instructors, it is usually the guys that gravitate to that training. >> is like the wolfpack. i figured out pretty early on that it was more a mental than physical. they didn't like the cold water, they didn't like to be all that. so i have been there and done that. and once they realize that they couldn't break me, it was like i turned the corner and they keep

you up straight five days per hell week. and it was probably like a 20-mile paddle around san diego. and her beau crew finished first. one of the instructors that tried to get rid of me, he jumped in our vote and he is yelling at other people, and he says if you dump your vote right now, and i said let's do it. so i said, okay, i'm going to flip this. i had that look in my eyes and they left me alone.

>> i can't let my son read my book yet because he's too young for the colorful language. [laughter] >> tell us about your comments on the competitiveness of the navy s.e.a.l.s getting through the training and how that creates the camaraderie that you have among the navy s.e.a.l.s when you go out. >> first of all, also mail, ex potentially, then you have the guys that are graduating and when you get to the team, you think you're the most gifted warrior. there is something about, and i equated to being on the pro football team, there is just one super bowl. you will have the same mission, you're all trying to win the

game. you have medics and guides. it's a beautiful thing to see and hold. just like i said, it's like a professional football team that dominated the super bowl and you come back and it's the highest of highs. if you do that same thing and it doesn't end well, we come back and man up and take responsibility for that. and we do something called lessons learned. when you do that again, you don't make the same mistakes again. i hope they are broadcasting this in washington dc. [laughter] [applause] >> that is what we have to do in our personal lives. that's what we have to do their own finances and families. that's what we do and we take responsibility for that.

in our nation makes a mistake, they ought to fess up and say we did it wrong, but i'll tell you what, we are sorry, we will try to do it better next time. that is what it is like for those guys. the competition is there. but when it's said and done, we are on the same team and when you act cohesively, that is why the navy s.e.a.l.s are the best in the world. >> i think that covers it. >> brandon, i will ask you. what i love about your book is the navy s.e.a.l.s training. any time you have, you come back from deployment and you get to go to training. how do you keep that constant level of one to progress and not

rest on your laurels and say we are to meet to talk? >> i think it comes down to the only easy day was yesterday. so you are not early on. a lot of the successful businesses on the outside. but it's a little bit different. if the operation goes that as opposed to the sales presentation, the consequences are little more severe. that is why we train all the time and if you consider normal full performance at 100%, we would train passed that level

and train harder than we fight. the training more than prepares you for what you're about to face. sometimes we get into bad situations. that is why it is so important to train so much and at such a high level. >> you talk about the difficulties of coming back out of the navy s.e.a.l.s and readjusting. you were shot in action. how hard is it coming back and re-assimilating into life after being in a group like the seals? >> that is actually harder than being shot for five more times and going through that again. this elite group of people there

are people who would jump in front of a bullet to save any life. to have that caliber of person, and you think, the civilians are screwed up and are not like that, and it's like i'm going to stab you in the back by making you not look as good. my whole adult life i have been in the military and once i had gotten out and had that, coming back into society was the hardest thing i ever did. and not being willing to admit that i needed help. and that was a big thing. the minute i realized i needed help, i got counseling for survivors guilt. it basically means something you

deal with where you come out of a situation and in my case, 18 guys had died, one of them was my best friend. and i'm wondering why god let me live when people much better than me have died. it's something that i deal with every october 3. it's not as bad now, i have a lot of counseling to get me past that and decide that i will have another career that i love. the little things like being able to carry on a conversation. a conversation that maybe nobody in this room will understand. when i come back to georgia, population 920, they are talking about how much the water table is that i cannot relate to that. they definitely can't wait to this. they are looking at you like you have two heads. so it's better not to have this conversation sometimes.

i think the military is doing a better job of reassortment waiting. especially the counseling that you get. i was given a check for this and had to re-assimilate the best i could. >> i love this part and i just want to read it and have you comment on it. excellent. i don't care how they vote on gun laws or school prayer, i want them to know what the heck they are doing and that they are made of that kind of unswerving skill that will not be rattled and moments that count no matter what is coming at them. i want to know that they won't flinch in the face of debate or danger or death. i want to know that they excel at what they do.

you never even throw a punch in the name of freedom. whatever it is that you do, you're you are making a stand either for excellence for mediocrity. >> i think that for me it is one of the things that i had driven home in the seo community. they have a thing called aim high and mid thigh. the book towards the end, i try to share the lessons learned in

my career and we are talking about the things that i learned from some really great mentors and in the navy s.e.a.l.s we reach outside of our own community and we really look to other leaders in the world. you're asking me about the leadership traits. if i had to pick three traits that i still follow to this day, the most important one is leading by example. and that you can't expect things from people if you aren't willing to do the same things yourself there's not a whole lot

of leading by example. it's a sad thing. you have to put your career on the line for your subordinates. i am up for a promotion next year, i'm going to stand up and do what's right. i had a couple of those moments in my critter that i talk about in the book. i forget what the third one is. [laughter] >> it was praise in public and criticized in private. i run a media company today and have writers all over the world and ip people and i never --

it's going to be a private conversation. >> i have one last question for you. while i'm asking is, if you guys have questions and answers, if you could line up behind, there is a speaker over here and the microphone over here and a microphone over here. if you will line up, we will get you in a minute i look at your schedule. i notice that you stay busy. is that part of the training that you have gone and have committed to? what are your expectations for

yourself? i will tell you that we have all heard of if you want something done, give it to someone who's busy. i did two or three presentations a week, travel all over and see 150 patients a week. that is my life and i love it. if it fills me and when i talked about the survivors guilt, i think now the reason that the i was spared was not only to make a difference with my patients, but reaching out to people like this and basically every second i will capitalize on making the most of it. >> other than i don't own a

television. and i don't watch a lot of tv. but we have both lost friends. i recently lost my friend in benghazi, libya. glen doherty. it is one of those things that we have seen so many great individuals make the ultimate sacrifice. my philosophy is i don't have time to feel sorry for myself. i have to go on and live in part for these guys don't run anymore. >> we are going to go ahead and open up for questions and answers. but i'd like to put out a brief plug here. also the branding that was just recently published. the book was published, behind the scenes. number nine on the national bestsellers list. and also for howard's new book, an easy day for the double? >> no easy day for the double. >> that's coming out in october. if you haven't read "seal team

six: memoirs of an elite navy seal sniper" and "the red circle: my life in the navy seal sniper corps and how i trained america's deadliest marksmen", i thoroughly recommend them. if we have questions, we can start with this gentleman. the questions are scripted. >> did you have to get any permissions or were your writings of you before you publish? >> mine was so dated, black hawk down makes up the bulk of my childhood. but i did send it to a retired general and he read it and advise me to take a couple of things out, which i did. and you don't want in your book.

>> there were parts during my transition that i left out, which are sensitive and the men ghazi book, i would love to review that. especially with the military guys coming out in the seo community, they are all pretty heavily reviewed legally. i think just to explain why some guys don't submit for a pentagon review as it takes too long and that is a problem that none of the guys don't want it sitting on a bureaucrat's desk for six months. it is typically 12 months before

you see it in print. >> sir? >> you have any suggestions for re-assimilating the navy s.e.a.l.s or other military personnel who are coming back who needs some kind of assimilation assistance? either from the military or the government? >> i am glad that you asked that. first of all there needs to be an extensive psychological valuation done, and we have some type of delay based on how severe the trauma is. i am convinced that if i could've had a three-month

downstage, when i got back to the team, i was screwed up. the guys around me, i was not in a good place. the first thing that we have to do is figure out a way these guys make a living. i make a great living now, but it's been through trial and error and all this stuff and they need to be made aware of the educational assistance program and all the stuff that they can do, even something like having a job here. a lot of companies pay me to come motivate them. i grew up barefooted and now his fortune 500 companies pay us money to come motivate them. and i thought, you guys are billionaires and that ought to be motivation enough. the market is out there for these guys and they have no way

of making that introduction were having a handoff. we are like the day-to-day interpersonal lives. when i came out, could you imagine what kind of business you have? >> i can fast-forward and we are coming back with us next skill set. we have to have a way to get

these guys introduced to the right people there. >> i would just add that special operations committee, as much as we have our own issues, we are probably less affected by the transition issues, which do exist in our own communities. the problem is that every man and woman, all of them that are coming back and you are out on your own and you're seeing a lot of people that are homeless, men and women and they just need a little bit of a helping hand.

what the government is providing is a mentor in addition to some downtime, someone who has been there and done now. that is what glen doherty did for me. the guy that died in libya. he took me aside and said we will make sure that you kids get some tuition assistance. having that formalized and paid for, they can be paid on and off-site. >> ma'am? >> this question is for trendier. in your book when you talk about making changes to the sniper course, it seems like things were made quickly. were you surprised at how successful it was and specifically the change in the

rate and what the thing that was attribute it to? >> that is our mental management program. we are always adapting and not afraid to try stuff out. i would attribute a couple of things to lowering our attrition rate. as howard will attest to, it is one of the toughest military schools that you can go to. probably one of the only schools where you can go and come back and not get your tried and. want to go or so so, we had

about it date and you're there at the course. and we started teaching the active, we started implementing what we call positive teaching techniques and coaching is better than sit there and yell it's a good or bad for doing all the bad things, you have this fresh mistakes that they are making. they didn't even know what the heck it was. but now they do and that's all they can think about. it's like telling a little kid that is going to prevent not to strike out. so we start saying, okay, this guy is doing something's wrong, what are three positive things that i can tell them to do to correct it and i want him to do properly and that he can focus on. the other thing is having a positive mindset.

you have to have a positive mindset. 100% score is what they told them that was achievable. whereas if you're shooting at 90, it's pretty good. and that's like you really at the top of your game. there is no reason you can't shoot 100%. the first class were told that to come in and shot 100. incredibly high class. we must mentor that with an olympic gold medal medalist. they're a couple of students for each instructor that can not leave these guys behind and i remember they were out in the

car and all the guys are making fun of them and it's a positive mindset and visualization. and these guys were getting made fun of for being a carbonite. in the habit these wino guys waiting to listen to cds. [laughter] >> i hope that answers your question. >> there is a film called act of valor that was filled with some real navy s.e.a.l.s. one of the interesting things is the filmmakers are the philosophies of functionality and loyalty. being this really fast-moving collection and so for me it is like what is your vision or how

can we connect with some of these navy s.e.a.l.s that are back in the community. some of the techniques and philosophies that are really valuable. that's just something i'm really interested in. and i'm like, how can we connect >> i can sit down and have a beer and cigar and i think that you basically are going to have to reread certain books. you don't have to be a navy s.e.a.l. to have a superior mindset or to be able to achieve great things. i have read probably 100 motivational books and my life and read things that helped form me and shake me. as far as just like logistics, part of that high-speed on-the-fly, i don't know that that can be talked about, you just have to get in and start doing it,. >> other than the writing, i run

a website. and i just got approached by a former guy and he actually has a business now and his whole purpose within the industry and i don't remember, we swapped e-mails a couple days ago. he's going to advertise on a website. so you can watch that service that he is providing. >> if you buy our books and have your friends read it, that will help as well. [laughter] >> thank you for coming today. my question is about the different special operations and special forces units like delta force fields and i have read that there is a lot more working together between industry groups. it is just a lot of competition between the two. >> there used to be a lot of

competition to the point of being detrimental. the general took over and said you guys are going to play nice with these guys. and once we started training together, you find out that everybody gets better because these guys might be better at a certain aspect than we are. we might be better at certain things and they are. once we trained together, everybody improved. so that dangerous mentality of it's us against them, we are better than them, that mindset kind of went by the wayside. because once you all train together, with one eye was the small one, getting together in training together. we are talking about politics and if we could get "seal team six" book to washington dc, get all the democrats and republicans in one room, have snipers and say okay, you guys

are playing nice together, before you leave this building. [laughter] >> that would be great. >> that is my kind of filibustering. you're not going to just work 125 days per year and get paid exorbitant amounts of money. you must get your butts in the chairs and solve problems or my guys are not letting you leave. that is the mentality that you have to get to. i say that in jest, but it's the mentality of teamwork. as corny as it sounds, teamwork with those guys and when you're crosstraining with them, everybody benefits. >> unfortunately we only have time for one more question. going to the right, if you could please go ahead. >> you have answered part of my question about joint operations task forces. my son was accepted and he also got an exception to be an officer candidate. when he went into that, he had

to go. he has worked with a lot of you guys from "seal team six" and he is a joint operations task force now. we want to thank you for having his back. and for doing such a great job. i am at a loss for words. i think what you do over there is absolutely wonderful. i don't know how we could have done it without you. all the training and all the other places in the training bases. >> thank you for that. thank you to your son for his services. i would like to close out by asking a question and nobody asked as per the question i get asked all the time is how do you go from being a "seal team six"

sniper and being a chiropractor and taking care people? it is the same job. you just put people out of their misery in a different and ask tr

to ask if, the politics of this issue, with 90% of americans

supporting your measure and the background checks, in fact are there not more parents concerned about the lives of their kids than leaders of the nra? not even the membership, which by a majority supports these measures. what are the politics that allow the nra to transcend and have a story like in today's open "the washington post," that your bill will be gutted and inserted with new language? what are the politics around that? how can we reverse it? are we going to lose the opportunity unless american selectively pay and not attention? -- pay not attention? willam so pleased that you

all have a in a few minutes an opportunity to ask wayne pierre appear. -- up here that question. i cannot answer that question, because i can only speak from my own reality. i do believe will all my heart that when you have 20 children children,little simply learning how to read "run, spot, run," getting ready for christmas and somebody comes -- i said ins them my speech that there are certain transformative moments that happen in all of our lives.

if that does not cause folks to say that we need to look at the way that our country is operating and say that we need to do something about gun violence, i do not know what will. i will be interested to hear what the nra has to say about that. having lived in politics as lawyers i have, one that greatest concerns is these arguments go back and forth and we wind up doing nothing. we wind up doing absolutely nothing. i do believe that when you have pregnantents, they are with opportunity to make a difference. and if we do not act in those moments, then things will likely

only get worse. me beating upear on the nra. i want to work with the nra to bring about meaningful legislation so that we get something done. i want to deal with the bottom line. do we get something or don't we? do we have legislation, or don't we? the arguments will fade into the universe. the question is, have we accomplished anything. greg questioood?d?d;d'd/@'@'h

navy psychologist heidi kraft is sponsored by mr. and mrs. john pepper. dr. kraft received a ph.d. in clinical psychology in 1996. daring her psychology internship at drake medical center she joined the navy as an in-flight specialist and clinical psychologist. in february of 2004 when her twin working months old she was

deployed in iraq for seven months with a marine surgical unit. her book, rule number 2, is about her experience in iraq. today she is a consultant for the navy and the marines post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs, please welcome dr. heidi squier kraft. [applause] >> good morning. so i have been doing a fair amount of speaking over the last few years and i have to say i am quite certain this is my first talk in which the vice president warmed up the audience for me. it may not be the last but it is

the first and i wish he was here to hear me say that and and respectfully say thank you, sir, for such a good job. it is an honor to be with you today. how many veterans of the country's military do we have in the audience today? thank you very much for your service. [applause] >> i was sharing with my terrific sponsors last night doing this many speeches sort of become desensitized but sometimes it is still emotional and the reasons for that emotion are sometimes obvious like memorial day. other times it can be things that are upcoming that sort of take me by surprise. baseball season just started. did everyone know that? the skilled players have arrived in spring training. we will see if that is a big deal in san diego or not. but here we are.

baseball season starting. this makes me think of a young man, very special person and one of our country's he rose close to nine years ago now he died, sacrificing his life for his fellow marines. he was a young man i had the privilege to know for only a few moments holding his hand. they were moments that occurred in an austere field hospital in western iraq. we didn't speak. he couldn't speak. i didn't know him, not really. and because i have come to know his family, much more than a marine, a hero, a beloved son. and baseball player, wonderful experience at his high school including a batting average of 408 which was still record.

and joseph the marines. and finding life comes full circle, it was two years ago on memorial day that my 8-year-old hit his first out of the park home run and taking a picture of him as he was coming into home plate and all his friends jumping up and down waiting for him, i was testing jason's mother. she said i would give anything to see jason strike out, like i said, baseball season. how do we go through the experiences and not be changed? we are changed. those of you in the room who i asked to see your hands, those

who i honored by being here today, you are veterans of our past and present service and proud families, they are all change. we as patriots and support them and have supported them through what is now law war are changed too. i hope there is one thing you take out of me today, the change is the whole point. change is what we are afraid of, what we dread and what we cling to, what we depend on when everything else is fleeting, change is what matters and the stories behind that change deserve to be told so together as a nation we can celebrate them, cry for them, learn from them and move on. i believe that is the reason i'm here with you today. there's almost always a reason. i hope that after today you as members of this very proud

patriotic community will think of your service members and their brave families and maybe look at them with slightly different eyes. i hope that my words might encourage all of you to embrace your own story through all of this of patriotism, pride in your community and its long history and in one of there. most importantly in the role we all play in the long road ahead for our veterans. february of 2004 i deployed with the marine corps surgical co. to western iraq. at the time my was active duty in the navy and my babies were 15 months old. said goodbye to my family in florida and headed to camp pendleton where a ragtag group of us put our things together and headed to iraq. our job was to set up a mobile field hospital to care for the marines operating in the area and there were a lot of them. we had an air wing, infantry

regiment and the huge combat support battalion. i was part of a four person combat stress platoon, myself, my psychiatrist partner and two and listed psychiatric technicians. together we were responsible for the mental health treatment and care of 10,000 u.s. marines. this was a long time ago, 2004. some of you will remember this year as the year in which both battles for volusia --fallujah were fought. i can say on behalf of medical personnel we could never have imagined or dreamed of the number of casualties we would see during that time. for the end of this challenging time i decided i was going to write this list of things that were good and bad about iraq. i think for me it was the beginning of what became a lot of writing as therapy and

closure. for my colleagues in iraq this was hysterical, hysterically funny because as i told them i'm going to write a list. they said that will be the most lopsided list anyone has ever written. it was lopsided, true, but took the form of a poem and i sent it by e-mail to my husband who forwarded it to 25 people. by the time my returned to florida in september the list as recall that had literally been forwarded around the world and hundreds of e-mails were waiting for me. people who wanted to talk about it, that related to it. i have to say i was embarrassed, overwhelmed, i wasn't myself in 15 different ways and i didn't handle the attention very gracefully at first until i started hearing from viet nam era marines, korean war navy

corpsman, nurses, marines even from world war ii who told me that the list made them remember and that remembering was ok and i was humbled. i thought i would share the poem as it is truly the beginning of my story and it appears many others as well. think that we are good. sunset over the desert almost always orange. sunrise over the desert almost always read. childlike excitement of having fresh fruit at dinner after going months without it. being allowed to be the kind of clinician i know i can be and want to be. with no limits placed and no doubt expressed. but most of all the united states marines, our patients, walking everyday and having every single person who passed by me say oorah, ma'am, telling

me through blinding pain or morphine induced euphoria when can i get out of here, i just want to get back to my unit. meeting a young sergeant who lost an eye in an explosion asked a surgeon if he could open the other one. when he did he sat up and looked at the marine from his theme being treated in the other room, he smiled, laid-back down and said i only have one good eye but i can see that my marines are okay. and of course meeting the one i will never forget, the one who threw himself on a grenade to save the marines at his side, the first marine medal of honor recipient of the vietnam war. my friends, some of them are lifelong in a way that is indescribable. patients who had courage unlike anything i have never witnessed before my comrades in the

surgical co. some of the things they went through will be with them forever but still they provided outstanding care to our marines day in and day out, sometimes for days at a time with no break for seven endless months and above all else holding the hand of that dying marine. things that were not good. camel fighters, poisonous scorpions, bats flopping around in the darkness, howling territorial wild dogs, flies that insisted on landon on our faces, giant looming mosquitos and invisible flies that carried leishmaniasis. 130 degrees wearing long sleeved hands and combat boots in 132 degrees, random and predictable power outages that led to sweating throughout the night. wedding in places i didn't know i could switch like wrists and years, the war of helicopters

overhead, resounding thud of exploding artillery in the distance, popping of gunfire, not knowing if any of those sounds was a good thing or a bad thing, the siren and big boys yelling to take cover, cracking sound of giant artillery rounds splitting open against direct, the rumble of the ground shattering windows, hiding under flapjack and kevlar helmets away from a broken windows, waiting to be told we could come to the hospital. black helicopter with that big red cross on its side landing in our path. worse, watching gray marine helicopters landing at our pad because they were filled with patients and often we didn't know they were coming. assuring a sobbing marine colonel away from the trauma they and all you listen to is marines cry out in pain, meeting the 21-year-old corporal with

three purple hearts and listening to him weep because he was ashamed of feeling afraid to go back. telling a roomful of stunned the marines in blood soaked uniforms that their comrade they had tried to save had died of his wounds. watching a lot of of the boots of one of our young nurses while she told me about one who died in the trauma they and the one she had to tell when he pleaded for the truth that his friend didn't make it. listening to another of our nurses tell of that marine who came in talking telling her his name, about how she pleaded with him not to give up. she could see his eyes the doll when he couldn't fight any longer. and finally above all else holding the hand of that dying marine. so i refer to him in the beginning, the baseball player, also the dying marine in the poem, says corporal jason bonham, came to the doors of the

surgical company with a serious head injury. not many of you who live through something like this know that in combat medicine there is no at operation, his move to a place he or she can be given fluids, pain medication and support while that person dies. i met corporal dunham in our expecting room, held his hand and told him we were proud of him. we had no idea how proud we actually were. in what now looking back can only be a medical miracle his status >> reporter: and he began to squeeze my hand in response to my voice. he was medevaced, raise the helicopter crew to get him to baghdad and on to germany and he made it home to bethesda where

his parents were waiting for him before he finally died of his wounds eight days after coming through our trauma day. that was april 22nd, 2004. it is almost nine years ago now but sometimes feels like yesterday and specifically when i'm texting with his mother about baseball, we later learned he had given his life to save the men in his squad by throwing his body over a live grenade. there was an embedded reporter with his unit. you remember we have all sorts of these reporters embedded. he came through our surgical co. to learn of our experience with him. later he told our story to jason's mother. it ends up that that is all she really hoped for when she heard he was critically injured, that someone was holding his hand. so she wrote to me that summer and she thanked me for doing the

only thing she wanted to do but couldn't do. we remain very close ever since and in january of 2007 president bush posthumously awarded the congressional medal of honor to her son. than they invited me to be with them at the white house when the award was given, where i was proud to be the single sailor standing among 65 marines in dress blues. in recent years i have been privileged to attend with them the christening ceremony of the uss jason dunham, the navy's newest destroyer. i am so fortunate through all of this. i am not the only medical or religious personnel person from our services who has sat with a dying warrior on the battlefield but because of the really truly unique circumstances around all of this i know i maybe one of the only ones who has learned of his whole story because i have gotten to know his family.

i consider them great friends and they are very cherished to me. she introduces people to me as her angel which is overwhelming that she believes he fought to stay alive because when i spoke to him he heard her, not me. i know we both need to believe that. so not the typical place for a psychologist. nothing about my people and involved typical places raise psychologists so what did i do in the midst of this? when i returned i ran away as many do after trauma. i left the navy, but clinical work altogether. i was hoping to find some peace. during that time rule number 2 was written by accident, it was written as therapy. a vietnam marine, retired colonel who has written several books about the marines in

vietnam contacted me and said you need to write a book where every line in that poem is captured and i was very respectful since he is a colonel. i settled respect, absolutely not. i will not write another word about this experience. and you know what? wants a month he wrote me an e-mail and said what about that book? nine months after getting home and living through this they strange suffering that as a shrink i can the fine quite easily but as a person i didn't even realize i was going through. funny how that works. i finally wrote to him and said okay, what do i do? it is published not because of him. is published because of beth dunham who told me i should get it published. this whole thing is for fault. the most important part of all this is i learned exposure

therapy works. with each story that i wrote it became progressively easier to write the words on a page and a route that time i decided it was time to go back to work with our wounded marines and i have been there ever since. it is where i belong really and i guess it is a unique opportunity to try to be one of the voices out there trying to convince people that it is okay to seek help for wounds no one can see. someone told me he feels like the country after this is in the midst of a slow-motion mass casualty. i have to say those words struck a chord with me. after being awakened many nights by pounding marines on the door waking us up, mass casualties, the words are a little different for me but it fits. in my humble opinion that is because it is based on one thing. i am hearing it over and over again from my patients, from

those in audiences who ask questions in front of everybody come up later and speak to me, it is the sense that seems to be consistent across men and women, special forces, aviation, medical. we seem to have one thing in common and it is important for all of you as veterans, family members, as obvious members of the concerned community, it is important for you to know that some of our current and past service members feel alone. they feel there is no way anyone could ever understand how hard it is to admit that there is something wrong that no one can see. so the way ahead, to being healed and hole again although changed because we are all

changed, we will all be moving through this together as a community. it is a validation. we provide validation for others in ways we don't even realize. as a health care provider to deploy long time ago and now appears from our current warriors and their families, please trust me on this. you matter to our country's veterans, to those members of your community, the family members and friends and co-workers in ways that you will never know. if you take an extra moment to validate whenever it is that person might be feeling, it is an extra 30 seconds to remind that person it is ok if you are not okay. to know for certain as you go forward that that one incident of locking eyes, a little extra time holding on to a handshake or a hug, you can validate that

feeling of being alone and start a person on a path to healing. we do not need to the mental health providers to do that for one another. sometimes in those moments of comfort that might show up in what can be pretty chaotic in people's minds, those moments can be like changing. in closing i will tell you a couple other short stories about two of those moments for me. pitch black tent, the 14 women who call it home had different schedules so everyone agreed we would navigate by flashlight, my temporary caught was in the middle of the tent perpendicular to the rest of them. the other women had cavils and personal items such as those of husbands, children, navy seal boyfriends hanging over dare

cox, the air-conditioner built into the side of the tent forced women to use thick blankets over their sleeping bad as at night. i lived out of my house pack for the ten days i worked there. nearby fallujah was burning and casualties were flowing too fast for the shock trauma platoon to keep up with them. two junior members of the team, mary and noel had only been in iraq two months but walked with the air of experienced critical care nurses. they also worked with chronic sleep deprivation. two marines came and awakened them. my third morning there. in a few days i had been there i have seen them catching an hour whenever they could. this particular night they hadn't slept one minute. qaddafi after eating breakfast i returned to the tent. was a hundred and the sun was warm in the air really fast. inside it was still cold and dark. a sensory deprivation chamber. i fumbled through my hat with a

notebook when i saw a patients. at the side of the tent it was lifted allowing a flash of blinding light and dropped again. noel and maria entered silently. maria didn't take off her booth the collapse to her caught and held her blanket over her head. noel undressed in the corner of the tent and changed into slacks that said u.s. navy on the chest and right legs. she sat on her cot, sighed deeply and lowered her face to her hands. a few minutes later she came over. how are you, no, i ask quietly. we lost one on the table, she replied. very obvious fatigue in her voice. was she the first? yes. everyone is wasted but it probably wasn't about losing him as much as it was about the whole last couple of days. there are a couple patients i can't get out of my head, you know. i waited. a group of three came in, she said, with their corman. the captain was dead.

he had been shot under one arm and out of the other. that corpsman could have used you. he had been applying pressure under the his captain's arms for a long time. didn't realize that guy bled out along time before we got him. he just sat there, the corpsman, staring into space. you wouldn't answer our questions or talk to anybody. that might be a good person for me to see, i said. is he still here? no, they took him back with them this morning. probably best, kicking the wooden floor of the tent looking at her flip-flop clad feet. another came in with him, a gunny, triple and beauty who lost one leg below the knee, one at the head and another below the elbow. he was amazing. she took a deep breath and exhales through pursed lips. things for getting tent for a while. the look on my face must have been stressed.

i was running past him once trying to get some supplies and he said to me i felt horrible. i thought oh no, he needs more morphine and i have been so busy i missed it. i went over to him and said have you been okay? do you need anything? i need to ask you something. i leaned over him. how many irishman does it take to change a light bulb? she said i couldn't believe it. what did you just say? he said it is too serious in here. you people need to lighten up. he told jokes the entire time we worked in there, she said. it was like a stand-up routine. the lowlands and they came to get him and he waved at us with his one arm and gave us a thumbs up. we have been laughing so hard for the last half-hour we stood there like idiots and watched them loading him in. they set the hatch and the bird

lifted off and it was like opening the floodgates. everyone started crying. a few people even fell to there needs. she rubbed her eyes. wonder how he is now. .. >> she smiled. well, apparently, it takes 21. one to hold the lightbulb, and the other 20 to drink until the room starts spinning. [laughter] so it turns out there's many stories i could have shares with you, and after speaking with my

host last night, i understand this was even more appropriate for this audience than i thought. [laughter] because i guess there's a lot of irish-american folks here in savannah. so there you go, there's your joke for you for the day. it's interesting, because as i look back on sort of thinking about the stories to share with audiences, this one keeps coming forward. not because it's especially wonderful, which it is, and not because it may sound familiar to some of you. we all have these sort of life-changing moments. this man wasn't a gunny. i had to change everybody's ranks and injuries. he wasn't a triple amputee. i had to make people unidentifiable, right? for the book. um, and interestingly i have no idea, i had no idea what happened to him or anyone that we took care of. we had zero tracking system in place back in 2004. it's much better now. but these people came into our surgical company, and in many

cases really touched us, and then we had no clue what happened. so the reason, though, to tell you that story is because in this particular case there's this part two. and i think it's a perfect description of exactly what i've a just been sort of talking with you about. if we keep our eyes open, if we allow ourselves to grow and change in a positive way after a traumatic experience, we see that life comes full circle. just like my little baseball player who's not so little anymore, and jason dunham's family. i got to see this gunny again. the book is associated with a terrific charity. it's called the semper fi fund, and it helps injured marines and corpsmen who have been with the marines. and a few years ago i was invited to a, um, party with the board of directors, and several of the fund's recipients. now, the director of the fund had given my book to all of the board of directors as well as

these marines who have been given various types of assistance from the fund. and i walked into this restaurant, and i looked across the bar, and there he was. this gunny who wasn't a gunny. he was drinking a beer with one prosthetic hand, and his service dog's leash was wrapped around the other, and he was surrounded by women, and they were laughing. [laughter] so i knew it was him, of course, and i said to my husband who's a a marine, there's just no way i can go talk to that guy. and he said if you don't, you will regret it for the rest of your life. so i was so nervous, but i went over there, and i introduced myself, and i said i'm the author of that book that karen gave you. and he said, oh, that was of a good book. and i waited, kind of cringing. so finally i had to ask him, i said, well, what'd you think of your chapter?

and he said, my chapter? and i said, i called it the irishman and the lightbulb? he said, but that guy was a gunny, i'm just a staff or sergeant. [laughter] so i explained how i had to change identities, how i promoted him, you know, i assured him that was definitely you. he took a long swig of beer, and he said, well, i'm going to need to reread it now. [laughter] i said, probably are. before i left him, though, i just said i need you to know something. those medical people at tq that night, they were exhausted. they were up to their knees in casualties, and they'd been working for three days straight. and you saved them. he looked at me for a second, and he said, see, that's just so funny. i always figured their saved me. so, ladies and gentlemen, it does not matter about which war we are talking.

now i understand why people got in touch after reading the poem, even people from world war ii. i get it now. because across generations the whole point is still the same. when i was out in iraq, many of my marine patients kept telling me, docker you've got to watch -- doc, you've got to watch band of brothers. why in the world would i want to watch band of brothers while i'm out here in iraq? thank you, no. i did not watch it. i did get home, and someone gave it to me as a welcome home present, which is sort of strange. [laughter] anyway, there it sat on my bookcase wrapped in plastic for four years. and when you hear people speak of avoidance after trauma, that's a good example of avoidance after trauma. i finally did, though, get around to watching it. and now i understand why they wanted me to see it. there's a title of one of the episodes, it says why we fight.

and that's what they were trying to tell me. they were just trying to tell me why they were fighting. and it's the same today as it always has been. it's for one another. it's for the people to our left and our right, and it always has been. so for all of you who have worn our country's uniform or supported a family member who did, thank you for your service. it will always mean a great deal to us. and for all of you now who are part of a really amazing community of patriotic energy and support, you can be a cohesive, supportive, protective role in the lives of your sons, daughters, neighbors, friends as they come home from the fight and give them what they need then going forward with the rest of the fight. for some of them, that stigma will be the greatest fight

they've ever faced. you have the ability to give them permission to not be okay. to validate their sacrifice in a personal and heartfelt way that they will never forget. so if i may speak on behalf of all of them, thank you for your support of your veterans that we are all so proud of. you matter to them. you matter to us. thank you very much. [applause] thank you. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> of course, very happy to,

very happy to take questions. >> [inaudible] >> i think, yeah, i think we need the microphone. i'd love to hear your question, sir. >> i hope i'm not the only person here who doesn't know this, but what is rule one, and what is rule twosome is. >> oh, my goodness. what a great question. i planted him. [laughter] so do i have any m.a.s.h. fans in here? oh, yeah. i grew up watching m.a.s.h.. best show ever. no show will ever come close. rule number two and rule number one came from the first season of m.a.s.h. in a wonderful episode in which hawkeye loses a person on the table who he knew from high school, and henry, his commanding officer, says to him the only thing i know is that there's two rules of war. rule number one is that young men die, and rule number two is that doctors can't change rule number one.

any other questions? >> do you have any insights into the alarming and tragic phenomena of the number of suicides in veterans which we all are becoming familiar with? just anything at all you could tell that could be changed or whatever? thank you. >> yeah. you know, i think this is one of these things that the good news is that all the services take it so incredibly seriously. i've had the opportunity to speak at a few flag-level conferences for the navy and the marines, and truly at the four-star level this is, like, number one and number two priorities of these guys, even above what you would think would be, you know, missions and that sort of thing. it's truly alarming, as you say. the bottom line as far as we can tell is that this still comes down to the stigma that i was referring to. that there is still even with all of the advances that we've made in working to make it okay

to get treatment and help, there's still a true stigma amongst many of our war fighters around admitting that they need help for these, these wounds. they're truly injuries, and that's the way we're trying to push it forward is this is not a mental illness, this isn't something that makes you sick. it's an injury. it's something that happened to a healthy person, and treatment works. so there's really a push to try to change the way people think about this. but this needs to happen in the mid levels of all of our services, that mid-level leadership also puts that type of message out. and i think this is going to be decades before that actually is the case. i think the, unfortunately, the suicide rate is a direct reflection of that, of people just not feeling that they have anywhere to turn, that they can't ask for help. so, again, one by one we can change that. yes, sir. right behind you.

>> yeah. my father served in the second world war, and i was worn in 1946 -- i was born in 1946, and he would never answer any questions about his service. and all we knew was he brought home a trunk full of nazi flags and some nazi swords and that he'd been in the artillery. recently i have done some research on what he actually, where he was and what he was doing, and it sounds horrific just on the paper record. and my brothers and i have recently found some photos he brought back that shows that he was at one of the death camps early on and so forth. >> wow. >> what i'm wondering is whether anybody has done any study of this phenomenon you're talking about and how it was unaddressed with world war ii veterans. and what i'm really trying to figure out is how do you, how do i get into the mind of this father who was totally silent about it through his life? >> right.

there is a lot of interest in the world war ii, um, generation of veterans because, as you say, they were very -- as a whole, they were very silent about their service. and yet there seems to be this thought that many of them were actually quite functional, went on to live very functional lives and, you know, seemed to do okay. you know, sort of on the surface at least. and there's a couple different theories. obviously, one is that there was just that still that stigma, there was no, no possibility of receiving help. that just didn't exist, you didn't do it. it was what did they call it back then -- >> [inaudible] >> battle fatigue, but even before that it was like a soldier's heart or something? it was something that made it sound like you were weak, like if you had a soldier's heart -- yeah. so it was even, it's, the names have evolved. but they started off extremely, um, sort of prejudicial, you know? that it was -- so i think there

was certainly that. but then there's also this thought that maybe because many world war ii people came home on ships together. they had sometimes months to actually be with people who got it and decome press some of what they lived through. and perhaps that may have been a true protective factor formany of them despite the horror which is, as you say, unfathomable. despite that, if he came home with another group of people who got it, who understood him, who didn't judge him, who knew what he lived through, wholied -- who lived through something similar, they were able to debrief and sort of move through a lot of the process together. that's one theory. it's sort of why this whole generation of people who lived through something so bad seemed to generally do okay.

the other theory, of course, is that they just refused to talk about it and refused to let it bother them and refused to do it. it just wasn't an option. i like the first theory better, because i think it actually makes some sense. now our veterans are home, you know, 12 hours after they were in iraq, they're home, and it's just really shocking. >> could the difference also have been that the way they were welcomed home? >> could have been. the country was obviously -- >> there were parades, they were revered. >> right. >> you came home from vietnam, you were shunned. >> that's right. and certainly the country's involvement during world war ii has to also have been protective. the entire country was part of the fight. and so that, clearly, has to have been protective. vietnam, no doubt about it, the

country's disinvolvement and even hostility towards those that fought is clearly an additional risk factor for our vietnam veterans. no doubt about that. no doubt about that. >> [inaudible] the difference between a draft and a volunteer early? >> sure. >> [inaudible] >> sure. >> [inaudible] >> right. right. there's some different thoughts on that. but, yeah, theoretically when you're volunteering to do it, this is something you're choosing to do, and there should be a different way of thinking about it. yeah. i don't think anyone's ever come to a true consensus on the draft situation. but, yeah, you're right. that's certainly a different factor as we've looked at different wars. >> hi. this question may be frivolous, but i'm curious. i'm the grandmother of twin 1-year-old boys, and i want to know who watched your children.

[laughter] >> well, that's a great question. their grandmother was part of that. my parents, actually, left their home in sacramento and came and lived with my husband in florida to help him and, obviously, that was a great comfort to me to know that they would always be with someone who adored them. unfortunately, it was tough on their relationship with my husband. [laughter] it still hasn't -- that's one of the casualties of our war. [laughter] yeah. not so so good. [laughter] but i think having them there was clearly helpful. and my husband was out of the marines by then. and so he, he was there. he was working, but he was there which is, was a good thing, clearly, for me knowing that their father was there but was not good for him because as a marine hairier pilot, he was the one who was supposed to be heading over there, not me. he was better suited to go, not

me. we agreed on that. there was a lot of what we call in the biz cognitive dissonance. none of that made sense. and it was really a sense of -- it was almost like he resented me for going. he had flown for 12 years and never got the chance to actually, you know, blow open a path for infantry marines to go through which was what he was supposed to do in that airplane. so it was a challenge for us. but the good news is the kids had all sorts of support. [laughter] and they were really what mattered the most to me. >> this is back to the question of what do we do with an individual coming back who has these internal wounds, and it would -- it seems to me that when you are learning how to fight for your country, you're basically told to suck it up.

and you live with that psychology and that protects you and that gives you the courage, if you will, to go on and do horrendous things. then suddenly to dismiss all of that and lead them, that is where probably the problem lies. how do you make that transition. what you mentioned about being op the ship for -- on the ship for a time and you watch ncis or something, and they address this kind of a problem where people come home, and they don't know how to relate to the people that they left behind. >> right. >> so is this one of those serious issues about individually trying to take away what you had to know to go in to fight to do these things and replace it with therapy? >> to some extent.

although the attempt to change the way we think about these wounds as injuries instead of illness is an attempt to try to make the this akin to a badly-sprained ankle. and so whenever i get my chance to talk to a big group of marines or sailor, i say, okay, everybody knows what it looks like when you sprain your ankle, what it feels like, right? it's swollen, it's bruise 3, it -- bruised, it hurts to walk. and everyone knows what you should do to take care of that ankle, right? everybody knows you should get off of it, put some compression, take some ice, maybe take vitamin m -- motrin. [laughter] and so we all know this. and then i say to them, okay, just go with me for a second. what if you don't have time? what if you're embarrassed? you leaf the boot -- you leave the boot laced up real tightly and you do crazy things you shouldn't do in boots, but

that's a whole different lecture. so you stay on it. you walk on it for weeks, months, long time. is it possible no one will know how badly sprained your ankle is? well, sure. yeah, you could fake it pretty good. and then someday i tell them even you have to take a shower. so you take the boot off, now what does your ankle look like? oh, boy. that does not hook good. and you don't have to be a corpsman to know there's something wrong with that ankle, right? by the time that happens. it looks like a bowling pall on the end of your leg. so you get sent to the doc, and then the doc gets sent to the physical therapist. is and then i tell them what if the therapist gives you some exercise and things to do, and you are a patient patient, and you do exactly what that person tells you. is it possible that you end up with a stronger, more flexible, more resilient ankle at the end? and they all have to admit, yeah, it's probably possible.

meanwhile, i'm watching like lightbulbs kind of coming up on top of all these heads in the audience. and, of course, the punchline is this is no different. normal person, injury, signs that we recognize, an attempt to cover them up. a moment when you can't cover it up anymore and treatment. same thing. so this is what we're trying to push forward, this idea so that, hopefully, it doesn't have to be something that's counter to what you learned. what you learn is you've got to be healthy in order to help your unit. same thing goes with this. so that's what we're hoping. it's being taught at the very junior level, and we're trying to, you know, move that quickly through the ranks. we'll see how it goes. so far at least i think on the junior side it's accepted that way. on the very senior side, it's definitely accepted that way. because they know, those guys know, the leadership, we've got to keep these guys healthy. so i think, i hope that will be the case. feel free to use the ankle

analogy if you ever need to. [laughter] one more question, i'm told. anyone? no pressure. it doesn't have to be a great question. [laughter] we've got one here and, okay. can we have two more? we have one right there. all right, sir, you're next. >> hi. i had a son that recently came back from afghanistan that's a double amputee. i'm very proud of him and admire his courage, but now he wants to go back and, honestly, i think he's crazy. can you explain -- i know this happens a lot where they just want to go back, and they've given so much already. can you explain this mindset to me? >> uh-huh. actually, there's this workshop we give for folks where they're returning, there's the title of a seminar, why i want to go back. it's very common. i even felt it, too, as much as, you know, really? but you do. because there's a sense of knowing what you're doing, there's a sense of real competence in combat.

everything's very black and white. your role is very clear, what's expected of you is very clear. there's no additional stuff going on. it's just you and your unit and what you have to do. and there's that, that's really nice. it's very simple. and i think that when you get back and there's all sort of all the different pieces that are floating around with family and the future and your injuries and everything, it srt of starts to feel really complicated. and so they yearn for the simplicity where everything was simple. in addition, some people become true adrenaline junkies. i have to fight with a lot of my patients about their 100 mile-an-hour motorcycle riding. come on, man, you're killing me here, you know? but they feel, they tell me they don't feel alive, that they felt alive in combat. that was alive. this, you know? so we have to work on sort of increasing pleasurable activities in their lives and realizing it's never going to look like that again. it's never going to feel like

that again. but that's good. because here in savannah, georgia, you shouldn't feel like that. right? that shouldn't -- that's just a, that's just a very spsk feeling, and we don't really want that again. so i think it's very normal. and there are actually a fair amount of amputees that are returning to active duty and even deployment. it would be a different role, potentially, than what he was in, but it's possible. you know, hopefully he'll move through his transition as well and kind of see where he can contribute to the army? yeah. where he can contribute to the army or to his community in a different way and still find pleasure and joy from that. our last question is here. this gentleman here. in the hat. in the blue hat. everyone's pointing at him. [laughter] >> hi. i'm a psychiatrist, and i've treated many veterans from vietnam to the present.

one of the problems i have with what you've said, though, is that there's a marked difference between the normalcy that most people experience and the horrors of war. people in the military in wars see things, do things and experience things that normal people have no idea what they are. >> that is true. >> and it's very difficult for those two groups to understand each other because people who haven't experienced it have no idea what it's like, and people who are experienced it don't understand why the people who haven't experienced it don't understand it. >> right. >> so they live in very, two different worlds. >> exactly right. >> in which the military world is almost like a netherworld where they're experiencing things that are, you've said,

that are horrendous, you know, that are exhausting, that go beyond anything. >> yep. >> and normal people don't know how to relate to that. and so there's tremendous difficulty in getting back into the normal world because their world will never again be normal. >> no. well, you're absolutely right about that. there's no doubt. and when you say the problem with what i said, you mean as far as supporting, trying to support people one person at a time, or -- is that what was, you were addressing? >> um, yeah. my specialty for many years was treating traumatic brain injuries. so i understand your analogy about the injuries versus illness very well. but the problem with your swollen ankle is that nonmilitary people, they've had swollen ankles also -- >> right, right. >> but they've never seen their neighbor jump on a grenade and be exploded all over the room. >> sure. >> we think, oh, it was exploded, but they don't understand tissue and blood and,

you know, body parts -- >> with right. >> -- flying. so they can relate to the idea of a swollen ankle, but they can't relate to the military experience. >> okay, i do -- >> so in that way it's very different. >> i understand. and perhaps your point is that as a, as connective story the swollen ankle is a difficult one to use. potentially true. i use it with military guys to try to break the stigma, but, yeah, i see your point. i think what this comes down to is just connection of human beings, and we will -- people who haven't lived through it will never understand it, and i think admitting that to someone is huge. i hear that from my guys a lot that when they see a doctor or a nurse or even just have someone who's concerned that's trying to help, it's very important to make some comments such that i have no idea what you've lived there, and i would never you said it, but i'm right here if you want to take me along. whatever it was,