administration. you heard no sources of in this administration. >> i would like to thank our panelists for a stimulating discussion. [applause] >> is very non-fiction author or book he would like to see featured on booktv? send an e-mail to booktv@c-span.org or four us at twitter.com/booktv. booktv talk with georgetown university professor nancy sherman about her latest book "the untold war". nancy sherman was interviewed as part of booktv's college series. it is about half an hour. >> host: what do you do for a living? >> guest: i have the glorious job of being a professor. i teach at georgetown university and this year i am at the woodrow wilson center so

occasionally i write books. i talk to veterans and soldiers about going to war and coming home. >> host: what is your connection to the naval academy? >> guest: i used to teach at the naval academy. 4 two years. i was there inaugural distinguished chair in ethics. they have a cheating scandal and they are in the limelight being near washington and they needed to brainstorm about how to teach ethics and so they called me in and -- i have taught ethics for years at georgetown for 20 years. some of that before, yale and as a graduate student. they were surprised that there had been people teaching ethics as part of the curriculum. we modified the course to talk about character in war and

character of midshipmen and sailors and marines. was fascinating. it was a fascinating tour of duty. >> host: what is your tour -- your background? >> i went to a problem in's college in pennsylvania and then i had a stint abroad. i have a degree from the university of edinburgh. then i came back and went to harvard. ph.d. from harvard in philosophy. and after harvard i started teaching at yale where i was associate professor of philosophy and then i came to georgetown with a stint at the naval academy and a few other lectureships here and there. >> host: was this your first exposure to soldiers when you went to the naval academy or had you been exposed to them before? >> it is an interesting history.

i love the era of vietnam with a brother and husband who were of age to serve in vietnam but in one case there was a graduate school deferments and my brother was for medical reasons not eligible. that was as you know a momentous historical moment on college campuses in the 60s and 70s and it was an unpopular war and given that there was conscription it was an especially unpopular war. when i went to the naval academy, la ended up serving as i like to say. i did serve as a public servant next to a colonel who had marine turtles who had been in vietnam and navy captains, navy

chaplains. so my formative years came back to me. now i was with individuals who had been there as opposed to who had been in the mall in washington protesting the war. it also came back to me, the most significant circle for me was my dad is a world war ii veteran. he was a medic. and he was silent of a laconic generation. never spoke and when i came -- showed that i had real professional credentials, my dad took an interest and began talking about is worse and as a daughter of a silent world war ii veteran that was the most wonderful thing that could happen. he opened a life for me. >> host: your most recent book

is called "the untold war," "the untold war: inside the hearts, minds, and souls of our soldiers" and i want to read a passage and have you expand on it. this is from the prologue. you rights holders are genuinely torn by the feelings of war. they desire wild revenge at times for they wish they wanted a nobler justice. the field pride and patriotism tinge with shame, complicity, betrayal and guilt. they worry they have sullied themselves if they love their war buddies more and their wives or husbands. if they can be honest with a generation of soldiers that follow. they want to feel whole and they see in the mirror that an arm is missing or having bagged their buddy's body parts they feel guilty for returning home intact. i suspect many have talked to me. the use so openly because they sense they are being listened to by someone who may help from find in the chaos of war a small

measure of moral clarity. >> guest: whoever wrote that captured as much of what are named to do in the book and hope i achieved. the book is testimonial from soldiers. the person who looks at herself in the mirror was one of my students or a student at georgetown who was a west point graduate, basketball player at west point. and when and headed up a unit of security detail in iraq and all was quiet. had enormous trust for iraqis and one night they were ambushed and she lost her arm and she was

in a medically induced coma and when she woke up at walter reed washington she was wrapped in white blankets and her parents began to tell her what happened and she said i don't want to know. it was hard but she went on to be a remarkable patient, to make a physical exercise program that was tougher than any physical therapist could put together and run to the ceo or was of a beltway kind of consultancy for military. this is resilience but there will be a little glimmer. i remember she said i will be in a store. kmart or something. i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and there is something missing and i feel freakish or she went with other

fats to a beach in san diego and she is from san diego and she said the water felt so good on her body. she is wearing a little cap top. and she said i will never wear a bathing suit again. these are losses and i am reminded -- an outpatient at walter reed naval hospital, two years and his parents whom i spoke to as well, said sam had a beautiful body and he has lost mobility. he lost both legs and use of an arm but he is rehabilitating with remarkable prosthetic bionic legs and with a

hard-driving, it is amazing. i get enormous inspiration, essay on warmongering. not an essay on the warrior cult or glorifying it. it is the truth. trying to be honest. there are nine conscription professional, men and marines and air force men and women who we often don't know because less than 1% -- >> why are they talking to you? >> that is a very good question. this is a culture i have been kept away from given my background. they kept me out of it.

and -- as a background in psychoanalysis. it is critical for me, and without judgment, they want to be heard but don't want to be sermonized or prejudged. that is a critical part. >> host: give another example who you talk to in the book. >> guest: there are so many interesting individuals. one is an individual who is in the reserves and he worked with me at the wilson center. i was a fellow in number of

years ago at woodrow wilson international center for scholars and now i am a public policy -- and he was part of the reserves from maryland and he really wanted to go to afghanistan. he thought that was the war worse going to end his unit was ready to go to afghanistan. they went to iraq and he was part of an intelligence unit. he wasn't looking for weapons of mass destruction but it was presumed that they repair and that was part of the mission. he said to me did we ever find w n ds? did we ever find wm ds? suckers like that by top brass is a hard pill to swallow. a man who has been around the block was popped by his unit by

his seniority. he was the senior enlisted, serve in bosnia as well. he was not a naive young kid. there was a sobriety to his remarks and what i came away feeling he wanted to explore with me was -- this is what i mean by moral clarity. there was a sense of betrayal he was experiencing that he had been betrayed by his command or by the president of the united states or the people who send him. and he had to bear the burden alone. bearing the burden of coming home and he was a person who had body parts scattered in trees and in fields that he played over and came home with a tape that was repeated in his mind of

smells and sounds of charred sizzling bodies and flesh. he came home with that and had to reintegrate. it was resentment of a sort but it was very simmering. not a anchor that was raging but simmering below the surface and it comes up when he has to deal with the va. navigating the bureaucracy-you don't come, the unit. your isolated. you are not coming home to fort bragg or large bases. you are coming homan your own so you have to work to make your

community. he was not a young eager. shi'ite 18-year-old who enlisted. he had been there before- >> host: is it easy to lose moral clarity? >> guest: we saw a disturbing incident, a video of the marine urination over a dead taliban body. i have been commenting a bet on it. it surprised me because as the war has gone -- the enemy has gotten more precise and the enemy remains invisible darting in and out of the population. our own rules of engagement in this decade of fighting to capture insurgency operations

have become much tighter, more constricted. what soldiers, marines can do on the ground or in terms of bringing in an air strike is more limited. under a tight will they feel their hands are tied. they grumble and if they can't let out their revenge against -- fay may do it against the dead. one of my students who is a former marine said it is not uncommon that you will have bodies at your feet and you are waiting for the proper authorities to collect the bodies. there will be the impulse to the file and it is really the command culture. leader, the sergeant in that group. there was a sergeant present who sets the tone, who sets the

culture. the control and check, and academy, what is all about. how to be professional and ethical military members so does it surprise me? know. is a grievous? yes. one small missteps setback international relations. they are furious but it is a tough job and it has been a long decade. >> host: a word you use several times in your book "the untold war" is sullied. what does that word mean and how do you use it? >> it means dirtied, feeling you lost your honor. i use it in particular of a

colleague i had who was a philosopher and we got to know each other through the circle -- he cared a lot about ancient warrior ethics. he was also a west point star student and wanted to go back to west point and was lucky enough to do so after he received a ph.d.. he hadn't really served in a robust wharf and wanted to go to iraq for the adventure, of royal and have street controls. private contractors with iraqi police. and the judicial killing that

wasn't authorized. some of the contractors. his moved deteriorated over time apparently. the head of the honor board at west point started to unravel and -- before he committed suicide in iraq essentially saying -- brings back feelings -- you think of ajax in the greek play who feels his honor was sullied because the shield of achilles, supposed to be the greatest warrior but didn't win the prize. there's that stature and in

vulnerability. we sometimes forget the vulnerability that war required because you're exposed to so much. suicide rates -- they're starting to go down but that is the tip of the iceberg to give you a sense of the real risk -- >> if this soldier came to you and said was it worth it, what is your answer? >> guest: i can answer that for a service member. they all struggle with that themselves. each war you have the luck of fighting the war you fight. you don't often get to pick your

war. my dad's war was world war ii. for some it was korea and they felt they didn't have the glory of world war ii. for others it was vietnam and for this generation iraq and afghanistan. some may protest the war early on and find out they didn't want that war and i think there should be a possibility for selective refusing. in israel there has been a movement of that sort toward selective refusal for some to fight in the occupied territories. others are struggling with this issue now. when they see iraq unravel a bit they see the city they worked hard to stabilize as mayors of the city and head of the elders and stability operations. i think they wonder and worry. for others will war will always be about each other. it will be about covering each other's back.

about a trust that is so deep. it will be about a passage you read from the book, fearing you love your buddy more than you love your family members at home and having to figure out how to renegotiate those family relationships when you have seen and experienced something so vital and exciting and potent. >> host: this is your second book on the military. your first being stoic warriors, ancient philosophy behind the military mind. before you went to the naval academy. before you started working with the soldiers did you have a background in any type of military training besides -- >> guest: no. i had been trained as a straight up moral philosopher. i work in ancient ethics, aristotle and plato and contemporary problems. always new territory for me.

i was a fly on the wall. an anthropologist in a new environment. what i noticed especially in thinking about that book stoic warriors was when i came to teach the segment on stoics in the newsroom, individuals like sacco and cicero, not stoic but rejects -- my military men and women from midshipman to admiral ate it up. they loved it. it was their philosophy and it set me thinking why. partly it is because it is a version of sucking it up. toughing it out. it is a persian that makes that very real and my effort in writing stalin warriors was to say it is more complexoic warri say it is more complex than

sucking it up. if you read carefully between the lines, they are often struggling themselves with how much are they willing to give up in order to toughen themselves. they realize that times it is a blessing and a curse. i wanted to expose that. i got my training on the job you might say but a lot of tools serve them well. >> host: when you went to the naval academy were any strict and put on your point of view or what you could talk about? >> guest: none at all. i was very happy. very respectable in of the way any university respected customs, shares with institutional like georgetown or the military environment. i can think of one instance

where there was ever censorship. in fact people don't realize this but at the naval academy, west point, the best officers want their midshipmen to say no when they get an unlawful order. they want to protect the unlawful order or the unethical behavior in the senior command. they want to be the messenger that takes it right up but they want to know that it could cost you a court martial. it shouldn't come lightly. you shouldn't fret about could you keep tupperware in your locker or squaring the corner or yelling this or that or eating six bytes and put out great marine campaigns and the trivia year required to learn and

recite in these academies. called into question your dignity or the dignity -- you were responsible for bringing that up and the reason i was there, a small potatoes item that could blossom into a huge fiasco if you were at war. not so much -- responsible leadership was required. >> host: what is the take away? >> guest: the take away in this book and my future work, the men and women you see coming off of the planes and the airport, and

when they have been up to. they are among us and have been serving us with a heavy burden and share the burden in some way with them and try to understand the visible wounds that they may not so easily talk about but might feel and even learn from them about that resilience and hope for soldiers. >> host: talk about the future. >> guest: i am thinking of the returning soldier, making peace with war. how to come home and the resilience and find meaning and purpose again after the tempo of war, also the vulnerability and

loss. it is an example from which we can learn it goes beyond war. >> host: booktv is on location at georgetown university. we have been talking to professor nancy sherman about her most recent book, "the untold war: inside the hearts, minds, and souls of our soldiers". it is a norton publication. >> guest: thank you very much. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. forty-eight hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> joining us on booktv is richard brake who is director of education for the intercollegiate studies institute. first of all, what is i s i? >> we are nonprofit education foundation. we have been around since the 1950s. bill buckley was our first president. our mission is to educate for

liberty by going after college students across the country. providing intellectual foundation for their conservatism. >> host: you also publish books and i would like to look at some of those. let's begin with this one edited by lee edwards. reading the right book:a guide for the intelligent conservative. >> guest: a scholar at the heritage foundation. a huge public service. a lot of college kids to they are conservative but don't know why. he gives you a little 100 page annotated bibliography that says to be a smart conservative leaders will not just a talk radio conservative leaders and you need to read books like road to serfdom, ideas have consequences by richard weaver gets to the conservative mind just to name a few. >> host: matthew spaulding has a new book. >> guest: we still hold these truths. we are excited about this book because not only is it an important primer on the founding principles of our nation but a

cpac has adopted as the theme of our conferences. we still hold these truths that we hold to be self-evident, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. it is about conserving the american experience. matthews balding is a senior scholar at the heritage foundation and his job is to link the eternal principles with current public policies. >> host: how do you publish books? >> guest: just like any other publisher we are looking around for the new lines of the conservative movement. people with senate proposals. we have been publishing for 20 years. one of our big books is rick santorum's book it take a family. rick caught fire in republican primaries but he was a senator from pennsylvania. he wanted to put forth a vision on