opportunities. i assume though that you inside the administration was that these issues could be separated. maybe that wasn't the case generally. i don't know, but could you talk a little bit about whether or not people within the administration, the president himself thought that these issues were separable or whether they thought they were fundamentally linked, both politically and in terms of policies to? by the way, this will have to be the last question because we are wrapping up in a few minutes. what do you think? ..

>> well, some women's groups wanted to give the white house a bust of susan b. anthony. now, you all know who she was. there's a bust of her in the crypt of the capitol. so they had a copy made in bronze, she was very severe looking -- [laughter] and, well, she was, i guess, but she was effective. and between the time she arrived and we could get a presentation arranged with mrs. nixon, she sat in my office, my closet on

the third floor of the old eob. and in the dead of night on occasion, she would steal out of there, and she would land in the office of somebody who had said or done something detrimental to women. [laughter] and then i had to go rescue her in the morning -- >> and tell us whose offices -- >> ron ziegler was number one. [laughter] the press secretary. >> all right. but just finally i want to ask each of you in a sentence, what do you want this audience to take away? what should they know about this time, a time when it was a matter of simple justice during the, those years during the administration of president nixon? helen? >> well, i particularly want the young women to understand what really went on to make the road

easier for them, that it was not just paving over, and the door was wide open. not by any means. it was a strugglement and a lot of -- it was a struggle. and a lot of women worked hard to make it happen. and i just feel it's important that the young women understand this. >> i agree completely. i'd like young women and maybe older women or men to understand the trailblazing and the breakthroughs that were made that really did open opportunities that are being enjoyed today. that's thing number one. thing number two, the women back then really supported each other, that was important, and that presidential leadership, president nixon in this case, presidential leadership really made a difference dpl. and i would second both of those and say i hope that anybody that

reads this book will come to appreciate the incredibly hard-working, talented and feisty ladies who are represented in this, in these a few good women project, and be you've got two of them right in front of you. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> and thank you, and thank you, penn state, for publishing the book and for loaning lee and getting this project going. thank you all for being here, good night. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> up next, mitch weiss and kevin maurer talk about their book "operation commando wrath." the operation was conducted by u.s. special forces soldiers in afghanistan in 2008. ten soldiers in the unit received silver stars for their conduct in battle which is the most awarded to a unit since

vietnam. this is just under an hour. [applause] >> all right. well, thank you guys for coming. we appreciate you guys all being here. um, what we thought we'd do today is talk a little bit about the book, not only the story and about the guys in the book, but also about how we came about the book, how we found the story and how we actually put it all together and sort of in a way wrap up what it all means even now, even though the battle was two years ago. it still resonates today to events that are happening right now and the reasons why things happen in the book are still happening now. so, um, with that said before i get started, completely open for questions. if you have questions, even in the middle, just jump up and ask them because we can get a good conversation going. but let's start from the beginning. mitch and i at the time, i was working at the associated press,

and i was covering fort bragg for them, and i was told about this story. and at the time they were going to award tensile very stars -- ten silver stars. it's the third highest medal for valor, and it's very rare you see ten at the same event, so of course that piqued my interest. so i went up to fort bragg, and i did a bunch of interviews with the guys. and as we get into the story, you'll realize this story, there was just something about the team, there was something about the mission, and there was just something about the story and what happened that i couldn't shake. and after i wrote the story, it got widely played all over the country. but it stayed with me. and mitch and i had been talking for a long time about doing a book together. i had already got, i was getting ready to leave the ap to go to afghanistan for ten weeks, so we were looking to work together since i was going to go, and this book just sort of landed in our laps.

it was just a story that we felt compelled to tell because it was just much bigger than all of us. >> i think one of the important things as an author or even as a journalist is telling a story, and that's really important. and so when kevin came to me with the idea about turning the battle of the shock valley into a book, i said, wow, you know, let me do some research, let me read, you know, about the battle. and i called up kevin's story, i looked at what had been written because this was a major news event. this was covered not only by the associated press, but by "the washington post", and the story went out all over the country. and why not? it was an heroic mission. you had ten men who were caught in the battle, and they earned ten silver stars, and the army said that this was a mission

that disresulted the enemy in -- disrupted the enemy in the shock valley. and you have to understand where the shock valley is. it's this remote province, this remote area in northeastern afghanistan, and it's a place where we started doing our research before we decided to do the book where even the soviets didn't venture. this was a really remote part where no one had gone really before. and we looked at it, and we said, you know, why were they sent on this mission? because before you start a book, you always do your background to try to find out more about it. and when we read, you know, what had been written and kevin had interviewed some of the soldiers, we said, wow, this is a really good story. but the key to telling any story is getting the cooperation of the people who are involved.

so after we decided that this would really be a good book because this is a story the american public should know about, i mean, this is a heroic battle involving special forces, you know, going after, you know, the enemy deep in this remote valley. we called some of the soldiers, would they consider writing a book, would they consider being part of a project to, you know, tell what happened. and at first they were reluctant, and we didn't know why because there had been so many stories written about it, but there'd been so much publicity that i think we thought at the time that one of the reasons was they were kind of, they didn't want that much publicity. you know, these guys are elite soldiers. they do their job. they didn't really want any credit for what happened. and so we continued to call them and ask, and finally we had a meeting that was set up with

some of the soldiers including sergeant scott ford and luis morales who was an integral part of the team, and we talked about what we wanted to do, that we wanted to write the military narrative that brought the battle to life so people could see really what happened there, the heroic acts. and they weren't sold on the idea at first because of all the publicity that had surrounded the battle. they didn't want any credit for it. but finally after that meeting and mainly talked to people who knew kevin, had a terrific relationship with special forces i said we want one thing, we want you to tell the truth about what happened.

well, of course, we were going to tell the truth, but they said, no, we really want you to tell the truth what happened, you know, during the mission. and that's really what intrigued us because we thought the story was about the battle. but as we soon found out, there was more than just the battle that went on. >> okay. so that's kind of how we wrote the book, too, passed it back and forth. [laughter] let's, all right, so we talk a hot about how we got to the -- a lot about how we got to the story. let's talk about the battle. the shock valley, like mitch mentioned, is in the northeast part of afghanistan. it cannot be more remote. it's, where god lost his shoe. i mean, this valley is a cul-de-sac that goes nowhere, and it's, it's up near the

himalayas, so getting up there's hard, flying helicopters is hard. the only way in was by foot or helicopter. so trying to get there initially to plan the mission was tough. what they were up there to do was go after a hvc, a high value target, and this guy was a hig commander. the hig are a terrorist group, essentially, that has some association with al-qaeda, has some sort of truce with the taliban. but these guys are, they're nasty characters. they're a lot of foreign fighters, guys that aren't really there to fight against, the fight for afghanistan or fight for their version of afghanistan, these guys are mercenaries. and what the target was doing in the area was recruiting, well, pressing people into fighting for the hague, and he was rumored to have surface-to-air missiles and was stockpiling guns. and he was also credited with a series of ambushes in the corps

an gal valley that had caught the attention of some of the commanders. so they decided they had to take care of this network because it was becoming, you know, he was able to export a lot of the violence from this safe haven. so the idea was to go get him and take care of this safe haven. but what they ran into is not only were they fighting the geography because it was such hard place to get to, they're also fighting some of the restrictions placed on units now in afghanistan. i'm sure we've all seen the news, right? these night raids are highly regulated, who controls the battle space is highly regulated, and it takes a long time to get a mission planned. one of the things they were running into planning this mission was how to get there, what the helicopters could do and what, when and where they'd be allowed to go. and, essentially, what they came back with was the idea that they were going to fly to the valley,

land in the valley, unload their soldiers and fly off. and the team initially wanted to fly to the top of the valley, to the top of the village and vast rope down. rappel out of the helicopter, and the helicopter would fly off. but because of the restrictions, what the pilots were comfortable doing, they ended up having to settle for this mission which was to land in the valley and unload their troops. which anyone who knows any kind of basic infantry tactics to fight uphill is never a good idea, you never want to do it. that's sort of, you know, infantry 101. if you can take the high ground, you want it. so what the commanders had to pretty much p reconcile was, was it riskier to fly them to the top of the village or put them on the ground and have them get up the hill before the bad guys get up there. so that's where the book starts. they get up in the morning, and they know they have to do this

mission. it's spring in the mountains of afghanistan. the weather's already pushed the mission, delayed it once or twice, and they all have this sinking feeling that i don't know if this is a good idea. and that feeling is the one of the things that propelled this book, and it propelled us because it's very rare that you get soldiers that have universal bad feelings like that and the candor to stand up and say, hey, not only did we have this bad feeling, but we sort of took it up the chain and said, look, we really don't want to do this mission. so that sort of starts this book, and it also starts them on the path that, ultimately, gets them in an ambush. >> and that's pretty critical, what kevin just mentioned, in the book. you don't usually get soldiers who speak out about flaws in a plan. and there was a captain, captain kyle walton, who basically knew and just like other members in oda3336 knew that there were flaws in this plan. you don't fight uphill, you try

the element of surprise. so tactically he knew that it was unsound. so he took his concerns to his commanders, and his commanders it was real important to do this mission because the target, like kevin said, was a really bad guy. he helped finance his men by this gem-smuggling operation. and, in fact, what they later found out through the fbi and cia was that some of those gems had even shown up in, you know, gem shops in arizona. he was selling these gems to finance his whole, you know, his whole campaign. and, again, going back to this valley, captain kyle walton on the team knew tactically that this plan was flawed. but even though they knew that it was flawed, knew that there was incredible danger landing the helicopter at the bottom of the valley and then they would have to climb to the top of the mountain to get to this compound

where they knew the target was surrounded by some of, you know, some of the best mercenaries, so to speak, in the world, these really trained mercenaries who have been fighting, you know, the soviets for that ten years during the 1980s, they still went, and they still went to carry out this mission. and i think, kevin, you can describe a little bit about what happened once they landed. >> okay. so they take off from a base on the border, and they fly into this valley. there's some concern, there's also concern about the weather, there's a window they could get in and out before the cloud cover came in, so they have to work quickly as well. but if you can imagine land anything a helicopter -- landing in a helicopter and, you know, the problem was to land and get out, but there was so much rubble and ice, and the ground was so uneven, the helicopters, some of them couldn't even land,

so there were guys jumping 10 feet out of the back of these chinook helicopters and landing on these rubble fields, and some of them landed in this river that was running right through the middle of their landing zone. so they get past that with no real major injuries which that alone is a feat. ten feet is about the size of a basketball court, so imagine jumping out of that into big gravel, really big boulders. and they look up, and the mountains surrounding this valley are a lot higher than they ever imagined. they were only looking at satellite images. i can only equate it as stand anything manhattan and looking up and just being surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs. and when we say "village," i'm sure in your head -- i don't know what you see in your head for an afghan village. depending on where you are in the country, sometimes they're

biscuit-colored mud huts, but this village was literally cut into the walls, and it was stone houses. these were like castles stacked on top of each other, and they were surrounded almost -- well, not 360, but almost 360 with these stone houses. and as they're walking up, it takes them a little while to find a path. but they get to the base of the hill, and the path pretty much cuts back and forth in a zigzag up the hill, switchbacks as they head up. and they -- i know there are a lot of veterans, and i see you guys shaking your heads. you know that's bad because there's only one way up. you know you're in a cul-de-sac of a valley, and they know you're there. if they hear helicopters in this valley, it's not them. it's not their buddies. it's their bad guys, right? it's really quiet as they're

walking up, and all of a sudden they see three guys running on -- luis actually sees three guys running on the top of the valley, and one of them's got a gun, and we'll let mitch take it. >> i think climbing up the mountain there were really three teams. there was one team at the bottom of the mountain, one team that was halfway up and one team that was at the very top near the village. and one thing that we failed to mention is they went on this mission, there were three green beret teams that went on this mission, but there were also 100 afghan command toes -- commandos, and these were soldiers that the green berets had been training. and this was their first real mission. these were not battle-hardened commandos. they were commandos in name only. so the team, oda3336, you had a few guys at the top, a couple guys in the middle, and you had a few of them at the very base

of this mountain. well, luis morales sees three guys running, and he knew that they were bad guys. one of them had an rbg on his back, and cohe opened fire. -- so he opened fire. and what happened next surprised everybody on this team. now, you have to remember a lot of the members on this team have seen a lot of combat. they were veterans. this was their second or third tour of duty. they had been in iraq, they had been in afghanistan. but what happened next after luis fired his weapon at the three insurgents surprise bed them. it was a relentless wall of fire. and they were shocked. it was just coming from everywhere. remember, they're nearly surrounded by these, by this compound, by these buildings that were carved into the rocks. and all of a sudden everyone at once opened fire. and they knew right away that they were in an ambush. there were about two soldiers

right above on a ledge probably the size of this stage, and when they heard the fire, they tried to seek cover. but luis was trained knew that when he heard the fire, he had to get up and help his fellow soldiers, and when he got up there, he saw one of the soldiers had been wounded, and that was, um, dylan dare. and he also saw something that really not only surprised him, but really stunned him. and that was his friend c.k. who was an afghan interpreter. and luis had become very close friends, as well as the rest of the team, with this afghan interpreter. and he saw him there on the ground with blood, and he knew at that moment he was, he was dead. but as luis got up on that ledge, he went over to help the other soldier who was wounded, dylan, and there was another soldier there, mike carter, who

was a combat cameraman who had just joined. he budget a member of the team, he -- he wasn't a member of the team, he had just been involved in the mission because as a combat cameraman, mike carter was going to take pictures and help document the mission. but mike carter was dragging dylan to safety. luis went over to help and returned fire, and as he did, he was hit by a bullet as well. and it just set off this whole chain where the the fire was relentless, there was no cover, and truly at that moment there was no way out. >> all right. well, i mean, we could probably stand up here and tell you the rest of the book, but then you wouldn't buy it. [laughter] so with that said, we're going to leave it at that and let you guys, hopefully, buy the book. but let's step back for one second from this mission. and mitch made the point the

afghan commandos were a key part of this mission. that was one of the reasons why they got tapped to go on this mission. at the time this was their third mission. the afghan commandos were a brand new unitment they were essentially created to carry out those high-value targets, these missions to capture the high-value targets with american special forces. they were mentored by american special forces. actually, this team was the first to go and mentor them. at this point i've seen them in action a couple times. they're a little uneven, but overall they have a good track record, a good reputation and, but this was one of their first missions, and i talked to a few of those guys in 2010, a couple commandos that were on this mission, and they still much like the american soldier, this mission resonates with them, with the amount of fire and the trouble that they did encounter. um, but what you need to take away, i think, from this or hopefully you take away from this is that this partnership between the commandos, the

afghans and the americans, was important. the bedrock of what they're trying to achieve in afghanistan as we speak, and it's what everything the strategy you hear about right now, especially right now, is based on. it's about that rah port, it's about this mentorship, it's about this idea that you can build the commandos to take over the mission, then guys can come home. and so it's important to remember that when you read, when you read the book, and, hopefully, not only do you take that away from the book, but also the relationship that the team had with c.k., their interpreter. these interpreters are some of the coolest guys you could ever meet. the teams leave, they usually get pick bed up by the other teams. they're usually young gavin guys who think -- afghan guys who think they're special forces. they swear like sailors. the guys i was with in 2010 -- two years ago now, wow. we had two of them with us that

were on this mission, but they -- because they usually use aliases to protect themselves, it was rizda and big rizza. and they were interesting guys. but i just think that one of the things i don't think the media puts out a lot and i don't think we think about too much is this relationship, the fact that american forces are fighting alongside afghan forces. you don't see that a lot, but it's an important part of the strategy. and ultimately, it's the goal. so they're important. and so, um, but -- and this kind of speaks to what's going on in the news now. what you'll see in this book and, i think, this trust factor though. as they went, they were fighting together. and an important linkage that we draw in this book and that we learn from this team is that a lot of guys fight because they

fight for the guys to the left and the right of them, and that's the most important thing. it was the most important thing in shock valley, it's the most important thing right now as guys are going out on mission bees, and it's important that you realize that not only are they fighting for their american brothers, but they're fighting for the afghans as well. >> you know, we -- [inaudible] much of the book buzz we don't want -- because we don't want, you know, we want a little bit of the suspense factor. and i think what i want to do is just go back a little bit and tell you just what our thought process was in writing the book. what we wanted to do was create a book in which you really cared about the characters. we didn't want the guys on the mission to be cliches. we didn't want them to be, you know, we wanted you to really

care about them. and so what we did was we focused on a few of the guys to tell this really important story. and as kevin staid, a lot -- said, a lot of it was, you know, just guys fighting to the left and to the right of them. but what was important when we structured the book was that you cared about them. so we decided we were going to divide this book into five parts, and the first part we called premission. and during that we introduce you to a lot of the characters who are critical to this story. so i mentioned a little earlier about mike carter. this is a guy who's a combat cameraman. this is a guy who goes not into battle, but he documents what takes place. he could be a guy who's just, you know, on the base, you know, photographing, videoing, you know, or he could be out in the field with soldiers on missions. but we introduce you to him. and this was, you know, to give you some of his background, this

was a guy who this was his mission in afghanistan. he was supposed to go home, but because another combat cameraman came down with pink eye, he was selected to go on this mission. and when he gets there, he had all this camera equipment. think of every movie you've ever seen, you know, maybe dennis hopper when he's in the jungle with the cameraman with thousands of cameras dangling from his neck. and when he arrives there, he has all of this went, and the guys on the team just laugh at him and say you're not going to need this where you're going. so they stripped him down to just the bare essentials. he had a videocamera and really one camera. and we wanted you to know him. we wanted you to know luis morales who came from this proud military family, from his grandfather who served in korea to his father to his -- just know what motivated him to join and just want -- what a

dedicated soldier he is. we wanted you to know john wayne walden, an east texas kid who joined the green berets because he wanted to make an honest living, an honest day's pay. and he was someone you couldn't invent in a movie. he was born on the fourth of july, his parents decided to name him since he was born on the fourth of july john wayne walden, in the special forces. a handsome guy who just wanted to serve his country. we introduce you to scott ford and what motivated him. he's the team leader and how he came in and how he shaped this unit for this mission and other missions in afghanistan. he was the cornerstone, i think, of this unit. he whipped them into shape. we introduce you to captain kyle walton who was cool under fire, who during the heat of battle tried to keep his men alive. he was doing battlefield calculus in his head, how do i

keep my men alive? do i have to roll the wounded off the mountain to save them and fight to the death? these were the decisions that they had to make. but before we could get to the battle, we had to introduce you to them so you would care about the characters so that when they are in battle, you're rooting for them. you have an interest in them. and so the first part of the book was premission. it talks about some of the flaws in the tactical planning, how they raised some of those concerns with commanders who basically told them, look, you have to go, and they accepted it and went on the mission. and then the second part was the contact, the battle. i mean, imagine climbing a mountain almost straight up, and you're digging your hand into the soil, into the rock, and you're carrying over 60 pounds of equipment on your back, plus you have body armor.

and you're climbing, and you're climbing, and you know something's wrong because it's really too quiet, and you know there's people in that compound, and you have a sneaking suspicion that they're waiting. and so we introduce you to that contact, what happens when luis fires that first shot and how the valley erupts in a wall of fire and how the men when they're hit, they're just so angry that they're hit because they can't help their fellow soldiers. they think it's a burden. that's the first thought in their mind. it's not that i'm hit and i'm going to die, it's now i'm a burden, but i'm going to keep fighting for my fellow soldiers. because they have that kind of kinship that was developed in that first chapter. and then, of course, the third part of the book talks about the escape. how are they going to get off this mountain? you know, you're climbing up, and that's difficult enough with all this equipment. and now you're going to have to

find a way down when you're the target of hundreds of enemy fighters. and how are you going to get down when you have severely wounded soldiers, soldiers who have life-threatening injuries who are barely being kept alive by the team's sole medicment -- medic. so that part of the book deals with the escape plan. it also deals with the battle how they're calling back, and they're getting planes to drop bombs. there's an expression called danger close, and that's when you have to give permission to drop bombs because the bombs are landing so close to your position you could be killed at any moment with any mistake. and so the army, they're dropping all these bombs. and the insurgents keep coming. and when they land and explode, the soldiers are so close to the bombs, they're feeling it. the debris, they're feeling the shock waves. and so we take you through that

whole process until they escape and get down off the mountain, and then, of course, there's the aftermath which tells you what happened to the soldiers afterwards, and then the epilogue of what the soldiers are going through now. so when they said originally to us, tell the truth about the battle, that's one thing that we wanted to do. we wanted to stay true to. and i think at the end of the day we did. >> with that, does anybody have any questions to start? who wants to start us off? >> you said in the beginning that -- [inaudible] >> sure. the question was i said in the beginning a lot of things going on then are still going on now, and what i was speaking to was some of the restrictions, some of the ways that these guys were operating right now. for example, in 2010 -- i'll go

back to that a little bit because that's kind of my freshest memory, but i remember one morning we, i was with this team, and we waited until just dawn for the sun to just pop up over the mountains before we went on a mission because, technically, it was dawn and not night. and those are the sort of things that the soldiers have to deal with is they have to worry about certain -- there are rules to doing operations. some of them are needed, i guess, some of them seem a little arbitrary and are restrictive, and that's one of the things that they have to take into effect when they're planning a mission. and that leads to, i think, sometimes making, assigning risk to places that may or may not be warranted at times. >> [inaudible] >> the question was where are the rules coming from? >> i think they're coming from everybody. you know, one of the things that

the missions in afghanistan run into, it's been going on a long time. there's a term in the army called mission creep and, essentially, the short definition of mission creep is when a mission's objectives are either can't be achieved or are achieved, and they, in the middle of the mission they change them, okay? and, unfortunately, what's happened in afghanistan a lot is the mission be changes yearly or every couple years to what you're trying to achieve, and right now guys are working hard to try to achieve an afghan government with an afghan security force that can take care of itself. but if you remember in 2001, the mission was topple the taliban, take care of al-qaeda. well, you know, i said this in an interview, actually, a couple days ago. i think what needs to happen, um, is whatever administration takes over in november needs to come up with a afghan plan and stick to that goal. and whatever that goal is, it's fine. but just come up with a goal and don't change it. because one of the things --

that's the only time we really editorialize in this book, and mitch and i must have written this paragraph a couple times. what we -- and we kind of hit you over the head with us, so forgive us, and i'm going to say it so if you read it, just forgive us again. it's this. and really we aimed it at policymakers. not military leaders because military leaders understand this, but policymakers need to remember that when you tell the military to do something, no matter what they're going to die trying to do it, or they're going to do it. so be careful what you tell them to do and be very sure when you tell them it's what you want done, it's what you want done and don't change it on them in the middle. because they're going to work hard to do it, but don't waste it and make sure you, you know, follow the goal. >> [inaudible]

>> right. so the question is are they making soldiers do more than just be soldiers, right? >> yes. >> well, it depends. i think you look at the counterinsurgency strategy which makes it very difficult. counterinsurgency is really the vietnam term battle of the hearts and minds? >> right. >> it's this amorphous -- [inaudible] but special forces, though, are probably some of your smartest soldiers on the battlefield, and they can do the diplomacy. and that's why they're in these villages doing these village-to-village operations. and i think they're an important force. they really are one of the bed bedrocks of this strategy, and i think they can do it. i've seen them do it. but the difficulty in afghanistan is let's say in monroe i'm the vvo leader, and we've got a great program here. we're building wells, we're

doing all kinds of great stuff, we've got our security force, the taliban stays out of here, this is a great success. but we go down the road a little bit, and it's a disaster. the taliban live there, you can't root 'em out, and all the things that are working for me in here don't work over there because it's a different tribe, they've got different problems, different values. that's the dilemma. and there is no blanket strategy for afghanistan, it's just too difficult. so are they making them do more? yes. is it horrible? i don't know. it depends on what unit you're talking about really. and, again, it's a very afghanistan answer, isn't it? may work, may not work. we'll see. >> [inaudible] if i remember it correctly -- at times looking back on it, and they were afraid they were not going to get out. do they talk to you as a group about that fear that they mercifully make it out of that?

>> they -- most of the interviews we did were one-on-one, they were telephone or in person. so they weren't group interviews. and they were also long interviews. i think luis can attest to the fact that i spent probably over 20 hours on the telephone with him, you know, talking to him over ask and over again. and i think -- over and over again. and i think if you're a good reporter, if you're a really good journalist, what you do is you start to build a rapport, a friendship. so at first they're not going to tell you i was afraid, they're not going to tell you what they really thought, you know, on the battlefield. but after a while soldiers begin to open up, and they start to tell you what was going through their minds. and clearly they were soldiers

who thought they were not going to make it out. i remember john wayne walden, he thought as he was lying there -- and this, in this case he took a bullet in the leg, and it nearly severed his leg. and then he had to -- what he did was really unthinkable and drastic, but to stay in the fight he took his lower leg and tied it to his thigh so he could continue fighting with only one leg. but it reached a point with john where he was going into shock, where the tourniquet was just not working, and he thought he was going to die. he was getting cold, and the one medic who was there was treating other wounded, you know, soldiers and really couldn't even get to him. even though he was probably the distance between this podium and that podium over there, it was

still dangerous enough that he couldn't get over to john. so at that point he realized, this could be it. and he started thinking about his family and his children and his wife and why he joined. and more importantly, he thought about his grandfather. and his grandfather was a tough guy, east texas guy who was a wildcatter who took in john and john's brother when he was a kid, and his father and his grandfather was a spiritual mentor. so as he's on the mountain and he thinks he's going to die and he's thinking about his wife and his small children, he almost starts thinking about his grandfather and just what a wonderful person and inspiration he was. and he channeled that. and that really, that helped, i think, to a certain degree keep him alive because a lot of his

will, a lot of it is you want to stay alive, you want to keep fighting and fighting and fighting, and he did. but that wasn't something you get from that first interview. that's something you get from hours and hours and hours of interviews when you start really digging deeper. because, to me, i wanted to know what they felt, the human emotion. the human toll it's taking. and he wasn't the only one on the mountain who was wounded who had those same kinds of thoughts about their own mortality. dylan, there were times when he was dying up there and he thought he was dying, fade anything and out of consciousness, came to peace, and he prayed. and he said, god, if you want me to live, give me a sign. and then a second later, the medic slapped him and said, look, you're going to wake with up, get up. you have to keep that person awake. that's part of fighting shock. but, again, it all goes back to

just hours of interviews. this is not something that somebody just casually says, hey, this happened. you have to gain the trust. >> what is our mission in afghanistan? >> what is our mission in afghanistan? that's a tough question. [laughter] right now what is the mission in afghanistan? >> [inaudible] >> i mean, what i'm being told now and what i understand the mission to be in afghanistan right now is to assist the afghan government into being a legitimate government and build up their security forces so they're able to fight the taliban. >> [inaudible] >> how does that break down to the soldier in the field? honestly, it doesn't. to a normal soldier on an everyday mission, i don't think he gets up in the morning and thinks i'm going to get after it for karzai and the afghan government. i think what he thinks about, and it's important, and it's

what he should think about is he think abouts about his unit, and he think abouts about his job, and he think abouts about the things he has to do that day on that mission to make sure not only he gets back to the base safely, but that all of his unit makes it back to the base safely. and that's, honestly, what a soldier should be thinking about. and it's important that, you know, that he thinks about that and his unit mates think about that and his platoon sergeant and leader and, you know, along the line. in the theory, everything should work out fine. but i don't think they're spending a lot of time with the strategic -- that's what the policymakers are for in washington, and that's why they have to be very conscious and very deliberate when they use the military. i'm going to use here and then go here. >> you were embedded six times. >> yeah. >> what's an average day for a special forces soldier in afghanistan? >> the question is what's an average day for a special forces soldier. [laughter] i wrote a whole book on this,

and it's not like this. it's not the shock valley. i mean, a team, for example, that's in a village on an average day if you're a medic, you might open up your clinic, and you'll have a sick call where people will come from the village, and you could help them with, you know, minor injuries or sick illness. you know, if you're the engineer, you might be working on the base improving the base. if you're the team leader, the captain in charge, you're probably doing some sort of ballooning, you're probably -- planning. because we're talking about restrictions to get out of the wire now which is, basically, to leave the base to do a mission. i think last count it takes 45 powerpoint slides, so you have to send 45 slides to your boss so he can clip them off and say, okay, that works. and it's a variety of things. part of that planning is smart, but 45 slides seems a little excessive even to me. and it's, and it is. and it's a burden.

and it makes it difficult. but that's taking up a lot of time for the planners. but really what they're doing best, what the sf guys do on a daily basis is train. they're training the afghans. whatever part of the unit they're with, they're with the commandos, they're training them to do something, they're training marksmanship. if they're with the afghan national civil order police, you know, maybe they're teaching them how to do a vehicle interdiction where they teach them how to stop and search a vehicle. stuff like that. or if they're in a village, they're meeting with the elders. a big village meeting. it's really fascinating, and it's what, you know, the business is done. so special forces is great mission, but where the rubber meets the road in special forces is the people and that rapport. >> [inaudible]

>> [inaudible] >> it's a good question. the simple one line, has there ever been a legitimate government in afghanistan. communist government was pretty, pretty centralized. is there one now? no. i think one of the issues that this village-to-village operation is trying to bring is that local government to the national government in kabul. >> [inaudible] >> well, i mean, do the people want a centralized government? it depends on who you ask. i had a villager tell me a

couple years ago, he said the only evidence i ever see of kabul, of the government in my village is the teacher at the school, and all he does is smoke cigarettes while the kids play in the dirt. now, that's an isolated incident, but it speaks to the fact that does kabul reach into every village? no, it doesn't. and that's something that's taken a long time to rebuild. what you have to remember about afghanistan is this: it's not like iraq. there are no highways in afghanistan. there are roads, but barely. um, i had a green beret describe afghanistan as flintstones with aks and cell phones. and it's a funny way of saying it, but in reality, i mean, this is a country that has been through decades of war that has bombed and fought itself into oblivion, and there are no roads, there's very little infrastructure to speak of whatsoever. and i think if you think of it in that frame of mind and then you say to anyone, all right,

now i want you to build a government and a local government and a security force and roads and sewers and power and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. i mean, i think it's a tall order. so, unfortunately, no, i don't think there's a long history of a legitimate central government. >> yeah. does the epilogue cover an investigation -- >> i think the question is does the epilogue go into the investigation of the mission. and there was an army historian who, um, was asked by one of his commanders, he was called into the office and asked to write a, you know, a report about the shock valley mission.

and what that historian did was he started interviewing some of the men on the mission, he started looking at army documents, a lot of the things we did, you know, talking to a lot of people involved in the mission and a lot of documents. and what he realized early on was that this mission could have been a disaster. it was just a miracle that helicopters weren't filled with soldiers just weren't shot down. it was a miracle that this unit wasn't wiped out, the unit that was trapped on the mountain just wasn't wiped out. and so it became kind of passion for this historian not to write this glowing report, but to tell what happened and to show the tactical errors that were made in planning this mission including, you know, landing, you know, at the bottom of this, landing in this valley. and, you know, it reached a point where he talked to dozens

of men, looked at lots of documents, and he looked at his commander and said, look, i'm going to write a report, but it's a report based on after-action report based on talking to all these people. and, you know, i want you to know it's going to be less than flattering. and his commander said, write it up, warts and all. and he did. and it just so happened that his reporting coincided with his retirement from the army, and he handed in, he handed in the report, i think if i remember correctly, like, days before he was set to retire after more than 30 years in the military. and we talked to him, talked to him at length. he did not have a copy of the report and, obviously, that was one of the things that we wanted to look at. and we asked the army, you know, for a copy of the report, and they refused. they basically said, well, there were flaws in the report, it's still in draft form, and we're just not going to release it to you. but the one thing that stuck

with me was what he said was that he wanted this report to stand for 20 years so that some of the mistakes that were made on this battle in planning wouldn't be repeated again. >> yeah, does anyone know how many different tribes are actually over there? >> does anybody know how many tribes there are in afghanistan? yes. i don't off the top of my head, though, unfortunately. i think you've got to realize, you know, even though you and i, for example, may be on the same tribe, i may not like you, and you may be from a subtribe. so things go on and on. it's really hard. i use this sometimes. i don't understand afghanistan, i've been there a couple times. i mean, i don't get it completely. it's, it's a tough country to wrap your head around. but there are guys who speak the language, there are guys who have studied the tribes, and they do a pretty good job. but again, you know, you've got a lot of baggage with these

tribes. you want to go ahead? >> is the target still one of the major targets? >> is he still around? yes, from our understanding, he is still around. i talked to some folks a couple months ago, i think he is still at large at this point. hopefully, he's got a copy of the book. [laughter] >> [inaudible] >> do i need any special training to be embedded with the troops? i can't comment on that. no. [laughter] no, not really. i do have some training that i got from there's a course they put out for reporters, i did some of that training, but i actually started covering military, my first embed was in iraq in 2003. i was a brand new reporter. i'd only been on the job about two months. we had a reporter rotate back, and i took her spot, and i got there just in time to get in a humvee in a chemical suit. and i'll just tell a quick

story, a real quick story. [laughter] i'm in kuwait, i'm late for the party. all the other reporters are up in their units, i'm catching up, and they hand me a, this reserve guy hands me a gas mask. he looks at me, and he says, yeah, you look at about a large. he hands me a gas mask, and he says when you hear the siren, that's a scud siren. put the mask on and run or if you're not here, just follow whatever crowd and head for the bunker. so the first time i put this thing on, i'm ready for the scud to hit. he's got one of those syringes, it's a disaster. i've got this thing on, and i'm sitting in this bunker, and i know it doesn't fit. so that's my training right there, a little on-the-job training. [laughter] >> [inaudible] really being consensual, creating a government -- [inaudible] >> does the lack of education hurt our chances of creating a government? the lack of education hurts our

chances to do a lot of things. i don't know if it, um, hurts our chances of doing, of succeeding. i mean, i don't -- i think the lack of education is a huge issue, and mitch, part of this book mitch did some great work on what does the -- [inaudible] when they were training the commandos. i mean, you want to speak to that a little bit? >> yeah. just what the team went through training the commandos, it's kind of a a microcosm in afghanistan. one of the guys, dylan bayer, was training his unit for intelligence work. and he starts talking about to them, and he says, okay, let's draw a circle, let's draw a square, and he's going to show them how to do some, you know, basic reconnaissance stuff. then he realized, none of the guys could draw a circle, none of the guys could draw -- so, basically, he had to become an elementary schoolteacher of sorts. he had to teach them basic math, he had to teach them how to draw

a circle, how to draw a square, how to draw a triangle and then go to the next step. you know, one of the things you talk about education, very few of the afghans knew how to drive, and yet they were being trained, you know, to go out on these missions and to drive humvees and vehicles having not had a driver's license. they didn't know. so in the book we illustrate some of the problems that a lack of education really hindered, you know, um, the unit. especially when they're under pressure to get these commandos in the field. they only have a few weeks to do this, and they don't have, you know, basic fight skills that we take for granted. >> thank you guys for coming. we appreciate you all coming out to hear us speak, and we hope you enjoy the book. and if there's anything else, we'll be up here for a little bit if you want to ask some ore

questions. other questions. >> thank you very much. >> thanks. [applause] >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> here's a list of books that are being released by publishers this week. ..