jim demint, rand paul, mark rubio, ron jon 75 these are new. there the future. look in the house that paul ryan, the michelle bachmann steve king, others come of legal march, there is a collor there. conservatism is mainstream. . .

>> okay. we've got time for one last question. >> thank you for your time today. my name is rick simmons and ayman american. and my question is -- [applause] kind of a technical question. >> i'm not allowed to ask for it. my question is i believe one of our problems is we have too many career politicians, and i would

like your thoughts on how we implement term limits in congress to eliminate career politicians and get new blood if he will into conagra's and new blood that may run for the presidency in the future so i would like your thoughts on that? >> it is amending the constitution, about term limits, which i agree with through convention which i strongly oppose because what a freak show convention that would be. i don't think we can do better than our founders and the runaway convention would be a runaway country so i'm just not comfortable with that. as a young man i wrote a letter and i said what's wrong with this convention? and he said no, i can't imagine any group of americans today can

do better than they did. so the other way of amending the constitution is you need a super majority road out of the congress, to surge and then three-fourths by the senate by the states. we won't get a supermajority in the limit of power, and it why don't we fight for it? i mean, the left is at it constantly. they have been at healthcare for a hundred years. they got a super majority, the president come a random home. we have to make some demands on our politicians, too on our candidates, too. they call a closed mind it. we have to push our agenda. there is a lot of things that need to be done and i don't want to give it away because i have fought about these things i like

your idea but it's something we have to keep pushing for and by the way it's not a magic bullet either. for instance i think the courts are out of control yet here we are. to get to court and you go all of these appointees are against us and then they institutionalized from the legal perspective which is what they seek to do so we have to be careful about that. but fundamentally what has happened is what i say. we are not constitutional. we adhere to the constitution in the breach, and the more the people understand that, the more they understand how dangerous it is and better chance we have. there's a lot of things that can be done, and the biggest problem we have in the country today is a virtue, and charles de montesquieu made a point.

once the public loses its virtue it ceases to be a public and that is the bottom line. have politicians all lost a virtue, have the people lost virtue? are we prepared to keep wondering one another? these questions are going to be decided in the next round of the election cycle, and i don't have an answer but there's a lot of things. there's no reason we should give up on certain constitutional amendments or any of these things and play for the short game whatever we have to play. these are complicated subjects which is why it takes a long time to answer one question because i try to get into the philosophy and history and ll economics and more practical aspects of it, too but i want to return to one thing when i leave here, you can be a spokesman for liberty at the dinner table, at

the workplace in your community and you can persuade, just imagine if 10 million of us persuade 10 million other people. it can have an nec incredible impact, so don't think that you are doing something small is not relevant, it's very relevant. i would ask you when you leave here do something he'd. >> thank you. [applause]

>> i want to thank you all for coming. i know you have better things to do on a friday night. it's a great honor. i don't do a lot of these events and i want to think the people of the library. this isn't just a library. i consider this like a national town hall meeting for people who remember the revolution and think we need another. so thank you very much. [applause] in a non-partisan way of course. >> speaking of thanks we want to give you a gift from the library, but i think i would like to make sure we give you diskette on behalf of everyone who was so nice to come out tonight and that is a fellow that we might recognize. [applause]

it is inscribed 2012 and there's a quote inscribed which is one of the very last lines in the book and it is a ronald reagan quote and it says it is time for us to realize we are too great a nation to live in ourselves -- limit ourselves to small dreams. >> thank you. [applause] we can do it, right? thank you. >> if i could ask everyone to remain in their seats for just a moment so mark and his family can exit this way and i know all of your joining us for dinner and you will be heading out the

door over to the air force one pavilion, so we will see you over there. thanks very much. >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] from the 2012 savanna book festival in savannah georgia, smadi discusses his book hope and seen a story of the u.s. army's first line active duty officer. this is just under an hour. [applause] thank you, linda. thank you just for making this

happen and please i will think your wife later this evening. i'm honored to be able to speak to you this afternoon.ase, i rode my autobiography and i will kind of cover that in the end but just to motivate and wrote inspire people and give a a glimpse of muty life and the the things often things of experienced to motivate and inse people and give them a glimpse into my life, the awesome experiences i've had and also the hard times. a glimpse of my life is a short way and then definitely love to open up to questions afterwards. so i'm standing on mount rainier at about 10,000 feet at camp mere. there's no trees, it's a beautiful, sunny day out. i'm sweating, have sun block on my face, apparently, a few thousand feet makes the sun a lot hotter. but it was warm, it was nice. a day earlier we had climbed to mount paradise, 4-6,000 feet up.

chicaned our way up through the ice sheet, but again, it was a very easy climb. and this day up at camp muir, we were practicing being tied in together on a four-man team because the next day we were going to attempt to make the summit. again, very relaxing. and as the day was coming to a close, we were all sitting around a campfire where the camp guides were warming snow to make water for us the next day, and as the lead climb guy after he was finishing the route that we were going to take said, you know, we're going to wake up about 11 and get climbing at 12. so as i'm going back to my tent with my buddies i thought, this is awesome, we're going to get 12 hours of sleep. he said, sorry, scotty, it's called alpine sleep, and you're going to get less than two.

i did get less than two. we could not have asked for a better night to climb. the moon was out, the stars were shining, we all had little lamps on our foreheads to see where we were going and in case for safety reasons guides or safety rangers could come and find us if anything happened. but again, it was a beautiful, beautiful evening to climb. and we'd stop about every hour and a half to two hours to rest sitting on our backpacks, drinking water, gatorade, getting some type of energy. and after we had summited through disappointment lever, this huge rock face on mount rainier, my legs were done. my quads, my core, my arms, my body was dead tired. and as i sat on my backpack just thinking you still have thousands of feet to go, tens of thousands of steps, the lack of oxygen, it's getting to you. i looked up at the lead climb guy and said i don't think i can

make it. i don't think i can make it to the top. i rewind several years earlier, raising a large family, three brothers, three sisters. we were definitely a team, and we definitely fought together, but that competition that i had with my two older brothers and, you know, always trying to be tougher than my younger sisters who probably beat me in everything, it pushed -- i pushed myself. academically, physically and spiritually. because i knew inherently that in order to be someone and to do something i had to get a job, i had to do something with my life. and it had to start now. so that meant i had to study, do homework even though i never liked it, never wanted to do it. but i knew inherently i had to push myself to be someone in the future. and as i came close to the end of graduating, i chose to attend one of the best schools in the world, united states military academy, in west point, new york. you know, we telling my mom and dad, my mom crying like why

don't you go to the air force academy be, it's only a few states away. [laughter] you know, we're from washington state, and new york and washington, that's two sides of america. and inherently i kind of knew my mom would probably visit me just as much in new york as she would in colorado, but having an older brother at west point kind of meant something to me, and that was one of the deciding factors. me dating my girlfriend, it was difficult to say good-bye because we all know how important high school girlfriends are. so as i'm heading on my one-way ticket by myself, yeah, one way. like, i knew i only had one ticket, and it was going to drop me off in new york. the first half an hour of that flight i just spent crying, tears were coming down. and i know the men and women sitting next to me were like what's wrong with this guy, he'sback coe. but i was leaving my comfort zone, i was leaving my

girlfriend. that same day i got from the military academy, they shaved my head, put a gray t-shirt on me, very high black shorts, black socks up to my knees, black loafers on. yes, i did look like a dork, but i was comforted because everyone else looked the same. everyone was on the same team, so there was a comfort. it's funny to say this, but they gave us rank. it was new cadet. no, not cadet, new cadet. they didn't even call us cadet until we became a cadet. but new cadet we were told how we ranked. it was right below the commandant's dog -- [laughter] yes, dog. but luckily, we had a little self-worth because we were ranked right above be naval

goat -- the naval goat. but we also had to do duties every day. as new cadets you delivered upper classmen's round ri, clean the toilets, do odd-end jobs. we thought they were worthless, but it was important. just household chores. and i remember going down the hall 120 paces per minute, that's moving out without running, carrying this big pile of laundry, didn't know who it was, didn't know where they lived, i didn't know anything. and this upper classman stops right in front of me, this female. and i'm 210 pounds of twisted teal and sex appeal. i'm a big dude. [laughter] and when she stops me, i'm like yes, ma'am. and she's like, i'm not a ma'am, i'm a sergeant. where are you going? no, sergeant, no, ma'am -- [laughter] and i just start balling. and -- bawling, and, i mean, it's embarrassing to say, and it's sad to say, but after she pulled her jaw off the ground in

shock, this big, burly dude is crying in front of her, she looked at me and said, hey, you need to understand that we're training you here for a reason. and in 47 short months, you're going to be leading men and women in the united states army. and if delivering a piece of laundry is this difficult for you -- [laughter] you may need to reconsider what you're doing here. and she said, go back to your room, get yourself together because i was probably still sniffling, and think about why you're here. and so i did. i went back to my room. and like i said earlier, everything that i had, none of it was the same. my whole life was stripped from me. but they did allows to keep one knickknack. apparently, everything that is yours is called a knickknack. i don't know the definition of knickknack other than something that you own, but the one knickknack that i was able to carry with me was my bible.

and so i open it up. and specifically to philippians where paul is talking about he's been beaten, he's tired, he's hungry, but he says, you know, through christ i can do all things. i'm thinking to myself, okay, a guy who's been beaten, a guy who's hungry and tired, he doesn't mention delivering a piece of laundry, like i'm pretty pathetic. but it really got me thinking that if god wants me here for a reason, my family, i think i have a purpose. i need to gather myself together and pick it up and understand the values that i'm being taught, the selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage, the values we're being taught on a daily basis and do my job to the best of my ability. so i did. i made a decision to stay at the military academy. i made a decision to make a difference. and as i went through the military academy, i gained great friends; edward, dave, adam, just amazing christian men i could hang out with. they said i always studied, well, i was there for a reason,

to get good grades. and i was coming up a little short many times. [laughter] so i knew the importance of life. but i also attended biblical, christ events, officer christian fellowship. i was able to teach sunday school my junior and senior year with my friends. and we taught second grade and, granted, if any of you do drop your kids off at daycare or sunday school, make sure they don't run the operations like i did. we would line the desks up, and these students would be running on the desk. i was always afraid someone was going to break their arm and it would have been my fault. we remember this andrew harris, cute, darling little boy, chubby. i've got two boys, they're kind of chunky. but he was darling. what's up, drew? my name's andrew, and i said, but yeah, drew's a cool name, right? yeah, i guess. it was awesome to see how i was trying to positively influence him because i know in my life

the way i was positively influenced by sunday school and men and women that i looked up to, it was just awesome to see the positive impact that i was able to make and just a small difference i was able to make in people around me. and luckily, i was able to graduate in 47 months with my class, and i think we were all very happy and never thought i'd see that beautiful place, west point, again. and was finally able to move out to fort lewis. i happened to date the girlfriend that i'd left four years earlier, five years later tiffany became my bride, still with me now. and i was finally able to receive a 45-man platoon. i mean, given i was 23 years old, i now was in charge of four stryker vehicles. if you don't know what a stryker is, it's a big metal vehicle with eight wheels, four on each side, the first four turn. you can, i think the driver can push a button, do you want to use four-wheel drive or eight-wheel drive?

and i'm like, how is eight-wheel drive a choice? but it was awesome. shoot .50 caliber machine guns, throw grenades, it was awesome just to see the leadership opportunities that i was given. that female that had stopped me in the hallway four, five years earlier was right: the challenges in the army were a lot more, were a lot more severe. the values that i was taught -- integrity, personal courage -- were huge. i remember counseling soldiers on a daily basis, why are you late? why didn't you show up? you know, great job. that was awesome on pt, that was great leadership. it was just amazing to see the awesome opportunities that i had. and after a few short months of being at fort hue bit -- lewis, we received orders to deploy to iraq. and again, it's hard to go home, tell your wife sorry, honey, i know we've only been married for five months, and i didn't tell you this, but two of those months i was at ranger school. i was only able to talk to her

for five minutes over those two months, so she luckily still loved me and still stayed married with me, so i was still in the good. but now telling my wife that, sorry, i've got to go for a year, it was hard. it was difficult. again, the stress, the anxiety began to, began to come down. but again, i knew that god had me there for a reason, and i knew i was still serving my country, protecting our constitution. so we pushed out. six months after being a platoon leader, training my men, making sure they're in physical fitness, mentally straight, physically right, we deployed to iraq. and i was able to keep a journal on a daily basis, and it's funny, the first thing i wrote was i feel at home. i'm at pascal, washington, and in the summertime it's 95 degrees, no trees as far as the eye can see. hit down in iraq, same thing. it was creepy, but i felt at home.

it was awesome to see the work that we americans and international forces were doing over there. we were helping rebuild their government, helping rebuild iraq. my platoon was in charge of the mayor's government center protecting it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. we helped rebuild schools. i remember going into schools, and they had softball-sized holes in the ceilings. the blackboards were curled away from the wall, unusable. two to three children were sitting in one chair. two to three children in one chair. if i was the third, i'd love to be in the middle. but it was sad. none of them had books. just the poverty, it was so sad to see. but we helped build those schools. we helped rebuild parks. we handed out soccer balls to the students and the kids. it was awesome to see the amazing impact that we were having. we helped redistrict electricity, gas lean. it was just the amazing impact

that we continually made was awesome. however, we were attacked on a daily basis by insurgents. attacked with improvised explosive devices, bombs in the road, bombs in cars, suicide car bombs, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades. any number of weapon they were using against us. i lost my company commander, captain bill jacobson jr., on december 2 21st of 2004, the day after my first anniversary. he lost his life in the mess hall bombing with 21 other men and women in the united states. 60 or so other men and women were injured. it was devastating to see. i ended up losing six of my soldiers being wounded and being sent back to the united states. the loss of life was hard. it was hard to take. it was hard to comprehend. but in the end i knew we were still there for a reason, we

were still there for a purpose. one of goals that i had was to read through my bible in a year, and i continually did it. whether it was out in the city, in my little hutch, my men would ask me, sir, what bible -- what book is that? oh, it's the bible. i was able to pray behind my stryker just taking it in. it was awesome to see the positive impocket in that i was able to make. but in 2000 my life -- 2005 my life was forever changed. i was actually first a little ticked off because we had the same information as the day before and, unfortunately, i looked up at the date on the top of the page, and it said, no, april 6th. as i was -- my platoon and i were heading out the gate, i was joking with one of my squad leaders. you know, it's funny, i'll have been married to my wife a year and a half after this deployment, and i'll only be

with her five months. i don't know, it was just something funny that i said. after getting a description over the radio on a possible location of the suicide car bomb, it may have been spotted, we headed north into the city. going over some rough terrain in sketchy places of town, talked with my company commander, an amazing man. and he told me, hey, go search up in this area. that may be in the location. as i was coming north, i spotted the suspicious vehicle. he was on the northern side of the road facing west as this road intersected with one to have main highways. and as i'm coming from the south, i turned to cordon him off because i knew that was the best decision i could make. if this man was bad, which no one knew, i had to protect the iraqi people. i had to protect international/american forces. so i was parked just 25 yards to

his south. 25 yards away from his vehicle. he was parked about 10-15 yards to the south of the market. the markets were where everyone bought/sold groceries, fish, food, anything and everything. honestly, i looked for six months for a store, and i never found one. apparently, they were all markets. but as i looked into the car, it was only a single driver. head was cleanly shaven, face was cleanly shaven, looked like an innocent, nice guy. had a gray shirt on, long-sleeved shirt that came down to his wrists. he was in a silver opal, opal were apparently cars that everyone in iraq drives and no one in america knows about. but again, the suspicion was raised when i realized the back of the car was a little lower to the ground than the front. and given the rules of engagement, you can't just shoot someone because they looked suspicious.

well, sir, scott, why did you shoot him? well, i got scared. you got scared? so you killed a man? well, yeah, sir. like, i have a gun. like, you can't do that. and given the rules of engagement, you can't just shoot someone unless you know they have the weapon, you know they're aiming, or you know that they've been -- they've killed someone or they're in, i should say, they're in the action. so given the rules of engagement, i couldn't just shoot someone that looked suspicious. so i knew the best thing to do was to yell at him to get out of his car. so as i did, i was looking over my left shoulder kind of facing him. i was in the lead stryker vehicle, had metal basically up to my neck, i was inside the stryker standing up. i still had my m-4, my oakley m frames on, i was looking cool.

had my kevlar on. doing everything that i was supposed to do. looked at him and said, hey, get out of your vehicle. and i knew he heard me because he looked over his shoulder straight at me and raised his hands off the steering wheel and then put 'em back down. nothing happened. i was like, okay, well, maybe he understood or maybe he's saying i don't know where i am, i'm lost. i didn't know. so i yelled at him again. he raised his hands up again off the steering wheel and shook his hands no and let his foot off the brake. i then had to make a decision. so i shot two rounds in front of his vehicle with my m4 and, boom, my world went black. i woke up a week or so laettner walter reed army medical center, my life forever changed. my world went black not only physically, being blind the rest of my life, the shrapnel had cut

my left eye in half, entered the frontal lobe on the left side of my brain and metal went through my cornea and taking out my optic nerve. i saw nothing but blackness and was told by the ophthalmologist that you would never be able to see again. so my life went physically black. that day. but it also went spiritually black. i no longer believed in god. everything that i'd done, everything that i believed in now no longer meant anything to me. i remember one of my best friends, edward, coming into the room. i think it was before one of my surgeries and said, hey, scotty, why don't you say a prayer? i said, no. i don't know how to pray, and i don't know god. and i think it, the room went dead silent. like if there were cockroaches in the room, you would have heard 'em. my wife went back to her room realizing, you know, i'd been

married to an awesome man, and i still am, and i'd be fine married to a blind guy, but being married to someone who didn't believe in what he believed in before, that was something different. so she began to pray. friends began to pray all around the world. and for me it was a choice that i had to make. it was a personal choice that i had to make. i knew i had support. friends would come into my room on a daily basis singing christian songs. i know doctors thought our room was creepy because balloons would be coming out, i thought the room was huge. apparently, it was like a little match boxcar. but it was that support. but again, it still came back to me. i was the one that had to make a choice. i was the one that had to choose to make a difference. my company commander called me every other day to see how i was doing. we were awesome friends. my brigade commander would call me every week to see how i was

doing. something that doesn't normally happen in an organization, to have the top leadership call you to see how you're doing? the support that i had was amazing, was awesome. and people like toby keith, country singer, gary sinise, the actor, generals, three-star, four-star would come in and try to see me and i'd say, no, no thank you. and one day my wife said, scotty, andrew wants to see you. she didn't say who it was, but something hit me. it was andrew harris, the boy who i had taught sunday school with three years earlier had driven down from west point, new york, with his dad to come and see me. and i don't know if i knew that day or in the days to come that the impact that i had made on that young child had done a 380 -- 180, and now this child was positively impacting me in

an amazing way. i knew if a little boy who was seeing this torn apart man crying on his bed, if he still looked up to me, i still had a purpose. i still had things to give back. i still had so much to do. and i, again, it was a choice that i had to make. i could have been someone like gary sinise in forest gump, i don't know if you remember lieutenant dan living a pretty lascivious lifestyle, or continue to fight, continue to serve and live by the army values of selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage. and luckily, i chose the latter. i still wanted to serve. i still wanted to give back. so i made a decision that day that i was going to get out of bed, you know? granted, the injuries to my brain, i was still partially paralyzed, and as i pulled the

iv, like, little stand over to me i'm not sure if i was going to ride that into the bathroom to take a shower or what, but i was getting out of bed. please, scotty, stay seated. the nurses came in, put me into a wheelchair and took me to the shower. and that day i took the worst but best shower of my entire life. it was the worst shower because i had no energy. the only thing that i could do was to hold on to the ada shower rail in the shower as my knees were quivering. the water felt like needles and knives pricking me, my neck, my back. it was burning. the nurses, i could have swore they had steel brillo pads as they're scraping my back, scraping my shoulders. it was terrible, and that's why it was the worst shower of my entire life. but it was the best shower of my entire life because i had made a decision. i had made a decision to make a difference, to accept the life that i had been given, to accept

that i was going to be blind the rest of my life, but i was still going to live. i was still going to make and be someone. i wasn't sure who, but i was still going to stand and be someone. and that verse that i had looked up back in west point, philippians 4:13, came back to me. i can still do all things through christ who strengthens me. i just had to make a choice. and that's what i did. and as i continued my recovery, walking every day step by step, building off of what i had dope the next day and -- done the next day, and sometimes it'd be two steps forward, one step back. i know my wife, i'm sorry, those one step back were definitely hard days. i was able to move on, attend the blind rehabilitation center in palo alto, california, where i was able to learn how to use a computer, learn a little bit of

braille -- it got tough. but again, i still wanted to be who i was before, and it's funny, we all here want to be independent somehow, some way. i'm married and, you know, sometimes i don't like my wife nagging on me, and i know she's not, and i know she doesn't like me nagging on her. but that independence was still, like, just hovering over me. i want to do things on my own. i want to go to the gym on my own. i remember, you know, asking to go to the gym at the blind blind center, and they kind of looked at me like, huh? what that's that? i was like, i want to work out. 210 pounds of twisted steel and i think you kind of know the rest, i wanted to work out. but they wouldn't ever let me go by myself because they were too scared i was going to get lost. ..

you listen for the cars and cross the street and entered the sidewalk again and take the first right. then you take the first left and about 15 or 20 yards ahead it's the jim, very easy. on was jury surprised they wouldn't let me do this before on my own. after a couple of weeks of doing it the final let me go by myself and i usually work out in the afternoons after i'd done all my training, walking around, learning braille, learning how to cook, how to do all the necessities of life. you know, it was about 4:45 and about 5:451i finished. i know the importance ofof drinn drinking water now. i was dehydrated.. so i'm heading out in thel i 95-degree sun. i needed to do was make the

first right, take the first gh left, across the alley way, waite, 1520 yards air-conditioner, water, of some. as i crossed the alley i don'ttf feelee the mess. so you increased the arc just in case you missed something andtha realize i'm lost. many of us here when you arebac lost and backtrack its common backtrac senseki a blind guy backtrackini was where itknow where i was. and a half an hour later i am still lost. trust me, i'm a very open person as you can tell unalaska 2-year-old if they can talk, what's true to my aunt. how do i get here? that there was no one. no one was around.

it stopped sweating about 20 minutes earlier. dehydrated, angry at life, not understanding why i was put in this position. i threw my stick down in anger and just sat down started crying kamas guide, whiny me, why this? unfortunately, it never should've been the question i asked. i don't think it came to me that day, but in weeks and months to come, it should've been how, how can me? what are you going to use me for? but also, trust in other people. you don't have to be this independent study does every day and yourself. on top of the world. no, working as a team and relying on others. i made a decision. not only copy, but in the months to come i had to depend on other people and i had to make a

difference. and if i want to make a difference it couldn't be on my own. one of the other decisions i had to make in a few months was that i want to stay inactive duty in the united states army? know in the united states army has ever been blind. they have been blind, but there quickly moved. no one had actually ever been blind and that's okay, i'd like to stay on active duty and how do you say okay. the last part is the hard part because i think there've been a lot of people who are combined and stay on in the army says thank you for your service. would really appreciate it. we the paycheck for you somewhere else. for me, that was the decision i wanted to make because i still wanted to make a positive change, knowing the enemy, but in the community. after praying with my wife and friend boat commanders, it was a decision i made to stay on active duty.

as i push forward and went through the struggles of having generals e-mail you and call you and seek it out at the army, i don't think you know what you're doing, you're really messing up the situation in the army's anders, trust me, iran alone ship. but again, having amazing leaders like the chief of the army corps of engineers, general casey, general haig and, general shoemaker, general petraeus, general aggregate command called me and said we support you, want you to stay in. leaders like that i continue to want to be like. leaders like that i wanted to make a difference just as they had. and so i did. i was able to stay inactive duty. that brings me back to not renew your period just before a 10 duke university, i am on narnia, blind. every step i was taking us to the young punk independent guy

who wanted to do everything himself, did need help, didn't need assistance. so again, breaking down and i know my friends make fun of me. i don't think i can make it. man i was worse. i'm probably going to die on this mountain. avalanche is going to come. i'm too tired. but again, i came to that choice. i have to do it with other people's decisions in god's decisions. so i oscillate guy, a medic in the right steps quirks of course the answer was no, you're not your tenacious little small things like that i was able to start pushing forward. and again making change to finally something i'm not really that day come a beautiful sunny day out. it was awesome and i felt like i was on top of the mountain. but it is funny that it wasn't these little problems or i could

say actually big problems that were the end of minister problems in my life. i was blind. and the issues that have, whether he can in lost the palo alto sidewalks, not wanting to move out of my bag, getting tired on the rainier, they went into my pelvis, just as we all know here with issues every day and i know is they quickly to introduce from the nba, my problems were not over. imagine statistics class. as you can see here been in business today not to do you get this. the students i cannot. unlike now, what are you talking about? financial accounting. hundreds of thousands of excel blocks with numbers that work off each other. i just did a small glimpse, one block at a time. unlike a paperless or thousand 455. look on your sheet.

okay, where is the? i mean, it was amazing the issues that i had come of it all came to teamwork. it all came back to the army values that i had to trust another people. the platoon i'd know, men and women that supported me was the same support i still needed. having friends like eli here today be a partner that would help describe instantly and understand where things went and how things went allowed me to finally graduate and it was awesome. again, i felt like i was on top of the world, graduated with an mba. there was a small step to better myself and making a positive change because quickly after graduating from duke was back to my alma mater at the united states military academy. like i said earlier, something i never thought i would have to do again is to see that place and

luckily i never had to see it. last night that i was now instruct her. as teaching military leadership to students. 18 students per class. teaching and leadership, transformation leadership, been an extreme environments. was awesome. it is funny because the first time i went to class no one knew i was fine. i say hey how are you guys doing. i'm scotty. though, jodi. hate you doing. as i started the class, segmenting scotty smiley. i'm a military leadership instructor. awesome to have you all. looking around the tip of a gas, do do do. something important to know i'm blind. if you want to raise your hand from your arm is going to get tired. [laughter] hollis half of them laughed because they literally thought i

was joking. the other half is like, is he serious clerics they quickly found out guess i was, but it was awesome and amazing at it since i had throughout my short life that gave me an amazing ability to teach them, and amazing ability to begin a positive change i had wanted to make that change, to counsel soldiers and council cadets to lead them to do physical fitness in the morning with them and then in the afternoon, to get educated more and more each day to make a positive change. after one semester teaching my class asked me, scotty, do you want to commend the company. commanding a company has been in charge of 200 soldiers. you manage, lead them from six in the morning when you do physical fitness to whenever you are done at night.

and when he asked me, i was in shock. because i was registering, but fair. i didn't say this, but sir, i am blind. how am i going to do that? but i think he could see the positive nature and the positive impact as making a statement that i couldn't do anything but make a positive change in the company there at west point. and so i did. i went home, tactile life and she was in shock. are you sure? i serious? was like yeah. i think he knows i'm blind. [laughter] but if he does that, let's go for it anyway. but again it was awesome to see the change as able to make in the way of transitioning unit at west point. wounded soldiers who'd been injured in combat who had cancer hard issues, nest their knees or shoulders that they have to be

somewhere. and he gave me the ability to the time in the positive difference in their lives. and it was awesome to make a change and as i had gone through struggles and trials have been able to resolve some and continue to move on, and opportunity came to tell my story, to write not a biography casino military after action reviews, how to sack o, how do you do, what are some good sustains and improves and that is what i wanted to do was to continue to make a positive interest, write a book about change, hope, write a book about how my life has been positively influenced by not only god, but my family and friends in the united states army. so that's what they did was write a short story about the

positive changes on it positive basis. or this ability to attempt to make a change. we still go through trial. it's all about getting out and continuing to make a change in a daily basis. thank you so much for having me here. [applause] we have about 15 minutes for questions and we have a routing might. if you have a question for mike is over here. raise your hand and shall come

over to you. >> remember i can't see hands. but they are raised, red that? >> thank you. i'm here with my wife today and it is her birthday. i do not hobble chios, but she's had a lot of birth dates. during that time she's done a lot of great presents, that's your talk today was the greatest of all. [applause] captain smiley, how long do you expect to stay in the serious clerics >> right now, and still active duty in the united states army. my family and i moved from west point new york about five to go in the ac in georgia right now.

i'm attending the captains career course, mandatory course for army officers and after this i am going to attend a university merkin a rotc program, which is in washington state close to home. and for me, but factor in how long you to stay in the army is how long i can take me to love the positive impact in the positive change i'm able to make. i think each and every day as i see the soldiers of nice and the men and women unable to serve it, i still think it's going to be some years before my wife either forces out of the army or we make a deciding area that god has a bigger and better place for me. so right now, i can't say i'm enjoying what i'm doing. >> thank you for your commitment. >> thank you.

>> hi scott, jennifer griffin. i want to ask you, what is the last image that you have the sheer number? >> the last image that i remember your, physical image is the man who blew himself up. that is the last thing that i remember seeing. now on top of that, while given that, that's not a very good image to have in my memory bank. so i sent to cover it with the last time i saw my beautiful wife. the last time i saw her. i use my company commanders computer to skype her and my company commanders talking to his wife and my wife was over at her house and it's kind of a funny little story, that she had a change action on and let

absolutely gorgeous, beautiful. and you can imagine, and freshly married in six months away from my wife. i think you may know what i'm talking about. it was hard. but her beauty was just amazing. the funny story to that as i saw her look over her left shoulder and i knew someone was talking to her. and a few seconds after she takes her jacket off and she has this little tank top on and i think what happened i later heard months later was the company commanders wife said to think he really wants to see bundled up in a jacket? so i haven't actually think my company commanders wife for letting me see my wife shoulder, but again, those are the views that i try to think of than just my wife's beauty. i.t. beautiful little boys, just imagining what their faces look

like. it is hard to say that i'll never appealed to see my boys in space, but they are cared for, personality, the motion they draw, their happiness is all fun and it so amazing that with a very plain the park or upside down of something, jumping off picnic tables, i think i still train my children like i do this sunday schoolers, but it's just asked them to how those boys look and just remember or to try to think of what they are view, what they look like. but again unfortunately the last thing i remember seeing is the man who blew himself up. the question was how old are my boys. i have two amazing beautiful boys. the first is greedy. he's a little over four and a half and the second is grand, a little over two and a half. brady was named after we thought it was a cool name and they are

not twins. they are two years apart. graham was named after one of my best friends, edward korean, again a friend who stood by my side through thick and thin and was thereby my bad praying for me, supporting me and children's names, to name aspirin office i wanted it to be someone as impactful and amazingness and. so today my son graham was up but an honor. >> good afternoon. q. forgive the suicide bomber and the feeling he been some bizarre way a feeling of his own clinic >> idea. i was part of the healing process as each and every one of us go through trials and struggles. it is coping. if the coping mechanism. for me, denying being blind is

hey open your eyes. the caseinate, buddy. it was hard not to deny it. but at the same time, part of not denying it except dean. and part of accepting the forgiveness process and for me being a christian, forgiving was the toughest thing i had to do was forget the man who blew himself a period it was hard. he had a mission. he had a purpose in just a greater purpose here, those two missions were conflicting with each other. uninsured -- i hope i did something onto a family over there they would forgive me. but that is difficult for me to forgive and i was able to finally forgive him. but on top of that i had to forgive myself because i was the one that placed myself there. i was the one, canada short story short story told aitchison from the military academy to go infantry chose to be in the unit i was then.

i chose to be in a place that was at that time. i know all of this year, things happen to have a guess, they are not our choice. people do things to us and forcing upon us. people confront us and they are not our fault. but in my situation, i had to forgive myself. but most importantly, in the healing process, i had to ask god to forgive me. you know, we all say it is very difficult to forgive someone and trust me, i know it is. but to deny god, the person i have loved my whole life and the person i vote doubt torrents and then the person i say goodnight to live and good morning to first, to deny him was the hardest thing that i did and to ask for his forgiveness was difficult. but once i did that, i was able to start moving forward and start making mall steps and recovering. like i said a little earlier, it

is not like the light just turned on. at meal time again i'm blind, let's go move on. no, it's difficult. the healing process takes time. it takes time to know that you're blind, to know that this is the life you're going to live, but to take small steps in getting out of bed, taking a shower, learning how to brush her teeth again come eat again. all these things take time. but in the end, i would never change a thing in my life. being blind, everything that has happened to me i would not change a thing because i know god has opened up the door for me to speak my beliefs come to share my beliefs on who he is and what i believe and i just don't think i would've ever had that opportunity if i was on arbakai and not had my eyesight taken. so i would never change anything that it happened. but again come it started with me and it started with

forgiveness. >> hello. i wanted to laugh, was anyone else injured during the attack quiet >> is actually other people that were injured. my squad leader who is in the right back hatch, he passed out because of the concussion blast and the gunner and the left rear hatch. so the striker has four hatches. the driver has won in the very front as the fifth hatch. but if he ever opens up, he would get beat down because it uses the driver to your vehicle, your 12 soldiers unable to know. so i was in the front left hatch. my ve