beginning of time. i mean, they have, they have protected their children, they have, they have been in the blitz, you know? i mean, it's a very -- there's just no doubt about it. . . military today are brave under fire. they, they're delivering stuff to the front in trucks, they're serving as nurses, they're doing all this stuff, and they get hit by, you know, ieds and they get ambushed and all of the above, and they perform very well. and so i have also no doubt that as far as, you know, bell-shaped curves are concerned that there would be a class of women that could turn themselves into men and do the job. i think it's a tiny percentage compared to the number of men that could do that. i mean, where do you draw the line? 120-pound pack without food for six days? that's where you start saying, you know, things have to -- you have to just look at biology, and there's certain things that you can do.

so my question is, is it worth it to take the risks that these wives are worried about, to take the risks of the disruptions and so on to accommodate the small percentage of women that, in fact, could do the jobs because of issues of fairness or equity? i have a feeling that, you know, i don't know where it's going to go. if it goes that way, i think i agree with sebastian that they're going to be a very different kind of human being when they get done fighting in combat. >> you did save the best for last. [laughter] i want to thank you for your service, thank the members of the audience. [applause] the gentlemen will be happy to autophotograph at the autograph area. you can continue to speak with them. thank you all, we'll be back in about 15 minutes.

this event was part of the 2010 miami book fair international. for more information, visit miamibookfair.com. coming up next, book tv presents "after words," an hourlong program where we invite a guest hosts to interview authors. the 14th chairman of the joint chiefs of staff chairs the story of his life and military career in his book without hesitation. general shelton who served were during both democratic and republican administrations provides an inside look at the division among the bush administration officials over how to proceed following the attack of 9/11. he also discusses how the plan to invade iraq was developed. the former commander in chief of u.s. special operations command

talks war and politics with former u.s. defense secretary william cohen. >> general shelton and the pleasure to see you and for full disclosure tell the audience we had the pleasure of serving together. it is my honor to serve with you for more than three years when we are both at the pentagon as chairman joint chiefs of staff and me as secretary defense, and so this is almost the second time we have seen each other since those heydays so to speak. what i would like to do during the course of the next hour is talk about your book, "without hesitation," which is fascination story about your life. i was being flip and quoting somebody else in saying my whole life and what you have done is you have written your whole life in this book and we can go back

and will get a few pieces how you became the joint share. tell me about north carolina. that is where you were born. what was like flake and speed? >> first is great to be with you again, and it was my honor and my pleasure to serve with and for you during our days as the secretary and u.s. fishermen. speed north carolina is a small eastern community basically composed of what tom brokaw called the greatest generation. that's the environment i grew up in. my mother taught school first through eighth grade. there were a couple of stores in town where everyone hung out, if you will, where the old timers would gather and drink coca-cola in glass bottles and eat moon pies or whatever -- >> host: or moonshine.

[laughter] >> guest: but it was agreed involvement for a young person to grow up, and the church was part of the community there and of course the values you learned at home were reinforced in church and the school. >> host: population? >> guest: population would range i'd say at the maximum it probably got up to 200 people or maybe if you count every dog and cat in town. >> host: so you were a farm boy? >> guest: i actually grew upon a farm two and a half miles outside of speed. my wife of 47 years grew up in the heart of speed. >> host: feg said he met her in the fourth grade? >> guest: it was in the fourth grade. i jokingly say sometimes i proposed to her in the fifth grade but that's not really true. we started going together when we were in high school and all that they married when i graduated. >> host: let's go back to speed because that would somehow captures a little bit about you. you were so speedy in fact used it for third grade as i

understand. >> guest: i did. my mother was a schoolteacher and she basically had me through the first grade before i started first grade. she was my teacher and used to remind me how i would go to school and cross the because i already knew everything and i was bored to tears when i went into the second grade that teacher proposed by just skipped third and go on to fourth and they got me to struggle a little bit more than i had in the past and it made it much more enjoyable. >> host: you also had a fascination with speed and as i read in your story you were 16-years-old and had become a bus driver by that point? >> guest: i had but the maximum speed i could get normally was about probably 28, 29, maybe 30 miles per hour but if you reach up under the - and you loosen the vacuum hose you could get it up to 32 and we did a little bit more speed for a few more miles but --

>> host: and in a fraction of law at that point? >> guest: just a little bit. and the bus drivers, the mechanics would always check that and of course it was always back in place. >> host: how tall were you then? >> guest: i was in the seventh grade i was about 5-foot seven. by the time i got to eighth grade i was 6-foot one, 6-foot two and by the ninth grader was 6 feet five. >> host: i assume you played basketball? >> guest: i did, unfortunately the high school was so small we didn't have a football team but i played baseball and basketball and i loved both. >> host: i assume you were position senator? >> guest: i did in those days i was the center and one of the biggest in the conference. of course nowadays i'm short for a point guard at the university. >> host: and he went to north carolina state? >> guest: i did i had grown up with a couple on girls who went and from the time i was a young

person i wanted to go to the state in fact when i took the exam by scores were so low they didn't really want to let me in and so my father suggested i go to another school which was a great school and the first time in my life i pushed back on him saying if i can't go to state i won't go anywhere, sold roughly i took a correspondence course and was accepted into the university. >> host: but you had problems. he really wanted to be an aeronautical engineer? >> guest: i did want to be an aeronautical engineer and i was a straight a student, didn't study, did it with a breeze, but at state my world turned upside down. tied to that i also wanted to play basketball and finally the coaches called me and said we want to bring you on the team by your not doing very well, you are flunking about three out of five courses right now we've got to change your curriculum and i said i will do that to recreation and park administration which is what they wanted and so ultimately i

had to decide i wasn't going to play basketball but i did change into text files which i found fascinating. >> host: tell me about how you switched from engineering to textiles. i teach you wrote your fascinated with the making of socks? >> guest: actually i was. my roommate was out one point majoring in textiles, and he had these books and they had swatches of cloth and he would talk about the design and i found some of that stuff to be rather fascinating and i got interested and went over and talked to people and the next thing i knew i was a textile major and i enjoyed that. >> host: what led you to look at the military? >> guest: north carolina state was a land grant college and consequently during those days you had to take two years of rotc. i took those two years and i enjoyed it and so i found out if he went into the third and fourth year you had to commit to a two-year obligation and the army, but they paid you $27 a

month and to a farm boy from speed that was big money in those days so i said sign me up, i will do it and so i accepted the obligation and received my $27 a month for my last two years in school. >> host: did you get an offer from the textile firm before you went into the military? >> guest: i did. i finally selected one and an interview in south carolina with regal textile corporation which had one of -- it had the largest mill in the united states. it got caught in in the back and produced finished cloth at the other end which was unusual to have a finishing plant as well and so i signed up -- i signed a contract with them with the understanding that i had two years in the military before i could join them and they said the problem, we will wait for you, and i did. >> kosko when were you married?

>> guest: as soon as it retreated from school i went to fort benning to start my two year obligation and the army and as soon as i had completed that, i returned for about three or four days and carolyn and i were married in the little church we had gone to and grew up in and where my mother played the organ for 63 years and that is where we were married and immediately turned around and drove back to fort benning. >> host: kidcare allin go with you? >> guest: she did, she went with me and i left her in the apartment right outside of the gate to fort benning and i said i will be back in just a minute, i went outside the apartment so they don't charge me for leave but i will come back. i got there actually about three or four days early and so i went out and i said i will come back and i went out and signed in. the minute i signed and i said we don't have to report for the course and they said you are a

ranger, get upstairs, you are staying here, so i had the car keys, the check book, the money, and my wife is in the department by herself but the sergeant just told me get upstairs, you are now a ranger, and so why did but it bothered me all night long. i said i've got to get out of here so the next morning i went down and found the captain officer and so i've got to at least give my wife the car keys and checkbook so he gave me two hours to go back and give her that and then return to the course. fortunately she was still there when i returned. that was her first experience with the army. >> host: what was the lesson you learned from that experience where you were there early think he would have enough time to take care of things at home, was the lesson that came out of that for you? >> guest: the less i carried the next 38 years in the military was you've got to make sure that when you receive soldiers into the units their families are taken care of before you put them to work.

you can't just, you know, the minute they sign and say we are leaving tomorrow for an exercise or whatever. make sure the families are settled otherwise their mind will not be on their duties. >> host: if you've written if a soldier isn't satisfied his family is being taken care of, he or she is not going to be about to perform their job. >> guest: ex ackley and if we don't take care of the families in the military they are going to be a big influence on whether or not we are able to keep that individual in the armed forces. >> host: tell me about your job experience. what was your jump like? why did you want to be a ranger and not airborne? >> guest: i was a young infantry officer and thought airborne ranger, that's what being an infantry officer is about so if i don't go to jump school and ranger school i might as well forget about being of light can be, and so i applied for that and eventually was accepted and i was going out on my very first parachute jump and told my wife i will be the next

to the last man coming out secure rise on a parachute. i'm on the first place. sure enough she went to the drop zone that day and the plane flew over but what she didn't know and i didn't realize is that the last minute they would reverse the order and i was going to be the second man out of the aircraft, not the next to last so as i went out of the aircraft everything went well, i did my 4,000 count and as i got to 4,000i didn't feel that great tug meaning the chute opened and i glanced quickly and saul my chute was wrapped around itself in what is called a cigarette role, and i looked down and the ground was coming on at 90 miles an hour and i am getting close of trading kicked in and i just jerked the report on my research and turned my head as i was supposed to and a sound like a shotgun exploded and i was about 100 feet off the ground and i hit the ground pretty hard but immediately pounced on me, grabbed the chute because they wanted to check it for malfunction and then they said you get over there and get on the truck. you're going for another jump.

and they put me back on another plane. of course throws you get back on. that was the philosophy, and the second jump. i went home that evening and my wife witnessed the whole thing but thought that was someone else and said how sorry she felt for the young trooper that almost killed himself on the drop zone. she said who was that, do you know him? and i said you don't want to know. so that's when she found out it was me but by that time i had a second job and everything went just fine so she was okay with it. >> host: let me fast-forward now. you have a pretty rough experience that first jump that nearly cost you your life. you also had the chance to jump with president bush 41, and he liked to jump on his 70 and 75 mabey 85th birthday. was it the 75th? 75th birthday. how about that. >> guest: it was a great day and we were at texas a&m university and there was a total of about eight of us altogether

going to jump that day with him and he went out first and as i had experienced on my free-fall jump where you don't have anyone he had two guys jumping with him but he was by himself and was going to do the activation and he lost control and started tumbling and i'm out of him looking down thinking man he's got a problem but he had a great golden might jump in with him of the army parachute team, the same that trained me so i knew he was in good hands but he had thrown both of them away. they originally were holding on to him and so, they finally got him stabilized and pulled his chute and he landed and i landed and he came running over and said have you experienced something like that? i thought i was going to die. i said mr. president, i have experienced the same thing, but it's a pretty terrifying experience, but he went right

back and did it again. i admired him. >> host: you had a total of like 450 jumps from 30,000 feet? during the course of your career. yet you had one outfall from low level that resulted in a pretty bad consequence. why don't you talk about what happened to you. >> guest: it was ironic about five months after i retired i was trimming a tree up my backyard, i love to do handiwork. a week before i trimmed a couple of 100-year-old zero countries with big limbs on them but on this particular morning i went out and started treading a very small branch off a tree right on the borderline between my neighbor's yard and mine and there was a cyclone fence about 4 feet tall and my feet for about 5 feet off the ground and i trimmed the first no problem but it didn't fall it stayed there. then i trimmed of the one right below and when it gave way both of them hit the extension arms

on the ladder and caused it to twist. well, not a big deal. i simply pitched the chain sold to the left and did a bunny hop to the right, but as i did that and started my momentum to go to the ground my feet caught the top of the cyclone fence propelling me for work on to my head and when i hit i was paralyzed from the neck down. i knew what i had done instantaneously the problem was also i couldn't get my breath. i didn't know what kind of a damaged a nerve that controls your ability to breed and i thought i just knocked the wind out of myself but struggled mightily to get eric and it wouldn't come. i thought to myself 450 pittard should jumps and i'm going out like this. something isn't right about this picture, but eventually my air came back, a neighbor heard me hollering as i would do with free so often because of was cold, my wife was inside and she heard and i said please, have my wife called 911, and it was a -- they carried me to a local

hospital in virginia and there i was told by the neurosurgeon who looked and said you will never walk again and you will never be able to use your hands. >> host: in your reaction to that? >> guest: i couldn't see him but i could see his presence because he had a big column but my head wouldn't turn. i asked him if his name was god and he said no, it's dr. so and so and i said well good, we will see about that, and fortunately carolyn called the commander of walter reed who sent down doctors and they took one look at the results from the mri and said we've got work to do, we've got to get you out of here so we went to walter reed and just -- i call it luck or an act of god there was a young man, a major in the army at the time now a colonel who had been trained at johns hopkins on how to treat spinal cord injuries by raising your blood pressure and forcing blood around the injury, so they

told me what they would like to do and i asked what are the downside and they said the downside is either a massive stroke or heart attack but we think you have a good heart and think you can withstand it. i said let's go for a. carolina agreed instantly and in a few minutes they were raising the blood pressure and for six or seven hours i stayed toasty warm and the doctors swarming all over me in the room, but eventually i think it must have worked because 83 days later i walked out of walter reed. >> host: so the choice for you at that point is remain paralyzed or take this life-threatening technique that may restore your ability to walk again. >> guest: usurp. was an easy choice. carolyn and i agreed let's go forward. that's the way we lived our lives. >> host: and you spent 83 days at walter reed? >> guest: and i cannot say enough good things about walter reed. the team, the young captain that came and said i was totally

paralyzed and about of third day he said we are going to give you won your feet and start walking i started laughing. you've got to be kidding. and the captain solomon who was a triathlete himself said no i'm not kidding. we are going to give you up, and he did. i passed out and they sounded a code and the next thing you know i've got 20 doctors around me asking 100 questions and i told them my name is hugh shelton and i know i just fainted. let's get on with it. we need to try again, but they were great at walter reed. >> host: people call you at that time, one was ross perot? >> guest: individuals like ross perot and tom brokaw, i mean, a large number. i had a visit from a great secretary defense, bill cohen and his wife janet the first night were second night i was there. lots of people that showed their concern, and you and i both have had a host of lots of cameras for our counterparts, and i found out during my 83 days with

an end to a lot of individuals around the world because the letters that can from some of those counterparts that we hosted in our home were unbelievable as well as from around the united states from people all over the country and the support and a tremendous amount. king abdullah came to see me in the hospital. i mean, he is a great individual and we had developed a friendship while he was serving in the special operations in jordan and it's just a lot of people to include both presidents. president bill clinton had came and visited and people like connie stevens. was tremendous. >> host: let's go back and talk about what does it mean to be chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, what does the term and a? >> guest: it is an awesome responsibility because you basically represent men and women in uniform at the highest position as the secretary defense to the president of the united states and of course to the national security council

and that's basically what you do, you have a 1200 man staff of some of the finest people in uniform of all services, army, navy and marine corps, etc., and advise the secretary defense and the president on the best military options for particular situations that we find ourselves in. >> host: as high as that position is you are not in the chain of command. what do you mean by that? >> guest: the chain of command actually runs from our combatant commanders from people like central command and pacific command in to the secretary defense and the president. that's the chain. the chairman is the adviser to both but if you don't have a good relationship and a good connection to the individuals out in the field then you are not able to get the secretary defense the best advice and the other thing you can do if they

work a lot of these issues through the chairman you can start the ball rolling before you even advise the secretary or the president to get things lined up to carry out whatever decision they make. >> host: basically you can be cut out of the chain of communication if you have a combatant commander we used to call them saints but if you have a combatant commander who wants to report directly to the security fence and not talk to you and the secretary defense goes directly to the president they don't necessarily have to consult you. what is your reaction to that? >> guest: that was an issue that we had well before goldwater nichols, and goldwater nichols tried to fix that by making sure that we had the principal to the secretary and to the president. if you do that, if you cut out the chairman you are cutting of the joint chiefs of staff which in the conference room is called the tank, and in their did they discuss various things related to the operational issues they

can do to help that combatant commander and if you cut that group out of this as we found happened during the rumsfeld tenure where the chairman and the joint chiefs are pushed to the side and marginalized if you will then you are 200 years of military experience found in those six individuals, the joint chiefs are being ignored or pushed to the side, and the president and the secretary than do not necessarily get the best military advice. >> host: does it qualify as some did -- there's a book written by colonel now general mcmaster about duty. do you want to talk about the importance of that would get the question i would then ask is there a dereliction of duty to have the chairman of detroit chiefs and the other members of the joint chiefs who are shoveled a side and don't participate in basically providing collective wisdom to the secretary of the president

of the united states is that a dereliction of duty? >> guest: the book written by h.r. mcmaster as i would recommend anyone that wants to look at the inside decision making process that went on during vietnam. when you find when you read that master's book is there is dereliction at every level joint chiefs don't come across very well in that environment either because they really didn't have a chairman. they were an elected group but depending on who the senior man in town was he tried to speak for the group so you found parochial things taking place even within the joint chiefs, but most of all he found some de seat, some deception going on during that period where the president and the secretary were not getting the best military advice and we want to organize to make sure that happened, but goldwater nichols can along and established the trend is the principal advisor, gamay tecum gave him a vice chair in his absence and made the joint

chiefs a body of people that could then provide the best military advice. mcmaster's book which outlines that very well i think shows if you don't have the joint chiefs as envisioned under the new goldwater nichols, the present, psychiatry and national security council are not necessarily going to get the best military advice. >> host: was the message from mcmaster the military allows this to place or engages in evert altering the advice or shading it in a way that's more politically designed than pure military point of view that constitutes a dereliction of duty and is that why you gave that to each of your joint chiefs to remind them they had an obligation to never let that happen? >> guest: precisely. i couldn't have said it better and when i first went to office and read mcmaster's bouck i did carry a copy to each of the joint chiefs and said you know we've got to make sure this never happens and as you recall very well, you read the book

yourself and i think we all gained from that in terms of making sure we work together as a team and everything we did is transparent and that we use that collective body to provide the best advice. when a combat commander would come to brief his plan he had the air force chief sitting there to say it's really good but i can do these for you to make it even better and the army would say i can give you more than you are asking for. so they really help, but if you are one who doesn't like to get constructive criticism then you find the process to be knocked to your liking and that is what we found during our entry into iraq in 2003 and that does constitute a dereliction of duty in my opinion. >> host: what should the joint chiefs have done at that point? the found themselves excluded, just continue doing what they do and be ignored or should they

protest by offering to step aside? >> guest: i think the joint chiefs need to inject themselves into a process like that and make sure they are not marginalized. i mean, if i were the chairman and my advice would be ignored or i did not think the joint chiefs would be gainfully used in this process, then i might as well resign because i am not helping the secretory defense or the nation. >> host: did you ever offered to resign from the position? >> guest: i never had to because i was never put in that position. there were occasions toward the end of my tenure when i did in fact go ahead and say for example when the secretary your successor, secretary rumsfeld wanted to fire the director of the right staff, then i barton and said if you fire him you get to for the price of one because if you aren't happy with him you

are not happy with me. i haven't heard a word about that but if that is the case both of us will leave, and i feel like, you know, i didn't walk around looking for reasons to leave, i enjoyed the job and liked the job but i also wanted to be part of the team. >> host: that was the case of you speaking through your superior such as a civilian head of the military saying if you take this action i'm leaving. and there were other examples you felt the need to confront authority. there was one occasion which you had a dispute with admiral crowell about whether a submarine was a diesel or nuclear. talk about that? >> guest: admiral craughwell knew his submarines and know them well and in fact he knew his ships. when we used to brief on the persian gulf operations he could tell you the abu the numbers in the persian gulf, where the ships would be in the area.

but one morning at about 1:00 in the morning we had a submarine that sank off key west, and i called the admiral papp and i already looked up and i thought i knew everything there was to know about this submarine, but the minute i told him the submarine he said that is a nuclear and i said no, mr. chairman, that the diesel. he said no you need to get your facts together, general, but as a nuclear submarine. i said sir, i will double check and call you right back but by that time they were breaking -- perspiration was breaking out of my route because i thought how could i make a mistake like this. we read and checked and sure enough it was eisel. so i called him back immediately and said it is a diesel submarine. and i stood my ground and fortunately -- with him being navy and knowing ships like he did i thought surely i made a mistake. >> host: you have another problem was was it admiral miller in terms of the plan for pt? >> guest: i did. >> host: can you talk about that?

>> guest: under admiral miller's guidance he was great to work for we designed a plan to go to haiti and it involved lots of moving pieces, navy, marines, you name it and we decided for the army troops aboard an aircraft carrier for the first time, and i had an area of he for the marines to go where they could do an amphibious operation right out of the doctrine and they were going into -- we had airborne going in close to port-au-prince and i had a special operations taking down key targets right in port-au-prince. all of a sudden at the last minute the admiral called me and told me to take the marines to take the target's and i said that puts them at a cross going directly perpendicular to the flow of the forces. he said that is where i want it to happen, so i flew to norfolk and i went to see the admiral and told him why was there and i'm very concerned about your

decision to put the marines in this place. in fact, i did not go along with that and he said are you telling me i have to get a new commander if i insist on doing it that way? i said that's exactly what i'm telling you because about subjects our people to death. it really does, unnecessarily. we have a great plan, you approved the plan but now you want to change it last minute. he said let me think about it. so i flew back to fort bragg not knowing if a would-be in command of the next day and a few minutes later the phone rang and he said i've reconsidered. you are right, keep it like it is. >> host: it's a great story but let's take a break. i want to follow on the upper stories contained in this wonderful book. >> "after words" with hugh shelton and william cohen will continue after this short break.

>> "after words" with hugh shelton and william cohen continues. >> host: mr. chairman, you had an interesting experience after becoming the chairman of joint chiefs, and a meeting in the situation room at the white house. could you describe what to place? >> guest: it was right after reading dereliction, which i never thought i would see anything like that in the administration that i was joining. i went to a meeting over at -- and breakfast if you win the national security adviser's office and would normally be as you said yourself secretary of state and a number of other individuals, and occasionally other cabinet members that might be asked to come to speak on a

certain subject, and you were gainfully employed with the national security adviser and there were other sidebar conversations going on. we haven't really gotten into the formal discussions -- informal discussions that would take place. all of a sudden one of the cabinet members leaned over and said i know i shouldn't ask you this, but i will ask anyway. would you consider flying reconnaissance plane that normally flies at 70,000 feet for operational reasons as well as secret mode in terms of the iraqi snowing we were there -- would you consider flying at low enough so that the iraqis can shoot it down getting a precipitous event that would allow us to take out saddam hussein? well, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, my fists clenched, my teeth got tight and i through clenched teeth i said of course i can and the individual broke out in the big smile and i said just as soon as

i get your butt qualified to fly i will fly as low and slow as you would like to go. the individual kind of reeled back and said i knew i shouldn't ask too that and i said you're right you shouldn't do this in the way we do things here in america. there's a great american who flies that and we are not going to subject him to harm just so we have an event to go into iraq and then i went back to the tank and i said i ask you to read dereliction. you may not think things like that can still go on but trust me, they do. i didn't reveal the name of the individual and i didn't because i saw the remorse on the individuals face and i knew they learned a great lesson that day and i didn't see any reason to continue to embarrass them in the process. examples during your four years of the pentagon as chairman where we were fixated on getting osama bin laden, and a lot of questions have come up over the

years. why has it been so difficult, and there were a number of proposals made. one that came up was why not just put a special forces units, dropped them covertly into afghanistan, track down bin laden and take him out. where was your reaction to that proposal? >> guest: there was a number of proposals as you recall and i think some of them would come up as a result of people may be going to see a rambo movie over the weekend, monday morning and say i got this great idea but with the field to take into account in many cases is we don't operate like that here in america either. we don't put people where we can't get to them where they are subject to be overrun were killed without us being able to even get in to extract the bodies. so in order to put the team and deep into afghanistan it was a nine hour helicopter flight and in order to do that or to drop the capability to go and get them, you have to have the refueling capabilities, some kind of search and rescue to go

and quick in case the engine went out. either iraq or pakistan and both of them had the capability of going out with high performance aircraft so they have to have air defense or try to coordinate and as you recall we couldn't coordinate with either of them because they had direct lines right into osama bin laden al qaeda's forces. and so, it was a very complicated and most people didn't want to hear that. they wanted you to set your fingers and perform magic and we just didn't have magic. we tried hard to get osama bin laden but not at the expense of subjecting our own people to death or a situation we could not assist them in the process. >> host: and taking something from 100 to 300 aircraft or other moving parts in a small unit into afghanistan. >> guest: exactly, and maybe we have one here brann i.t. you may recall came up where we

think he is going to board a civilian airliner and fly to chechnya and we want you to be prepared and have a couple of f-16s on standby that can shoot down this aircraft and our response to that is how do we know he is even on the aircraft and what happens if he's not on the aircraft? you recall at one point we thought we had him in kandahar but if we thought your missiles in kandahar and didn't get him we were going to kill 300 individuals, women and children included without any assurance whatsoever that he was there and one particular case we elected not to do it we found out later we would have missed him by three hours had we done that but we have about 300 people there were killed and we would have been branded as terrorists ourselves so it gets to be very complicated. everyone wants to get -- i am asked all the time will we get osama bin laden and my answer is yes we will get him it is just a matter of time with all the intelligence we've got focused on him he's just got to wait and

make one mistake but he's very good the way he operates. >> host: could you talk about the one time you thought you really have an opportunity to get bin laden and you call upon the services of your great joseph? >> guest: we thought at one time we had the chance to get him because he was occasionally at some of the training camps in afghanistan, and in order to do that we work going to have a team of missiles that would go through the air space -- launched a were tomahawk missiles coming out of either submarines or off the ships at sea but they would have to fly across pakistan, and our concern was if the pakistanis picked up on these missiles flying through their airspace with their radar the might think it was in the launching a nuclear attack and they might respond accordingly. and so i asked a great vice chairman if he would use his friendship with the army chief of staff and flying into

pakistan and have dinner at the same time we would then launch the missiles to go across to a pakistani airspace. they had done eighth launch of the missile and went down. unfortunately we didn't get osama bin laden but it wasn't because we didn't try and we did get a number of other terrorists training in the camps of the time, so joe did service for the nation and was there just in case his services were needed. >> host: see he was there as the missiles were falling over and had they been detected he could have talked to his counterpart and said it was not >> guest: exactly. >> host: you've done a lot3 with leadership and talking about leadership and are heading up the center of leadership town of north carolina state. some talk about how do you identify leaders? how do you groome them? is it something they have been neatly? how do you build for the future of the mother terrie? >> guest: we have a great system in the military itself, but let me go to the leadership

we i was fortunate as i retired from being a chairman, my all modern wanted to establish a leadership and basically focus on young people starting a high school level of been to college and then even have a segment designed for the corporate world as well and so we have done that and it's been a great experience because i have watched some young people coming to a program not knowing what leadership even meant in my opinion it's the art of influencing others or one who knows the way and shows the way meaning we lead by example, we coach, teacher and mentor along the way and set the example for people so we started this program and i have had the chance to see young people who at first glance didn't have much leadership potential what through training and through being shown how to do things and given the opportunities had developed into being some really fine leaders, so i believe you

can grow leaders even with those who initially don't show a disposition toward that. so it's been a great experience. in the army we take these young graduates from rotc with the academies and through a system of schools in the service, starting with the basic course, been carrying into an advanced course and then the command and the general staff of the war college at every level we've got institutions that are designed to train and develop our leaders and that's how we are able to -- we have the same thing with the commission officers and it's why our soldiers and officer corps or so strong. that's what it has taken. >> host: you always maintain you leave from the front. you yourself volunteer to go out with the men in the front lines and not be a commanding officer in the rear and as a result of that you are always identified early for promotion and you called it flying under the radar.

and you also talk in the book about some in the military, you were ambitious to do the right thing to be the best you could be that the message underlying all for what the book is don't be so concerned about climbing the wrong, each drawn on the ladder to get to do the best job while you have it come and there were many negative experiences you talk about in the book, - that the time that became valuable to you when you can to serve as chairman of the joint chiefs even as you say in the book you never had any ambition to be chairman of the joint chiefs, you just did the best job you could in all of the assignments you had the and you were recognized for your leadership potential under those something that we need to instill in not just the military but throughout our society. let me talk about iraq right now, afghanistan, from your book it seems you are pretty much opposed to going into iraq.

could you talk about the advice that you were getting at that time? >> guest: early on after 9/11 there was a push to go into iraq and that was the opportunity, the precipitous event seemed to sum to have been created by 9/11 with one major fault. there wasn't one shred of evidence to show that the iraqis were involved in any way, shape or form and so from day one while i was chairman and i said we should not go into iraq it will undermine us through the middle east. they know iraq isn't involved in 9/11. both the cia and the fbi were both saying about 100% its al qaeda. and so i thought that that would be a big mistake. now you combine that with the fact that during your tenure and continuing on undersecretary rumsfeld we continued to take out more and more of the iraqi capabilities with the had left was nil, very little. i think in retrospect there is

no doubt iraq is not -- is a better place without saddam hussein. however we had been contained. they couldn't hurt their neighbors, they were shooting at us every day they never hit anything and every time they fired the lost more so they didn't have much left to lose and it was obvious that going into iraq you could do it with a small force if you wanted to because the military had been decimated but you were going to need a very large force if you wanted to keep the shia, the shiite and the kurds from killing one another once you took away saddam hussein if the's regime because that is what killed them apart. >> host: is that the advice you give the president? >> guest: that is the advice i gave the president and also witold the joint chiefs about a couple of months before the decision was made to go into iraq that if you go and you were going to need a larger force in order to maintain the peace. you can win the war the you can't maintain the peace unless you have a large force. >> host: but he told the right

chiefs but they were not consulted? >> guest: i don't think the joint chiefs were consulted and ultimately the sec to be elected to go with the combatant commanders plan and he put some pressure on him to reduce the forces and got the forces down to where they felt like they could do it and they did. they ignored the joint chiefs cry come general shinseki tuzee you need 160,000. general shinseki is the guy that ran bosnia. he knew what a stabilization force requires in order to keep people from killing each other, and the ignored that and we see what resulted. >> host: what has happened in your judgment to the military today in terms of its abilities with seeing more and more suicide coming out of the army in particular. what is happening to the state of readiness? you talk a lot about readiness in your book, but as a result of

extended deployment talk about combat stress, what it does to the individual. author patterson has written extensively on post-traumatic stress and he describes it in one of his books saying if you take your cat and put him in the backyard and spend the evening will be in hand grenades all night at the cat you have a different cat in the morning and we are seeing some of that plank out in terms of post-traumatic stress with multiple deployments. what does that do to the individual and to the family? what is it giving to the integrity of the military itself now? >> guest: i don't there's any question that it is the tremendous impact on both the army and the marine corps. but first of all let me say our men and women that served today are carrying out the mission that has been given to them in a fine fashion. we have great leadership agreed

soldiers, sailors and marines but having said that, i see a lot of marines because i live in an eerie with a tremendous amount. i was at fort bragg last week in tampa at central command and the stress is tremendous. though repetitive deployments are taking their toll and you see it in the divorce rates and as you mentioned suicide rates and my real concern is to maintain force levels where they are decrease in many cases we have to lower the standards and that means we lowered the aptitude requirements for the education requirements, we have raised the age limit at 42 that you can enlist. the quality of the force under the current standards will gradually go down from where it was during your tenure us secretary and mine as chairman, and i am quite concerned about that and senior has talked to me

about that. so that is what i see as the long range that spells trouble for us because we started off with such a quality force but as the repetitive tourists keep going and the stress level keeps up, my concern is our quality of force will continue to go down. >> host: look degette choices does it mean we need more high-quality people or fewer deployments? what is the mix we need right now as we are looking at our deficit which is significant. there are proposals to cut defense as well as other programs. what will the choices be to either increase the size of the force or would cause a great deal of money to cut down to the deployment, much more restrictive and selective in terms of where you put these men and women which i agree are the finest and it is exhilarating to be in their presence when you see how dedicated and patriotic and courageous they are, with the are going back and back and

back and it's taking its toll, so we have a trade-off to look at. what is your recommendation? >> guest: first and foremost as you know, we always ought to use our diplomatic economic and political tools in the kickback if he will before we use military, and if there is any way we can avoid having to send our troops we certainly should do that. given where we are in afghanistan and iraq right now i think we will have to see what comes out of the meeting taking place in washington right now regarding afghanistan and the long-range plan but certainly we need to try to start to some way decrease the deployment and make it a longer time between deployments, but that rac has almost we have to look at the quality of -- what does it take to get the quality young men and women in this country to enlist an armed forces even given they are going to have repetitive to point. the congress is maintaining an army by the constitution a part

of their responsibility and with that i see a requirement to make sure the uniform leadership speaks out in terms of what it's going to take in terms of incentive to get the right people to come to the army not to keep lowering standards and we have to meet our reenlistment objective of putting pressure on the recruiting command but rather look at what we can do to save lives to get people to come in. does it take more education credits? does it take -- what does it take? and there are tools as you know can be used. >> host: you talk about the need to have adequate health care. the healthcare bill from the time you and i was serving at the pentagon as i recall it was around 19 billion per year. it's now about 55 and escalating , and secretary gates is saying we have to have some kind of restraint here. there is one component would be important to attract people, quote the people to come to the military. what are the other ones?

what else is it? i see this in the context when you decided after completing your first two years in the military to go back home to your wife, you've got a good job, 62 corvette, you love the corvette swapped the 63 in palo for the corvette, you have a nice german shepherd named stryker -- >> guest: trooper. >> host: you had kind of the ideal life if you decide you want to go back and having served your two years you said i want to go back. what drove you backing, but pulled back in from the quality-of-life you had at that point at a very young age? >> guest: you might say the band of brothers centrum, the fact my unit, the one i had trained with for two years, the first time division deployed to the imam and was in the valley and a number of my close friends had either been wounded or killed, and being back in the textile business are was doing

well and was fortunate to work with great guy is there but i felt like i had a calling to go back and join them and help in this fight our country had elected to put our military in, and so that drove me to say -- and i really enjoyed my time in the military because the close association with people and leading people and having a chance on a daily basis to have 40 or 50 people in the case of my platoon. there was a great challenge but a great opportunity as high slot. >> host: i ask in the context what if we go back to a draft situation as compared to an all volunteer force and most of the uniformed military including yourself have people who want to be there. what do you feel about a two year commitment to the universal service so the you can develop the same kind of relationship whether one is serving in the military and the peace corps working to help out in nursing

homes, something you contribute to the community of locally and at large, does it then helped to build this kind of band of brothers ship or sisterhood that you have been with people committed to a cause higher than yourself and that builds the sense of wanting to do more, so the case to be made for that? >> guest: the legs to that integrity, personal integrity, professional ethics and selfless service, and i believe that ties into the selfless service. i think every american knows it to the great nation of ours to give a portion, a very small portion for most of us to helping the country, and service in some organization would be the right thing to do. it could be the military, it could be the peace corps or some other organization but i think you gain a lot from that and i never talk to anyone who served a couple of years in the surface that didn't comment on what it did for them. i even talked to ceos of some

of our fortune 100 companies that say those two years i spent, one of them two years as an enlisted man in vietnam said i have never forgotten the lessons i learned of the leadership i learned during that period of time. it's quite impressive, so i think we all gain from that and the venetian certainly. >> host: with you see as the biggest threat to this country looking today and tomorrow? >> guest: i think in terms of external threats the biggest thing we have to watch is in our military now has a afghan -- we have a whole decade of officers and soldiers throughout that have only had an afghan and iraq experience and we have walked away from some of the training that we used to do ten years ago that prepared us to fight in a joint environment as an army navy air force integrated force in the large scale, and as we look down stream at the

potential threats whether or not we look at china and the growing offensive capabilities and their desire to control and the pacific or whether we look at a potential north korea and iran scenario that is not the same type of situation that you would find yourself in iraq or afghanistan. so we need to try to refocus i believe to make sure that we can deal with a total threat, not just a current threat. >> host: what are your thoughts about the situation of north korea right now? >> guest: i, you know, kim jong il was one of those individuals i think trying to read his mind is almost mission impossible, and so we think we just have to be prepared, but at the same time we have got some countries like japan and south korea working with us and us leaning on china and hopefully the u.n. leaning on china to engage with the north koreans and salt the situation politically, diplomatically,

economically if that's what it takes rather than doing everything within our power to keep it from the hot water, but again, we have to be prepared as to go to the rescue of our great friends and partners in south korea and that means a totally different focus and fighting in another theater and with the forces stretched in the army and marine corps that is a tall order. >> host: you are optimistic about afghanistan where we are today and with the prospect looks like in terms of bringing that country to a stable situation where they can secure their own borders and not provide a haven for either al qaeda or the taliban? >> guest: mr. secretary, i am not optimistic right now and i will go back to the morning of the 12th of september 2001 when the director of the cia george tennant said the toughest thing we will face in afghanistan in leaving a stabilized central

government or the war lords. you've got a 14th century culture, second most corrupt nation in the world, and we have got them trying to train the police force and train an army and give karzai the central government president, whoever he is the forces both internally that can protect them internally and externally and that is a tall order given the 14th century culture, and to think that we can do that and start pulling our combat forces out as early as 2011 on hankins a bridge too far. you can't get there from here and whether or not we want to commit to a long-term need a stable government behind keeping in mind that pakistan is a very important partner as well particularly with equal weapons we don't want them to fall to the al qaeda and they have a big threat themselves cetron team to work in that region and leave behind a region free of al qaeda or taliban rule is a pretty tall order and cannot be