go and form their response, the woman who was charged with doing this was frances perkins, a young woman from new england. at that time she worked for the national consumers league. she went to albany, and she had actually been present at triangle and seen the women jumping from the upper floors. so she did not need any more motivation. she went to albany and enlisted the help of two young senators, robert wagner and elspeth. al smith went on to be the governor of new york. robert wagner turned out to be a senator. guarantee's collective bargaining. largely is doing. perkins was successful in creating something called the factory investigating commission . it became a template for such commissions around the country. they really went to work.

they combed all over new york state, she and her. they not only looked into fire hazards, but got into an area that was just beginning to receive attention, which was sort of what you would call toxic waste, the chemicals and gases that are produced in manufacturing processes, they are sometimes called the dangerous trade. no one had really looked into this much before. of course of this kind of effects are often hard to spot because sometimes they take years to develop. frances perkins also put herself to trying to discover and reform along those lines as well. i think that. in 1939 and 1911 he saw the emergence of these three developments, a cross fertilization of groups outside of labor like the women's trade union league coming on board in getting

involved in helping to publicize the strike. then you saw louis brandeis and industrial democracy attempting to work out ways to actually come to create contacts between labor and industry that would avoid conflict. and then finally more tragically the work of the factory investigating commission which finally got around to kind of setting a bar for the intensity and depth of state involvement in governing the workplace in terms of safety. so i think that, in no way, was a very positive few years despite the losses. it was not exactly the end of labor strikes, as many of you know. the years just after that there were labor wars going on in west virginia and colorado, shooting wars between miners and mine operators and the hired agents. many of you have seen the movie.

then, of course, when world war one came you eventually have sort of a crackdown. the law bullies were crushed. the various other -- goldman was deported. there was a lot of effort put into using the new legislation of the first world war, the espionage act, the sedition act, and the immigration act to go after a lot of people who are involved in a labor costs and have some sort of and a good background. a very chilling time for labor. so this was not really an ultimate break through. some people say it was a little bit of a precedent to the new deal, but you could say that about a lot of what went on from the 1870's forward. historians are often saying, well, that was the rehearsal for the new deal. there were a lot of baby steps forward. of course it took the onslaught of the depression itself to really bring in a lot of these

changes. anyway, why don't i stop there. it is always better to have questions and discussion. thank you very much. [applauding] >> can people just shout out? [inaudible] >> they have to use the mike. okay. >> high. two questions. where is the building in which the triangle shirtwaist fire took place? >> okay. correct me. washington and green. >> i lost. >> under what sort of circumstances could the owners of the triangle shirtwaist company have been acquitted? >> they were acquitted. it was of very -- they had a very good lawyer, basically.

what he did was convince the jury that the young seamstresses who testified against him were far too emotional generally and probably specifically because they were fleeing a fire to really be relied upon as witnesses for what they had undergone which is to barely escaped with their lives. they were eventually acquitted. a jury decided it was more like an act of god. these things happen. it would be wrong to hold these factory orders to provide jobs for assault, along those lines. it was a sad resolution because, of course, a lot of people were looking for these two men. also, they had offended people's sensibilities by within days of the trying go fire reopening their business a few days away. it just kept right on going. in u.s. house?

if somebody wanted to shout out i could just repeat the question. >> here is somebody else. >> hi, frank and. >> hi, phil. i'm just curious when collective bargaining came in, what was the response to that? it sounds like it was an invention of management, management's idea to do things this way. what was the response to that on the part of anarchists or marxists -- marxist tendencies? >> it actually came, the term collective bargaining actually came from to reformers in england, william and beatrice webb who were fabians'. i guess george bernard shaw was among their crowd. i am not sure it came from management, although it was something that was seen as a way. you know, management had begun, after a lot of the disruption, to look for ways that they could

maintain productivity and not get to these work stoppages. i think as ever there was probably a lot of shading of reaction. in other words, the radical entities might denounce collective bargaining rhetorically, but then in practice when they themselves were involved in labor disputes they might actually push toward something like that. it's hard to say because there is always this gap between rhetoric and real action. as you know, it was very typical . when it got right down to brass tacks they would go in and serve as a regular labour union and deal with wages and hours. i do know the american federation of labor disliked the idea. wary of the idea of this regime of any kind of bargaining for the frederick taylor influence of scientific management of what workers should and should not do because it represented that kind of control.

that is something you see even after the new deal with some labor leaders. john l. lewis. there is always this kind of neurosis of little bit. even though labor sought government intrusion and things that would govern labour relations, there also was a nostalgia for just the freedom of not having to be bound by those things at all and just being able to strike when you wanted to preach you don't have to be certified by the national labor relations board. and so i think people slowly generally came around to view it as a positive. do you want to go to the microphone? >> thank you very much. i was just wondering what happened with the little miracle? >> well, it became sort of like the lowell nightmare. it became -- it coalesced around

the demand for a 10-hour day. that was preceding the demand for the eight-hour workday. enormous petitions were collected all of the massachusetts. they were taken to the state legislature. again, the legislature said this is really not our business. you have to deal with management that was a big disappointment for the workers. eventually what happened is that the sort of pride, what made the miracle worker was that these were native american girls basically who were working off of the farm. that was part of it. what eventually happened is those types of people stopped coming to work, and the jobs began being taken by immigrants by the mid-19th century. so then it kind of lost a lot of what had been attracted about it to people. yes. >> the story you have told about new york and the tragic fire,

you must speak about women workers. i wonder whether in the history if it was just coincidence or the history of labor unions, would it be the case that women labor force and current industry is somehow enigmatic? >> well, that is a very good question about the history of the garment industry and textile industry. we see that today abroad. i think it is because the textile industry can be very prepared and made to go relatively cheaply. they don't need all lot of capital, a lot of the product is seasonal in nature. that was true here in new york and at lowell. everything, it is a very transient kind of business. is something that appeals to people who are venture-capital this. why women get involved in it

more is because it is low paid. it is slightly skilled. for instance, lowell, the skills or those which women were -- believed to possess. they had a knack for weaving and selling. so it's only natural that they would fill the ranks of these large factories. of course the same thing here in new york. the seamstresses to mothers who would accept these low-paying jobs. exploitable largely. so these women, these were teenage women, jewish, italian, many barely spoke english. they were glad to have any job that they could get. there were just trying to get a foothold. and so that is kind of why it appealed more to women workers and by the management also sought them. you know, a lot of these people unions became like plg w you, the first real part of america that they could identify and identify with it much more than their jobs.

wherever a lot of these factories are worked by women. >> support of the male union workforce? i think the question was having to do with is there will of activists fighting for economic and social justice, where they the vanguard? >> well, in new york the 1910 strike was the male cut makers. even though it was called the ladies' garment maker union, that had to do with the garment, not the workers. the male cub makers also were very militant. yes, they largely did help in 101909 strike. less so at lowell. in the mid-19th century it was almost fought that women's wages were not really to be taken seriously in terms of the family. in other words, the man was the

breadwinner and in case of any kind of labor strike it was the male worker whose job and salary needed to be safeguarded. so you often did see refs develop between the men and women in a strike situation because the man with what the women to follow their lead and to cooperate and be team players. as in the lynn massachusetts shoe strike of 1860, what was so famous about that, the women said to hell with that. we want to set our own rate. they broke off from the male-dominated union and with their own way. that also was a precedent in a way to what happened here in 1909. yes. i think it was a case by case basis. >> was there any response to all of this by the owners to move this work to other regions such as the south where there would be less of this?

>> that's a good question about whether the owners were prompted to move away, and the answer is yes. historical lee, especially the textile industry, it started in new england and moved to upstate new york and pennsylvania. always seeking cheaper non unionized labor. from there it fled down to piedmont of north carolina and virginia. from there it went further into the deep south, texas, and then finally across the border altogether as we know into northern mexico. last i heard it was seen heading toward deeper, southern mexico to get away from the union organizing taking place. so i think it is interesting in no way. it shows that there is this kind of renewable universal principle that people no matter how downtrodden and depressed and exploitable they might appear they will eventually begin to

recognize their collective mark -- might. you're absolutely right. >> this march will be 100 years since that triangle fire. >> yes. >> currently so much is outsourced in factory and labor. yet the vietnam, laos, cambodia. are you aware right now in the area around here with all these that still exist, much no board member, perhaps, but what changes have happened in the 100 years? what protections exist? >> you are saying there are still -- >> yes. >> a year or two ago i saw an excellent movie called made in l.a. which was about this very phenomenon in los angeles. was amazing to see these sweat shop conditions existing in present-day los angeles. of course that was a movie about people resisting it, but still there was a lot of footage.

yes. i don't know what to say. there was a lot to be -- you can be depressed about a lot in terms of not only here, but abroad. as bad as things are in the inner city, brought you get into of whole different scale of human rights abuses, environmental abuse, this kind of thing. it is a much more vast problem. of course that labor is always the low wage not unionized. that is really where the labor movement, if you can think about it in a larger sense, where it is right now, in a transitional time trying to become -- trying to keep up with the global nature of capital. it is behind, obviously. there have been some inroads over the past ten years, and thai sweatshop leaks, successful consumer boycotting of brand names, efforts to get world bodies of trade to put in place enforceable coats.

but it is really a long way to go. will probably be another generation or so before you see real -- you can speak confidently of it. >> sort of irrelevant today. >> well, now it is part of unite. >> but it is not as forceful as it was 40 years ago. >> well, i think you night here, they are still active with the needle trade. i don't follow them. most of what i worked on, the research had to do with the past. in terms of the present time not really an authority. as far as i know you night here has a little less than a million members and are still active in not only needle trade, but a lot of those things, certain umbrellas, like a federation. >> hotel workers. yes. one more question. >> continuing on. continuing even from your

opening act, more interesting characters, mother jones. how does she move between these different worlds? mining and textiles as an organizer as opposed to, we sort of mentioned a number of the female workers. i wonder if you could speak on that. >> yes. mother jones was a remarkable character. mostly we associate her with the miners angel. formidable. she herself was an irish immigrant. she had lost her entire family of the yellow fever epidemic and lived through the rail strike of 1877 and the haymarket. there was something we did not mention in 1894 when people all around the country began to walk march on washington to demand really the kind of changes that would eventually come with the new deal, job creation,

unemployment insurance, and so on. mother jones, that is kind of when she came to the fore. she led a group of people toward washington. i don't think they made it, but largely after that she became involved in minor struggles, particularly in west virginia in 1913 and later in colorado as well. so, yeah. i don't know that much about her involvement in the textile strikes, although i know she was involved in new york. she got involved in the streetcar strike. periodic drought the early 20th century. she was kind of known for her style. very strident. she would be little laborers. she would say, you know, you are not man if you don't get out there and fight off. she would gather the lives and tied them as well. what are you doing? did out there and get arrested. she was responsible for crossing all the -- causing a lot of urban disorder, getting people arrested and testing by the miner for that reason.

>> we have two more questions. >> phil, your book, "there is power in a union," emerges against the backdrop of the field we now know as labor study. forty years ago this field had barely, you know, been born in academia and even popular -- works a popular history. do you remember what, if anything, you learned in high school or as an undergraduate about the topic and the aspects of labor history that you're writing about now? >> well, it's funny. i mentioned that in the introduction to the book. i grew up with the standard rendition of labor history which was very flattering. of course it is one that we all know, i think, which is that the unions are good and fought for things that we all took for granted that were valuable like reasonable hours of work, benefits, pensions, safety on

the job, so on and so on. that was always my recollection. for me it was more later when i was a young adults, when i began to come to work, i realized that unions were not held in high esteem universally. [laughter] so i think i have that standard. i think there was labor scholarship as far back as the 1920's. there was a man named john collins to was one of the first labor historians who wrote a 12-volume history of labor up until that point. obviously that kind of scholarship always reflects the year in which it is written. it has become much more specialized and focusing on gender and different elements than it did at one time. yes. my roommate. you could have just waited. >> i know, but i wanted to show off. >> what was the most surprising thing that you came across when you were researching the book?

>> without a doubt it was the involvement of the afl-cio in foreign blacktops during the cold war where they would -- they were so much -- in order to of sort of help rid labor of the image of being a radical or communist they themselves bought into the cold war mentality to the extent that they not only were policing unions in america and expelling them, they got involved a broad. they had agents working in latin america, europe, and asia. they were involved in things like, you know, overthrowing chile in 1973, what happened in guatemala earlier. also in italy and france. they would try to get in and undermine unions and instead pushed for conservative, mainstream federations. of course in doing so there were often licensing or legitimizing

real dictators, right-wing characters in latin america. it was not a very savory episode. i was surprised and had not known much about it. it still haunts us today. even now when an american union says to a burgeoning union movement in some countries there are naturally suspicious because of this past. it's okay. thanks a lot for coming down. [applauding] >> this event was hosted by the tenement museum in new york city. for more information about the museum and its events visit tenement that sort. >> we are at the national press club on authors and books nights talking with the authors of the kennedy detail. joe blain was a former secret service agent who was on mr. kennedy's detail. can you tell us a little bit about what that was like? >> can you tell them a little

bit about what it was like? >> it was pre technology in those days. yes. very few agents. we did not have radios. we operated by hand signals. we wore sunglasses because in our pockets we carried three by five photographs of people that we were looking for. the classic -- glasses help hide our eyes. it was an altogether different world. >> what was it like being on president kennedy's detail? >> what was it like being on president kennedy's detail? >> fantastic. he was quite a man. lisa mcnabb and who helped me with the book, we both started with president eisenhower did not have a narcissist bone in his body and operated like clockwork

he rode in a close top car. when president kennedy came along the world lit up. >> and what made you decide to write about your experience after all this time? >> well, there are very few of us left anymore, and we decided that it was time to share our story because history today is slanted toward the cottage industry of conspiracy. over the past 47 years there has not been one solid piece of evidence. so the agents decided we'd better get our -- excuse me, we better get our version of what happened. that is why the book was written. >> we are going to come down and talk to a clientele who was part of the detail. can you share with us one of your more stark memories of being on the detail? >> well, unfortunately i was

there at the time of the assassination. i was responsible for misses kennedy. i was right behind the president's car. i witnessed the president being shot and tried to intercede by getting to him before anything else happened. unfortunately i was unable to do so. i saw everything unfold. i was a witness to everything. >> and what inspired you to write about your experience at this time? >> i wrote the foreword to the book. mr. blaine promised me that the book would be non salacious, no gossip, and so i agreed to contribute to it. as long as i could check the facts, which i did. >> and your role in writing about the kennedy detail? >> well, i basically helped mr. blain write the book. he is a secret service agent. his writing was more stick to the fact. i helped frame the story, but the story together, interviewed a lot of agents, and got very

involved in the project. has been a privilege and an honor to work with these great men. >> and what was probably the most interesting thing for you in putting this project together? >> the most interesting thing, it's hard to believe, but all of these agents who witnessed the assassination of president kennedy never spoke about it, never talked to each other about the assassination, never talked to their wives or their children , and they held it inside for 47 years. it was not and tell mr. blain decided to write this book that he got the agents talking together about the assassination and the healing has begun. >> thank you all very much for your time. >> followed book tv on twitter. send us the tweeted at book tv with your favorite book tv program. from now until december 10th

we will select one per day at random to receive book tv swag and the tweeted program will be included in our holiday schedule over the dec. 204-26 weekend. we look forward to seeing your favorite book tv program from the last year. thank you for watching. covered >> host: david axe has covered several different wars. in fact, he was a free lancer who work for c-span in iraq and afghanistan. david axe, where else have you worked? guest: banon, >> guest: lebanon, chat,timor,he somalia, the condo, of the somali coast, might be forgetting a few, nicaragua. t >> hohst: that does not sound >> guest boring. >> guest: right. the title is meant toth be ic emewhat ironic. not entirely.ce of war, the modern experience of iw war, low intensity warfare is a. lot of sitting around. and it is 99% weighting and tedium

and boredom punctuated by 1% of. sheer terror. i think that describes thesoldit experience of the typical for soldier, but it is the same for reporters between the red tape and the distance you have toeing travel. the logistics of being a arrging reporter, arranging interviews, negotiating languages and cultural differences. the spend a lot of timeand maneuvering for the golden nugget's of excitement.story. the tiny little chance of a good like, as story. a com >> and this is done icmuch likea comic book in a sense, nonfiction comic book.c boo you write that i love how were v made you appreciate the little yo things. home coming home was like popping ecstasy. what do you mean? >> guest: i've actually never done ecstasy. i would imagine it feelsmagine ecstatic, hence the name. i spent time running around a ra

place like chad or somalia. it puts into perspective, ierspi don't know, what we have here in the united states and what wecar call problems. reason so one reason i enjoy my job as a freelance -- welcoming enjoy is not work the right word.e one of the reasons i find it thi filling is it can't contextualize is the rest of my e rest life. i have come away fromli my works appreciating being an american.t >> host: when you read your book does not sound like you go >> gwell, in the state's very long. >> that is the irony. that you need that contrast between a homend life and life in some conflict zone. you have to keep going back to d the conflict zone in order toyou maintain that contrast. i don't know.ay the only way i can find peace and satisfaction was to movetheo

between these two extremes. the one made the other makes wok sense.d you >> host: david axe, what work you do for c-span? >> guest: i shot a video andand voice over in studio interviews from and about the barack war and the afghanistan war, piracyn thecentral afric conflict in central africa, or m conflicts. i that might be all. yeah i think so.. >> host: pst. >> guest: myself?. not formally diagnosed. i had a rather eerie experience and chad in the summer of 2008 n and came home not quite feelingd like myself and managed to, youd know, through the help of family and friends and a lot of beerlfi write myself. the i don't think that the trauma i have experienced compares to what an american soldier who has

spent 15 months on deployment ir afghanistan or a rock.o my experience does not comparet, to that. had i have had some stress.e're g >> host: we will put the s numbers up on the screen in caso you would like to talk with david axe about covering more. these are pictures here.rawing these are drawings of when davio axe went home toit detroit.n what i noted on these is that you struck -- slept in quite late every morning. he did not look like you were terribly thrilled about anythine >> guest: you mentioned the p t s t. had probably the worst i had it t tt besides coming home from chad in e008. lat prior to that was in somalia in late 2007. a very difficult place to work.w came away from that with a rather bleak outlook andsay. crashed, i guess you could say.i i needed some time. i took that by moving back homel a 30-year-old man living back d, home with mom and dad.

i did nothing for as long as i could stand at.ani th i think had i not done that things would have been a lotwors worse. yes. i slept in. i've played video games.t: whate >> host: what were some of the worst experiences you had? >> guest: i was briefly kidnapped twice in chad. actually not covered in theend t book. hinted at in the very end. in somalia i spent time in the refugee camp iman -- surroundedd manine of the world's worst humanitatarian crises.some of i made friends with somali or reporters, some of whom who have since been seriously hurt or killed. that has been very trying. iraq and afghanistan, extreme violence that rattles you.nce, i think in the balance, though, somalia and chad have been the most difficult places personall. and professionally.tarted >> host: how did you getine started in this line of work? i

>> guest: in 2004 and 2005i was able time political reporter in columbia, south carolina for the local newspapere .is wayorse if war is boring, then peace is way worse. it was driving me nuts sitting o in on a county council meetingse and zoning ordinances.. opportunity to go with the national guard in early read 2005. a ticket. realized i could not only enjoyt it, but do it. b i quit my job and began fom freelancing. >> host: 202 is the area code. e 585-3886 for those of you in thi mountain and pacific time zone.e where was the last place you have been? >> guest: i just got back fromat condo.s the artist on "war is boring" bori are going to collaborate on an n entire graphic novel about the conflict in the condo.

well, it is non-fiction. they call them graphic novels. >> host: y? si et the worst war that mosts r americans don't know anything as aout.don'know no one is really exactly sure er about the numbers. but in in the past 15 years at leasteol 700,000 people have died in condo in several overlappinglic. complex. gigantic the gigantic problem.develo a countrype that really mattersn leaving aside humanitarian the issues, go is the source of muce th the minerals. ear your cell phone and other high-tech devices have a little bit of condo.t hve without that we would not have this high tech society that we have.matt a lot so conflict and condos should matter a lot more. we want to draw attention to ghanista that.n, >> host: or you indebted but thwhe military? e what was your experience?

>> guest: very good and very bad experiences. reay the u.s. military is a vast a organization. every tng turns over three years.ery it is -- every three years is af different cast of characters. once i have verbally reported oq a secret technology and wasined detained and then booted out ofh the country bye a very irate u. army. that was the low point. poi there have been high points asa. well. tnessed i have witnessed incrediblen on soavery and sacrifice, even onl my behalf. >> host: how did you find the secret technology?on patrol >> guest: i waswi on patrol with the u.s. army working as a freelancer for wired at the wi time. i noticed a gizmo attached to at humvee. i said to an attendant, was tha? that.that's he said it cellblock, blah,lah, blah. said, oh, that's interesting. tell me more. published taking notes.lo low and behold it was c classified. i didn't know tlahai tdi. apparently the lieutenant diddih not know that., it got bad very fast.st,

>> guest: david axe is our guest.rg, virginia, frederiksberg virginia, you aree on the air.ease please go ahead with yourmmenten >>ost: f. >> caller: hello. you commented a moment ago., can >> host: are you with us? >> caller: yesterday commented. wis i wish you would expand. i have always been interested in how the unique military culturet of the marines, army, andoperatg special operating forces, what differences you may have seen ie the fact that there are threef branches doing this kind of have work.any dire >> guest: i don't have any direct experience with specialms forces.he i have worked with the marines e and the army and the air forcey and the navy and even the coasts guard. i guess it is a cliche, but honestly working with the marines is the best experience. it is a kind of culture of and accountability and sacrificeth that you find in the marine thaw corps that is not present in the other branches.e

they are small enough that theyo can honan in a better way.so ths so the marines have always takeg really did care of me. >>t: empeful for that. >> host: emporia, virginia. >> caller: how're you doing?quen my question was basically being a war correspondent do you have to get through any specialized training at all to be in conflict zones?i >> guest: no, i did not. the in the beginning of the iraq war the pentagon rounded up reporters and put them through reporter's but camp in anticipation of the invasion and but on having abetted reporters. embed program had sortooting - of found- its footing because ii didn't in bed for the first time until early 2005. th by then they were not doing as both camps. i found that the military was bc that point experienced enough is handling reporters that they were able to accommodate me in e the conflict zone and point outt what i should do and should do

without putting me through a formal training program.ho >> host: who is talk bodziak in afghanistan? >> guest: he was one of myas a r fixers. as a r eporter working in the yu conflict zone you utterly relyey on your local fixes to driveive inte around and keep the safe and interpret. better he was one of my better afghan e fixers. there are argood ones and bad yu ones. that was as easy for cash and os the good ones will save your>> life. >> host: how did you findfind or them? >> guest: neetpoworking. i find other reporters that have done similar work and get referrals. i'd check out these people andcs cross refesrence and hope i >>t a good one.obic >> host: you start to tell a rather homophobic joke. ahan >> guest: well, that is afghan culture for you.back >> host: you write that you basically, came back with afghanistan with wh a low greaty? danger. by >> the first time in december of 2007.

by then i had been coveringed wa primarily american lead wars fof nearly three years. was frustrating to come home to a society that did not seem to realize it was at war.es, sinhalese soldiers and airmen and marines, sailors deployed overseas now that they are act,w bore. reporters to cover the conflict know that we are at war.se our elected leaders probably sense that we are at war. the it is easy to get the, --alking feeling that a lot of americans don't lt seem affected by thesed conflicts. i'm not sure who is to blame fos that, but it is not healthy. >> host: "war is boring" isis the book. david axe is the author. cold spring, texas. please go ahead. >> caller: yes. i have experienced post-traumatic stress syndrome after my husband was district attorney in an east texas counth

what i found was that i couldler not sleep for months and months and months. i was just wondering since you referred to having post-traumatic spent stress syndromes, did you have insomnia? >> host: i am a pretty healthy sleeper. i did have a. in the first year or so that i covered rock when i would wake up in the middle of the night. this is when i was back home. i would go back and forth. i would wake up at haldeman of the night and have no idea where i was. that is probably the most terrifying thing psychologically that i suffered. so to spring out of bed at three of the morning in other darkness at home in columbia, south carolina and begin sprinting around my apartment because i had no idea where i was.s. i think my brain has adapted tot doing this kind of work. w i don't suffer this kinds of things anymore.

>> host: you know they have k some really good posture insomeg mogadishu. then the expression on your parents face is whether prices.r why did you include that?uest: o >> guest: i came home froma i somalia in late 2007 and crashed, as i described itmovedi before. i moved in with my parents. it they at first struggle to understand what i was dealing with. the memories, the experiences, the disillusionment, the baroque and feeling under appreciated.. just the sheer psychological psh effects of covering more. so there were a few, i think, tends banners as they try toe tease out of me what was troubling me. it wasn't always pretty.e >> host: here is. "war is boring" by david axe. new american library is the publisher. where did you go next?