invasion initially which was successful, was nonetheless fired two weeks later by omar bradley. and this story he heard literally a month after an essay by an army colonel around the military in which he said today, 2005, a private suffers more grief for losing a rifle than the general does for losing a war. and it is true, to be a general is really hard and should be expected that many people fail at it. that command is the missile -- famously hard. the military had a tradition of firing generals. they have completely lost that tradition. generals are traditionally only fired by the president for political reasons now. he follows these men from world war ii, korea, vietnam, iraq,

afghanistan, following the genealogy and looking at what it is to be a general and why is it that -- what is going to -- i can't read the whole book for you, but when general basically said this is exactly what we need. we need, as an institution, to ask ourselves these questions and how we hold ourselves accountable. and this is a book about how organizations need to hold themselves accountable for their performance or else they stop becoming effective, so it's a book about the american military that has all sorts of wonderful ramifications for anyone who works an organization that needs to improve or die. >> and we have been talking with scott moyers, who is publisher of impress some low that -- some of the upcoming titles. >> book tv attended a book party for a colonol lee ellis, a

former k-9 he spent over five years in prison in several camps attendees include senator john mccain and orson swindle, former commissioner of the federal trade commission. this is about 45 minutes. >> admiral, it is good to see you. thank you for coming. >> i don't think we have met before. >> that's right. that is right. affirmative joyous. >> how are you holding up? >> i am a little concerned. and did not sleep so well. [inaudible] [background noises]

x managing, publishing company. good to see you. how are you doing? >> not to focus. >> i got you. okay. >> wonderful. wonderful. i remember this one. >> she spoke. hell is she doing? >> tomorrow she has, you know -- which one? so give her. enough. and a thinker some much. i appreciate. thank you. maybe. can we use it? in light. >> good to see you. thank you for coming out. >> the last messes sounded like he had gotten a previous message.

[background noises] [background noises] >> i have not been excited about this. you know, you just keep plugging away in the green. -- and agreeing. a really good theme that is working. [background noises] [background noises]

[background noises] he has already grown too big parties in san antonio for its client. >> he said that book all over san antonio. you. >> i have a script.

i have gone over trying to get it down in my head. i don't know if we will get there or not. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises]

>> a, good to see you. thanks for coming. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises]

[background noises] [background noises] >> people would say, why don't you read a book. get sick, we don't need another autobiography. then i realized i really did have something to contribute. a passion, had written books before and thought i could tell the story. it could really make a book. >> the most significant quality that makes the leader. >> the first one, you have to be authentic. you cannot be a phony. you have to walk the talk.

you have to be vulnerable, and sometimes you're wrong and sometimes you make mistakes. that is what great leaders do. when it comes time, there are tough, hard things that ouroo honorable, you have to lean and. i have to coach myself sometimes to have the courage to do what i have to do. >> when you think of those times to you think about what you do and how that will affect other people? you have to do this. >> of course, what the standard of what a good leader is android integrity and character is. and if i am doing that and they're probably going to respect me to start with. i pay attention and then i want to develop people that are better than me who can do my job better than me. i'm going to move on sunday.

free them to go and be great leaders somewhere, either in my place or somewhere. >> how did your pow experience help you to be a good leader? >> well, when i came home i have been gone five and a half years. i had been combat. a had never been an operational unit. i was in combat. i took three months off and then i got promoted and sent home two years early because of my -- what i had done in the camp. i am eight years behind my fear. it was that which i learned that enabled me to compete. something about that experience gave me the understanding about what was about, and that was able to do the technical stuff. >> how did you get on the former

pow. >> bistro. -- you struggle. >> we are loyal to each other. >> i had a very good friend he was a pow from vietnam. baker. do you know him at all? >> i know dave baker. yes. >> yes,. >> he died a couple of years ago >> yes, right. >> yes. >> he was one of the last pow. >> that's right. thank you so much for coming. i must circulate. i will speak shortly. good. good. sorry i keep running off.? >> congratulations. >> hi, sheila. >> i like your book. i keep telling she lets you read

it. >> of course. >> i should not have done this, last month, hey, how're you doing? >> great to see you. >> thank you. thank you. >> i was signing books. the sign said, this book. read the damn book. stacks of books. i can't do this. a great sense of humor. and then afterward, should not have done that. >> we work together at the reunion and pier in 2006. i remember. >> work to go -- work together. >> years ago. >> i am amazed that you have made it. [background noises]

>> always entertaining. >> you dominated my book a little too much. it was okay. and your story, have you seen your story? i have the story. when you first, when you first moved in with us, movies. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises]

>> he does a fabulous job. >> no, i went and found it because i wanted to see it. >> actually, i don't know. >> sunshine jackson, did you ever hear that? >> oh, yes. >> i wish that i had your -- i am -- [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises]

[background noises] [background noises] [background noises] >> five years plus a little. from new jersey, and he always told us about this yellow impala convertible, 64. we had been home one month driving on interstate into atlanta and icn holder looking couple driving a yellow and paula, 64 convertible. i pull up beside them apply them over to pull over, and they did.

it that there were being hijacked. i pulled over. i say, are you the bonanzas from new jersey? knesset, yes. i live with jerry in hanoi. it was not him. as his parents. there were going to montgomery. he said his dad told that story for years. >> the remainder of the a career in the air force. >> yes, i did. >> right down the street here. [background noises]

[background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] >> it is exciting. we have so many friends here. pows, businessmen. >> one of your sunday school teachers? as think he is a sunday school

teacher. >> oh, yes, yes. he is a businessman. he was in my sunday school class he loves the book. they have been promoting it. or he said, i am going to be there. >> she feels like she knows you. >> i look forward to it. >> that was good. thank you. >> i'll be standing over here. [background noises] [background noises] >> went through survival school together. went to vietnam.

[background noises] [background noises] >> the next thing i remember after we split up and years passed, we had the first reunion . >> the fighter pilots association. >> most of the -- so i am just in charge of the area.

>> yes. >> quite well. >> yes. the fighting. >> nice to see you. >> we really appreciate you being here tonight. our buddy would have been here, i think, if he had not gone to kansas. [background noises] >> one of our peers, richard myers, chairman of itt, he regretted that he could not come. he already had a commitment to go back come to kansas, but he flew f-4 at the same time you and i did. he went a little higher than we did. >> it depends on your point of view. >> rights. he is a wonderful man. coincidentally one of his many

jobs, the chairman of the board for the u.s. auto who incidently on the 12th floor, much loftier than mine. he stopped by the other day. >> on the fourth floor. >> could still. >> well, you tell him we thought about him and appreciated service. duty for a long time. >> we stood together again. he might not remember this. i went back in 1972. the war started again. [background noises]

>> we went to stations. several times over the years. we see. a good deal. closing it, medical reasons, not mental reasons. so there was a new year's eve party that we get to every year. i said, well, i will drive out if you will drive back. no, i'll drive. you drove last year. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. >> that's good. >> we always had lots on the way home. >> it is good seeing you. thank you for coming. [background noises] >> he thought of you.

>> a great man. >> he said that you were. >> thank you. >> we are getting it right. >> everybody gets a copy signed by myself. then you can go down to bonds and nobles. [background noises] [background noises] >> we don't change. but, i figure if you can get one thing, each person get one thing it will make a difference. well, thank you for coming. yes, sir. it's my pleasure. thank you.

[background noises] [background noises] >> you are a great man. >> thank you. [background noises] >> army helicopter pilots. >> better than i was. >> me, too. >> it is good to see you. >> hello. sorry.

[background noises] >> good question. thank you. >> thank you.c >> very nice to meet you. thank you so much for coming. can't say enough. >> nice to meet you. could these folks came from austin, texas just to be here. >> though, is that right? is a different conference now. >> from texas. >> thank you. it is exciting.

>> get into it a little bit, duchy? >> maybe 1,000 people. >> you guys. [background noises] [background noises] [background noises] [applause] >> let's ignore the man knew just what gen. i am going to make this very quick. we had better people to talk and i, but i have to take advantage. i went to georgia tech. we have not beaten the university of georgia but one time in the last ten years to so i just want to make this remark. lee is a fine guy because he drives an educated.

on the other hand, i superfine guy and very educated. a long, long time ago in a place far, far away a group of americans many of your contemporaries, but most of you much younger, had the pleasure of going to graduate school in a terrible place. it took us over six years on average to get out of there. a lot of it had to do with our academic prowess, which john held us back, but most of all, we were in a laboratory, and it really was a laboratory of unique and incredible nature. i don't think harvard business school can't quite compare with what we encountered. we learned and possessed qualities from great leader's some among you whom you will be introduced to shortly both senior and junior. nobody quite captured that experience in the light of what it was. leadership principles are universal, they apply to every situation that i have never been in.

lee ellis, the book you are going to recede today and here, took the experiences that we all shared on the very difficult circumstances and blended them into lessons of leadership. it is just incredible. john mccain and lead to each other early on having been shot down just a few days apart. it is always an honor to introduce someone who needs no introduction. and if i stay up here any longer he will throw something at me. my dear friend, the hon. john mccain. [applause] >> thank-you, worsen. thank you all for being here. i am always -- kissinger who said once, man in needs no introduction. kissinger said, yes, but i always enjoy it. as thank you all for being here. it is nice to see old friends.

it is always a bit nostalgic for me to be with my old friends and compatriots. we went through a very difficult time together, but we also went through times that forged bonds, and honor and dignity that i don't think you could replicate in any other way. so i always look back on our experience as a great honor to have the great privilege of serving in the company of heroes and a guy who, one of those, justin seduced me. you know, the funny thing about marines, they are not very smart. but they can be pretty stubborn. the vietnamese found that out. by the way, i often have a phrase that i used. i told orson, when i graduated from the naval academy i tried to get into the marine corps, but my parents were married.

i always give a little bit of a chuckle. [laughter] that used to go over well for a long time, and then i wonder upon wonder, my son, jimmy, joins the marine corps at age 18 and served a year and iraq and as a lance corporal he is now at texas a&m. he said, you know, dad, the marines are part of the navy department's. he said it is the men's department. so i don't tell the joke around him anymore that i used to. lee has written a remarkable book. it is about leaders. the world continues to cry out for american leadership. as we watch thousands of people

being slaughtered today in the absence of american leadership, conspicuous by its absence. as the people in the middle east and the tell a man believed that the united states is withdrawing , it cries out for leadership. and, you know, one of the famous stories that may be anecdotal, a prisoner is being interrogated by an american officer. the taliban and says, we have to a -- you have the watches, we have the time. a very interesting commentary on the lack of american leadership. i think that lee articulates in his book the examples of heroism and leadership. did jim stock tell, rub the riser, the names that so many of us remember that, who inspired

us and inspired us to the degree that we were able to do things we otherwise would not have been able to do with their inspiration of leadership which is what lee is all about. that is what his life has been all about, and that is what the this book is all about. americans always need heroes, and we have so many now as a result of the iraq and afghan war, but we also have a special generation of leaders as a result of the vietnam war. took the american people all long time to recover from the war. those of us who came back saw a very changed military than the one we have been in in 19 -- late 1960's. and so i am happy that, today, we have the finest men and women who are serving in the military today that i've ever seen. it is a successful all-volunteer force, and it is produced

leaders by general david patraeus and others of his quality. so many that are really outstanding leaders, and most of them got the beginning and trial by fire, guess where? vietnam. so i no there are many of my old friends here today, tonight. there are many who have served their country with honor and distinction. i am on my it to be in the company of those of you that have. it inspires me to try and do the right thing, stand up for the men and women who are serving. i will recommend my book, this book to my colleagues in the senate because all of us can never know enough about leadership. congratulations and thank you all for being here. got less. [applause]

>> well, i have six pages of notes. i have six pages of notes, which i am not going to use. good evening, everyone. thank you for coming. as i look around the room i see people from my high-school class to the united states senate and everything in between that have crossed my path over the years and have inspired me and encouraged me along the way. so i thank you for being here. i hope i have the opportunity to speak with each one of you while you're here tonight. we are celebrating the launch of the book "leading with honor". thirty-nine years ago senator mccain myself and others came home from the war. it was a longtime male, but the lessons that we learned there are as relevant today as they were in the twitter.com/booktv camps. what makes them special, i

think, is the fact that there were tried and tested under the most difficult circumstances. we had some remarkable canine. they were. and it went all the way down. their example set the pace for me as a junior officer in camp, and that meant so much. i was there five use -- five years, four months, and two weeks. it sounds like a long time. edward alvarez who was here that had to leave, longest-held k-9 in our group, eight years, six months. he returned with honor and has said such a remarkable experience in the years sense. i wish you were here. i would love to have him stand up and let us honor him. there are others here tonight, several that i have not seen in a while. one that i want to mention

especially because he arrived the same day i did. right over there, mccain. we rode the truck. [applause] we rode the trek into hanoi together bouncing along. we were going to tie we thought we might be going to the slaughterhouse. we did not know. we ended up in at the hilton in a cell that was six and a half feet by 7 feet, about the size of a small bathroom. well, it was our bathroom. we had a 3-gallon bucket and their, but it was not just jim and i commend it was in three of the estimate was for this in this room. six and half by 7-foot cell was our bathroom, living room, bedroom, and our dining room for the next nine months. that is generally the way our life was. in the winter it was cold, very cold. there never seemed to be enough

food to keep our bodies warm, especially that first winter. in the summer it was so hot that we had heat rash, and sometimes we did not get to take a bath and get cleaned up, and it was not exactly fun. many of the guys had terrible injuries from there it capture, like senator mccain. he was probably the most seriously injured of all this, and he came home with honor. the story of the opportunity he had to come home early are in the book in the great courage that he should. well, that was a long time, along. some of those who did not get the medical help, the food was not great. for the first four years of the pow situation there was always torture going on in some camps,

most all at any one time. we did not write home for several years. now, i'm telling you this not because we want pity, because that is the last thing. i'm telling you this because i want you to consider that leadership in this situation like that. that is an example, they have to go under the gun every day and you can look at and i think learn a great lessons about leadership. we were able to endure because we have great resources. we had a heritage of freedom. we had great leadership that had been well trained, and we were well trained. we had team work. we have commitment to each other. there is no better example of commitment to each other and team work than that of john reynolds and bob purcell, two air force captains, fighter pilots.

john had been tortured her, had actually been on bread and water. he would not give them the stigma that you want -- they wanted. he finally gave them something that was nothing, but to put him back in his cell with no food because they wanted it to shake him a little more. he was three doors down, he sent the message by tapping on the wall through our tax code and said, tell john to be looking for a bride dropped today. well, he did not know what to expect. but that day, all the guards -- not all, but that coke's would take a nap. when john heard something rattling around in the ceiling. all the sudden his lead ball dropped down, and there was a grinning personnel who had gone through the ceiling, through the

barbed or in the attic and was above john, and he dropped some bread that he had taken from the bread that we get to eat and mold it and dropped it down for john to each. that is the kind of support and teamwork we had in the twitter.com/booktv situation. it was powerful. and the lessons that we brought home with us, that legacy that we took in with those of military leadership and honor, that lesson is important today for all leaders and never more so, i believe, than for our country today. we need a revival of that kind of leadership with honor, and we can have it. there are couple of things that it takes. it takes character. in the book, chapter two is guard your character, and i share a story of someone who did not. it takes courage because to do

the right thing and to do the honorable thing is not easy. it is very difficult. it is painful. you have to lean into the pain of your own fears. i have been a coach and consultant for 15 years. i know that everyone has doubts and fears, and that is what snagged him into his leadership fall and problem and challenge. to lead with honor you have to see what is going on. to know what is right, and sometimes you have to back up and good counsel. senator mccain, and remember so we have some tough arguments and discussions about things like, should we go on a hunger strike? should we have a raging, what did we call that? a bridging moratorium. we had tough discussions about that. then of the decision was made and we all follow that supported the decision.

but it takes a lot of courage to make those tough decisions. that is what we need today from the pta to the high-school principal, the shop steward to the ceo, the city councilman to the big building over here, the capitol and the white house, we need leaders who will leave with honor by having the courage to do what they know is right to do. whether it hurts or not. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, that is not easy to do. it sounds easy because we all assume we have good character and will do the right things. i'm telling you, it's not easy. i'd like to close with pauling from a great, one of the great movies of all time, one of the best sellers of the world, lord of the rings, the return of the king. in the trailer it comes on

screen in big words, there is no freedom without sacrifice. there is no victory without loss . there is no glory without suffering. i want to add one more to the west. there is no honor without courage. leading with honor is the one thing that can turn this country back to the way that we think it ought to be, and that is the message we want to get out. do the right thing for the country. do the right thing for your duty lean into the pain and just go do it. don't be afraid to do it. we will all be proud of you. we are all hungry for that kind of leadership. well, tonight, i want to thank you, again, for being here, and i want to ask you to continue

your efforts to spread that message. for the canine, we know that our message was returned with honor. the story of senator mccain and how he did not come home early but returned with honor has always been a great inspiration to me. thank you for that example, thank you for being here with us tonight. that message, return with honor, let's twisted just a little bit for the american society, the american culture for all of us. leave with honor. leave with honor. when we get that message in our mind, this country will return to honor and we will all be blessed greatly by that. god bless you all, and thank you for being here. [applause]