it's a story written by someone that works for a rolling stone but it's a personal story about somebody about how he fell in love with someone who also fell in love with him debris very unlikely pair and from what i understand she died and he's devastated but then this is something i did for years and years and years to all my ex's but he basically writes a book that is essentially a next eight to her in her honor because he loved her and she's gone. it sounds like with the mixed tape for her i can't wait to read that once a that's what i'm hoping to read this summer.

benjamin busch served the tours in iraq as a marine corps infantry officer. he recounts his childhood, his military career and adjustment to life upon his return from iraq next on booktv. this is just over an hour. >> thank you so much for coming out and supporting independent bookstores and in support of books. i wrote a book, kind of shocked actually, but it's my great pleasure tonight my editor mcclelland who was pivotal in keeping under control as i tried to craft perhaps the most unlikely structured book in the history of writing where i am tempted to replicate fairly closely the way we've remember which of course has no

chronology, and he was kind enough to suggest each chapter might just begin and chronologically progress towards its and which is how it is in its final form. each chapter does reset to childhood. it does replicate in some ways that have wasted we remember, and that's how this book was built, choosing elements and following them. if my hair catches on fire tonight, please excuse that i've had a dangerous amounts of hair spray. thank you. i'm going to read a couple small selections which will give you kind of a look into me, and i exist in this book as a messenger. this book isn't really about me, it's not a portrait of me or my family, it's not a biography credits of eight war more it is of my perspective and what is

most important in the reading of this book is the reader. what you've done in some way will guide you into your own memory. this is a book of memory, the power of the child's believe and how that child a koza in our lives and our memories endure and preserve everything in some ways. we are very much a product of who we have always been and i think most people that knew me as a child, there are a few who knew me when beckon for which new york are and surprised by the number of things i and up getting into in my endeavors because i was somewhat said in my impulses that were fairly realized yondah and still fit

into my memory which is what i had to do to make this book. i found myself relatively unchanged in many ways. experience is all changed but the journey from where we began to where we end has very powerful threats and that is what i traced in this book. some of you know me from acting, so i'm going to read an early passage of my first public performance and then take it to my first serious performance in my mind on homicide. so my father dragged us to england which was in no way a labor for me because i thought i was my natural place in the lights in england, and while we were there, the british were very serious about drama even an elementary schools and so i got

into a play and was about queen bucha and i will set a tone for what comes leader in my performance in homicide so here i am in england. i attended school there in my class spent a year studying vernon burton. teachers organized a play about the queen, and early celtic leader who fought heroically against control in britain. we could be legionaries. i wanted to be an allegiance but i was cast as one of the war years. we were referred to as barbarians, taking on the name given to people north of rome and we were considered a hoard instead of an army. it seemed another step down. we were sent home a list of things to make and instructions on how to address the play. i should requirements to my father who looked at them as though he couldn't read and

handed them to my mother. shield, scott, velte khator cloak. she gave me a large piece from a grocery box and we cover up the tomatoes with blue and brown butcher paper. i said barbarian or not would never emblazoned shield of fastballs. i drew undersized dragons which looked like smudges in the distance and lightning starting from the center. my mother found material she rapped over one soldier to the koschel for and wrapped around my side with a safety pin. i wore brown shorts, no shirt and my father's prelate decoupled route twice around my hips. last was my sword. my mother was at a loss for how to make a sort. we cut strips of cardboard conclude them together and wrapped in black plastic from a garbage bag. it looked terrible. i was disappointed. my have father was happy to be free of blame. my costume might have done well

in america or expectations were low but when i was in school i was immediately ashamed. some of the children came to class and a lot or more that looked like accurate replicas of the uniforms. their parents spent weeks working on them and children were afraid to move for fear of terrorism something that had been carefully glued. other barbarians ranged in their interpretation and we did look somewhat like a koret. the teachers built a chair as to matching horse costumes with papier-mache heads and brown cloth bodies each one over the two men. have a blind eye plater of the room and the group played the queen standing in it and we followed. we rehearsed for days. my part consisted of nothing but following the triet in the room chanting angry nonsense leading my embarrassing sort lining up against the romans and charging to my dramatic death. on the date of the performance the parents and staff and several hundred students we trust in the classroom and they marchant the auditorium.

the region looks imperial but i was relieved not to have been chosen i could imagine how my armor would have looked if i had been left we assembled while they were on the inside at some produce a given a signal that the entrance my parents said dow's became and yelling on was the barbarian most notably smiling. she gave her speech about liberty and the attack of rahman links failing to achieve our freedom. he made a slash at me. this was my cue to perish and the rehearsals i'd gone for the motions pretended slowly to pretend that this was the performance. i threw myself over the screen with my feet of the stage shield and sword of right back with a snack that sounded loud even to me.

half of the place stood pop eyes closed to control my breath if trying very hard not to let her voice sound hysterical. can you hear me, she asked? she had her hand on my chest and she was cold. yes, i hissed trying not to move my lips. >> are you hurt, can you move? i've been killed, i whispered keeping my eyes closed. i heard my mother's voice in consultation and the play went on more boys falling on the floor of the foot of the stage the constrained soared strokes of boys dressed too well for fighting. they made another speech and drink poisons from the triet pulled out of the room by the teachers to discuss horses.

i pretended again i had been killed in front of my parents. as my first public performance and a blend of the professions to would go on to pursue most seriously. coming forward, at this point graduated with a degree which led me directly to the marine corps which is a natural progression of anyone we are a heavy source of infantry officers in the marine corps and after my first period of active duty at camp lejeune i came back to what was our first home and i wanted to get back into acting before of course immediately rejoining the reserves and spending another 14 years in the service of the core, so here i am at the end of my first tour

as it were, 1996, a great deal of peace during that time. after a three-year tour of camp lejeune in the infantry my wife and i moved into a little house in college park maryland, our first home together. i wanted to audition for homicide because of was a good television show filmed in baltimore only 30 minutes from our house. it wasn't the only local show and was probably the only chance i had at a significant role. i begin my head shot months before and i was called in to play an extra. he said nothing more that i would need to wear shorts, brings a person the bathroom. it is disappointing. i sat as my death was applied to me i was covered with a case where i thought i would be seen

unzipped body bag and a large hatchet wound sculpt on to my forehead with wax and lead paint i dressed in my bathroom and slippers and got into another van which might have been the same and was driven a block to set. in a small warehouse separate it from the baltimore by the dhaka with a water ride. bill for the show which often brought there to examine the fictitious dead. there were extras going around in lab coats and the crews setting up in the room for the shoot. i restricted to the stainless steel table and i slid into the body bag. even though the room was heated and the table was still cold another extra pad as if taking notes on what could only be the most obvious cause of death in history. as i lay there i did not participate in the board banter the other in significant players and corpses and wanted to be noted as a professional.

while i kept my eyes closed than standing step in fighting adjusted factors red ant continue rear sing elsewhere. i remained on the table. i did not speak. i control my instinct to shiver until they called cut but then when they had seen me and they would believe that i wasn't alive. they began to show people away from launch which was a set up somewhere down the street and the actors disappeared along with the crew. but i lay on the table. i had no intention of moving until directed to do so. the warehouse grew quiet and i could hear footsteps in the back and things being moved but it was abandoned. i was alone. i haven't followed the herd out of the building to wait and had

been left behind. it occurred to me no one was going to direct me anywhere. i slipped out of the bag and off the table and found my bathrobe and slippers and walked outside. it was december in baltimore. bitter cold and i didn't know the area very well. a member of the crew was walking back and i asked if there was a shovel coming back. he seemed surprised to see me and gave directions to the church where catering was left out. i would have to walk and head up the street in my bathrobe and slippers with my bear legs feeling strange and cold wind struck them. i felt remarkably exposed. i walked across the street where people were christmas shopping and i felt myself being noticed. i smiled at a couple as they stared unsure what they thought they were witnessing. i had forgotten how my head must have looked. there were many people stumbling around baltimore with drugs was long disregard i could have been one of them staying with

imaginary she's in the chill of the winter. i arrived at the church where the fans were parked and went in the front entrance as i stepped through the large wooden doors and looked directly into the classroom of black children who promptly went silent. it took me a moment to see the launch was downstairs at the church basement. i stood a gaping wound in my forehead and a bathrobe. the children stared as he descended the stairs and joined the rest of the bambi meets the church. after we eight, the shuttle returns to the site where i leaned back on the table and finished the scene. afterwards here and make up was busy so they gave me some lights and i dressed in my regular close. i drove home with makeup on. ..

>> i wanted to be a

professional. i did not complain. i held my breath. in the episode aired by parents said they could not watch. >> that gives you a look how i have taken everything. i always wanted to be professional found suffering is necessary for me to continue living. and we can always say discomfort and it is built in who i am.

as many of us would prefer the unknowable that gives a look into me that provides context. the rest of the book would guide you. i go into my family and mother and father who were there. juries these critical moments they have echoed. what i have found desai could restore my memory after i lost them. that is the true power of a

memoir." of this book and many have been taken back to their childhood. as well as that shared experience. we had to brotherhood's brotherhood's -- childhoods better or worse. doing okay? five minutes. a thick corduroy jacket. [laughter] i will not hesitate to tell you is made of pure heat.

[laughter] something small. going after large subjects subjects, i have to paint myself to serve as a conduit for what i have discovered. and it is something i have been concerned never enough time. something that would lead and into lourdes and found

this possible i learned things about to stone and his life. >> that is a substance without a real attachment to the year. exist only as an aftermath in the ground and the wind made by a dead destruction of the core. something has to die to

become ash. pompeii was sealed then burn them so completely only hollow spaces survive. plaster board into the molds from at the node the most about roman life because of the city. destruction preserve it. and from what we dug from the cast-iron shovel, the both decrease in size. as they carry the ash into the snow and looks like a loss best. looking as a melts its way underneath.

pieces of china dolls and canning jars and household garbage pits. making and name was bottles but were sloppy and broke much. it protected them in soft piles. but that consider what else was in the ash. the town had burned everything down. the secrets of families went into the fire all the ash that went through my fingers

searching for objects that were unrecognizable. going to the nearby a town of hamilton it was in a bid to your to see the landscape. iowa wondered what was under the bumps of snow. "i am legend" homesteads. there was firewood stacked in vitriol of smoke. i remember clearly. the shadow changed changing with the ground. we were like sucked the board and unrecognizable. i could see myself small by father changing sides to block the sun as a pass over

the countryside late in the afternoon. i have seen cities destroyed in my life. i know everything is recomposed from existing matter. pieces of us you could not keep the see their. i have been presented all the evidence. i believe none of it. "dust to dust" igo into a

lot of territory with this head the book. i hope you follow me. it is about yelling at universe. i held you join me to do so. now it is my pleasure to have a discussion with mr. george packer. this book is fantastic. [applause] >> where did you learn to

write? year memoir it is beautifully written but not of some one news seemed destined to be a writer. building for its, airplanes, weapons, and made relationship is physical world but it is for the literary souls but though how do you become a writer? >> i am of assessed with tactile. the book is the object also. i did not grow from all hole

in the year if. that is where i develop the visual direct relationship. but it is written to make sure two-seat a good sense of space. by a group of in a house of words. if not participate. >> although to sag will not go that route to. i will be the infantry

officer. >> i was so kinetic by expression came from construction. art to. print. drawing. that is halide thought i was effective. iraq forced my hand. i had to express these things that are monumental discovery is that i did not have images for. i had to find the language that the experience could be transferred through words. >> other ways had been cut

off and so the letters were the one way you found it to do with? >> then my a voice demerged. even then i agonize over the right words and word placement. i knew it could be the wrong word. i would strive to find ways bridge that is exact. >> then i receive these from a complete stranger benjamin busch 2007 when the border

was going on. they said appearing is a marine you can really write. you seem determined to refuse says the iraq war memoir. you did not read at and it is not announced but all those books, some are a good some are not. but they all have a similarity. baby your letters home in the beginning were you actively trying to tell your readers don't expect what

you think? it did -- does not give you the simple gratification. >> it is not limited progression or linear narrative and it is not confined. conventional nemours focus period of time, chronological with the path. a picture of a person and their life. my was not so much to describe me but all of the things i have found to be so. as a child going to london, there were castles.

in my mind i assume stone is the medium of perpetuities. i became a stone mason. everything was built out of stone because i knew that would into were. i had seen stone castles. [laughter] then you get a sense for reference for that substance it necessarily has to take me to where i find myself standing in the desert composed of sand with the realization mrs. stone. these are mountains.

we are brief. we also never disappear. even the ash and carbon goes back into life this doan is pressed and becomes stone again. >> but there is a trajectory each chapter recapitulates growth and decay which is nature. but the book has a trajectory which leads to the wisdom and a recognition of brutality.

you began with the boy who is convinced you can ride out to and the thing that comes their way. we all want to know how we do under fire. but it does death assert itself more and more? there must be from the elements that allowed you to stay in the protective world of the child to the world of the adult. >> what else can you end

with? throughout the book is the power of the belief. we have beliefs and one is immortality. that happens to other people. prowess to sustain you. the india of our continuation, our parents survival is not something that we question. these are permanent truth. you cannot convince them their parents will buy. -- paise finreg but they

want to know all about it. >> at the same time they don't imagine it will have been. really. >> my son wanted to know if nixon was dead and if we could have him to dinner. [laughter] >> what is essential as i came back from iraq on my daughter's first birthday. i saw her born then i was wounded and iowa lost friends and it was a violent time in a place that was

most committed. there is my daughter and she did not know who i was. i was back into fatherhood. immediately my father died then my mother. in that process by went to being an orphan. the cycle was rapid. with the realization everything could be lost. the child disbelieved in their death. no question. but the child did not believe it to fiercely. a the end of this is what

happens. and the the book began to be born that i realized trying to remember the defiance going back to the child i had been. there afterlife was in my memory. i did restore them. >> you became a father just in time to know she will have the same experience. is bittersweet. convergence of defense. >> i understand those importance there are things that i will say and words matter that will someday

come back to them. is who i will be. >> can you have conversations like this in the marine corps? i know would army colonel and vietnam. he said he talked his soul way. to appeal the year, get through the year, he stopped being a writer and put it away to get through it. because they would get in each other's way. did you have a private space? >> i always have my mind. you can get away with anything in their. i have tried.

do you have to be an entirely different person? separate yourself from the intellectual creature? i was an artist at to more. the two were injured dependent. >> and boot camp you went to the woman's college. >> that was not a complement. then they called me girls school. i had my moment of pride and i paid dearly for it to. they called me woman's college after that. [laughter] it was a promotion.

the fascination is with the arts and that is how are a kind photographs and that benefited tremendously trying to find a new wants in a place we did not understand because of the high end fascination i could watch instead of talk over and for whatever effectiveness it was the artist to pay attention. i am not a big fan of the

template. the marine corps reduce everybody the field initiative. under the intent complete as you feel best. i had to wear a certain disposition but i did not compromise who i was. >> did then than under your command know that you made the things? >> i would it not talk about immortality but to i acted like i could not be killed. it may be careless but i was not concerned for my life. >> is a book you must read

for with the town council meeting trying to work out their early government and they say can we plug the hole in the euphrates? that has been dug in order to irrigate the field of said dom's wife. everyone in the town is determined with the marine major in charge with that early democracy with the unanimous vote then gets a note to from the six

year-old boy. >> by the zero linemen of iraq which was still fighting us with commitment. i will not to give it away. >> they did not get me. [laughter] >> fy year came through. you put on a performance that showed he was of a good guy. and just knew how to react in the moment when most would freak out. >> you could not believe what anybody said. culturally there is not a

lot of truth in the q&a session. you have to ask the question around the subject to get the lives then put together what is true. we were not equipped to. so we were in this the frustrated. if i say i will pay you $10 today at what time? the paint will be here. the next day they are ready to renegotiate. no. $10. this would have been seven

days in a row. we would end up at $10 everytime but the work would not be done. i could not be offended because that would be offensive. i would constantly put myself in my black box. and a stand this is how things are and allow native solutions to arius but it was mind-boggling coming from a culture that is so different. i am not right to. i am in the wrong place for my solution at this time. >> 16 yen with the army captain and the three local

tribal leaders, quote after the ied was planted on the road, the iraqi said you should look at how the british did this. he said. we need to have a more complicated conversation. i do this and you do that. it does not work that way. >> going away from an discussion they are all entirely people. i understood also the power

of story. you could do a lot on a board your. iowa could tell the herder's so when you are -- it is fascinating and 1800 pages of notes useless to the year if but to trying to figure out family trees, towns, relationships trees, towns, relationships, why this group was not cooperating. i a diagram to. >> like the anthropologist. >> it was that type of situation. ethics. religious. we were just there.

we did not have that realization but flour words will bloom. it is the value carelessness >> who could turn us down? and invest and we could do would be to restore the corruption and. >> will you ever go back? >> yes. >> particular people? >> i want to see my first down. at some point*. no more notes. i had a much better line of

defense and a camera and pen and paper. i am interested. while i was there the introduction of ideas to put the positive spin on it is not a long time looking at history but we are big trading partners with the unnumbered go and at some point*, because of our presence, some things we thought introduced were preferred. i cannot track those moments or give us credit but at the

same time it is a defense place and iraq has changed by the introduction of things. we did show a another way. >> that is the most hopeful thing i have heard. not in the thain that says what people have not heard. your book is the way for readers to go back to iraq without going ahead on. with so many soldiers who

found after the first two minutes no one wanted to know. but in the shatt is more active. it is something so different of any book by anyone will allow rieders back without generating the resistance that the books and movies are generating. >> those are those moments that are part of the infancy together. there is also the aftermath which was gruel.

>> there is a line that is despairing. >> that is what you come to. losing feigns with that extremity people you know, owe you wonder how can you recommend that? would this the end just mission. then there was a complacency that said we support the

troops. then you could not tell what was a real feeling. nobody forced it to to end. there is that can ft -- confusion what is the point*? i did not join the marines to fight and we sent into a noble mission. in 2006 it was hard to see. -- we have gone on. >> it is a wonderful

conversation. >> i a agree. in terms of writing and the tangible the memoir to me is so striking because it is nothing that is not true. that scene of the helicopter crashing i use the word. everything in your book is

real. the yours is the opposite. talk about real vs. fiction. >> how many hours to we have? in fantastic question. talk about the absolute truth i write to films and the editor this year with our new film but i wrote that while i finished the book and it is about the impossible search for a childhood. it always and forms with your best material.

with the hemingway quote but to conclusion, all's well benz well. [laughter] life pushes into your arch. we wait to for them to mate and that is some of my best work. fiction. the book has little dialogue.

knowing that i would not write conversation. i have a photographic memory for spaces i can recount visual locations accurately but i cannot remember what is said. that is where dialogue comes up. i found it very frustrating. i had to give the seen no way. it did not have the power or the line. slowed to not quote to

writing fiction is liberating. if i want the conversation to exist, i just write it. lead toward the particular and we have to describe them. with the constant hunt for what i was saying.

but that is what was important. own imagination of a similar landscape how we turn through the book. it is a great question. >> your relationship with your father. [inaudible] moet a real man does not fix everything with duct tape. and the other hand what a

good man was. and the right thing about the book with a rebel yen and a response i would love for you to talk about where you shared these ideas. >> i was kinetic. different sides of the same steady. i could not stand the distance. if he would write about something in the field he would write about it from a distance where i brian out

to in the field. we were very different that day. 10 kids building walls following me through 27 books he made a of what i said that to this is what a kid dennis that is the job for me. i think that is a line from

master and commander. good than to have a job as the squire. you are in a castle. i went to the beefeaters. i tried to be british. rehab millwork of that sort for you. we have to do something about my passport.

of course, he was a fiction writer. maybe down the line i could be a bad night. i would be obsessed with building of plane then he would have to curb my and his -- enthusiasm. i am worried about mental fatigue because the plane i could not finish building to get added of england having issues being a yankee. my impulses were clear.

marines was as close as i could get. i was passed the phase then as president of the class a went to the marine officer candidate school. vassar was shocked but my parents found peace and were proud. it took them a period of shock. the parents' job is the hardest to protect the child. i was a child chasing it. if there was a line one point* on safety one out of

risk. always out of reach. but always reaching. that is what drove them crazy. >> since you became an orphan have you moved to the safety side? divx i left the marine corps. i left. 16 years. no retirement. no benefits. i walked cold. i knew i would continue to go back until they brought me back if the beg because afghanistan was next for me. i wanted to go. it is hard to see marines

deployed. i feel betrayal because i feel responsible. that is part of the leadership. all the way down. if they have a responsibility, levying is the hardest decision i ever made. the marine corps did not care. we will put another of lieutenant-colonel there. it did not notice the coming we're going. much like the earth. we rise and fall. it was traumatic for me. i wonder. we have different ways of

seeing our environment. >> you became a father at the same time. >> exactly. that is the decision i have to make. being a father to those who are not my children or a father to this little girl? all she had to do was look at me. she won pretty easily. it does not change the decision. it will always be regret to. i believe fiercely and in this cst. >> thank you so much. i hope everybody bias your book and learns from it. [applause] óño

>> it contains the alphabetical list of the members of the house and the senate 1831. issued only for immediate

use it on the. they could not alone this out because it tells you exactly where everybody lived. you could punch them in the nose. >> as important as this project has become i remembered the base. and we gained about it in the book treated with the water to sentences you would expect. all of a sudden the tweens madison head the monroe debating the most important

issues, bill of rights, what kind of union than there and the first congress. what belgrade to bury the the the. nobody had written about it before. the book opens at the inauguration of george washington. when he took the oath to of 13 states were out of the union. north carolina and rhode island because it was missing the bill of rights. this was common. the common denominator is they oppose the constitution. some believe you could not have the union, independent

states but they did not being and a government could avert oversee the entire continent. the objection to the constitution was centered around missing a bill of rights. well washington took the oath new york was agitating for the new constitutional convention. they were terrified. they thought it was infiltrated and the constitution would be done away and the union would be fractured. never to come together again. >> i am rabin up citizens of london that came out a couple years ago.

a marvelous history of edward r. murrow reporting back to the united states with strongly held views to get to into the war. and able her and then sent over by president roosevelt to deal with our foreign-aid program for england. and the ambassador of course, kennedy was partial to the germans and i suspect that is why roosevelt brought him home. of marvelous book about the three of them. with churchill and their advocacy of the united states breaking out of the isolationist mode. the author had previously written a