tank brigade. very soft spoken, very kind of midwestern person that jeane for all her intellectual complexity, ultimate, w hself. anouw,asal t abwhe e, a ai ln comes down to it, what i did was very simple. you know? i came when my country called, and i did the best i could. >> host: uh-huh. >> guest: ani think that's kindof wh jeane did. >>oshankouy , teli,u o it w: etl fe of jeane kirkpatrick." >> guest: thk you. ahato pker

library for having me here. i think you all for coming. i know your friends are probably something right now. it's an amazing day. boxioates place in d.c. at the bethesda naval

hospital and then also a dinner at leader hat same day for te mipovltlee des ne talk about writing the military which i want to do more of it though. i'm a recent father and all i really want to do is hang out with myby bu i'mot gng dohtn. somewhere between elizabeth and prince and i lood at my go12le hr and realized i a ydi'be h rtduring the humvee spewing fire everywhere me driving with my left hand my m-16 in the right the beryl out the window and me letting loose. i didn't care who or what i hit. sl. let the engine drsb

trmyst thought was a vehicle borne explosive device. but i saw the wife and child holding hands at the rear of the vehicle. they waved. the man had on dirty overal and black-and-white icoul doeagea oofoo steinbeck. people driving beat up cars and books i thought someone should write a dissertation. my right hand gripped the gear shifter were the pistol grip on my life as though it were a pistol grip on my on le ry a ani ot ad to bethesda and the target's remained unclear. i poured water over i had and blasted the radio. i took the speedometer back up to 90. i thought of a young kid missing lim at ethesd. at i a? mde it to bethesda and somehow in the labyrinth found

the office i needed to find. a naval officer fom the bethesda media team arrveto meuph l a the d.c.. as we walked out my first impulse was to bolt. i haven't been to a hospital since my brother died. i knew the sound scum t anpticand the lo hoalr ing so manyhtb lives and fine balance. i didn't belong here. i would wreck the balanced. but that wasn't the time of the day for me to leave wasn't the plan. e naval officer showede to the roowhere aotheen ere n n ri tay beoe. eyere not sure that the kid would live. a week earlier he had taken a sniper round to the forehead. the swelling was down. he blinked buthe could land r only a few hours a day. soe nlmely a ro

a o ay of jarhead for the kid. i wrote about to tawny or tammie or whatever his name was, knowing he would never read it. his mother was overly polite she took the book yet smiled and said sheould read it to him thidet waes, sd t opot my book. what are you going to give a mother from ohio to read over the best bet for 19 year old son, i thought. i walked out of the room with my blinders, my brain heard i was thoteayr d thisty mendedton ahead of me in the hall i saw a man in his 50s winning against the wall outside a patient room. he wa big he had on been an iap h hmiele excuse me, sir, can i ask you a few questions, i said? who are you, some? like a former marine officer right way, vietnam, 68 to 70.

i could see it in his eyes. i former marine writer, thorane tn in who are you here visiting? my boy, he said, and he pointed at the sweat shirt and looked at me all the way were stupid. he continued, he is in surgery right now. below the knee on one leg and above on th thr oa ap u. , s n t i saw a lot of men died and i spent three weeks of here and never saw a man injured so he mislead. the police are mi to shreds. go from room to room and you will see. look at althe mothers. i'm e of the only fathrsof reauh at a cka omri oor hnebend. i'm lucky my time in the core i was an executive at a bank. on a retired years ago. i got to pensns be really can afford to cool my heels and look after my son. i n dothis e ret y buoka moe e sof rar you

know the story some of them come from broken homes, single mothers. these women felt they were going to refashion themselves after 50. a live news and the venture as. they're goingto e eegad in t sfoe heaan n lder and asked me to look out for in the marine i ever could. a woman approached. she was clutching copies of a newspaper article to her chest. is is the article they ran yesterday on the paper, she . so ointcpud hel pa bedhs eyes and captured his soul. the women began to cry and they comforted her. may i give you one of these about my son? yes, ma'am, i said. i glanced at the article. a front-page sorth acolo o eny n elornii wherever. this woman and her have her son's bedside the sun with a neck brace and oxygen mask, lay eggs in traction, th ve

barely visible but medical marial are u ,ese? nceeyrod to the woman. she asked for a signed book and i gave her one. a week or so before wolfowitz had been on the border issue is muchore excited to meet me. the woman told that the care ane osth env was totch erl. anat pgrof so tover of the newspaper. he's a sweet boy, she said. the marine dad walked away. the woman looked at me and said i'm happy for him his sun has a small wound. longho yor le i a l d oul n b deof disparities marines and their families are suffering. during my war i did spend a short time at the entry point of the lead atthe end where the somirroanw andeae wahos tahargn hs

end, the utter ruin of families. may i hug you, the woman asked? yes, of course. i felt awkward but i couldn't say no. she hugged me tight and gried me fr a mor oe hd enansaven, strong. of course i was none of these things that she would nevehong her son while he still upright she wept into my shoulder. the lyonnesse had lost her falythe on darkened come icecap melted. how uld o e edtmes a while liam the erotic way her face full of tears. she was attractive and that high school library in wo high considered, handsome and sturdy and she possessed the orderly smelled algood mothe. shwlvr ae befn. ghkutwav his mother and somehow they would both notice and be well. this couldn't have been true but it is quite told myself then and the same that other americans have been telling themselves for

a dede and we believit s th nussi orlyam ound us and the school of green and blue scrubs. from every room came the nauseating sound of resuscitation, prolongation, the beginning of altered lives. oneof them had me atth elbow and hereme to anthero virshastro axtel old woman and couldn't have been older than ten. they wore colorful clothing that to my unained off a shot of bolivia. she chewed her lower lip and he young gi beada seta ads.os she mders introduced me to the marine. he was an infantry staff seeant blown up in the convoy most of his legs and traction. he said i'm going to walk again. go lopbtilved.the brnsro i lived. i got blown up and i work right here in this bed.

how many days later? i don't now. i was having a tremendous philippines like a little island and i was there with my platoon but over y ees a lookatthe o hth i dmr myce n i haven't seen anyone from bolivia in 14 years. but then i think wait, the arendead. w thbedd. d heokmye ay are alive. the grandmother of i did me suspicioly into the little girlcontinued her intense and beautiful smile. i love the core of the search and. before a week the. bringing myandmherd itoretas impressed. all i want to do go back and fight again for my kid brothers. i could see she was doped up and got shot upagain to his wi ba to the desert or theay into a

philippine island the west shangri-la not unlike the muslims promised land with ery murder. my minders swed me out of the sp. i had never driven in d.c. and had the slightest idea of where i was goig to be ale wanted to visit the marine corps ha se colrit f hdrris dinner which started at seventh. i tell of the memorial. it was areplica of the famous flag raising at the second one of course. around the massivease of the memorial weresteiledt s ferypala havepicipated in. the crowd was one of the truly american crutches of people white, latino, black, asian,

middle eastern, recent european immigrants, some of them were and dugers ts.a g sinhe ons lc ho m the island campaign. he wore aap with a badge of the guadalcanal in the first marine division created specifically to jump the island of the north intthe heart of mainland japan. i looked heoia smelled burned sand and asphalt from centuries and decades. i walked towards the edge of arlington there were two funerals under way each be held been droped tfa and had already iestgaran ot riesv ae the box offering absolutions. i wondered if he rested in the coffins young men from the current war all men passed on from emphysema or colon cancer madd had from lr'c euss ratlin'auithilled me

a tapestry of green and white silence. the tapestry didn't hide the fact that most of the men and women had died horrible deaths and combat u nlad t ssrsfrt of the restaurant a few blocks from the office building. these were the men and women, soldiers, sailors and marines undergoing outpatient care walter reed and bethesda. whha aomte andalrs a het prosthetic leg i could tell by the snap of the pant leg or she missing an arm and choosing of thus far to go with aprosthetic hand to the front ayed half a defiance. here now more mothers of the many legacies that produced the one not considered by most

observers with this which te yog s4 m ge mightt in e date at the horizon saw themselves as supporting their sons to the hospitals for the next 40 yrs. the greatest burden of the war fall on the mothers. the men on both sides killed, e have hi ftlu cherkaadpte es utube and the mothers carried the casualties to the river and addressing the wound thmea r asualties. ived the wounded from the back of mothers. i heard someone calling my name. i watched the staff sergeant from bethesda the lance corporal llreious et btlke a ud a horror

film and i couldn't decide which. i motioned to the two marines that we should head in. there was a serious que of the elatore were in the ballroom ont sonoor d mo o esn nenre o acpre bt ai the guy that taught me to the took the stairs i offered kalona and padilla back riots. it looked like the version of fof yrddle pties i atende prwa a bis hollywood party and on par was something for a party of poetry magazine might throw and ranking new york parties in terms of sets of apal and food and drinks give the hedge funds the nub tat ton ziboana gla stla the ngos. the war here consists of one guy behind a folding table with two kinds of bad , red or white and a number of 60 gallen coolers

full of ice and beer ad sa thooerede eyrgospl od tonight but rubbing elbows in wheel chairs and prosthetic limbs would be affluent and influential. i saw the secretary of the army and an ad model whose face i recognized from some congressional hearing or other. i w bobo aala ncnen a e senators whose faces i knew from the papers but whose names i couldn't recall. of course this party didn't hold a priority for these teams of social. they were the ower wave in the room, the seah coanin the onomch time around the masses before an uncomfortable silence falls over the room. the troops and their families of the able to hold conversations wi you about holidays in europe about the siloed, the new nannythesmr hormd. eventually the masses will want to talk about health care

perhaps and prescription drugs and the living wageand any times can you ask the kid wth a metal plate in his head the kid with no egs, the bi kid ergendre ofhnit ornate thing happened, and what was progressing and if he had missed the man in his unit how many times could you ask these questions without the ilt and the order blinding you. i sensed that the bk of the listg l gehi us eo party where none of the tough questions had to be ased. no visible injuries from a good martinis. and i was right. 20 minutes later someone on a microphone asked us to e sted antheefto t ckdo hion hgo edr k. i said at a table with cologne and a staff sergeant and two injured army personnel, two female volunteers for a nonprofit veteans advocate for band members of a lobbying firm who seemed to b a l.

the couple was correlated next to me and i expected myself from your shot of them and said hello to the young womaon my left. young grl, i toug, she ed 1trrr onirwiws, blue jeans and a flower print blouse but i wondered if her father was one of the injured man ong us. i looked for him. she said to me iserved as a prate in the 82nd airborne police. e lied h leg and withhe re g how they got me? i guess you don't have to. ied. she kind of chuckled. it was the first time that day i found myself speechless. this girl who looked as though sclegs rd rhad maher toem ws vng war right here next to me while the same time they quarreled

stupidly about nothing. i thought i had been handling the carnage fairly well. the mother holding the clippin thil tnsnthn's newsaper t, coe his lessons and sex. none of it had been pretty but it had all ben pretty tolerable. in advance of the traffic prepared for these brands of, or hadvi o beat. so what plates were replaced with entrees. hell private lives in the marine corps during the first golf war but i'm out now. how was your treatment? mostly goo sir, she said it a lonprocs, o thrsev had. food tastes like dirt. that's why i come to eat as often as possible and i got an autograph from tiger woods a couple months ago and i get to see fernandez. a yogkdsatog to the left.

e am ist pulled down over his forehead black silk army jacket and alert on as he nodded slowly at me every move with pain. younow the army doe't want us to be dating to be together us's egebue e ng out. we are getting out. on the other side heard a low voice with to people who are no longer in love. i't h riadtetite to listeno rian self to the tennis. you're mostly male soldiers and marines i never smoked, never had a cigarette in my life and i asked a young marine with a hair cut if he could saet tily erne took off. i never took up the tobacco

trade. everything elsehoug themtth d , helared do it into a california beach cliche. his buddies loved it. my hair wasn't long but as long for than any military guy. i tried to take the carriage of a u.s. marine especiallaround this crowd but myhar rd sli lind em xtoui t i noticed myself looking at the man reading their appearance and behavior from the military bearing discipline. the marine let my support for me and i inhaled deeply and coughe i ta lnertndrnd. snses an ashtray and this through a chorus of laughs. where did you learn to smoke, he asked. you only a dollar for that. i will smoke it, someone else said and sme kid picked up my and smoked a cigarte frothe nt wsmysve

, >> if that's the case, can you go on of the iran? what are you drinking? >> der, they asked. i counted eight of them. make it 16, one of them said. i will see what icnd. deles de i on dne n this stage the country made ready for its show i asked the bartender for 16 years. he did't want to give them to me. he said we can't get these kids too drunk. thme bad stuffasgone dn i l 5tom wallet and handed it to them and they put 16 years in the wind box. on the shares i put the they all exclaimed and whistled and clapped their hands as thouh i had handed them is big rom thfouain l theyill eremr thhie go t drunk and get in a fist fight back at the barracks. beating each other up with our coaches and teams, right.

they all laughed. they're worried we wll skip the s d go tte bar a ge in hodge thatl. guy? i pulled rank, i said. back at the table the staff sergeant's kalona seemed to be making exemplary progress with of the two ladies from the nonprofit. maybe for them to live tre ven advocacy. i will take a little break. i took this trip in 06. ve bn ariend oan amcates 2003, and when a man named dan reached out to me and asked me if i had spent time around veterans and i tried to go out every year o aspen there's a disabled american verans -dsb erpo iia rk e thb inon for i think over 30

years now, but they teach adaptive skiing and hockey and i think ey play water polo which is pttywl. ey ss go wnthe mountain and i think i skied better on this than i did on my own to sorry legs but it's always a really beautiful week. isiaenadsore arei people cruising around in the $1,500 he suits then there are vets wearing fatigues and chain-smoking and doing it tequila shots before they ead out on the slopes d sothemshp n lifestyle and these injured veterans is always interesting to watch. but this is my first time around injured vets coming and you

reg was -- i didn't really know exactly how to approach these guys, and i was afraid -- i didn't really know how to ask about their injuries or how to speakabout them. but i found or th years now na ndkn es rejsyo , did you get hit? what happened? you know, what do you lose, how are things going? and i found that remarkably they want to talk about that. fotet is the healingir stri acts. yesterday i was in a cabin portland which is a cab cpany i always take whenever i am in rtla andheason eventually we had a 35 minute conversation on the way in the

military about the process i think hatstetns atrveto pn t not the veteran senator to find their tory is the process of recovery anwhat is remarkable is the attitude and the piit thanyue andbu n women who would have died in another war are alive now, and they are living with these new adaptations, and they wouldn't asa er meetatietn or korea is interested in combat and the history of combat, i am anticipating -- excited to see what that would mean in terms of how the history of the wars itbecause we will t

momead ewo live through the war with these injuries, and i think it would paint a nuanced different picture of what the eturn from the war is. i know a lot of these yng m oud their stories. i'm going to read a bit more and it's more of a private part of the book. habi a stre i me h turo wed okatol take five years to get over the brainwashing the marine corps had done to us, but i don't believe the marine corps brainwashed me, but i do believe that it's an intense tattooed wi the military serce esci ct ics mohafive years to get out of that. what i realize now is my mistake

was leaving the marine corps in 1992 and thinking okay. that's it. odby yoaet pa student now i'm going to become a writer and live a radically different life. and i thought i had done that and i thought i had done that well. but then i ended up i really thre rsstillhat i wasstll -ndolo present for me. then it became for a present for me and i wrote this book about the war and there was no way that i could hide, there was no wa i could say i wasn't a marine because i very much self identified a writer d asa iz n nlne last decade when i had the company of the veterans again had i discovered that the company of the vets i ly ahai i ntroarcl

about ptsd and suicide in the veteran population. i spent a lot of time talking with dr. john thune chez who's be treating veterans since wee hene wriet nam wah sliding actually for about an hour-and-a-half, and at the and i just wanted some practical let fais. and i said what happens if a woman calls you up and says doctor, my soorm dagte p bpsyh apndhee ee some help, they are not trying to -- the are not seeking help themselves and i can't force this on them? he said bring hem into a circle an oig an hoca nued veteran: sleeve and tears. some of course they may need

therapy but he said i've never treated a veteran who was co'thiy a lot of sleep ho >> i was, i'd escaped manhattan, and i was living on the side of a mountain in the catskills alone in a cabintryito nish b,ising myself.

and i'd been in a series of rv trips withy faer, dmy er atn v th rrips were a way for us to kind of come together. we'd share some stories, he shared some stories of vietnam, i shared so ofmywnri but eventually have you ever been in a winnebago for about a thousand miles? it's pretty intense, especially if you're in the win bay doe with your father for a thousand miles. [laughter] i love my father, but a thousand milev a qtebi ghse rv trips were my father's idea, and i have to give him a lot of credit for maki the offer and for making the effort.

but this was in houston, and it au. about 110 dreesutin tu 4nd i s a crisis. i'd gone for a run, and i was pretty certain that i'd initiated a cataclysmic cardiac event. my father was ill, and i was -- i jumped into the pool athe hir and itcdimn hememnd he's administering his meds. from the pool i watched my father moving around in his rv. he lived alone in fairfield, and he mostly traveled alone in the rv. i ew this solitary life head ter elf finl hta oei t eastwood character from a western or a war film, the epic wanderer, the man who lives on canned beans and shoe leather and the hard-bought realities of the roadnd warfare. cl and tidy house, i thought?

i loved my father, and i understood the allure of this iconic fantasy, but the possibility at i might end up like my father -- old, alone and dying -- scared the death out of me ai fload nak onmyk pweus fteen that back in the rv i told my father that i couldn't make it all the way to california with him. i needed to return to new york as soon as possible to take care of se things, to take care of myself really. i needed to figu outy life. afoodte bcularha in the morning i jumped on a plane home. i don't remember much of august. friends in the city threw a party for my 40th birthday. i thgh mg t s septeer. shngvi i d live in his house for free, or from somewhere god knew i'd never return. eventually, a friend asked meo

shid hri cgnd ofhe rynd w m like eve each other and that we had some things in common. the day before i decided that the next woman i dated needed to have been the daughter of a waitress. i'd ted the daughters of doctors and lawye and bankers nere w ndtas etaeap mexican place. i hadn't been since -- for few months. this woman, this is the first time that i met christa, and i knew that she would be in my life for a hg tim pps fl,l s top and cowboy boots. here at the end of summer she was dark, but i could tell in winter her skin would turn a luxuriouwhite. she said funny things about hippies and monks and yoga a cehild eryme s e stof college she'd worked at this mexican restaurant. when she said this, i must have

stared at her both stupidly and longingly. she might be the one. but not only had christa been a waitress at thisame man au, mrace enaisa lejeune, and as a child she live inside base housing in a development. it was the bloodiest battle of world war ii. by joininghe marine corp 22 yes eaieis f h enllnt h ns il h nightmares where a drill instructor yell today a room of recruits, parawa, and the recruits -- me included -- standing and straining in some stressed position or another involving a rifleduck ieblesat it's true, i still have these nightmares. or nightmares of cleaning the floor with brasso. this smart and engaging and beautiful man had heard of tarawa, a small and now incoequeial landn th

cifithatn nd ilakithe sanctified blood of marines. most beautiful women would have guessed it was a new kind of chny. [laughter] she went on to tell a story about being student council president ater hool in cmp lejee owacrn resifonng t a the marine corpses flag, and then i knew for certain that i was going to be in love wither. so i think i can probably open it up for questions. , the arawa, everyone's heard of that, right? this gentleman will help with the microphone. >>rel wrsth w y ts pt s fellow reporter? >> oh, i don't work for "the new york times." t i know that there are -- one

of my favorite new york times reporters, c.j -- i'm going to say shivers, i don't know how to pronounce his last name - but he a fmer min doowemi fl t lahou w there at the gray lady, but he does some of the best reporting that i read. yes, sir. >> you actually didn't mention why you joed e maneor yo t isotnd decision, or is it something that didn't turn out too well? >> well, i wrote a whole ok about that. yeah. my first book. but i -- it took me yearsto cotoc etiat ioine e mane er a ferch was vietnam and combat. i was, in fact, conceived when my father was on r and r fro vietnam. my mother got a call one day, and someone told her to jmp pltv a e

neaynd mt h sbd in honolulu who had a week off from the war, and i was the result of that. so my childhood was very much colored by my father's vietnam war experience. it wasn't something he really lked aulyea ccna mehiiewoo over, and they would convene in the backyard, and there would be, you know, men talking, and i wasn't allowed into that circle. at the time i joined the marine corps because, you know, se of retedre gs were doing it, andy letc is tebo the possibility of, you know, serving my country and also of, you know, escaping this town that i'd grown up in. so, and i was -- it was a al to iof tarvthmen tad tirl vin the marine corps. >> when you're in the marine corps, does anyone ever bring up the litery tradition of the

marine corps, the books and the itthmemhe neps tpaf ma c adition? >> it wasn't part of my tradition. [laughter] i was just a grunt. there wasn't a lot of reading. i was the weird guy who would go to the tiny library in okinawa that was an old, converted kn00ksuut drobly, u the camu and read that. i discovered caputo on my own a few years after i got out of the marine corps. so,eah, i think in the officer corp and i know thowre ti t i i e ce corps there is, there's a new emphasis on reading the literature of war. but, you know, as a grunt in a line battalion reading wasn't reallyt the top of r lf skr to rtel

>> we've got a web question, and just so you know, we've got about ten minutes left. this comes from gwen in new york. in your exence what ishe neere van tur tards y and other veterans of the gulf war, and do you think it was a fair assessment? >> yeah. the question was about assessment. can walk into a rm kni tng, know the codes, and, sure, our war was -- the gulf war was, you know, a much smaller war, it was over quick, but i think most kn,re acastare snt, and certainly practice decisioners of the war understand that that was really, you know, the beginning of these wars was, in fact, the gulf r,

d th undstan tt. leinypece a respect from generation to generation. >> i could jus keep this auogic,ghut ion't is, fact, totally. >> okay. i got the impression from it that you didn't really see a lot of combat in the gulf war, that -- and i had thought the marines had done a pretty big push up into kuwait and were itective. sr ren onomov i didn't want read the book -- i didn't read the book. >> well, the movie moves a little quicker through the combat. yeah. i s in something called task force ripper, and we ripped up the middle kitin t iehieow rgn. heasiout there wasn't -- there weren't a lot of

deaths. and for the most part, you know, after that six weeks of bombing which started in january for the most part there was n resistance where we went. oveltr tke care of the people who'd surrendered. >> columnist mark shields who i believe serve t in the marine corps and some other writers inar herrenon ven e military. do you regard this as significant? >> i do think that if, you know, members of the congress had service experience or had mily beitrearthe t how we wage war and when we wage war. there's a great disconnec a great military/civilian disconnect that i think is a

result ofiendth i k mitary was comfortable with it and so was the civilian world for a few decades. and, um, i think that's some gap that probly needs toclose in soflelo o there toe, u lyt, k cost of conflict is. you know, the human cost but also, you know, the cost in general to society and to culture when theseen and won tu >> yes. kind of in the same line, how do you feel about the military draft? do you tnk we're better off without it, or we should have again? botthitary naalctnd t bh inkre could be a national service aspect of it. because, you know, you don't

want everyone in the military. i mean, the generals certainly don't want everyone in the military. but i think that has to do with this divide. the genera w sell, er's f f sce uno me ha s lehtir, maybe you have some people rebuilding infrastructure in the inner cities, and then you have some people who are, you know, part of drafted battalions. but, you know, few yrs a is fb ant d 's cryre everyone serves. and at dinner your waiter just got out of the military a year before and is now going to college, and everyone understande cofer unkt' something that couldn't hurt here. it's probably really a population issue. >> first off, from one marine to the next, i just want to say, you know, thanks for erything at'rin makit a

adteeets to get the message out to those who haven't served, the sacrifices that a lot of people go through. >> thank you. >> the question that i hve, is it easier for you now? well, more so you mentioned earlier about your romance with mari c. bothouttnd trinhaoe, is it easier now to still have that love and get the message out to those, to those marines and to those others that haven't served? >> yeah. had,ou know, i think like a loat tiiphhea ri c. waov mes but the system is sometimes brutal. i was recently rereading the memoir by louis puller jr., chesty puller's son who was anar e iev esuls idu know, i loved and hated the marine corps. and that's something that i think unless you've been in the marine corps you don't

understand. and i probably spent some years after the marine corps hating it more than vi it. t, y knoerit rh int lf t hepaf mesnd the company of veterans, and it's about individuals, it's about camaraderie and history, and i, you know, i'm still a marine. ma c sesut o me arest a military stories, to tell them well and to make sre that the story, the stories from these current wars are told. and i ta that as a real responsibility. ha , edbout meeting with current veterans coming back. what do you think is the largest chalnge for them, um, once they return both injured and not injured of the current war? it's differenteverne souyn e,nd

be mchff the bat, and they don't have any difficultyies, or a science teacher or a librarian, a mechanic, what have you. and other guys, you know, they've lost their footing, and it's always a tou tit vens izhhee services out there for them, that there are, indeed, service organizations and that they're not alone. the thing that i hear again and again when i'm talking to veterans or families of veterans moanusngswh a veteran isolates themself and pulls out from society. and so, um, you know, i would just say rach out, and if you know a veteran whs isolating, anm,owy ultoward h her b i r thhi that helped was going to college. i got out of the marine corps, and i went straight to college. i kicked around community colleges in northern california

for three or four years, um, but -- ttlways kep mdn wo mmy. i solo apartf the marine corps, but i was a part of this, now a part of this community of learning that meant everything to me, that, you know, allowed me to study, allowed me to read and, u, yo , alwemeobe h n llthests. >> question right here. um, could you talk a little bit about your writing process and how it has evolved since writing "jhead"? >> sure. my writing -- i'm a bit of a mye 'm l. ag an [laughter] but i hang out on the couch and read books for about a month, and she says what are you doing? i say, i'm working, i'm working. but i am a sprinter. i'll work really ha for s or t srki n s d and then kind of

hang out and read books and watch movies and slowly reenter the work that i've done. boan wovftwas a very episodic at hfoto be more narrative in my storytelling, and this is now -- i think this third book of mine is a more mature book in terms of how i'm approaching the world, but als naivd h'mlii'apch sy. >> [inaudible] what did you read, and is it, by, at wererelang tthehat were li, as re te? y in a over the place. i'm a big fan of presidential biographies. anthony beaver, who will be here in week -- i'm sorry i'm going

to miss hi-- he's one of the oume milary hor reevhie ws. uno'ad some old faulkner and hemingway, i'll drop into the old classics. i'll read some of the new stuff that's coming along. so i'm very catholic in my stes, and i watch a lot of food network. [laughte wrn fon aem um, how do you feel about the process of writing autobiographically, and do you feel like you can trust your memory completely, or what process do you go true to remember sort of -- go through rbertvean ta th -- through, and do you think there is, you know, obviously, there's an element of truth toverything you're sayi, but do you think that with memoir sometimes it's in the eye of the beholder? >> yeah. um, you kno f mewritg i ct oemy rieen wrg em and so that when i begin writing about

a period in my life, the memories come flooding back. and, you know, my father is a prime exple -- my father is i this book, ande'ry much reer a clese rv trips somewhat difrently. and, but, you know, i'm the writer of this book, and i remember them this way. and i craft them this way. and, sure, it's, you kn, it's prosnow,nd it's narti , uowents are real events, the dialogue is close to what occurred. but, you know, they say se 100 men to war, and you'll come back i k 's tsts. owatue t i, but i, i trust my memoir telling, and i like memoirs because i feel like one thing that memoir has in america right now is a lot of room for no totain od that we expect

gserf nti a that the memoir is still quite new. i think the memoir as we know it today started with frank conroy with stop time in, like, 1967, i think. and so there's still some room th wro aernvtion i'oter that i will write another one. i think that my next nonfiction book might be a reported book. >> u anthony, just another web question, d we have got just about a minute and a hfeft . thses f ihi you conclude your book by saying that fatherhood may be more of a test of man's greatness than combat. since completing the book, how are you doing on the test? [laughter] >> oh. inm dog . ol c o ah nt ntive. [laughter] just yet. i'm sure she will.

but, you know, i love fatherhood. it's been the best nine months of my life and something happened when my daughteras born, anisrly exen.r t but she was on my chest about five hours after she was born, and i truly had an epiphany. i just realized that, you ow, i would continue writi books and i would do other this, bu fa this young daughter who's on my chest. and that was very freeing. all of my anxiety about writing and work and, you know, what am i going to do with my life disappeared. and i am focung now on ann , inke sishs .me >> anthony swof -- swofford. prison -- [applause] >> thanks. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, 8 hoursf 48 hurs oniothnd b

y en >> what are you reading this summer? booktv wants to know. >> well, i am having an ambitious summer for reading. et tffhai lye read, i'm really, really interested in reading "barack obama: the story." i've already started it, and it seems like a pretty good read. the story endsefore he gets into politics,oit's aal anorndhe cditions that really led him to be who he is. also why good people are divided by religion and politics by updor at's the matter with kansas, and i think it's really -- iwas recommended to me by someone who said that you've got to do more

than just talk about the teabaggers and tellthem stid andb atr t ihtoin of fears, apprehensions and concerns people have. i'm almost done with rachel maddow's "drift." it really takes a real kind of technical subject and makes it real fun and ornd mal ein t i t three-quarters of the way through with that one. i also plan to read "the immortal life of henriea lack andhaf g ouim d it. and maybe the billionaire by thomas frank. >> for more information on this and other summer reading lists, t bv. inucu t mll

fitzgerald, associate director of marketing and publicity at palgrave macmillan publishers. we wanted to learn about some of the upcoming titles for fall 2012 that you have. anif we could,et's start with t forr predent o we h hew book, "my life in politics," coming out this fall. it was originally published in france, and this is the first time it's going to be available in english, and it has a new forward by the president that details the history of s.nc rat. me.awaan lkpabow up in france during and after world war ii, his time in algeria, his political career and his vision for the future of france, the u.s. and europe as a whole. >> host: will he be tring the u.s.? >> guest: , unfortunately, he ll n. thmeso'le d interviews remotely from france, but he won't be able to travel. >> host: danny denon. >> guest: yes.

israel is our most controversial book this season which makes it ve fun to work o 'sutper cey t in israel -- nyet set in israel, and he really details that the u.s. and israel have had a strong, close relationship with allies but that the u.s. really focuses on their n concerns anthat for israel to prosper ithure, fo ohlvrs oshandbo does palgrave macmillan look for? >> guest: you know, we are a publisher of nonfiction, we're a global publisher, and we really look to publish books that focus on all sides of the debate. we really want to contribute to evhia rafe, ande pis s on ay' thoughtful and well argued. >> host: another author who has a book coming out is yuron brooks and don watkins. >> guest: yes. ree market revolution." this actlly mes us from thexecivecof rinuth al a that for the u.s. to kind of pull themselves off

the brink of the economic crisis that we're seeing, we should revert back to the libertarian principles of ayn rand. >> host: and finally, michelle fitzrald, one more booke pavemalayouab >> guest: yeah. pilar is the editor for la opinione which is the largest spanish-language daily newspaper in the u.s., and she's written a book called "killing the agtentmiioream" wich argues sa w n only hurting ourselves economically, we're also going to experience a brain drain with all these great thinkers being forced out of the country. >> host: now, is this a book that will be published simultaneously in spanish and enish? >>stlllg ily eisngblr, wn' bubin in spanish as well. >> host: michelle fitzgerald of palgrave macmillan. we're here at bookexpo america which is the book-publishing indust's annual convention in new york