want to try to solve the israeli-palestinian conflict and it never fails. there's always an attempt to restart talks and this belief that overnight you can bring the two parties together and do this. we wanted to show how the last decade, you have to understand the results of the suicide bombings and the occupation of the west bank by the israeli military and building of this incredible wall of suspense down the spine of '67 borders, how that has completely separated the two sides, they're psychologically as far apart as they have ever been. it is an outgrowth of the muslim brotherhood. very different group of palestinians living in the gaza strip compared to the west bank which is a more secular minded group of palestinians. there's no one to negotiate with

on the palestinian side because you have the division between hamas and the 5 top leadership. the years we spent in jerusalem, most foreign correspondents spend three years max covering the conflict because you get burned out and felt it would leave feeling there was no hope, don't want to hear about it anymore. there is quite a dearth of writing by correspondents who lived in jerusalem. a lot of it had to do with the fact that we were working journalists. not that easy to move two jobs at once and small children and by having small children we felt we had this incredible access to digital very rare you can cross the front lines of war and drought kids off to school. there are times i would be

interviewing masked gunman from the martyrs brigade and i would call greg and said can you peak emily up from preschool? i am engaged right now. it was absolutely surreal. as a result we grew to have incredible entity -- empathy for both sides and both people. >> we are talking about the things we went through in west jerusalem which is the israeli side of the city. their palestinians and israeli. palestinian -- everybody is affected by the conflict. you can't escape. even if you just want to go about an ordinary daily life you get dragged into the conflict. there was one palestinian family in particular that drove this home. in the west bank town of lebron, very important biblical patriarchs believed to be buried there. jews leaders who questioned and

muslims, very important site. there are jews were shipping every day, there is a big mosque. all in the same compound that has been divided into different parts and he karate family live near the center and probably had more daily friction than any other place because you had the situation with 500 israelis living where, got a round-the-clock by the israeli military and 150,000 palestinians in the city and when the palestinian uprising began in 2000 the israeli military seeking to protect these israelis, the jewish settlers in this community imposed a curfew and wouldn't let the palestinians leave their home. i was there one day early on and the usual rock throwing rubber bullets were going on and on was with a photographer and we were trying to be careful but we found their cells in a narrow street and one end of round the

corner came some palestinian kids throwing rocks and molotov cocktails and on the an end israeli soldiers firing teargas and rubber bullets. there is no sidewalks. houses on both sides. we were backed up against it. my photographer friend who had been hit three times in his career by israeli rubber bullets felt perfectly happy. this is exactly where he wanted to be. he was getting great pictures, couldn't be happier. i am desperately looking for an exit strategy. so i turned around, bay on the door behind me and looked through the grill. invite us in. we start talking to the family. a lot of kids running around. look almost as chaotic in the living room as on the street. we start chatting and i find out this is a traditional family home. two stone homes. there are seven brothers raised

their. they married seven wives and brought them into the home and started having kids quite rapidly. there are 70 people in those homes. there has been a curfew on a. they're not able to leave their house and go out the front door. every couple days the israeli military would drive by with a loudspeaker and say you have three hours to go shopping, to get fresh vegetables and milk and that sort of thing and come back and a curfew be imposed another 72 hours or so. i tell this story because the israelis wanted to do this for fun. they felt they needed to do this to protect the israeli settler communities. every time i would go back i would check in on them just to see how they were doing and get

an updated census count. in 2004, the neighborhood had just emptied out. there had been so many curfews and it was so restrictive that every family in the neighborhood had left. the market was closed. the schools were closed. there was -- they were virtually the only family left at that palestinian section of town. .. life, the schools, the markets were all there.

now, if you walked out, you'd walk into a deserted street except for several israeli soldiers who put up an airport-style metal detector and a conveyor built so literally to go down the street it was like going through airport security for them although there was really nothing in that direction. so this is the way -- even if you're trying to live your ordinary life, people on both sides would be constantly dragged into the conflict. >> it was a pressure cooker and some of our palestinian friends, journalists who we knew told us that one of the unintended consequences of the israelis moving back into the west bank, obviously, trying to stop these suicide bombers reoccupying these cities, encircling these cities even though palestinians who weren't part of the conflict the only place their children were allowed to go and play was at the mosque. they weren't allowed to go to soccer fields. they weren't allowed -- but the

israelis didn't want to be seen as keeping people from their religion so they allowed the families to send their kids to the mosque, to pray. well, these palestinian journalists didn't want their kids going to the mosque because that's where they were being brainwashed and that's where they were having -- it wasn't just as simple as going to pray. there were sometimes fiery sermons and these young impressionable kids who had nothing to do they fell under the spell under some of these radical pressures and so it was this real catch-22 where this pressure cooker environment. the israelis thought they were beings generous by allowing the palestinian to go to the mosque but the palestinian parents themselves thought this is not where i want my child being brainwashed. greg interviewed two 16-year-old boys in the west bank town of nablus and he went up to these towns and just to give you an

idea how -- there aren't any heroes in these towns. there aren't any sports stars, any michael jordans that they could look up to. all you would see in these towns would be posters of what were so-called -- these so-called martyrs, they called them saheed posters people who killed israeli wearing -- looking militaristic and the young 10 to 14-year-old boys that's what they had to look up to and greg interviewed two boys -- they went to school every day with their photograph, their school photograph that they wanted used on their martyrdom poster if they got caught in the clashes or they decided to start throwing rocks at the israelis and if they died that day. so little boys were thinking already of how they could become a martyr, so-called, on those posters. >> there was this incredible

paradox there that also was fundamental in our decision in the book and what we wanted to explain in the book and the paradox is this. you have israel, this small country that despite having constant -- being a constant state of conflict for decades has done -- made enormous strides in its development and you look at israel today, economically it is stronger than it's ever been. it's survived the palestinian uprisings, global recessions and has a very dynamic high tech cutting edge economy. its military is stronger than it's ever been, culturally it's a very strong dynamic fascinating place. and yet israel could never get the security that it craves. it has been seeking for over six decades and wanting to wake up and say, i live in a normal country, in a normal place and nothing bad is going to happen today. and on the palestinian side, every country in the world supports palestinian statehood. even israel, the past israeli

prime ministers, some more enthusiastically than others but say they would accept a palestinian state so you can't find a country in the world that opposes palestinian statehood and yet the palestinians cannot achieve a state. and in many ways they seem as far from a resolution today than they've ever been. and so we wanted to get at that and say why is this conflict dragging on and on and on since the end of world war ii when neither side can achieve what it wants? and they don't have mutually incompatible goals. israeli security and palestinian statehood is a difficult thing to achieve but not impossible and not mutually incompatible. >> we decided it was time to come home in 2006 and you know there was the war in lebanon between the israelis and hezbollah. a soldier had been kidnapped in the gaza strip. we saw him recently who was released after five years of being held in the gaza strip.

other soldiers were captured in the war. greg and i left the kids at home with a babysitter and -- >> the dhog >> and my cameraman malcolm james gave us his golden retriever while we were gone for 34 days and that was a bribe as we went up to the lebanese border but we covered day in and day the rockets coming in from lebanon. the incredible tension up in the north of israel. and on the last day of that conflict, i remember distinctly because i was doing greta's show. it was overnight so it was about 4:00 in the morning local time and then the ceasefire was to begin to end the conflict. and so we were all waiting for that ceasefire and at 6:00 am we got a call from the gaza strip that my two colleagues from fox, a correspondent and his cameraman had been kidnapped. and they had been kidnapped we later found out by the same

group that had the soldier. and immediately, we dropped everything. the israeli bureau chief was an old israeli tank commander and you could never tell eli no and he -- he and i drove down to gaza and other than the soldier i think he was the only israeli who was in gaza that day. we sort of sneaked into gaza. we started meeting with any and all of the palestinian militant leaders. there were midnight meetings in the middle of the gaza strip where we would be taken to the home of one of the militant leaders and i remember one in particular where we showed up. it was olaf's wife and eli and myself and our palestinian journalists that we work with and in the circle were probably israel's most wanted militants. they were sitting around the only light at the meeting was from the headlights of the vehicles that had brought us

because the israelis had knocked outlet the electrical grid in that part of gaza and you could hear the whirring of the drone up above and you knew you were being watched and it was nerve-wracking. the palestinian leaders were sort of thumbing their worry beads and we had an emotional moment where the wife of olaf and myself and we stood up and we pleaded -- and it was all men in this circle, and we -- we used the sort of good cop bad cop strategy and we just laid it out for them and said they needed to release steve and olaf. and miraculously and after two weeks it was a long, long two weeks, they were released and at that point greg and i decided it was time to go home. it was also time to go home because our daughters were starting to pick up a little more on the conflict and the kind of work we did and we -- they were very good friends with the son from the "washington post," "the washington post" correspondent son. they used to play in the garden

near our house. and our babysitters told us at one point that they came home laughing and they said, oh, annelise and bennie had taken the mobile phones and role-playing said annelise says there's been an explosion and tel-aviv and bennie said have you sent a photographer. [laughter] >> at that point we realized it might be time to get back to america and with that we should probably put it up to questions. >> we'll leave at that and answer your questions. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> yes. we have a microphone making its way to you. >> i just wanted to ask you, did you know you were going to write this book when you first went there? did you keep notes or a journal or are you just relying on what you remember?

>> it's a good question. no, we did not know we were going to write this book and we didn't keep any notes. the only notes we had were really the stories that we had written and we did have a good archive of that because of the pieces i'd done for fox and that greg had written. but it's amazing how memories work because the really strong memories -- they don't fade and the really -- the good stories and the poignant stories, they stay with you. we started this book with we moved back to the states. greg started working on it in the states. i was diagnosed with breast cancer i think it was 2.5 years ago and we were finishing up the book and we were finishing writing the book while i got chemotherapy and greg would come with the laptop to the chemo ward and i would want to strangle him and i would say, leave me alone. i don't want to talk about this and he used it as a way to actually get my mind off of

cancer and he -- he would say tell me about the time you were in gaza with steve and olaf and he would type the notes as we would -- and that's how we got through chemo. we finished the book during that year when we were dealing with cancer. [applause] [inaudible] >> good question. >> yeah. writing a book with your spouse. >> we have different writing styles. i'll say that. you may notice there's some italics in the book, and that was our compromise because it was my voice. and he kept trying to edit my voice. >> the fact that she worked for fox and i worked for the "new york times" and then at npr was never a problem. it was stylistic issues like how do we want to present this story? or is this story more important than that one? it's trying to mesh your two personalities into one narrative

and it took a while how to do that. >> actually, we will be honest, it was a little bit of a strained process. but this is sort of like marriage counseling for us. we're doing this tour and -- but it is hard to write a book with your spouse. and it's hard to -- for two people writing the book and you have different ways of the stories. it wasn't the details the facts so much as just the voice. >> i've not read your book but, obviously, you make a wonderful duet. there's an image of war correspondents. it's very different than the two of you with your children. many other things have been written about hard drinking, chain smoking people sitting around the bar of the hotel. you know, i could ask you a million serious questions about your subject matter, but it's just curious to me, what did grandma say? what did the grandparents of your children have to say about your decision to live with the

kids in a war zone? >> our parents were hugely supportive. in fact, they came and visited us while we were there. and oddly, you know, they were concerned for our safety but they sort of got caught up in the spirit -- the spirit of it and so they never gave us is hard time, even when we had kids there. so i really have to congratulate them for being so supportive. >> well, i think there's one image i'll never forget and my sister katlin is sitting in the tenth row right there. and she -- when she was about six years old, and my sister cassie they were young and they came out to visit us in pakistan, and i think it was so surreal for our parents. they didn't really think about what we were doing or the danger that we were in, but we took them up to the khyber pass and i have a picture of katlin and cassie up on a camel at age 6 and whatever it was and they

were being guarded by a pakistani pastun with an ak-47 around his waist and this was right up above the gun bazaar in the -- what's known as the tribal areas in pakistan. and we took them up there. and we thought isn't this -- isn't this great? it was exotic, it was wonderful. i think one of the wonderful things about the period in which we covered wars is that it was pre-daniel pearl and i say that because the iraq war and daniel pearl's death was a real watershed moment for journalists. and it's always been dangerous to be a war correspondent going back to world war ii, vietnam, you name it. there are great, great correspondents who you can remember -- many of them lost their lives following wars. but that was a real turning point. and we feel so lucky that there was a period in the '90s that we were able to traipse around

inflicts and somehow we felt that we were immune or bulletproof or maybe we were just young and naive. but we got to see things up close and personal that i'm not sure i certainly wouldn't want my children doing that today. [laughter] >> could i ask you to please stand if you have a question. >> i realize you haven't been back in afghanistan for a while but i would like your opinion on this. do you feel that based on your knowledge of the way people live there and the way society is there, that whether the united states military leaves tomorrow, a year from now or 50 years from now, will things actually be any different? >> well, actually i was in afghanistan in december 'cause i still go back and forth with my job at the pentagon and i was traveling with secretary panetta when he was there. and i think what is quite humbling and distressing to those of us who have watched the afghan conflict, whether it was the war between the mujahedeen when we were there after the soviets pulled out or the rise

of the taliban, the end of the taliban, and the last 10 years of war is that very little has changed in afghanistan in terms of at the tribal level, in terms of building any sort of a government or dealing with the corruption that is enemic there. there's a lot of good that has been done in the sense that i cover the military and i see every day the extraordinary feats and what they achieved in various provinces but doris lessing wrote a book that sticks with me, the title of it and it says, it's about afghanistan and the wind blows away their words. and you just have a sense that whether it's this great military or previous militaries. as soon as they're gone the afghans have a way and they will go back to their own ways and i don't think it will have changed based on my experience. >> i'll just add one very, very

quick note. girls are going to school in afghanistan today. they weren't in the late '90s. >> absolutely true. >> if the u.s. stays there, they'll probably keep going to school. if the u.s. leaves, it's a possibility there could be back-sliding. how much is it worth or at what price should the u.s. pay so that afghan girls can go to school? it's a tough question. it's one very quick example of the kinds of questions you're looking at. >> setting aside the politics that we would like the americans and the israelis and the arabs, what do you personally feel would be the equitable solution to the israeli-arab conflict? >> we have been very clear all along, we don't have the solution. we're journalists not policymakers. but an equitable solution is one that both the israelis and palestinians can live with. it's never going to be a perfect solution. these are two peoples that have been there for centuries. they both have legitimate claims to the land there. they're going to have to find ways to share it. and as i said.

it's not incompatible. israel needs -- the one thing israel really needs is security. and they deserve it. the one thing the palestinians need and deserve is a viable state. you can have both of those things but it will have to be worked out between them. i think the united states can play a very valuable role as a mediator but the u.s. can't force it. a forms quote by james baker when he was secretary of state two decades ago was, the u.s. can't want peace more than the israelis and the palestinians. we can't go there and say, here's a plan, implement it. and so i think when you get strong enough majorities on both sides and they agree to some sort of compromise, that's the solution. >> the question was, what do our daughters' birth certificates say in terms of where they were born? and they say jerusalem comma. they don't say a state because

jerusalem is to be negotiated according to u.s. policy. but you remember there is a supreme court case this year -- this became very relevant because there are -- there's a case before the justices. >> where the child was born in jerusalem to jewish parents who now live in the u.s. and they want the birth certificate -- i guess the passport to say jerusalem-israel. and the u.s. state department position is since the fate of jerusalem has not been resolved, it just says jerusalem. and that's exactly what our girls' -- it was literally an issue for us because, we thought this may make it difficult if they want to travel in certain countries in the middle east, it might make it difficult. we said well, there will be 20 years to sort that out. six months after annelise was born, 9/11 happened and both our organizations asked us to go to

pakistan and we thought about taking our daughter because we knew people there and we could keep her in a house while we worked there. but there was no way pakistan was going to allow somebody in who had a jerusalem birth stamp in their passport so literally at six months it became an issue. i went and jennifer stayed in jerusalem. there you are. >> fatah and hamas, who stands out leading palestinians to peace? we're very aware of the leaders in israel who are quite able to do that. what leadership amongst palestinian people will move towards peace? >> well, the problem with fatah and hamas -- fatah you have mahmoud abbas who's the president and you have salem

fayed and who is well thought in the middle east and you have the leader of the gaza strip and the two sides as much as we've heard talk of them uniting in the -- in recent weeks, the gap between what they believe is enormous. and the hamas still does not accept the right of israel to exist. and so i think there's an open question about who is the leader of the palestinian people and who certainly hamas has shown no signs of wanting to negotiate with israel. and the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu said recently to mahmoud abbas if you do a deal with abbas then there's no more talking. these are the issues they are grappling with right now. >> we have time for one more question. [inaudible] >> i had the most extraordinary

room with a view to give birth to both our daughters. a very special place. okay. and thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you. [applause]the

savannah book festival. [applause] hello. thank you for coming by one to talk this afternoon how i came to this book or how the book came to me which sometimes is the simultaneous even enter how a connecticut yankee public career in journalism and failed attempts at fiction suddenly decides he wants to be a historian. but not only that he wants to write about comanche in the great plains which is as far from connecticut as the frozen moons of jupiter. will not a boy you of the details of my past but to put it as briefly as possible i had my little epiphany in the spring of

1970 per garbus just admitted to princeton university and i was traveling there for a weekend where you see if you want to go there. it was a glorious day. just like this morning and the spring was in full bloom per car had taken a train and the last leg was on a smaller train which was the princeton to princeton junction that took the right to the campus. i happen to be reading of book by f. scott fitzgerald called this side of paradise. it was flat -- about life there princeton in absolute a magical. i cannot even read two paragraphs now it is so adolescence but at the time it was magical i finished it just as the train pulled into the station princeton

is as cute as a button. finishing just as the train pulls then and i walk up to the campus and i remember thinking there is absolutely nothing in the world that i would rather do than to write like scott -- of scott fitzgerald. it was all downhill from there. [laughter] for the next 15 years i wrote a bunch of fiction and publish some of it got a graduate fellowship but none of what i did was much good unfortunately. not great stuff i worked for i had jobs was a banker and a teacher but all the while i persisted to see myself as a writer i would go home at night and read by gertrude stein i did better henry james or whatever was doing.

and still i was aware at some level as time went buy i was not exactly living in paris sipping champagne and i was aware of that it was not happening for me. at some point* it occurred i could make a living by writing so i became a reporter in my early '30's. if i got better and better at nonfiction that dream slowly went away everything now is black and white at my age. it is hard for me to understand myself were things were not so absolute where you could be an international banker or a writer. the fiction dream went away then in one great glorious a

spectacular book as 700 word novel that the main effect was to cause my agent in new york not to return my phone calls. [laughter] then it was gone and it was a cathartic experience. it did not happen that long ago but it had to be done and we all realize what we cannot do. i do not read read it. i don't think of myself as a failed novelist. i don't care her gourde of read fiction but here is the difference. coming down to the legendary blank page that the writer sees. that blank page for a fiction writer absolutely astonishing on that blank page there's no rules it could be about iran or mars or new jersey horrible will

be or a martian death the more it -- meritor lifer birth. what am i supposed to do? i don't know. applying to my a journalism as well as my history it is palpable or rio something very real that you hang onto minstar with the premise of the real. so i and up in austin, texas as executive editor of a magazine called texas monthly now i know what to do and if there in texas the comanche nonsense started. when i told my journalist friends i was writing the history of the comanches i got a lot of blank stares you can see the of wheels

turning in their brains to figure out the angle. is there an indian nation health care obama no, no, no just a dusty history something that happened 300 years ago and say that is great. [laughter] we cannot wait to read it. meaning good luck jack i frankly did not care burger wanted to do well and we should all do things that we want to do. the fact is a lot of us write books but very few are interested in jumping back into history partly because, not to run them down but they have the attention span of an act. partly because the obvious lack of qualification.

having a thesis ridden in in 1871 it is at the library although what i hear you can check your thesis out in the princeton library so my plan is to go check it out and take it somewhere and burn it. [laughter] but i have not done that yet. [laughter] i am not a historian not sitting in oklahoma university mulling over native american history so why does a reporter become interested something that happened in the faraway past? is something called generational memory i grew up in connecticut in massachusetts part of the country were native american tribes were subdued a long

time ago. the 1600s i was aware of the indians on cape cod even playing summer baseball they cease to exist as the free tribe 100 years before my ancestors got off the bow and nobody really knew about the mohegans or at all a consequence because too much time had intervened. nobody had a conceivable memory of them. but in texas where i moved as the time bureau chief in 1994, the whole sense of the frontier and native americans was radically different. never would have written this book or have gone near its divided now move to texas one of those strange circumstances that happens when you move. in texas it was part of my job to travel the state and write the stories for "time" magazine then texas monthly

i met a lot of people who told about the comanche's part of the lady who sat next to me at texas monthly had both of her great grandparents were killed and a comanche raid. i knew my great grandparents somebody's grandfather had done business with them and there's a sense of the immediacy of the frontier. and often in my travels of beard and mixing of legend and history i am doing a as a story lakota makes these great close but the factory had burned down so why and went up sitting in a bar he

would tell me about a pat -- a battle that took place right out there you could see it with a spanish janet comanche's. i don't know what he was talking about. it turns out to it was the end of spanish power in the new world. literally where the comanche's rolled the end of spanish power in the new world which is a substantial event as the aztecs could tell you. stories like that here i am traveling around the state saying i don't know anything. one of the reasons is the immediacy of the of frontier the comanche is the last of the indian surrendering 1785 then there was jostling on and off the reservation happening into the 20th

century. the frontier was the immediate thing. the tribe that was featured in most of the stories there were a lot of wichita in a bunch of other tribes in texas even like the apaches but the tribe that you always heard about were the comanche i don't know about you but in my depredations bringing they were something or a word that occurred in the john wayne movie old -- always a code word for danger. that is the comanche arrow. always like that. you did not know why the comanches were bad. but they were bad and they were very bad folks. there was a remembering of the past going on in texas that got me interested in this story.

but it is not just the remembering of the past but also for getting. simultaneous and contradictory revelation. although they were playing off almost everybody else had forgotten the average texan talk about the fastest-growing state 500,000 people per year coming and coming from illinois and mexico they don't know these things. my daughter did not know these things. she grew up in texas and she is 19. in 1940 i would venture to say every single schoolchild in the state of texas new the kidnapping of the parker the rescuer then her son was the last of the greatest chiefs talk to a texan above a certain age they could tell you those things.

this is a good story if you have read my book one of my great discoveries was a guy named jack hayes john coffee case. the original and greatest ranger. the greatest indian fighter one of the greatest commanders america ever produced he developed in the comanche war techniques that were for that had never existed before later used with brutal e effectiveness with the war in mexico and adopted a failed invention by a man named sam been can -- stand in the connecticut and it was said before jack came into the american west everybody came

on foot lugging the rifle but after him they came on horseback carrying six guns. i am leading up to something because i am trying to describe the process of remembering and for getting. jack hayes seem to be completely forgotten. there is a county named hays county and inside of that there is a high-school called hayes high school the greatest ranger and by the way in a state that absolutely treasures rangers the texas rangers are mythical. would you suppose in the state that the mascot of the high school team would be the rangers'? no. they are the rebels. [laughter]

i have no problem with rebels except jack hayes left texas to become the first sheriff of san francisco during the gold rush. he is not a bubble but nobody in hays county knows who he is people in san antonio where he was the sixth stage six shooter knows who he is this was going on and hear was the a great opportunity i saw as a writer because i am a relatively smart guy and even living in texas i did not know who they were. did you ever hear of geronimo? everybody heard of him. yes here of custer? yes. here of mackenzie the actual greatest fighter? never heard of that. >> john coffee hayes who should be a household word like davy crockett but he is not? and no. you can just keep going. the fact is for me as a

writer i could go sell a book in new york to people not only to an editor who gives me many which they do but i could sell to a country that had never heard of these guys. what it a cool thing. the answer to why they tended to we bottled up and prisoners of their region. 700 copies go to schools and libraries and the distribution so i saw my opportunity. i took it. the comanche story is just one of the great stories and what i love about it is it is the best kind of a school you can get from the most beloved history professor to use a vehicle the comanche

tribe which is very cool in itself but to teach you how the west was one. it was not one by the white people until it was lost by the comanches. they constituted an incredible physical barrier to everything that happened in the west the mexicans and texans and americans and spanish and everybody else. and determined what happened around them. occupied the southern plains 250,000 square miles. they basically in a sense held up themselves the ford progress of the american empire put before that they blocked the northward expansion of america partly the reason is the spanish jennifer in the provided them with an astonishing piece of technology known as of course. it was the attempt to move

west turns out the made the mistake of farming that comanche and amaze. texas exist because of comanche's. what does it exist? here is what happened. the mexicans needed to stabilize the northern border. they own the texas in one way to do that the israelis have discovered is you settle it and put people there. the more you settle the more it stabilized in of the purpose is to control that is what you do. taxes did not want to do there because there were comanche's but the red next lee scott irish red head people like davy crockett, they had no problem coming in to settle in this land. the grand plan of mexico it backfired because the texans wanted independence after a little bald at the alamo they got it. so in the fact this is not

the only reason taxes happened but in part misguided to stop the comanche. that is a good way to tell history to somebody who does not know the history of texas. so many other things, the rangers are a product and finally with the 40 year war just true of line from san antonio through fort worth that is where the frontiers at 40 years. nothing even remotely similar happened with any other tribe. i call them the most powerful tribe in american history and people ask me if comanche is meant the western sioux in who would win? there is actually a show with a computer bits a

mongolia and against the historical union but even though they are fabulous warriors but they mean the power to influence the course of history. and absolutely no tribe has such a determinants effect on what happened in north america. the plains tribes were mounted. you could find them. they were agrarian. nomadic course found comanche's or shai man o' war arapahoe or the sioux indians were far harder to eradicate. that is a big military picture but the way the bookworks on the one hand you have a big picture of the rise and fall of the comanches which is interesting because of their great power. but the other side is the more intimate and small

story of the parker family the little girl who is taken so the way my book is organized alternating chapter. big chapters than the parker family and eventually runs together. the organizing event is in 1836 this is where quanah parker was taken a small moment in has -- history that has historical significance. that was the same year texas one its independence. if the parker family had built a stockade 90 miles south of texas. they were out to the comanche frontier it is almost ridiculous.

they were way out beyond almost anybody else on the frontier. one thing to keep in mind how the american west was settled, people sometimes think there was a sweep across that went north or south. it was not to. it was all south. the human frontier was in texas nothing going on up north. fifth great clash was down in the south. five people were killed others were wounded five captives women and children one was cynthia anne parker. this is a routine raid they had been doing this for many, many years. but in historical terms it was a defining moment of the front here. two reasons. first-come it marked the

start of the longest and most brutal war between americans and a single native tribes also because it involved the woman who was to be the most famous as a captive. it took place precisely at the point* where the westward booming american empire that the parker's did not realize that enormous american empire moving west. meeting the 250,000 square bio comanche empire. nobody could see this at the time but it was right there. that is where the parker's build the house. how they had any idea that is what they we're doing i am sure they never would have done it. why was that empire there? the reason it was there is a

result of 150 years of sustained combat with one goal of the south plains. why? those the master the horse like no other tried because that is where the buffalo were. over 150 years the comanche's essentially use their unbelievable mastery of the course to challenge as they went south nearly exterminated the apaches eventually gaining what they wanted which was the south plains which is where the buffalo were. that is where the parker's plucked that little house right on the edge of that. pretty good idea. this is where they built the frontier paradise and the chain of events, i am sorry. one more thing that is really interesting about where they put the house.

if you look at america before columbus the entire east coast was one dense grimm brothers forest. it was dense. dense. slipped from the east coast about the 98th meridian. right through the middle of texas right from san antonio in dallas and essentially it was bazaar's you have a culture in the east was the culture of the woods based on timber, land, water. when you got past the tree-lined this is a terrifying moment. no trees to build houses. no water. all of that happened right there so it was asked that edge of that physical geographical.org geological moment where the land changed and that was there. that is where they built the house.

we have that captivity of cynthia parker she bore three children, refused to come back. famous as the white squall who would not return. that story played out. her oldest son in the greatest comanche warrior of his age, not going into great detail here but wind great story of quanah parker i. a. consider quanah parker one of the most extraordinary of the 14th century one of the most ford -- formidable warriors that is saying something. our brilliant feel the general, and never defeated by whites in battle. led the last of the comanche into the terrible dying days of 1875 and the buffalo had all been killed after all

the other tribes have surrendered. he moved to the comanche reservation and transformed himself in oklahoma the way that his mother had. she had adapted brilliantly to the comanche culture now he adapted to the white culture. he went from the fierce this plains warrior to the most successful influential indian of the period and controlled a small cattle empire, outfoxed the white man add to the leasing games in a friend of to the roosevelt and accumulated a large fortune of almost all of which he gave away to help his fellow comanche's. the year is 1871. keep in mind a 35 years after the first battle of the comanche. the frontier was still shockingly where it had been. it was not moving. keep in mind with the civil

war men who were running america are the gramm warriors who have destroyed the south. the president is ulysses s. grant and william tecumseh sherman and also phil sheridan all of these names are familiar. and these are the men who were running things. 1871, they unleashed the greatest war machine in american history. looking at this tribe that was sitting there holding up everything. 1871 these guys said, one of the reasons the comanches were still there as i point* out is the civil war took the attention away from the planes. 1871 that attention was no longer focused on the war or

reconstructions but now look to see what we will do about the comanche problem. quanah parker was 21 years old the leader of the most remote and most hostile bands in the panhandle by low becker amarillo texas. they were an amazing bunch. they kept away from the white man contracted very few of the disease is. 15,000 horses, they traded with men who operated out of new mexico. you see them in movies as a rough bunch. so grant and sherman decide they have been death so they center colonel mackenzie

down, and he wrote rues career parallels custer. so they send mackenzie 600 bluecoats ride out and they will get the comanches and the target is the village village, quanah parker has a village. we don't know exactly how big the village was but we think 200 tepees. it was the village was when the and children and dogs and cattle and horses. what happened is astonishing quanah parker it gave mackenzie the most extraordinary lesson of planes were fair. the indians were vastly outnumbered. reached loading repeating

rifles the comanche's if they had anything at all it was the muskets but mostly bows and arrows. let me see if i can briefly describe called the battle of blenko canyon. the bluecoats they're pretty tough people. there were not complete idiots thereafter playing cat and mouse where quanah parker stampedes sources, the bluecoats calgary move forward and locate the village and they will move on the village. they march to where the villages but it is gone. so they send the scouts out to figure out where it was. what has happened is they get to a point* where they realize all of the crisscrossing lines.

a horse to avoid vertu long poles on the back of a horse so they could carry things because they did not have wheels. as a large group of migrating comanche's move to have parallel way at the -- lines in the sand so suddenly all of the lines go crazy then the village disappears and then they realize sinhalese the village has doubled back and it is now behind them. 200 lodges we don't know how many people but a bunch with four years. they are furious they have to give up the next day now they will just go get the village and they are mad. now the village disappears again and now they realize midcap brock is a steep cliff that rises between 200 and 1,000 feet the whole village disappeared up the cap brock.

so the soldiers go up to the top the realize the village has gone down and attractive again and again the crisscrossing lines and they lose it. it sounds like i make this up it is the account of the medal of honor winner who hated quanah parker but admires what he did. the village disappears again and goes back up the cap rock now the soldiers have them. back up to the top of the cliff this is where the planes go dead flat for oceanic and now they can see the indians getting away. just like on cue or from whoever a howling norther wind that can blow in the fall the temperature drops

60 degrees in an hour it is the blu number dropping ice and snow. mackenzie has forgotten to put on their wit -- winter clothes because it was such beautiful weather and into the howling gale he leaves the warriors off and away and mackenzie and his men are forced to hunker down and lucky they did not freeze to death. but essentially quanah parker got away. he schooled mackenzie of the planes warfare. one of the key things is escape. but very few instances in history where a commander takes of village into the field against his adversary and wins. that is the kind of commander quanah parker was. he was quite brilliant. the obviously escaped to find another -- fight

another day he would not surrender until 1875 almost every single one of their food source had been killed. that is all i want to say tonight. i would be happy, do we have time for questions? i am happy to answer questions. >> [inaudible] that was her cousin rachel parker plumber. >> [inaudible] >> yes. this is one of the great things that you have at your disposal. rachel plumbers diary which is an unbelievable account for the very few captives she was taken for many months on to the planes so it is rather extraordinary.

it is published i also held the original. yes. i don't know how many around here but in texas the rare book collections will have it. [laughter] i don't know if i could living dead in most main library is but the rare book collections to easily could. >> you're descriptive as of the comanches ability to fight on their horses was absolutely fascinating. there are a few statistics on how fast they could fire in narrow -- fire eight o that maybe people would be interested. >> talk about the comanche's

amazing ability with the course the first time americans saw that was the expedition of 1834 iran into them they simply could not believe what they were looking at. people today could do what they did which is basically to use at a leather thong dip down to the side of the horse so you could not see them there were behind the horse but also fire under the neck of a horse with extreme speed trick riders have duplicated it now but they could hit things with a full gallop. never seen anything like it before. nobody has ever seen their ability to break a horse. doing this that nobody had ever seen that they would often do things like chase the wild horses that were

over a large piece of ground. they will let the course, to the water and before the horses got to drink the wolves do this to the caribou, the horses are constantly on the road not allowed to drink. so at the end what you see the comanche's do is try to get a rope on a horse and get to the horse and it was in a complete lather then take its nostrils and blow into the nostrils and it would gentle the course. is like methane people had seen before the only indian tribe with breeding and understood all of that.

but the comanches, as far as we know in history, a small tribe that lived in what is now wyoming which is now not a significant tribe then something happened that nobody saw and the emerging as a terrific a powerful force by virtue of the horse broke. >> [inaudible] >> interesting you should ask that. 1400 registered excuse me 14,000 of those, 9,000 lived close to the old homeland of the reservation which is in oklahoma southwestern part. a few comanche's that are more widely dispersed. they have a couple of casinos for our think they do okay but they are

wrestling with the same things that most other tribes wrestle with, but they still exist you can see the nation website and it is interesting. i had the opportunity for the honor with my book talks in the planes comanche's would come to it. there were 10 of them and of 80 stood up to say what do the comanche's think about your book? [laughter] a lot of them like it. some of them don't. i talk about quanah parker father's death that goes against history. i know it does but i just believe that and we will not come together but on the hold the reception is pretty good. >> [inaudible]

>> a very good question. how many people that i interviewed? and nine. because there were no living people that could inform 1/2 fined back then. but i had in the 1930's thankfully there were two or three different projects where people recorded comanche's from the old days from the pre-reservation period. they did studies and there is a lot of that. i relied on that. those guys did my interviewing for me. there was not much point* like interviewing me about my grandfather's experiences of world war i. one of these days, i wrote about the chickasaws last year when of the goals is to do current day interviews.

>> [inaudible] could you elaborate how much society has organized retribution? >> the question is to what extent were the raids the comanche's performed were revenge or retribution part of the planes were fair? the plains indians were a warlike group and they fought. that is what they did. when somebody would conduct the arapaho conducted the success of reagan as the comanche they would watch

the countertrade and it went both ways. this is the way it went sometimes their raids meant to get horses sometimes if somebody killed the that would call for revenge but it is the way it worked and it was part of the deal the same revenge was exacted on whites later. will hold adobe walls that vote last great expansion was a giant revenge raid against the white truck they had done qantas said it was because of the death of his father but the comanches were very brutal so were all plains indians and also native americans with treatment of the captives and torture and revenge raids they were common to

native americans. if you are a historian you have to come to terms with that. it happened. . . the best example would be at wounded knee but there were some others, that the impression created was that indians were these kind of more gentle, spiritual people, not necessarily gentle but they were fundamentally decent people who

were steamrolled by the culture of rogan treaties and the stories of the massacres and it was kind of i think a one-sided deal. and if you look at the comanches that simply is not true. the comanches were enormously powerful. were they victimize? where were they eventually steamrolled? yes, they were but that is not fundamentally who they were and to think, i wasn't making a political point in my book. i was just describing what i found and what i found was yes they were quite regal and quite warlike and held their own against everybody but that particular view was just overly complicit decodes even the five civilized tribes from the southeast if you go back to their origins they were enormously powerful and they were warlike and they were noble in their own way so again i had no political.. i had no political agenda.

anybody else? thank you all for coming. [applause] berg.

please join me in welcoming captain smiley to the 2012 savannah book festival. [applause] >> thank you, linda. thank you for making this happen and please, again, i'll thank your wife later this evening. i'm honored to be able to speak to you this afternoon. i wrote my autobiography, and i'll cover that in the end, but just to motivate and inspire 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. .. necessities of life.

you know, it was about 4:45 when i went and 5:15 when i finish. and so unfortunate to have drinking water that day and i know the importance of drinking water now. i was dehydrated. so i'm heading out in the 95 degrees five i knew all i needed to do was make the first right, take the first left across the ottawa to come for them 1520 arts come air-conditioner water, awesome. it's going to be great. across the alley i don't feel the mass is so blind people come you increase the art of your stick just in case you missed something here so increase a little more i walk about 10 to 15 more yards than realized, i'm lost. i know many of this year and back track is common sense here proportionally a buying guide backtracking is a blind eye back

tracking. [laughter] i still didn't know where it 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. he