senior fellow at the institute for the study of war. he is a career adventure officer i'm not mistaken. i'm sorry to you about that. i'm an artillery that. he spent 37 years in the united states army in command of the general officer of the 21st adventure division, first score for lewis and the multinational chance should command in iraq. on my left, old friend and colleague, mr. frank hoffman can a senior research fellow at national defense university and

two for national strategic studies. as a former marine officer. sorry about that as well. [inaudible] [laughter] he's re-signed left the department of the navy cigarette or formula capabilities readiness. he's not be publicized in a prolific commentator. on the future conflict and hybrid warfare, frank and i have been co-conspirators many times on a lot of ideas. want to remind everybody should not cell phone features, but there is, it better as we don't get it or the press is. all the panelists will make some kind of prison patient cannot do the presentation longtime for question. there will be microphones present throughout. raise your hand and i'll make sure you're called on it orderly fashion. so the intent today is to talk

about a report chartered by ernie g8 on the potential -- future potential for large-scale employment of u.s. ground forces, that the u.s. army marine special operations forces in the uscentcom and pay, oa ours. alive that a few who are chartered to evaluate what the depart of defense costs future challenges with the enslavement of the sources. with that come with started the process in october of right around the beginning of a told her the previous year of last year, going through this process. what you see today is the culmination of that effort. we could, the next slide, please. to the steady purpose in the past 10 now painfully. this is what we did. our charter was to identify

interests in the regions that ground relative hazards of those reasons. as i said, the foyer we develop a framework to assess future challenges and assess the risk against a set of what became 20 regionals again that really grew out of rss and of the trend had been sized in the two regions that can do of the report. finally, we compare the risk of death that the strategy and policy abide with judgments on jeter miscommunication policy level measures. the department of defense might take going forward. let me make a few qualifications because i think airport. large scale in the context of the report is not necessarily what was considered large scale in the past or interpreted as large-scale. our floor in this report is

really an army division, the ground combat element or some combination of special operations, marine and army forces. the ceiling could be much higher than not. but in the context of this report is large-scale. judgment or qualitative, not quantitative. we are chartered to look at what the force may be asked to do, not specifically the extent to which the force might be asked to do it. that is a follow on to decipher. finally we accounted will be labeled a question i've been interested in for quite some time to call for problems that emerge from disorder with a failure of authority to control resources, territory, dangerous resources, it better at as well as unfavorable order, which would be whether some lake. another great power that rises up in nola terry fashion in a

way that forces us to respond. we came to four key findings basically. there really varies for keith eames, finding a ruled out of our report. the first is that the u.s. does space future contingencies for u.s. policymakers want the option to consider the large-scale. that may appear to be a mom and apple pie conclusion frankly. i feel blessed the contemporary debate you have this perfect storm of resource challenges and that the department of defense long experience with the wars in iraq and afghanistan. they are to really discount a large number of potential contingent events in the future is not necessarily preaching a

threshold that would have us deploy ground forces, but we think the future is different than that. the army marine general purpose forces and special operations forces in both regions. one of the things we found is the more complex and crises involved challenges between people, the likelier ground forces in the military response. so i can't come at the vignette, which i talk about in a bit. we found large-scale ground floors responses in the future really fall into what we think are five basic architects. humanitarian response from industry security, enable and support option, limited conventional campaign. i talk about those as they go forward. but we found it to be most

possible for the next two decades, ground forces are more likely to respond to cross boundary disorder, national catastrophe or third-party conflict with some kind of large-scale enabling africa mar to respond to over cross-border election by an adversary of the united states. in the whole construct of the five come there's too worth saving -- real war fighting focus missions come which are the distributed security and limited conventional can pain. we found the distribute security to be the largest cluster of demand. over the next 20 years, potentially identify the best are likely as the war fighting focus going forward. perhaps the most controversial fighting we came to is that major combat operations that we experience over the past 12 years and likely a lesson critic

case and i'll talk more about that in the future. regional shaping we found to be peacetime demand for ground forces going forward. someone argue it should be a force driver, but we see it as a dominant mission going forward. importantly found in consultation with regional strategist the most shaping up first are those that are with partners that are most capable and most willing to participate in future contingency operations going forward. that's number one and should focus on providing the most dangerous outcome in repairing to respond the most disruptive outcomes in each one of the regions. finally, the current defense priorities and service priorities may not apply in the future demand for the ground forces. i'll get into that in the future in a few moments.

suffice it to say we have six basic risk categories of future challenges to be increasing or static analysis categories. strategy and policy are to fit its time to traditional state-based challenges and not focused enough on consequential disorder. history is security itself is really inconsistent with the current direction of policy alley found this idea of enabling somewhat countercultural to service culture. finally, one of the biggest contributors is the force with wealth has become sufficient to respond to one contingency type in particular, which is counterinsurgent the permit fixed and sophisticated support architecture, which we don't think a necessary vulture in the future. then they go to the next slide. here's a pictorial of the five

archetypes, the first question we always get. note that we have the large circle just talking about the fact that the army in particular has a large theater setting bill. the army provides the foundation for major operations in the areas of communication, logistics, et cetera and on top of that, these operations would occur. you can also see by this replace the distributed security vignette in the center of this chart is the greatest reservoir for future capabilities. it draws on the capabilities necessary to get at the operations and it's kind of centerpiece of future capabilities. next slide. really what we want to depict in this chart is the way dod has set the risk of excess and four major categories. operational risk and future

challenges risk. our ring from my friend, frank hoffman convoy brought this idea of front-end. the bottom line is institutional force management risk provides the foundation upon which the other two can be assessed. in the current structure, the way dod assesses risk going forward is operational risk being over the next 24 months, can we perform our work line is heavily favored and more formalized in the future challenges risk. but which trained to do is take a crack at rewriting the balance of the chart a little bit and looking more holistically future challenge risk. one thing that is import is today's operational risk. they really are a continuum. one assesses the ability of the forests to respond to problems,

the other person's ability to problems with in the future. they really do have similar characteristics and therefore i joined somewhat. next slide bit of a context to identify the five core and should, i'm not going to go into great detail, but it was one of our charters in this tidy. these ventures that we derive really from and assess it a national security policy, sort of public announcement on the part of u.s. policymakers think these provide a foundation and are translatable across combat command. you can see the individual implementation romanticist nation in the not command. cities five core interest provided a foundation upon which were through which we could look at the challenges and never take to the region and arrive at solutions about the likeliest demand to be. next chart, please.

in the process also as we came up with the interests, we developed is better than site. we have 10 basic and i that we worked off of. this became a bit of a lead to look at the region and those will be. let me go over these a little bit. these insights are both a combination of assumptions and preliminary conclusions as we went into the beginning of the study in helping sites because they were come earned in the course of the study. they think the united states will maintain its military advantages and it's very consistent, but will erode over time. the current policy and thought in area. having said that, in spite of the erosion, we think and a

commitment to major conventional conflict between the united states and other great powers is largely preventable. an area we have this capability is the area a spontaneous civil conflict, especially state of importance to the united states as well as proxy resistant by another great power. the concert to this report are particularly troublesome with respect to consequential threats to core interest. we also came to the conclusion, in spite of current directions in policy that wars between nations and people and the conflicts they generate will be -- will continue to be important to u.s. policy and strategy going forward in subject you can tendency planning. to access state and nonstate act

is to access and threats to our freedom of maneuver and specific operational areas in the thread is becoming more prolific in the capabilities are migrating down the democratizing. cbr and will be a problem in the future. , logical, proliferation and development will be a problem for the united states and will be a primary concern for the next two decades. one key finding that support is this idea that everyone call the information revolution is almost having a viral effect on the ability of conflicts to spread. not only is it challenging to operational security, but allows the creator were diverse universe to interact with one another, organized that distance in that range and conduct

somewhat coordinated action to complicate u.s. interests. accelerants going over the next two decades include governments, catastrophe, climate change and environmental degradation and the increase competition for strategic resources. the united states will continue to have a number of strong bilateral multilateral partnerships going forward. frankly the same way american defense resources are declining, the resources are declining as well, which will leave us in a position where we remain the most capable and able to respond to many instances of common concern between our allies and us. finally, i would just like to say we think strategic warning for the most traditional military challenges will remain stable and significant, where a

strategic warning for those instances this spring from some disorder will be marred by shannon in doubt and compress the decision-making space afforded to u.s. decision-makers. next slide, please. quickly, let me talk about the transmit into five and uscentcom. you can see on the right-hand side we talk about these trends in particular in the take away the trains themselves are most important to this report. the bottom line is three basic trends that will be the focus of u.s. defense strategy and planning going forward for the foreseeable future. first is a prolific challenge the authority and stability of regional government. secondhand impact on stability of the region and the uncertain control can launch all, biological, radiological and capabilities.

you can see some of the reasoning time are thought, but in the interest of time i want to move on to talk about the next return and will point to q&a for discussion. pay com has horrified a thick trends. the most dominant is regional privacy territory resources and freedom of action within the region and in to the region. this alternative futures with ink are considered. currently, the most common is the dominant race in china stays on a linear path upward. we also thing there is some discussion of the different path for china and a week or china or feeling china is just as troublesome. in addition, the result is the

idea is if you see china as a principal focus, the chinese themselves could opt for a competitive strategy that occurs outside the military domain and sort of undercuts military buildup associated with conjuring none. we do think the answer project to reach in north korea will be a dominant concern for u.s. ground forces for some time to come. north korea has three paths. it can at some point unify with south korea. it can collapse or it can continue to engage in provocative or aggressive behavior that somehow leads to war between the north and south. perhaps pay com is natural catastrophe and climate change but they dominate theme.

is probably their most frequent requirement for contingency response. so we think it is one to consider and finally in or in ethnic and ideological disputes in the region. we found that to be probably not too a level that would require the large-scale deployment of u.s. forces. we came up with 20 vignettes. i can talk about any of these in detail, but here are the 20 vignettes listed side-by-side. and uscentcom, the range of likelihood from a syrian sanctuary problem unfolds as we speak all the way to a future serial conflict in a post a side environment. we have eight other again we can unaired. again ranging from the likeliest demand for two most speculated

demands, we branch from a pan pacific tsunami, which requires the homeland defense response of the part of the united states down to a taiwan, luncheonette fighting in taiwan. next slide. major implications for ground forces that we came to that i want to just highlight. first i want to hide the fact future operating environment will be disorder, distributed and less decisive. there's a number of constraints emerging at the policy level, coming out of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. a natural aversion with future contingency operations. the objectives pursued will be one of limited and operations themselves are likely to be less decisive. uscentcom and uspacom are

different and it demands come accepting a lower probability, possibility of an operation in the region. we think uscentcom is defined by peace operations and pay com by the enabling support actions in humanitarian response. there may be limited warning like what we saw colin in this distributed security category and that is largely stemming from the idea of them are likely to emerge from challenges of disorder. finally, let me again emphasize the point in all six categories. if he could go forward to size. then they make a couple points on our risk assessment and turned over to my colleagues.

the overarching challenge in the risk assessment probably thing is twofold. first there is a general prioritization away from consideration now going on inside the pentagon for a variety of reasons. there is war weariness, resource challenges in the place you can go is the most man power intensive services. that is competing with this idea we have become accustomed to one contingency focus over the last 12 years and have dispensed with a number of capabilities and competencies are relevant going forward and we have to capture those. i think that's a key area.

as to your deployed for said, which required the united states to have been employed -- deployed equals employment talladega with ground forces will be increasingly challenging with forces based in the united states. across the board will be more vulnerable to marry describe for a wider variety of factors and as a result of protecting the sources will be increasingly important in giving forces across the spectrum of response to protect themselves and conduct operations will be more import. one interesting point became to is we think given this idea operations of elasticized is, the force and south have to become more attuned to the idea of disengaging from environment that are necessarily fixed.

what a conflict of crisis is in train a time when pushed to a level manageable to the view of u.s. policymakers. it's a very different mindset and that we've had in the future -- in the past and is one likely to require more attention. i am going to turn it over at this point. we have some more chairs. we'll kind of pumped everything to question-and-answer after that. thank you very much. we are grateful for your being here and we look forward to the q&a portion. mr. pavel. >> thanks made very much in thanks for inviting me to this session. i'll be very provocative and brief because there's a lot of rich knowledge among my fellow

panelists. first and foremost, this is an excellent study that avoids the most a common error i see and force planning and that is obviously emphasizing contingencies that it dominated our thinking over the last decade or so. i think it has imagination and innovation and i certainly applaud it. to hit on some of the same issues come clicking helping the white house sort of oversee the last cute er. i look into that in a little bit. for basic point that i'll be very brief and hopefully stimulate some conversation. number one, we are terrible at predicting future contingency. the only thing that is certain is we will be surprised again by future contingencies.

i'm doing a lot of work at the olympic council with the national intelligence council and other government on global trends in disruptive technology and it's pretty clear after three trips to silicon valley at the road in five to 10 years will have some different dimension than a house today. if we think the iphone and democratization of communication technology has changed, wait until you see the rest of the technology revolution comes to play in biotech and democratization in 3-d printing and a range of technologies on top of each other and we don't know how it going to play out, but it will be disruptive. in some ways the disruption will be beneficial, but there's a dark side to each of these technologies that can be applied. the key trend is that of individual empowerment enabled

at the massive shift of resources to asia -- back to asia that is currently ongoing help bring about a very significant rise in the global middle class. there's also the technology element at play as well. let's start with the baseline of the strategy the united states has been play. we need a strategy of portfolio capability that hedges against the environment and a perp or your way. it's important to keep in mind i was part of the bureaucracy before. but the strong inclination is to resist chain and to strive to focus on the comfortable and in this case, the conference on israeli left to deal with militaries that look like i was.

so in this case, the department's natural inclination is to focus 80% of that person's strategy and planning and dealing with the chinese can agency is understandable, but it's overplayed to a degree and i worry very much the uncomfortable but plausible scenarios, some of which nate covered very well will come back to bite us and unfortunately damaging ways. the summary of my first point is automaticity, autonomy of the departmental components in the drift towards the symmetric is the single greatest strategic challenge we face. we can talk about that. so we can't wish away scenarios we preferred not to engage in. it certainly would be nice if the world would let us have it

towards asia and focus efforts there. we do know when we are attacked and interests are dealt a severe blow, will deploy ground forces. i have no doubt. my second major point is a very under his portfolio. there's a lot of scenarios up a significant demand for military forces, ground forces in the current dod strategic direct jury has precision about the future operations than is warranted. it strikes me the best way to prepare for being surprised, which we should do isn't sure we have great for a site into our planning processes. the likelihood of strategic shock is very high over the next five to 10 years.

just look back at the nearness says that the things that did happen and you will have a sense the next five years certain my will include some of those. any seachange more to one systematically scans the horizon in key areas and appropriately hedged strategies, capabilities accordingly. two scenarios i spent a little time talking to people smarter than i am about. these are two that i worry about. number one is the scenario of failed states with wmd come to see and not play out in syria, but i promise you i wrote these words before we heard about the redline being alert to a pink line. for this scenario, there is good work going on. i don't want to be too much of a blunt instrument. the current approach in

particular that of pakistan is still highly compartmentalized the cavities under way. we have to be careful, so this has a way of limiting the strategies and investments in capability because it is on one side. me to open this up and talk about it the way a healthy democracy helps ensure the defense policy debate. when i see where is the greatest gap between supply of capability and amman envoy says, to me it's extremely uncomfortable. what about capabilities in some cases, the technology in some cases. we don't have enough for

capacity besides that we are all set. they would be essential for sizing and shaping alleman in this cute er about to kick off. the second set is spicy or. having bio enabled the tax, the chances going to increase as accelerate across the world. the chances of a nonstate terror using technologies is unfortunately rising demonically and we can talk about those things in the q&a. i think the department is close to being hollowed. last december there was a panel on the future of war. this is the one question i asked michelle. you can check out the video of

the panel on her website. i said how is the department for this set of scenarios? she said nowhere near being prepared, which is very concerning to me. a little bit more and scenarios. these are interest number five on the list of u.s. interests. i look at the defense strategic items from last january 2012. in this encounter, at least as much as it should be. there's a gap in the capabilities needed to be carried out with confidence. is over a dozen different units and organizations that have pieces of the mission and the department, but little synergy from what i can tell.

if you can name one officer at a three-star level that has the mission as a singular priority ambling to listen. if you count of the professionals the combat command staff come you to have an interesting indicator of the degree to which this priority mission, listed in the president's guidance is being resource company that turns terms of personality should, the let alone terms of other aspects of how one underwrites the strategy. my own view is we should reverse -- overcome the stovepipe pen do i balance it of limited resources to get this to the level of national attention it warrants before it's too late. my fourth point is very basic. we've all been to enough of these event that talk about resource constraints we are working through. they have a beneficial it can into focus the mind on what strategy really is, which is the

art of connecting resources to your strategic ends coming using various means. anyone who says we should develop the strategy in capability and a resource constrained environment, the strategy without a sense of resources for the hallucination. strategy actually demands the resources it will have available. perhaps the president's job, the congress is shot. we can't resource everything to the fullest extent. that's not strategy. -- is doing everything we wanted to. a heavy dose of resources is useful, but i don't think we're anywhere near the point where we can't resource the most important priority missions in a cost effective way. that does this in the pentagon comes to realize that the

private sector is realized, the 21st century business practices headquarters operations. i could give you a list of redundant dave of the department that would squeeze out another 10% of the budget. probably for another seminar. i will end very. >> thanks for the introduction and invited me not just here, but to participate in the thinking process. i will pick up where the study and add a novice with denial, which of course is not just a river in egypt. it is a climate very much within the beltway. we would like to not have large numbers of forces. we like to anticipate and shape the strategic environment and military force to that future.

one wonders if we could do this, why haven't we done that? we also like to think we can prevent future threats to american interests because of our vast intelligence and forecasting capacity and leverage of that. one wonders if we could actually do it, why haven't we? we believe they should we fail fail in the forecast, some rapid decisive use of forceful resolve the issue will have enough time to raise forces necessary to whatever the challenge. finally, the destructive power of our military force is will resolve whatever com looked at the day the nation faces. and the destruction it was kind of fighting a placenta for an end of problems.

though history and the last 12 years of worship teach us exactly the opposite. this is the story we tell ourselves. it isn't true. it's fiction. it's not been true for a while and we've covered the fiction in the past because it had sufficient size. with built-in sufficiently large military force on its capabilities enable in our power , special operations power to cover the fact we don't know what the future will hold that we don't want to admit the size and inability to predict in the past. the study offered a west point when it comes to predict and in a and location of our next military engagement at least since vietnam, our record has been perfect. we've not got it right once. there remains unstated is the

lesser produced agencies of the past, all of our actual operations were possible because we sized again large conventional threats. dealing with noriega required large ground forces. so does the government in haiti, started enforcing the date of course, so did liberating kuwait. all of this when the berlin wall was fallenness of eating collapsing and we paid ourselves a peace dividend by shrinking the very forces now more often the nearest peer-to-peer ground forces were strictly necessary for the discharge is pushing changes in iraq and afghanistan. we seemed to have forgotten the poster shame operations require the nation to transform the army reserve components to 200,000

more operational reserves and hire almost 200,000 contract terms. the stress in a terry is not the use those to many. is the result of having too few. now we tell ourselves again, which was told ourselves before. but the csi study in the national intelligence council study, global trends 2030 and a bunch of others, with several data points that tell us uncertainty is a norm in environment. the types of conflict are most likely the kind that can't be resolved with mere destructive power. global trends study comes out to say the potential for multiple forms of war comes at a time of rising uncertainty as to the united states willingness or

ability to be the guarantor of security at a time of it this is ambiguity of international systems. in times of such uncertainty and ambiguity with increased likelihood of conflict, we need to tell ourselves the truth not to hold onto her fiction. strategic leaders need more options, not less and contingencies in the csi study for the hybrid warfare unlocks the people wherever else you want to call the same require more ground for his capacity, not less. we prefer a clearly defined; it shall state a threat that the u.s. military must deter and defeat upon which we size our forces. unfortunately, this is not the reality we face.

we do have some potential threats like to do but have to have military forces necessary to deal with then. these now hubby, mike past, the lesser included contingencies. the real issue is having a large enough dealing with increasing risk outlined in the study. our typical mission set in the study and others similar to them. doing so doesn't hit our story because making these adjustments may require more ground forces, and not less. changes, not stability. unfortunately, reality has a way to force tough on a nation that global response abilities and interests. search by the johnson frustration didn't want to get bogged down in vietnam. the bush 41 and didn't want to invade panama. the clinton administration did what do bosnia.

the bush 43 didn't want to fight terrorists and nation building in some future administration they will find it of having to do just what it does what it does not want to do. when it turned to the military for option will not be on their side. forces provide the previous administration's adoptions. forces in pretense the account much less. so the csis said he would talk about today as well as others is clear. the writings of confrontation that same part of our collective strategic future cannot be resolved by destruction alone. or solely by lethal, fast remote action or small special is operations. the real threat in my view that we faces ourselves and ability to deny what we need and choose

instead what we prefer. >> thank you for that it may be part of the study appeared on the career thing tanker and this is an all too rare example of a useful tank products. it provides an intellectual scaffold that will appreciate and them not recognize it immediately. the art of strategy is thinking about possible futures to inform decision to make today in the present and that's the challenge that apartment is facing. uncertainty, friction and constrained resources at the one that the constant companions of defense strategists. we've all faced this in our time and building.

defense spending are going to have to come to some fundamental assumptions, open up biases and think creatively to ways and means logic we used in the past and there's a lot of pressure away and that means. for the latest on strategy requires scenarios, the most commendable aspect of this particular approach. this study teased up for conversation and a thread submissions as bay area the report suggests more than we currently do right now. it's a component of strategic planning. we often talk about the logic of ways and means in the fourth component is fixed warring, understanding and not identifying risk. we face limited information on how to it that there are some limitations come about their

decision-making ability and processes. nonintelligent agency. it's the nature of the environment. one criticism is that phrase for the foreseeable future. there's no such animal as the foreseeable future. a prudent strategist has to estimate questions and that's what this product is all about. it's questions in exploring issues were not comfortable with. but come to grips with the deep underlying trends. my boss, general dempsey has been doing this notion that we can control the wealth and influence events with a smaller cheaper fours but the range of changes going on in the out years for us to use paradox. many people are comfortable in which the number of words is going down and that's not the csis scene for the next 10 or 20

years. our future is not a continuation of the last two years for the next couple of months or as benign a live lived in since the fall of the cold war enemy to anticipate intellectual rigor. i'd like to begin the balance beam metaphor between the current force in the future force. that the essence of thinking about the future and you can get the balance wrong. you can overinvested your comfort and sustained forces you have today increase future risk by being unprepared for the future. conversely, think about dixie that you think about it a reality. your point curb can create a force unprepared for the future, although you anticipate with the greatest degree of rigor that you could. we should not look out too far

and we should not create or unrest by being prepared for the things we know to be matched by likely. the kind of contest visit a site is expose a little bit is always a war going on between the past and present. folks coding on to their comfort sounds, forces they are most familiar with in some areas they understand most. we do that, the producer yourself up for future risk, which a revolutionary changes in science is in the combinations assigned to suggest to me to think much more rigorously about the future. dod recognizes this risk. maybe not the open forums we did. in the strategic guidance we tried to come to grips with many of those things to the degree we cut it. we have a rigorous process.

a complex range of scenarios. combinations of scenarios. the guidance is more explicit than some people would like. aspects and the reversibility and language. the guidance has its critics. i get critical about some aspects of it. a shift in the pivot to the things like what you like it or not, the strategy community to move forward, to look at the future and deal with future challenges risk. in this upcoming gdr, i hope language will influence the civic and push forward into the future. unfortunately, there's a number of contextual factors that will influence with even more. in addition to the strip is revolution, one concern is to

scale, scope and viability of our industrial base. manufacturing in some areas of the forest are pretty fragile. dave burch of another's in my time in the building, the effort we have to do to sustain naval aviation and missile production capacity is a tenuous level and work it under in the near future. we also face a rising man power cost problem. the percentage of the budget available to pay for the force is another factor driving us down. if every soldier made a smart answer than they were then were started to wind up cutting the size of the forces to keep the pan and if it is crowded noninvestment and pushing on the

size. dangerous modernization costs. were replaced in $1 vehicles and replacing $20 million helicopter . those kinds of oscar's. we need to get our hands around that. i got, that pushes down your force structure size and pulls up investment levels for a much smaller force. clark murdoch has done a nice study about the erosion of inflation factors eating up the inside of the budget while pressing down is a double whammy that's going to affect the capacity and size of the force. our ability to respond the amount of time it takes to get to places and assist people is going to be longer. in addition to the double whammy, will have fewer friends and allies in the future viable, successful and interoperable.

we have a few allies in friends in the red today. in general through demographics, politics, demographic client and economic distress are not going to have the assistance of friend and ally sluicing quantity. that produces a triple whammy. all of this affects the size of the forest and immensely put on forests and tragedy in many, many things. is going to have to adapt to different scenarios of her time. that is the training risk for his management risk were dealing with. on top of the stack are seeking to increase future challenge risk is what i call the cognitive challenge. there's an idea we can at of words short, clean and easy rather than brutish, hard, thick or some to get past that.

it's ugly, it's expensive and hasn't been very successful. the scenario development exercise indicates it will be more frequent and our future. we could be on repaired, react unprepared and put the burden on soldiers and marines, but that's not a proper strategic approach. so let me wrap up a little bit here. risk can be self-inflicted. by denial, self-inflicted by the own strategic unwillingness and unexamined assumptions. thought the debate bureaucratic inferences that we have some of those. but cannot eliminate risk and avoid all surprises. cisneros and studies like those i really critical and all too rare to avoid self-inflicted surprise and enhance strategic decision to capability.

for that i find it to be a commendable activity. in closing, the scenarios we have to come to grips with the frequent the, timelines, importance of scenarios. another level needs to go on with this word. maybe look of it to need to do. we need to think through these things. some of these scenarios are outside and should be thought of as part of the subplots for sizing and for shaping process. some may be inside the major scenario and thought of as an offense for which we are not prepared and willing to trade to and have the unique doctrine of the opportunities and equipment in every single case here that ultimately is the risk money

balance beam the building has to do. let me wrap up. i was like to quote my good friend and colleague, colin gray. collins has folks at myself have only two cardinal virtues is supposed it must follow. pretty and adaptability. prince is all about risk and honest about risk, understanding risk. not just closing your eyes and say it accepted at, but truly understanding the risk in that. studies like this are proven. adaptability, building forces we need, not the ones who want to want to make it an adaptive enough to react to multiple scenarios is the premium will have at our foresight and he suggested in the study of the range of adaptability and scenarios of missions and capabilities. now the big question is capacity. but that all close.

>> thanks to all the panelists. but i'm going to do now is hope that the questions. with microphones. we'll go ahead and get your first. >> thank you for your comments. i would like to expand the aperture. reraise comments by the end of the decade if you assume defense spending camille be faced with the there have been no procurement or cutting the force in half. how do you take into account resource realities? is consuming our failure has not been à la terry, but the civilian side of the affair. i find it difficult with that in backup. so how do you deal with that? dirt, this report is an isolated to look at ground forces. can you see the supported airtime enable force is

obviously going along with this package. >> so i'll take a crack at all three of those from the perspective of the reported that all open about. clearly the resource realities -- first you have to get the capability right. but if he are going to ask your force to do? and they need to worry about the capacity. unfortunately, those questions are trying to answer both at the same time under an extreme amount of pressure. we've suggested the capability is different than what she wanted pre-9/11. pre-9/11 were focused on the north korea, iraq problem. we've seen were probably entering a different ethic that requires different capabilities. the point frank brought up on

the capacity is the next step. i'm a big concern were not going to get to that next step. or just going to make the reductions first and then figure out if we can do something with that later. i think getting the capability right is important. i talked about very similar topic on the civilian à la terry balance with respect to complex contingencies. if you think the defense budget is going on, don't expect the civilian capacity to set expand. it's going to go down as well. the military as of late so the capacity gap in that regard and will be asked to continue to do so. ..

the places where currently assuming the most risk. it's in the area of strategic mobility. and the likelihood that is going to continue to be an area of risk-based on current policy is increasing. we found that to be the longest pole of the tent with respect to the forces. more forces back in conus and taking more risk.

somehow you have to determine you don't want to project a force in the numbers that might need -- i will take a little crack at that. i think in terms of resources, the easy way out is to cut the number, the personnel cuts. they are going up and we have to figure out ways to reduce them, personnel costs, no doubt about it but issues of modernization costs that frank talked about in a bureaucratic overhead cost that very talked about the shrinking of the industrial base that drives costs up, these are all really hard and in my opinion will be less likely to address and therefore get to the scenario that you describe where we just keep cutting personnel size because it's the easiest and the least -- but then that drives us to a position where you don't have a force.

if you you don't have a force you can't adapt to anything and one thing is a trainer and commander, many of the skills and disciplines and competencies that iqs in the invasion of haiti in 1994 and forcing a peace accord with bosnia and in training the iraqi security forces are derivatives from the skills that you get from a general-purpose force. they have to be modified no doubt about that but the core skills in the implement core equipment so i see the esa personnel cost driving us to a position where we are incurring the most risk. >> next question. yes, maam right here in the middle. we have a microphone right behind you.

>> hi. am i on? sandy from thailand and i would like to go back to the comment frank made about challenges of getting over the clean and easy wars and trying to explain where went to have nasty wars. general mattis address that in one of the speeches he gave at the kennedy school. go to americans and give us your sons and daughters and trust us. how did we go to the americans and how do we go to congress and form that narrative? how do we form that kind of narrative that says hey we know what we are doing and we explained it pretty well because we don't seem to be able to get the message across that things aren't -- [inaudible] because everything is fine. we don't seem to know how to get that message across to middle out with the folks who are

increasingly isolated from the military. and to anyone on the panel any ideas on how to do that? >> let me take a quick crack. one of the things that think we came to in the process is i think in general there's going to be a greater degree and you see it right now playing out with respect to syria, there's going to be a greater degree of self deterrence and there are a couple of impacts this can have fun operations in the first impact it will have his you are like to go late you're going to wait so long that you are likely going to enter under imperfect circumstances and therefore the art of the possible is limited from the beginning. but by the same token the commissions themselves will likely be chartered and there'll be a tendency for the commission

to be chartered under more limited mandates that we have seen in the past and i think a limited mandate accepting all of the professionals on the stage here who will tell me about mission creep and all those things extended limited mandate but the bottom line is a limited mandate is more explainable. instead of revolutionary transformation of the society you are raising a democracy in a foreign country or something like that a much more limited mandate which falls under the distributed security mission where you're literally standing with your back, something important in your rifle pointed out and that risk is important to you. that limited mandate is more explainable to the american people. >> see some of these scenarios are more humanitarian. they are easy to sell. we need to explain to the american -- we have commitments and to many particularly among

my civilian political classes recognizing that. we have agreements and obligations to be prepared to live up to those agreements and obligations as well andi hope some of our friends in asia and europe can sustain their obligations and their partnerships as well. i think we can explain that to the american people. >> general mattis does a really good job. both on the civilian side and i think on the military side there are people who recognize this. this is what we wrestle with all the time and it's hard. there are priorities that have to be set and is not an easy job and it's not that people are holding something over on the american people are pulling the wool over their eyes. it's a hard task and we have to adapt to the past. it's a contest between a feature the past when we have to unleash ourselves a little bit.

there are new challenges and it's hard to get rid of the old challengechallenge s and start making investments in cyber, audio, that a decade ago several of us thought would come with much more fury in much the more violence and thank god we haven't seen it up to this point but these intersect, nano, cyber, and bio, and they are going to impact us. but, brac's re-investments, alterations getting rid of going to a more lean operation, taking up positions of government that i've been in at the middle management level. maybe we need to get to that point so we can invest in the capability so people have more -- and getting a paper cut like my time at the pentagon.

>> more questions? yes, sir. >> george mickelson of special operations. you alluded to it and no congressman adam smith ranking member of house armed services committee said you know what a huge supporter i am of of the defense budget and i go back to my district and i fort lewis in my district and accord air force base. my constituents don't want to hear about problems and growing down the military. what they want to talk about us social security and they want to talk about medicare and medicaid and losing their 401(k)'s and we just don't seem to get that across. the other piece of that is we saw the release of the french white paper. they are cutting their defense budget. like the british had to cut back on their military. how does the american people can say we want to spend all this money on her military. our key allies these other economies are cutting back.

what should we be doing being a worldwide policeman? >> the first thing i would suggest is we didn't take the position that we should be a worldwide policeman. in fact one of the things we endeavor to do in the strip port is talk about the real need for some appetite suppressant with respect to contingency operations. you really endeavor at the beginning and getting back to my point, it endeavored the beginning to set minimum accessible and achievable objectives, set out to achieve them and when you do you revalidate whether to disengaged or not. setting expansive objectives and the other thing the whole reason for the charter idea of core interest is really to get down to brass tacks and say let's talk first about what's really important to use our ground forces for. maybe for example talking about

one in 20 years employment of your force. i'm not suggesting that but at least you define the limits of that are. that is why this the second step. determine what it is you want your force to do and really focus and target in an area where we know resources are declining and therefore you will have to be penny-wise and what you are investing in. you get to the capacity argument later. see we have a study coming out of envy you on discriminate forces that i'm a steady member of and we do you need to impress on the american people that you are being more discriminate and more deliberate and concerning about the situations that we get into and how we get in and accomplish what are being done. you just pointed out the potential factor we should incorporate and i worked with

adam smith in the last couple of years. this is a problem. if we are over investing in things overseas and people don't see any value in it they support the american people and maintain a support. a brigade in germany and keeping some village more important than fort lewis. you will lose people over time. so you have to factor in the strategy. >> i would just like to add not to dispute anything you you are saying but when i go back home and talk to my family it's the same issue. gaming access is not just finding your way in. that is one way to gain access. but gaming access is establishing relationships, having rights and having bases in having allies and relationships require investment

in time. no relationship is told on a virtual basis. you can use virtual means to maintain a relationship but it's people and you have the people so we are in a position where for good reasons we are trying into the united states and becoming a columnist space and have been for a good number of years, a columnist based force but the fortress america approach is not in our best interest either. and as the balance and trade-offs are very real and that has to be part of the thinking, to the basic strategy and access strategy, not just bombing our way in. >> just to really important point that i don't think gets discussed enough and there's a continuum of going too far in bringing everybody back and

making all the congressman happy and not having the benefit of what the general talked about but i think currently we are too far to the other end of the spectrum in terms of our engagement activity. i don't see any sense of discipline or focus in our far-flung pro-con different driven security operation strategy. when the defense department demonstrates to the american people they have indeed focused and made it sort of live within the resources that we have then then i think we will have a stronger story to tell and a stronger message but i'm sure if you picked a random cocom and said how many countries are you engaging in and 2013 sequestration aside, i imagine you won't get a very tight answer to that question. times have not changed enough in the way the department of defense needs to change.

>> the strategic targeting, i mean it's really important. we ran into this into the report as well focusing in shaping activities. first start with your interest and work your way back and then if you find at the end of the day you have more in your check look than you thought then you start adding on to it but this idea of demonstrating american people's responsibilities and the use of resources is the first step in that regard. we have time for one more question. this gentleman right back here. and we will wrap up. >> my name is bill courtney with csc. general dubik talked about reducing in strength and using options. if the army were a company and of course secretary hagel to address this the other day but if it were a company that first

thing we would do with the consolidate facilities so we would address things like brac in the army. the second thing we would do with compensation reform, some employees underpaying others and let's say we have had a transition of technology or marketing conditions or whatever, there've been a lot of proposals from the defense business board and others. the third thing we do is we talk with other companies to get capabilities that we don't have quite so efficiently or offensively ourselves so you correct we point out about the importance of relationships and partners and things like that. if you look at the two options if you will on the one side proving -- but the army has much greater political obstacles for example versus end strength.

there's so much potential to improve the truth to tell ratio so the end strength doesn't have to be brought down so much or in strength bearing all the hits because politics makes it too hard to reform military compensation or consolidate or modernize ip and business processes and things like that. >> well i mean first off understand truth truths to tell ratio of reduction of overheads structure and we should get at that. in terms of compensation reform we have to, in terms of monetization acquisition costs all those things we have to get that there's another dimension to the ratio that we have to be careful about and that was in the theater setting circle that the csis study did a pretty good job of describing. you can have a low truth to tail

ratio in some services because the army has the tale. it's the tale for everybody so as we analyze this kind of stuff we just have to be accurate about the way we do it. and i think go after the political support necessary for those kinds of mechanisms that we know are real hard. how many times if all of us this added that the number of times we turned acquisition reform we would run out of paper. we have got to get the political support necessary to take on some of these really necessary and would be very helpful to the to tail ratio without destroying the tooth to tail ratio that we do need. another example in my opinion of missed analysis is echelon. why don't we just cut out echelons in between? because the military force is

the hallmark. the environment in which you fight wars is much more uncertain than that which you restock your shelves. further, the psychological benefits junior commanders get from senior commanders and the information benefit that senior commandercommander s get from junior commanders is very much embedded in the echelon of the four so again i'm all for tooth to tail ratio reduction in those areas that are smart to do so but i also think we should keep our eyes open for some of these things that are false. >> i second that, frank. >> a shameless self-advertisement and that another finger to the corporate world is raid all the trading accounts and undervalue capital, education are indian things than i do work at the national distance.

although educational technology and reform are also part and parcel to overhead reduction but we should maintain our human capital if we can on the qualitative side. >> with that we are going to have to wrap up. i would like to thank the panelists with a round of applause. they did a good job in helping us talk about this. [applause] the report itself is available on line as well as the critical questions we handed out the beginning. a video of this event will be available on line. we are extremely grateful for your attendance today am on behalf of csis and resident ceo john amory i am grateful for engaging with me on this important issue going forward. thank you very much. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] this week defense secretary chuck hagel hosted his counterpart from united kingdom at the pentagon. >> we do know that -- when she

got to the white house that people think she and dad didn't participate much and that is not exactly true. she was very very involved and she said of her own bed -- bedroom upstairs across from the president's office basically. she was always able to hear what was going on. she brought different points of view to the president and she? was able to calm them down constantly and of course she was the -- of the house as well as taking care of her children and her grandchildren. >> at wednesday's white house briefing spokesman jay carney was asked if the administration would go back to gun legislation and here's what he had to say. you can see wednesday's briefing and other white house events on our web site, c-span.org.

>> senator kelly ayotte had ayotte had a confrontation at a town hall meeting with a relative of a victim of the massacre. jeff flake senator from arizona posted on his facebook page facebook page because of his gun control votes that his popularity is roughly the same level as pond. do these statements get the white house confidence that you may be able to go back and pass some kind of gun control legislation in the coming days, weeks or months? >> i think what we have seen is americans out there who you know engage on an issue and feel passionately about an issue and feel like it's the right thing to do, and they appreciate when the representatives disagree with them. and when i say them, and made 85% of the american people and the vast majority of the

constituents of arizona or new hampshire virtually every state in the country. what the president made clear in the rose garden after the background checks vote went down is that americans who were disappointed by that action and by that failure of the senate to listen to the people they represent need to speak up because in the end change comes from the bottom up. congress acts when the people they represent on it and when there are entrenched interests that oppose action, it's all the more important that average citizens make their voices heard, that they speak up and they hold their feelings accountable. i wouldn't want to predict at this point whether that means you know, we will get this done sooner rather than later but we will get it done because it is

the right and sensible and common sense thing to do. and the american people overwhelmingly support it. i think that is absolutely what we are going to try to do. this president made clear that we are in round one and we are going to to push and we are pushing out to get it done. somebody asked me the other day will we go after the next election? of the answer is no, we are going to keep pushing. it will get done because the american people demand that they get done but it requires the voices in the participaparticipa and the participation and engagement of average americans especially in a situation on an issue like this where we are dealing with entrenched interests that don't represent the majority, but have powerful sway in congress. >> the late journalist leonard freed documented the march in washington. his photographs have been curated by his widow and include essays of the essay by michael

eric dawson andte a forward by paul farber. this is 40 minutes. >> good afternoon and welcome to the library of congress. i am john cole. i'm the director of the center for the book at the library of congress which is the reading and book promotion arm of the library and we are very pleased to be cosponsoring this program withhi the libraries prints and photographs division. the center for the book was created in 1977 to help the library of congress stimulate public interest in books and reading and literacy and libraries and we are a private public partnership with the library of congress paying our salaries that indeed we have raise private money from the beginning to help support ourhep array of programs and projects. there are center for the books e in every state and i know we have a broad audience today and

i challenge you to look up and ud learn about the center for learn congress gress, one of our major projects is the national book festival which i hope many of you know about, the library of congress project involved in many parts of the library and it's in its 14th year coming up in and this year or be held on the national mall, september 21 and the 22nd. the center for the book also is the administrator of the first young reader center in the library of congress which is located now in the jefferson building. it's the only place that focuses on the reading interest of young readers. 16 and under as long as they are accompanied by nidal. last year we had 40,000 visitors in the reader center so you can tell we are working hard not only to raise young readers but

to celebrate reading in all ways. one of the ways we celebrate is through talks such as this. our books and beyond authors series is a collaborative effort with other divisions of the library to show off new books that have been published based on the resources of the project of a library of congress and it's a as a special treat to be working once again with the princeton photographs division. i would also like to hold up for everyone to see a book that have come from the collection of the library of congress in ways that you will learn about in today's program. today our program is being found not only by the library of congress for our web site but also by c-span and we are very pleased to be able to share this program with the entire country

both through c-span and the library of congress' web site which now hosts more than 250 of these books and beyond programs. thus, with the filming i ask you to turn off all things electronic. we will progress from panel discussion too, if we have time, a question and answer session and conclude with a book signing out in the foyer of this -- so you will have a chance and if you don't have a chance for a discussion in in the question and answer. mackey certainly will have that opportunity at the end. there also will be a congressional display in the prints and photographs division of these photos between 1:00 and 2:00 so we have to move along so we can get to all of the event features. to get a start i want to introduce the mastermind of today's event, verna curtis.

verne is i learn today one of four carriers of photographer -- photography. it is my pleasure to turn the program over to verna curtis. let's give her a hand. [applause] >> thank you very much, john. i have to say that we are all in this together. i'm not the mastermind. today, we have bridgitte freed who is the widow of different about for -- photographer whose work is featured in the book "this is the day" the march on washington which we are celebrating and we have the distinguished dr. michael eric dyson and we have paul farber. all of them are here with us for a special kind of conversation which is how we built it. i will tell you a little bit about each individual quickly

because time is of the essence and i would like to tell you that bridgitte freed was formerly bridgitte fluke and she met leonard reid in 1956. they married a year later in amsterdam where they lived, deciding to leave for life in the united states in 1963 just two months before what would eventually occur as the march on washington and i don't think they knew it was about to happen when they came to the states at that time. bridgitte developed and printed leonard's photographs for over 20 years, including those in photo book black and white america and made in germany and the internationally acclaimed exhibition concern photographer. in addition she has had independent careers in clothing design and a real estate broker. she now lives in garretson new york in the hudson valley and

works full-time on leonard's prince and his legacy. bridgitte was born in germany and after living in the united states for over 40 years, she recently became an american citizen. [applause] dr. dyson is one of the nations most influential and renowned public intellectuals. he is an essay contributor to the book. he published over 18 works of scholarly and cultural influence, including race rules, navigating the color line from 1996. i may not get there with you, the true martin luther king, jr. in the year 2000, debating race in 2007 and april 4, 1968 martin luther king's death and how it changed america in 2008.

dyson's pioneering scholarship has had a profound effect on american ideas. dr. dyson is professor of sociology at georgetown university and cited as one of the 150 most powerful african-americans by "ebony" magazine. dr. dyson has been called the ideal public intellectual of our time by writer naomi wolf and a streetfighter in suit and tie by author nathan mccaul. pretty good names i should say. you may know him by sight from his many guest appearances on "msnbc," as i do. it has been my pleasure to work with both bridgitte and paul farber over the last several years to bring leonard's photographs into the library's collection.

paul m. farber was professor dyson student at the university of pennsylvania and later his research -- currently farber is a lecturer in urban studies at the university of pennsylvania and a ph.d. candidate having just completed his dissertation in american culture at the university of michigan. farber's work on culture has appeared in the journal criticism and other outlets by blander as well as on npr. he was named to the inaugural inspire 100 list as a world changer for his use of technology in empowering social change. he is working on a biography. let us welcome these distinguished guests and learn how leonard's images of the historic march in august 1963 change the ongoing worldwide struggle for civil rights. [applause]

"this is the day." how did this book get started? it was president president obama in his first term. he said, i am here because you are all -- in america 50 years ago what did i think america was? it was all things to me. my husband's home country, my new jewish family, robin and benjamin.

leonard's cousins and lots of americans. we came here from amsterdam to photograph people. i have no photo of myself and of our seven-month stay in america but sweet pictures of our 4-year-old daughter, her grandparents and cousins. leonard was very frugal. he needed all film for his projects. nothing got wasted. he said i wished i had a picture of myself and of leonard at the march on washington. i only had my eyes. and these eyes looked and looked, i would say all these faces and then leonard asked me how i liked the day? i would say all these faces. the march was america for me and

then the speech of dr. martin came, "i have a dream." the speech moved like a wave over the heads of all those people. the voice was strong. a preacher's voice. it reached everyone. i had never heard anything like this and i know i never will. [applause] >> what a powerful testimony to the multiple means by which people contribute. there is no picture of bridgitte and leonard freed because they

sacrificed every moment on film for the betterment of this nation. that is more than an annex. that is part and parcel of the very fabric of american conscience that king wove a golden thread into. his majestic oratory as ms. freed has indicated, is powerful and luminous testimony to the ability of words to move us, of speech to redeem us and of rhetoric to call up the higher purposes, these done in the name of ideals for which we are willing to sacrifice. how appropriate ben that

bridgitte freed testifies about the magnanimity of spirit of her former husband, whose shutterbug, whose eyes, whose aesthetic glory have given us a visual testimony to the majestic sweep of the human soul when it seeks to be free, freed from its constraints, freed from the narrow application of hatred, freed to see. leonard freed, even hidden his name, gives us the powerful emblem of freedom that we all seek at the end of the day. i am honored to be here with ms. freed and of course my students, paul farber who called me in to this project because

when he was my assistant, he was my boss. [laughter] and he is one of the most thoroughly organized young people i have ever met, and i am as proud as a papa to have my jewish son. [laughter] right here. [applause] and he has sprung from not only the lines of his family but from the powerful collective imagination of people whose love and dedication marked his life as well. the reverend dyson, my wife, his mother is here rhetorically and symbolically his mother. [laughter] i don't want to get into no baby mama drama. here today. these photographs are not only

the emblem of the calm dignity and the quiet beauty of life people and their allies who are in quest for the basic fundamental dignity of voting or existing without the artificial constraints of segregation. that day when we listen, when they listen to the majestic words of martin luther king jr., echoing from that mighty mall in washington d.c., who knew that a scant five years later he would lose his life in memphis, that on that day this soon-to-be martyr at the summit of hope and expectation, with conjure the norms, ideals and beliefs which are the foundation of american democracy. he was reminding america of what it should be.

he gave america a blueprint of what it could be and he called it into vision. the sweet and powerful romance that the american people have always had were the ideals that nurture us, but which we have not always perfectly obtained. and so leonard freed offers graphic testimony to these people's dignity, to their quest for decency. they were dressed in their sunday go to meeting -- in 1963 and a nation that frowned upon their lack of humanity, that quarreled with them as to the legitimacy of their claims to be fully human. these noble souls march 2 washington d.c., to tell the nation that despite their repudiation of their fundamental

dignity, that they were indeed dignified, that they were blessed with the beauty of purpose that could never be exhausted by the infernal and hateful resistance of connor, clark in alabama, those in georgia, those across the nation, who did not understand that what these people possessed was mightier than money, and was deeper than the rivers that flowed beneath this nation and its founding. they have an eternal spirit of vigilant resistance in the name of spirit and of faith and of family and of the quiet dignity of the american dream. martin luther king jr. that dream powerfully that day. his sweet cadence gave voice to a people who knew that at our

best week the long shoulder-to-shoulder with the great figures in american society, that despite the refusal to acknowledge who we are and indeed then were as people, that our rhetoric would appeal to the nation, even a president soon dead, another rising from the heated center of the south to become our advocate because the president was not in control of providence. but there was a god who spoke from washington d.c.. now for all the blather of our christian experience, for all of the rhetoric of our religious roots when we rejected every bit of that evidence by our own behavior, that shame demagogue that we to be our own.

these people remind us that ultimately the cosmic central purpose into which they task would be enough to bring us forward to force political social and economic transformation and leonard freed both in 63 and in 83 has captured that resistance, that relentless spirit, that edifying power that could never be if you will, put out by the forces of men and women who fail to see the light. i'm proud to be associated with this project and i'm proud to be with bridgitte freed and paul farber to remind us of leonard freed, who freed us from this memory and who has now documented the glory, the beautiful calm dignity and the wise purpose of human beings when they are in search of freedom. [applause]

[applause] >> it is as much of a challenge to be on a stage with people who you deeply respect, who have been your teachers in one form or another, and to be here is just in itself a very honor and also sets up a challenge to how do you follow freed and dyson? i think about the march on washington and 63 when rabbi of the jewish congress is getting up to speak and he was following the great folks center -- folk singer who sang the oh freedom. he starts before his written remarks and he says quite simply, i wish i could sing.

so i summoned him here and i say thank you deeply. good day and i want to share some perspectives on leonard freed's work and a bit about the history and memory of the march, as we are now in the 50th anniversary here of this great gathering. before i do i want to make sure to send deep gratitude to a few individuals here, to verna curtis who has been a great supporter of this project here at the library of congress as well as her colleagues at the center for the book and the curators and thank you so much. diana berland who is the editor of this book and had such a creative and brilliant hand in shaping this on i want to make sure to name her and greg britton who was there and lead the project and set us on our way so deep thank yous and certainly to bridgitte freed.

you have shared so much with me in terms of your wisdom, allowing me to try to do my part and carry forward leonard's legacy and i thank you deeply for this opportunity. leonard freed's 1963 march on washington photographs are among his most eloquent and animated of a large body of civil rights era photography, which fueled 67, 68 photo of black-and-white america. his work as a whole captures the prevalence of racial division in america the decades following the 1964 legal mandate and segregation, leading up to and through the landmark civil rights legislation in the mid-60's. four of the photographs from the march on washington were included in the book including this one from the slide. but the march was just one story or specific photo shoot amongst

dozens of others that included protests, parades, beauty pageants. to understand the underpinnings and the drive of this work is to re-explore some of its greater content. i want to draw our attention to several anchoring images, to see this march for freed and not just as an isolated event. instead we live through freed to understand what led them to the march and what ways have brought him forward in his work. freed was born in 1929 in brooklyn to russian jewish immigrants. by 1960, you been living in europe on and off for a decade and it was there he honed his craft as a documented photographer and wrestled with his identity as an ex-patriot american jewish. during the time freed was working on a book of photographs , on a book of

photographs focused on living in germany and the traumas of the holocaust, he ventured to berlin in august of 1961 to check out the scene where there was word that awol was cutting through the middle of the city. with citizens of both sides fearing the brink of world war iii, freed wandered close to the boundary of the divided city. neither on assignment nor with a predetermined vision who ended up finding and seeing the most of his camera were american g.i.s. here at the ball freed snapped a photograph of an unnamed black soldier standing at the edge of the american set. freed's contact sheets from this trip confirmed that this image was powerfully a single shot taken at the middle distance black-and-white. freed stance with the subject

between a set of trolley tracks that culminate in the imposed boundary of the wall behind him. this encounter haunted freed and sent him off course and beckoned his return from exile to come back to america to confront segregation and racism. this image would end up being the first photograph of black and white america and as an annotation in this book freed to set this out as a point of departure. he writes, he and i, two americans, we meet silently and we parked silently. impeccable and deadly as the wall behind them is another while. it's there on the trolley tracks along the cobblestones across the frontiers and oceans reaching back home, back into our lives and deep into our hearts dividing us were ever be made. i am white and he is black. setting out from this point freed aim to represent and encroach upon america's racial

buffers. it's after this opening image with its multiple boundaries freed would bury his own perspective, perspective being that measure distance between a typographer and his subject, to approach an acknowledged their humanity and their shared existence. he photographed many african-american subjects in his project and whites too embedded in an interconnected system of race. he does so by capturing and representing his subjects vision, what they see, how they see each other, to make visible the terms and conditions of the segregated color line society. in the summer of 63, freed and his family ventured back to america. he photographed in the boroughs of their city and when he looked back to the con pack sheet of this period the traces of the march began to emerge in d.c. the handshaking closely as the

march of headquarters were centered in new york. leonard and bridgitte freed marked off several days for the event on august 27. they drove down the camps outside the city. on august 28, they arrived in washington d.c. at dawn. freed began his day on the periphery of the national mall, capturing scenes on his handheld but the camera walking from the base of the washington monument to the boundaries outside of the white house and to the streets surrounding forbes theatre. several blocks from the epicenter of the marc freed captured some of the first photographs of the day under a sign that read, house where lincoln died. freed made photographs of passersby as they crossed one another's pass. he envisioned foot traffic at the prelude of the later gathering at the lincoln memorial. it was on that day freed was

having deeper currents of historical memory per on the spot and jimmer personal geometry and geography. freed sought images in which he could bring the marchers and the layers of their social landscape and architecture to be shared frame. to see this day from panoramic perspective was also the ability to pay attention to a crowd of individuals with faces and really walk alongside and amongst them. it offered freed a spectacle not to marvel from afar or at a distance but to explore the march at a ground-level. freed meandered through multitudes on the mall and the resulting images attests to his thoughtful photographic eye as well as his active footwork throughout the day. but if we returned to thinking about the role of lincoln and how freed invoked him 100 years

after the emancipation proclamation, we see one of the only shots of the statue of the former president included in this work. it happened to be the same frame, which is the only photograph of the speaker dr. martin luther king. much of the march on washington iconography features came either up close at the podium or with a faceless crowd behind him. but here, the leader and the former president from afar at a distance atmospheric and collective shot. as king speaks, freed at this capturing front and back shots of the crowd, the thousands of marchers separating freed and king with lincoln behind him. this image serves as a complex and collective portrait of the march on washington at the

lincoln memorial. within a year freed crosses paths with king and he photographed the leader of the baltimore street parade on october 31, 1964. freed had gone back to europe and returned again and king himself had just gotten back from europe. on this trip it was announced he would receive the nobel peace prize and this was one of the first public gatherings in his honor. freed devoted a full day photographing king of baltimore including a parade honoring him and his speech at a local synagogue. this photograph from the parade is included in black and white america and is taken on prominent status in and of itself across version of kings hand with the parade goers nearby under the cover of taylor branch's pillars of fire. king is definitely the centerpiece of this photograph but we need to think about how freed accounts for the crowd

around the mass and again freed's potential link within this crowd. we can consider where freed withstanding. was he close enough to reach out and touch the card for touch came or as you see an arm reaching around king and another frame he is pictured to kings left. but when we consider the deliberate inclusion of the blurred face on the right-hand side of this image, we have to take a step back and really consider whether leonard was close to what his perspective was and if we think of him as part of the scene or being -- way. this was deliberate of course. freed fully believe that printing and accounting for photographs all the way to the frame. unlike the black soldier in berlin this is not a single shot but shows several frames and perspectives. freed is part of it in a way.

he reminds us of the photographs power in marked social distances between freed and king, between king and the collectives around him but to represent these divisions, to challenge them and to remind us of the choice of power. there is more to say about freed's approach to photographing king in 1965 into alabama and especially after his assassination. we can think about king as an ongoing subject of freed's work and this is a shot included of the commemorative anniversary march. here we get a sense of the call to galvanize around king's image that we also have his absence truly marked again. as dr. dyson has her lately and powerfully written how april 4,

1968 truly changed america we get a sense of that date cascading forward and freed reminds us to think about king and his collectives. as we close, i want to think about and put forward some of my hopes for "this is the day" and to do a small part to carry forward the history and memory of the march on washington. some significant names we want resident here with us. while kings dreamed is extensively excerpted and echoed and envisioned improperly so, it serves as the iconic memory of the march but i also hope leonard freed's photographs remind us of the full message that king put forward and to seek out more of the stories, the 250,000 plus marchers, these veterans of the civil rights movement and all those in their

hometowns they impacted on all those inspired from that point, to fully understand the march on washington is the greatest gathering toward democracy on american soil and to understand it as a noble blueprint of social change that we still have with us. in other words, to seize the day on the march of washington, august 28, 1968 as a living archive and to see this book of one of the many potential tools of thought. there are many names to name, more a hope as we approach the 50th anniversary this august but i offer a few now. carol corson by first and second grade teacher in philadelphia who attended the march on washington. ms. corson was a quaker woman and she shared stories with us about her time there and what she put forth to all of us had to do with understanding what your convictions are, not just

being present with them but in present with other people and sharing them. of course we say the name dr. martin luther king our american genius and profit whose words and actions deserve ongoing critical exploration and complex consideration. a young leader and participant in the march who carried forward the spirit of his gathering and brought forward the mantle of the civil rights movement along lines of race class gender sexual orientation and the moral compass for us. this day was triumphant but there remains a reality of systematic forms of racial hatred and violence so this year as we happily marked the 50th anniversary of the march a month later we will also mourn the brutal bombing of the baptist church in birminghamer ..

year. and our hearts are still happy with the loss last month of medea pendleton another young woman of color from chicago who was gunned down as another victim in today's epidemic of violence just days after returning from marching here in d.c. for an inaugural parade for the inaugeration of barack obama. we bring idf forward because even at the national mall, the symbolic justice granted for those of us who go to it can only be guaranteed further with greater forms of action beyond the maps, beyond the malls downed trees. to carry us forward through tragedy and transformation and the names of dr. eric maisel -- michael eric dyson and marcio dyson. they have taught me and so many

others so much about intellectual inquiry that flows from the head to the heart always between people. to the tune of 50,000 plus detainees of the march whose names we don't know well enough we hope to know more of you. we want to hear your stories and we want to be able to both record them and seek them out ourselves. it will nourish both are history as well as our pathways forward. finally, leonard freed whose photographs on the march on washington confirmed the profound beauty and historical significance of the gathering. as they frame collective action and democratic transformation. in leonard's memory his photographs glimpsing the past and informing our futures we say his name, leonard freed and express our gratitude for all of his contributions.

this is the day. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> of course i want to express our gratitude to our three speakers. this has been a terrific program and they have made it such. we are going to continue gathering in the foyer for a bookselling and reception. first i just want to say another word about the book which will be on sale and you can get an autograph in the back. it not only was produced by the museum but it does have and paul spoke of julian bond who is producing the forward and dr. dyson has an essay in it and

taken by itself it's really a wonderful commemoration and defend by itself moving it forward as paul did at the end of his talk. it's truly an example of how a book can both be a catalyst, something beautiful in itself and if you will and call to action to get the spirit of the event and the spirit of the best kind of collaborative publishing, publication event and is burned us that this was a wonderful collaborative event on the part of many people at the library of congress and in the publishing world. so, before i call you out to get your book, get it signed, meet each other and go down to the photograph division between 1:00 and 2:00 and this wonderful gift

to the library of congress. let's give our speakers and for not another round of applause. [applause]

>> driven by this insert key at times but i do not differ boxes and two are at war with each other. they were inimical to each other. someone who is religious is not rational. it is the antidote to religious

irrationality. this is the ultimate irrational idea because they believe religion is another call to reason in the west is completely untrue. >> max, it john borland shares his six years is that the poetry he composed and memorize during his six and a half years since it is therefore of vietnam. general subplot was shot down in june 1966 was released in february by 73. this is an hour and 10 minute. n

>> john borling is a highly decorated air force general who served worldwide in high-level associate.staff he graduated from the air force and the national work college it was a white house fellow. during the vietnam war, he was shot down by ground fire. he spent over spent six and a half years in a p.o.w. in hanoi and you will hear more about the set tonight. after a longer in air force he occupies leadership positions in business organizations including symphonic and expressioexpressio n. his been spin the president ceo of chicago's united way and also the founder of s.o.s. america service oversell for a patriotic organization advocating military service for america's young men. the motivational motivational political philosophy in business. >> your use in demand across the nation so we are lucky to have him here tonight with us to speak on his latest book, "taps on the walls" poems from the hanoi hilton. please give a warm seattle

welcome to mr. john borling. [applause] >> that was a pretty good introduction. are you squirming around in your chairs yet wondering is this guy going to be good or not? we are going to do something different and thank you all so much for coming. you had a flag line issue and those were the patriot riders of washington who make sure that we don't forget. and so a new tradition for town hall. it's my honor to ask you to stand as we present the colors. posts the colors.

if you will join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. retire the colors. and thank you very much. please sit down. i was commenting on the introduction where was gracious enough to offer when people start doing the recitation of credentials, it tends, those verbal thunderbolts tend to leave me speechless, almost.

so tonight we are going to explore together some subjects that i think are riveting to me and we will find out if they are of any importance at all to you. i think i i will begin with a washington story. we have former white house fellows in the crowd ,-com,-com ma steve hill and others that i may have missed and i have also got some guys i flew with in the crowd, mike schoenfeld a classmate from the academy from 1963 and i haven't seen mike for a while and others who may have stories that they want to tell that i'm not going to let them, including some people from high school that on the south side of chicago who grew up around me. it's fun to be back in the crowd of some folks who have known you and also been intimidating actually. i much prefer strangers because then you can --

but starting with a washington story, it's attributed to bob dole and he had had a falling out with his speechwriter. and had a major speech shortly thereafter. so we walked to the podium and there is the folders as it always is and he starts to open it up and told the crowd that tonight he was going to be pleased to offer solutions to the staggering economy. he was going to be offering as well considerations as to how we can really have affordable effective and universal health care. he was going to talk about refurbishing the militaries equipment to create an operational context that could be affordable and would be able to protect there and just on a worldwide tases. he was going to talk about how he was going to cure the endemic problem of racism in the united states and bring us together

truly in terms of shared values and one people. at this point he kept turning his pages on every page. he finally turned to the last page and for those of you who are familiar with the story he says as soap -- okay you as so be your own. the nice thing tonight i'm not on my own given the recitation of the people who are here who know me but i'm trying to divide you opt because in the end this is going to be in contract is kind of thing. is that fair enough? we will do its air force wives and we will cut you down the middle. this will be a flight over here. you are always the rowdy bunch. b flight, you are cerebral, okay? shawnee is over there. he is cerebral. a flight and b flight and we will switch you down here and this will be, what do you think we are going to call you guys?

charlie flight. you have to be a little quicker on that. maybe because you're all presbyterian on this site. or there are unitarians. do do you know why unitarians are such bad singers by the way? it's because they are always reading a stanza i had to see if they agree. [laughter] marks all who is a great standup guy when i was growing up in the bed -- south side of chicago on rush treat said free association can be abusive. you will have to ride with me on these mental excursions as we go down tributaries of the mind that may or may not have anything to do with the book we are here to discuss. by the way my wife myrna, 50 years this june,. [applause] i'm glad you recognize my contributions to the. it was not for me? you're absolutely right, shouldn't be for me. myrna when i talk to her, she is

down and phoenix and we live outside of chicago in rockford now but in kind of paradise. eat your hearts out. if you like treason frozen ground, perfect. she said remember, talk about the book. so we will get there. this is charlie flight over here and that if those guys were rowdy and these guys were cerebral you are intensely feeling. as we come up with questions later that reflect this. delta flight, i look at the characters who i know most of whom are over here. is there something about the hard right or stage left and i'm not sure it's political circumstances here but in any event dogfight is going to be -- delta flight to want to count on with charlie and bravo let you

down so you guys are up for that. when i thought about the things i would really like to talk about tonight, i stumbled because doing this book, "taps on the walls," was not something we ever thought we would do and i'm talking about myrna and me. the genesis we are going to go into but the difficulty of course is i have to go back to a time that was frankly an unhappy time. i build huge walls over the years to make sure that i didn't have to go back and be a professional p.o.w.. i did a lot of speaking around the country but i rarely delve down as deeply into the the subject as they should and for

those who have known me for a whole bunch of years and in fact the vice president of the senior class of hirsch high school is here, judy, how are you dear? i haven't seen you forever. if you notice she is war wanted here. she was so taken up with the fact that i came to town that she round down for a triple decaffeinated or caffeinated latte or whatever they sell in the coffee capital of the world i managed to take a tumble. she is injured and on my behalf i am sure. but she sent her husband to the dinner last night which i thought, and he got away with it. we will see you afterwards. so having to go back and having to delve down has been a chore that has not been pleasant. on the other hand we have had tremendous conversations with people whose sense is that period were the periods of the

nation's conflict continue to be important to us because they are pivotal in how the nation continues to advance or decline. i would suggest to you that is really bad shorthand. have any of you read thomas cahill's stuff? why the greeks matter, how the irish saved civilization and his suggestion that we really hinged history on something more than economic pluses and minuses in something more than warfare occurrences. it's the individual who springs forward at a particular time in history that has created the pathway for the human condition. in truth it's probably a meld of the two, thinking again it's only the human critter who is willing to fight and die for an idea. one of the things that you come

down to is plato was right ,-com,-com ma that only the dead unfortunately have seen the end of war. i was at nelson's house if an item we were talking about that very subject. just thinking about the nature of war for a second, it was pat who suggested to consider how every other human endeavor shrinks to insignificance before it and god how i love it was the finish line. it would be dishonest of any person who has been in combat not to at least own up a little bit, that the thrill and the core somehow intermix in an unlikely stew that has both a

repellent factor to it and an attractive factor to it but as i mentioned in the book, once you have been there you never really leave it. it's a lifelong thing. and so i will be coming back to that. but to finish up just the general characterization of warfare itself, mr. jack keegan died recently, probably the military historian of the last 75 years who has been the most effective, the most insightful british sandhurst fellow. keegan was quick to suggest that anyone who has had to have their hair especially done for the evening as i have stands up on the stage and purports to talk about such things probably falls under the category of being a bullfrog. i'm going to try to avoid being a bullfrog and pedantic or any

of those other words that come from trying to achieve lofty circumstance and lofty construct with respect to the thinking that we are going to advance tonight and to get it down to the operational level, get down to business as honestly and genuine as i can with your help and if i don't leave a piece of my soul up here tonight i will not have done my job and if your questions don't provoke that then you will not have done yours. to lead us off before we turn to "taps on the walls" is the central theme of the evening, and that is why in fact people, states and nations go to war. and it is meant to be instructional especially for some of the younger people in the crowd. i would suggest that we do so because of interests first perceived or real and we do so because of fear.

fear is a powerful motivator and wheat do so because of hate. and the start clinical reality is you really have to do all three if you are going to put the nation in an extended period of conflict and help -- hope to have any public support. and yet it is those tough words that make it very tough for nations to in fact do what i think constitutionally is required and that is to declare it. it's important enough to risk letting treasure than one should do so in accordance with our laws other than the war powers act which i think is important enough to be able to respond on a presidential level. so, with that kind of back row consideration of the invention

of warfare, let me talk to the invention of "taps on the walls." as a number of you know i had flown 97 combat missions and actually i have done a few more. i quit counting in order to be able to volunteer for a second tour. that sounds awfully brave. i called mernit back in the states and i said hey i the chance to fly another 100 missions and she said well you have that to do that. this goes back to the tenant wanting to stay in it and why young men are so untrustworthy when it comes to the prosecution of conflict. you need a much longer lens and a few gray hairs i think that you do thrust your young men and now young women into the law and they go there for this conflicting series of reasons. i was in train to fly a second set of missions and i was a

first lieutenant in the air force. i flew both seats, the frenzied in the backseat in that first tour and then had the prospect of more to come. on the first of june, 1966 i left the states in december of 65. i had a 3-month-old baby and they went to the south side of chicago. that girl with the seven and a half when i walked back in the door. she is more like me today and the daughter we had after the war is more like her mother so go figure the chance. anyway on this mission north of hanoi, we knew it, no rescue possible if he went down and in fact we got hit by ground fire and got out for the pilots and the crowd, going through 480

knots. i got out and they would shoot pops. if they would have gotten a swing we would have been dead but rolled down a long steep furloughed hill with a broken back and sprains because when you roll down a hill at a couple hundred miles an hour bouncing like some kind a jumping bean, you tend to sustain momentum and it's surprising i wasn't in worse condition. ..

that role did to log in digs at the very grave, which was i passed out. out of fear and shock. after waking up after a period of time, they moved out this half mile hill, extensive agricultural circumstance. almost to the back of the auditoriumstrokes were running up and down. because i kind of crawled and got the staff to get mail on. carri carried mickeys suit pocket. the senate break my leg if i m ever got out. if didn't. sprained it. show them. got in the middle of the road to make a short story at the

thought. they planned to hijack a track, make him take me to oppose that which i would dearly vote the day couple days. the option was to surrender. they had to give it a shot. the first truck passed me by, didn't see me. i got in the middle of the road. this is in the book. instead the guy down and that done that. i've hijacked a truck full of north vietnamese troops. [laughter] a management decision i've reviewed a time or two. [laughter] i think john wayne could have pulled it off. the movie about john being saying he's going to have -- does everybody know that john wayne story? nobody knows that john wayne story. john wayne is going to read down

to a city shawnee, john wayne is going to get hammered. there's going to be heroes and guns. he says not going to happen. not john wayne. i said i'll bet you a buck. so sure that john wayne went down and got hammered with indian scenarios than just rarely makes it. after the movie aeration in my pocket and say here, here's about the ou. is that i can't take it. i've seen the movie before. [laughter] is that actually comes so if i appeared i just couldn't believe john is going to do it that way again. i'm not sure i would done anything different. i would have done it that way again. i'm not good at parables i've decided all of a sudden, but will try. they stripped me new. i had a rain on my dogtags and that was a rain that alcohol had given me and he wore it in world

war ii and of his colleagues get the homering because only the four guys who have those one of the officers and they made this spring and only the four guys with the wolves said frank got out of the airplane. everyone else was killed. all four guys were captured in all four guys spent 22 months in a prison camp and came home. so the kid brother to my dad gave me this spring. percentages to go to the air force academy. there have lane in the road. can everyone see that? does anybody want to see that? cleared the beach. i still have my boots on, so it's not total, you know -- i do that just to be accurate.

they refused out takes off with the ring on it. it said that if they get me shot down ring. i never saw it again. after the war. by the navigator has the crest on it. he gave it to me. there is a time going back to the motives that i was tapping on the walls, communicating. we were in the early years alone in isolation most of the time. later after four years or so past, conditions changed a slightly larger groups and then really large groups and ebbed and flowed. geneva conventions for never expected. you have to bear this out, too.

you could make a general case that conditions up there kind of after the 69th, maybe 70 asante or that the camp trying to liberate an intelligence failure. the camp was empty. brave men went in and put themselves at risk for us. but i think the conditions started to generally improve. it's a gross statement for certain guys it never did right up until the end. would you agree? where are you? kind of an upward slope? that's where i got ill and if they hadn't had a better diet and stuff, probably wouldn't be standing here on the stage tonight. in any event, the point i want to make as i'm typing the wall

and this tap code in the book is done in a number of books, but it's still fascinating to read how to do it. tapped on the walt. tapped on the wall. who're you? he came back and said that current. reuse is nickname pop current because this guy was really old, but 57, 58 even. hard to believe. and he came back and tap and i said no, it's john. he said no, i was with you south camp in world war ii. this guy had lived with my uncle in world war ii and was a two-time visitor. pop is dead now and a number of the guys are passing out of me. our last big reunion, in fact the only big reason we've ever had would be this may in

newport, where the reprise of the nixon welcome home party was going to take place and we are all going to go up there. there's going to be an accounting. the countenance what if we time to pay back over time the gratitude of the nation, the gratitude we feel to the nation? because we all kind of took a vow that we would continue to march. we try to do something with our lives that would enable better days ahead. there is no organization and reports. it is just an individual circumstance and we look forward to hearing how people come and just having them share their stories because we all thought that kind of commitment. i should comment after the party in 1973, or nixon open up the

whole white house, in the residential portion of the white house was hoping. fruit of the loom. keep going around in the lincoln bedroom a little pain it bathroom thing where churchill used to say. the interesting thing was six months -- not six months, nine months after the party at the white house, 50 children were born about one of whom was my daughter. specific details we will leave to your imagination. however, the other aspect of the party was a white house fellow, rick skelton, the oceanic comments that it was a wonderful party because nobody stolen it. they have a problem with the various official functions at the white house with the eight out there are very diplomatic, ensuring no one is making off with the dolly madison silver. so in our case is a great time

and we are going to do that again. this is all kind of precursor stuff leading up to this book. in the end, the early years were really hard, very tough, brutal times. but something that never did go away with you had to make time an ally. gant icon set that there was no bridge across forever and you had to keep going forever. so we have to strive to return with honor, to take care of our buddies, even though you've maybe never seen them, but she talked to them through the wall. in my case, having had the benefit of the classical education from the university of chicago, although i got on a train eyepieces -- this was to be a very funny story.

actually i had a buddy before it went to the air force economy. i live liberal arts are more important than us math and science binge we seem to be on. the math and science people find themselves on a myers-briggs profiling go do that. some great percentage no doubt. but a functioning democracy is to people who were schooled in the great patterns have emerged over the many generations, hundreds, even thousands of years. i was rad dating a school boy of hers. have some appreciation for that. and found i was one of the ways i could make time, that i can fill the unforgiving minute with the essence of the human condition. i could create.

the greeks said there were four wonderful things that make up a good man, city, state, nation again and lousy sense of justice and restraint, quest for wisdom encourage and it's not so much the battlefield courage they were talking about is just the courage to do the right thing in life. well, the greeks were well short of the mark. so i added the fact you are to have a really developed sense of humor and try to find some thing funny and everything. try to in fact have a faith-based circumstance in your life. it may be a quest that goes on forever, but i think you need to have some appreciation of things that are bigger or greater then you, however you may choose to define it or follow. the third thing is the essence of the human condition, which is

creation. i wanted to be a jazz pianist. i was playing jesus loves me. you know the song? than the bass and drums kicked in. this font in the front row heckled me so badly that chicago raspberry. i never played publicly again, became a fighter pilot. married the blonde. [laughter] still like to of it -- tinker, not. [laughter] that's what she would suggest. and then of course the other thing is the last of the eighth-grade element is the ability to laugh. i've had good fortune to these small units and large units and be a part of them and have done

so imperfectly, but i've always tried to impart a notion that his genuine love for the organization and what we were trying to do. when you do that, i think you get a lot of leeway in the mistakes you make, the failure that will come your way of your own construct are those that happened to the guys, guys and gals would give you some leeway if they think you really care about them, if you really have a sense of what they're about. the sense of what i was about is what i've described to you. i needed to create to stay alive. we had this return with honor fixation. we really cared about returning with our heads held high wake up eaten to the point we had two bad, then repent and try to give them as little as we could do

would be useful in that comeback and we would cry about it. do a tap on the walls and tell her fellow, g, i have to say i regret it if i did anything that would hurt the vietnamese people or some other path that frankly in the greater scheme of things meant nothing, but in our scheme of things meant everything, that somehow we weren't as strong, as tough as we had to be. or worse or do the best you can. make that hurts you, don't give them anything for nothing. then we would make sure we shared that. and we shared stuff we created. we typed language through the walls. i speak enough words in enough language to get in trouble had six or seven bars in languages i suspect, but not much more -- actually about work.

there is serious about learning languages for the walls. people are building houses, other people composing banks in their line, but in my case with all these words, i just wanted to have legacy in case i didn't make it. so i tapped it through the walls. if they have a section called strapping on a tailpipe. and then a section which is the dark and bitter staff, the pows after the holidays, christmas things if you type something through particularly poignant, they would tap back thank you very much. and then you'd have a long epic poem going for 50 or 60 pages that tries to deal with all the societal staff as talking to at the front end and offer observation of that. a lot of that is the numbers of the 10 sonnet fashion and a lot

of it and all that good stuff and if you're a student of the literary sonnet you can get an either little bit besides the immediate level just like a photograph for a picture and you know what they like it or not. and if you look little more acus or some item that is the artist trying it would be in here and you would find that. so the yoke is easy, the burden is hard. i can see the clock back there. who's got a watch on that? 8:08. i'm going through to couple things on opec to questions. is that okay? talking to a something, talking with is more important. then they take one excerpt from each section and that will whet your whistle hopefully.

i don't do it in any special order other than there is a lot that is new in this book, by the way. all those poems are memorized over all those years. but his new introduction to john mccain of course favored me with overly general words on the introduction. and i wrote this standard and then i didn't think it is worth a darn. so i changed it. in the process of bringing forth the pritzker military library backhand big-time. the business of telling the stories and sharing it to visit the citizen soldier and colonel pritzker, the founder and president has invested an enormous amount of his own

resources and this is the first imprint of the military library sunday on a daily do that with a bunch of corporate sponsors who have helped us as well. but this was the thing when the muse inspired me and i said first and always to my wife and then these words. the sunset leather went into your dawn. eight to shine. thanks, honey. and thanks to her daughter's who served their country in special growing up ways. dad says, thanks for that. i wanted to share that with you. when y'all get thrown in the slammer, you can talk to the guy next door, already? i think there's precious little wary of that. in the strapping on a tailpipe,

i write a sonnet consistent with the formation of a and it talks dawn slate and i'll just give you the best of it and you can make your own judgments. pale golden talents stir the eastern sky. another fledgling day departs the hills take the air as thermal falcons fly cascading light as carefree first flight grills. and who attends this noble birth from a greater role in plain men marveled from the vantage point on earth, but missed so much out of this guys domain. but i am not at the earth. at altitude i greet the day with

engines so. that's done unless morning bool and merry band and urging me along. it's here, unfettered brother men in world to first flight flight, the one judge best of all. so for utah mothers out there, get the altitude. [laughter] i'm going to use in other sonnet and this is the dark and other staff. it is called sonet for 4543. i would, on that for us. it starts out that the world without, within our weather dwelled remote like useless windows, tall and barred hermann sidney ayres ran quickly down

the halls. but the empty days, hired. and it gets more and hence from there until you get to the right couplet at the end, where it says i am told that steel is formed and forged by heavy. if only men were steel. but then, who knows. so that is part of the dark and utter stuff that comes to the pow section of it. everyone expect good the christmas poem of one kind or another. and as i say, some of them were designed that we all read carhartt satterfield terrible, which is kind of a normal christmas feeling anyway or holiday feeling at one point anyway. i thought we would have more fun

if we did something to start out way. so is called a part of christmas pierpoint jet thrusters are assembled and smith ate me, wondering where fly and you come my purple evergreen and something that thing you know what it is all part of christmas. snow tires crunch, the queen street corner crash and family rushed through downtown wonderland were both are wrong and carroll's song is all a part of christmas. it goes and talks about family enjoying basically christmas in chicago, going to church at the folks, having dinner, going home. and then, it starts talking about being allowed and have a closet full of presents and a husband who's missing and not knowing if he's alive.

she talks to me. the moment struggled memories. if only he were here, they need to rate this is newsnight and feel a little meaner, lonely wife's a half a life. i miss the part of christmas. so she writes the letter you can read them here and i come out at the end and say it is the crying part of christmas. somewhere there is no, a beacon blow just a window life. the little spark that raised dark calls this home tonight. the world away. return someday and be a part of christmas. i tell people you can cry in this book. if you die then and i vow company should read read the front part in about part in a

poem i wrote just for you and they are called "taps on the walls." i wrote it for you and all of us, kind of a universal thing. in the end, you can laugh and there's lots to laugh about. in fact, much like al gore invented the internet, i invented rap. [laughter] way down south in the texas upper pickle pair as to what occurs for something to thought. i know one name about to what tucker is going out to pick up some california red was and this one is for the birds and has that syncopation and ryan scheme. or put a package in his throat, he worked at watching fighter pilot who pity the slicker, leather, lean. he was outbound and it tells

about this adventuresome plate going backward everything happens to the airplane. it's coming apart and he keeps promising that good lord hewitt give up things like smoking and drinking and gambling and rubbing thigh. stay vernacular with putting and i expect. the airplane keeps coming back. finally, his over home station, with go away. he has a great, which pitches out to land and its wonderful weather all the way to the mid. he punches the button and since cancel out the wind. i think we are downwind with respect to the remarks i wanted to make tonight. the book is a piece of my soul. imperfect though it may be, and

most certainly is an honest evening and something that helped not only meet, but my fellows get through some tough times. so now all of these years later to let you go the main around inside the brain box and not cold war of men who not only were there in the north in other areas in southeast asia, but with the covert of men who have had and have put the memory and the reality of experiencing the only perfect place and not the sky. there is another poem in here with that guy grows old and talks about how he grows old,

but he was a pilot and he said that till last storm, how weak the banshee cry come around quick to look. his heart is still in the cry. it's time for the banshee not a cry. a, b., c. and the u.k. should go to the microphones and post to other questions questions you are brave enough to ask. it's easy if you don't have any because then i'll ask you questions and it'll be fine. sit thank you very much for your attention. you are most gracious. [applause] modest enthusiasm. if you want to do that later on, we can work on it. i did have some high kicking cheerleaders, but i guess townhall has put.

we're filming mass and i'm sure it will be a documentary that will captivate the 2:00 in the morning audience. yes, ma'am. just shouted out. >> hi, i was a nurse in the army during vietnam, station where they brought all the perfect guns. >> tough duty. i have a question about resilience. i found some guys who are going to be dead. i thought they'll never walk again, go home and their wives or girlfriends of the event if they got there. and then that nothing could kill them. the spirit was so strong. how can they build resilience in short children, our young men and cells?

>> i spent the afternoon on the course site, but on the lewis i. if i come away with an impression for the afternoon, i was signing books there. it is the number of men who came in with halting step son came and think it looks and eyes and the nature of our medical treatment now is so adapt at saving people that we find ourselves living with poor souls frankly who wears severely, physically or mentally injured were in previous conflicts he would have died.

and when you talk about the resilience factor in that demand factor, it is a very individual thing. but it comes down to my judgment of the three principal rustics. if you've had a pretty good growing up experience, families, churches, schools, friends, that is step on. the standards are your own and you expect higher within that many organizations would impress upon you save one. small unit organization you belong to and in the civilian world. it's us against the world. in the military, and is taking care of your buddy whether he's in the foxhole, a squadron or flight, really important. then while walking -- and women

to walk into hellacious fire as they did, take the double award i'm unarmed because they would rather die than somehow be watching and supporting their buddy, even in the face of what he orders which are bound in warfare. so that they present. third reason in terms of resilience. no vocals. it's somehow your allied with things that are bigger than yourself coming of commitment outside of south. use that as a staff to lean on. use that as this and are, bp can animate to walk to. big deal. if you put it together gets resilience, but i still think we're missing some thing. we've gotten so comfortable as a

society that we needed research and, a rebirth of the citizen soldier was taught to the pritzker military contact. a website called sos america.org . sometime between 17 and 26 and young women who might choose to volunteer, but the young men that have pickier than it in the military, which hints at 30s to find company 700 augment all the services and have a bunch left over for civilian tasks. mike foley knows this so mobilized for persons or organizations to fight forest fires every year. wouldn't it be nice to get a couple hundred thousand people you could move almost overnight into natural disasters? unit to karcher borders? got the power to do it and it's

affordable. we passed legislation that congress three times. it's died in committee and our out to build, starting this year again we had to build a base a they could march back and say this is something that would be good for the nation can make better husbands, fathers, citizens and the national polling is so incredibly supportive. if anybody of 50 things that and 85% correlation for people in the childbearing years, about a 50% correlation. you want to hear the cohort itself thinks? the young men 17 to 26 in the young women would have to volunteer anyone here if they had say? to the test. you guys ready over here? what do the women -- what the young man to?

17 to 20 about this program? are they for or against it? just shouted out. [inaudible] do not young men, for or against it? the young men in the age group want to do four things. i don't think any to sell them out. they want to get drunk, get -- play sports and make money. now let's take the men who are 20 to 26. do they think this is a good program? are they for it or against it? [inaudible] say it again. what a focus group you wouldn't be. now, therefore it. this is something that would be better. we are mixing age groups, mixing geography, mixing socioeconomic