dartmouth college in 1969 and served as the president from 1998 to 2009 off he began a series of visits in washington, d.c. where he met marines and other personnel who had been wounded in the course of service and iraq and afghanistan.

over two dozen visits he often encouraged the injured servicemen and women to continue their education and subsequently to land in establishing and assumed responsibility for raising funds to support and education found to the counseling program from veterans. severely injured veterans who failed to meet their dreams. it's now being offered through the american council on education. the president worked with senator john warner and chuck hagel on language for the g.i. bill passed by congress and signed by president bush in june of 2008. his interest was to provide a means for private institutions to partner with veterans affairs and supporting veterans from these institutions known as the yellow program. dr. wright's book, among one of the reasons he is here in the riding symposium, those that

have borne the battle the history of the war and those that fought them was released in april of 2012. those that apply to them from the american revolution of the current war and share some of his own experiences and insight. please welcome dr. wright. [applause] dr. david mcintyre, colonel mcintyre is a distinguished visiting fellow at the studies and analysis institute in washington, d.c. and a bipartisan terrorism research center in washington, d.c. as well as the director of homeland security and defense programs at the national graduate school. he presently serves on the editorial board of the journal of homeland security education and writes a regular column for inside homeland security. dr. mcintyre was appointed to

the security board by president bush in 2008. he previously served on the national board of directors of the guard national members public-private partnership with the fbi. as academic adviser to the university and colleges committee at the international association of emergency managers, on the steering committee of the defense educational consortium coming in on the 2002, 2003 defense science board summer study on homeland security. he has taught homeland security at the elliott school of george washington university and the university of texas and the bush school at texas a&m and he directed the center for homeland security at texas a&m for 40 years. he has numerous credentials and interviews with every major network in the united states, and numerous radio stations and in putting last night pursuing a cell phone radio interview with the station in texas. prior to this he served a 30

year career in the united states army what do these alternating between the airborne and reconnaissance units and writing teaching strategies. he taught english department at west point and retired as the dean of the faculty at academics of the national war college of 2001. he was 19 when i'm a student there. dr. mcintyre's book, yes he did a good job. thank you. dr. mcintyre's book, a good read, is the center line that depicts the story of the u.s. air force c-130 transport, and then the lives of its crew, the medical personnel who support the transportation of the wounded veterans bringing them home in time for christmas. and it is a really good stockley and i enjoyed it immensely. he holds a b.s. in engineering from the academy west point and in english and american literature from auburn university and a ph.d. and the

client for the university of maryland college park maryland. please welcome dr. mcintyre. [applause] the first lieutenant marlantes directly to my left grew up in a seaside oregon, and i think that he's back in the great northwest now. he was a high school football player and student body president at seaside high school, class of 1963 where his father was principal. he won a national merit scholarship and attended yale university. he's a member of the college he played for the rugby team. he was a rhodes scholar at university college in oxford and was from the university college in oxford that he was called active duty as an infantry officer in the united states marine corps. after his military service he returned to oxford and earned a master's degree and made his living as an international business consultant and india, england, singapore and france.

he's the author of the vietnam war may and do your times top ten best seller published in 2010. he declared at one of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of the viet nam they received the section in the category based on the combat experience as an infantry officer in the vietnam war. his decorations included the navy cross, the bronze start fir balart and two purple hearts and air medals. after his combat tour in vietnam he served another year of active duty headquarters and marine corps and writes about both his service and his post service in his latest book what is it like to go to war.

he was recently interviewed by belvoir in connection with this book in 2012. please welcome karl marlantes. [applause] last but not least is colonel jon coffin from the vermont national guard retired. his career he served as a signal platoon leader in the south viet nam from southeast asia to 1968 to 1970. he joined the vermont national guard in 1973. during his lengthy career in the guard he served on a wide range of positions from the vermont medical platoon to the audit of commanding the singularly elite three of the 172nd mount infantry in the early 1990's. for the last 19 years he served in the capacity of the vermont guard staff psychologist. based on his longtime service as a civilian counseling staff

psychologist for both fire service and police officers at the -- the name of the organization and burlington? >> [inaudible] >> howard senator of burlington. colonel coffin was appointed staff psychologist. he would debrief the returning soldiers of the platoon unit as well as brief soldiers that were getting ready to go on the vermont ward deployment to buy back in afghanistan to get coffin and his team debrief every soldier returning from overseas including vermont troops deployed with other guard and reserve units and other state soldiers. in addition to the better part of the last ten years, he consulted with soldiers prelude to the departure in iraq and afghanistan often for the repeated tour. the game was constantly deployed to one of 12 different army deportations' around the country provided 106 small unit debriefings and consulted with soldiers standing there week

long process. six months ago, colonel coffin retired with 49 years of army service at which time he was awarded the merit for distinguished service. wellcome, colonel coffin. [applause] craddock this year's theme for the riding symposium is about the hopes, fears, dreams and ambitions i hope of returning veterans and the dwindling number of returning veterans, not the dwindling numbers of veterans with a number of the veterans of the population. dr. wright come and use the to the greater transformation of the united states as far as the military concern following world war ii, and the way that we mobilize for the war fighter in honor of those that served. you say this has changed drastically. because of the changing military objectives, you think it is harder for a civilian to stand

behind this situation. because our forces have become less representative of the american society as a whole, few citizens joined in the sacrifices that the war fair demands. the support system seemed less and less capable of handling these demands. how do we deal with this and fix it? >> welcome a that is the question of today and really of our time, those of us that care about veterans. we need to fix it and address it. world war two was a war objectives defined and accepted by the entire population. there was a full mobilization and everybody shared in the sacrifice of world war ii. about 12% of the population served in uniform during that war. the war sense that, korea, vietnam and the war and iraq and afghanistan have been less clearly defined. there's been a full mobilization. we have been reluctant to have

sacrifice is for most americans and increasingly now since 73 we have depended upon an all volunteer force. they are not represented of us. how do we fix it? we have to get the political system to recognize when they send troops into the war that there are going to be casualties. we need to get the political system to recognize the casualties deserve full care from the country for as long as it takes to deal with the issues that they bring back with them either physical or emotional issues they bring back with them. we need to know who the stifel are who are serving in a war. war with undefined purposes by people that are unknown to most of us are very dangerous things. that democracy cannot raise the war in this way. >> do you think the relative lack of press coverage in the current war or the current military operations in afghanistan is an issue? i think you wrote about this a few weeks ago. >> yes, it is an issue. there is nothing dramatic to cover most of the time.

they are going out in patrol, and maybe some kid from iowa losing his leg in an ied. there is no engagement with the enemy, there is no flag planted to say that we've had a victory today to get the media simply do not cover it and most of us do not know -- there is too much of a sense of the war being fought by drones someplace in a place that we don't know. it's still being fought by young men and women with deutsch on the ground, and they are dealing with multiple deployments, and we have to understand better what is that they are enduring. >> mr. marlantes, you know, you commented in your books about returning vietnam to a nation that certainly opposed the of war. why don't you think we see that opposition today if our mission is any more clear than it was in vietnam? >> i think the first obvious answer is there is no draft. there wasn't a whole lot of protest to use as long as the deferment was in place and as

long as it was taken away, the eletes could start getting drafted. or, you know, my god they are going to get me. i don't like this war. it is very important, as dr. wright says, that the entire nation realizes that it has chosen to go to war. we are faced with a sword of indifference now, almost apathy. they are at war. that's the army. but who pays the taxes? who fills the factories, who teaches the kids that go off to the military or develop the weapons? we talk about how the veterans come back and i think that what's happening is as a result of the all volunteer military is the country itself and

consciously doesn't really feel like it is involved. we borrow the money from the chinese basically to fight the war. taxes didn't go up, so there isn't even any neutral sacrifice anymore. and the more important thing that i think is something that we need to take on a cord is if you have the attitude that you are not really engaged as a civilian, at the end of this long chain of factories and financing and taxes, at the end of that long chain had a 19-year-old who pulls the trigger. that 19 guerrillas at the end of long chain that we are all a part of that somehow we have the idea that 19 year old as the one that went to war and pulled the trigger. he did the killing and the suffering and we have some compassion for that but when he comes back home if we as a nation thing he was the only one involved there is kind of

isolation. how will he feel when he comes back? every that he suffered. the civil war all the way that the revolutionary war women had to go forming. they suffered when the men are gone. it doesn't happen anymore. so that goes right back to the point i think we all have to reexamine the all volunteer military. >> dr. mcintyre, you touched on some of the families back home of though wounded warrior is as well as the folks that were positioned to support them, particularly the captain middleton and his family situation back home. can you describe where you get some of these ideas and when you used as your biographical sketches for your? >> i draw this from people lino and people live recruited to do interviews with me.

those for interviews from people i knew specifically my youngest son who is an air force pilot and is deeply today to afghanistan on his 13th trip overseas since the war started in 2002 with the air force special ops. the family, the medical people warner says that i knew and nurses i made who did interviews of become a chief of the emergency room and 28, flight nurse with 500 combat hours, the family members were either myself on a family members, my wife was a military child and then married de% a military wife and then became a letter to another. my daughter-in-law, my sister, when you talk about the four groups, the pilots and the crew, the family members, the wind it

will and the medical teams, these were people drop in my own experience. the question you were addressing but the isolation and whether the cut off in the rest of the united states that is in my own experience as well. but if i could let me just take 30 seconds as a national strategy as mostly what i do not writing novels. let me follow-up on the last questions if i could. there is one other thing the was mentioned. it's not the cause and issue. please don't get me wrong but it is an important issue to understand there is a fundamental divide in this nation over what the future of the nation should be. at the top, whether it is republican or democrat, for the eight years in the bush administration for the five years of the obama administration, they're has been a feeling among the political elite, among the political science elite and among the decision making that the united states must be engaged globally for the way that we defend

ourselves as either with military overseas or with influence overseas. but we must be engaged globally. the problem is that the american public is not willing to pay for that. we have our old money. we have professional money to hire soldiers to go and do that. so there is a fundamental disconnect. a strategic disconnect and what that leads to is the military and the political elite in the country doing things without open access of the public. i don't know if you've noticed or not but there hasn't been a casualty in the news for several years now. every time a person is killed in afghanistan, and by the way, wounded and no longer reported in the news every time it is reported as a nato casualty yet to find out what country they are from and we stopped reporting the mass casualties. we don't have an american helicopter go down any more the military has made the decision to do that.

it's not just a political decision. it is leading from behind a curtain. it's not just leading from other people and friends. it's what we are doing and where we are engaged as obscure in many ways from the american public who don't see the price for fuel the price of the american engagement and so really i think if there is a fundamental problem i would suggest to the question is what you want to be? if you want to have a global footprint, you have to pay for the global footprint and if you are not willing to pay for that you have to accept the fact you come home and other people do what they want to on their own country. and you can't have both things. that is a strategic possibility and that is the position we put our families in. they are paying for our attempt to accomplish this response of the. >> you get to speak to a lot of the vermont guardsmen birth before they went to the war and after they came home. i would like to keep it to just

before they went to the war for a while because you tell me what you told them and i would like to get mr. marlantes's view of whether the was the right thing to be told before going out and fighting in combat. 63. >> i have three extremely influential powerful well bred and well written men. the way it can assist everybody in this room to squeeze our government to provide everything from vocational helped psychological help for our soldiers. i would like to join and that the humble capacity. i just got out after 49 years. all i know about is what i've heard. i've read, i've fought, but really what i know is what is in the heart and mind of our soldiers, and the general jonathan is over here. i was on the phone with him last

night reflecting on a pile of newspapers he had in his office in the first couple of months of the war and he put the paper down and said somebody really all to write about this. following the discussion that we had, we agreed it wasn't going to be one of us. i what john and i talked about was there were not very many vietnam veterans and the guard at that time, ten years ago, 12 years ago. the thing that was the most clout in my heart was nothing happened to us and i'm sure that

karl marlantes will relate. i have a dental appointment when i was discharged from a planned in two days and i was in maine and the next coast 72 hours after leaving saigon. he has a better story in about 15 minutes. i easily got down on my knees and i said general, we have to go after these guys. we don't know what we are doing. we don't know what will help. but we have got to go out there and try to talk to them from our heart and soul and tell them we are behind them a matter what they find themselves and over there. >> i just can't live with it and i will never be allowed to live with myself. and if we perfectly had carte

want to going out to the units and talking of about what they feared they might face because we were in uniform we could get the conversations going to be a we had been around for a long time. i had been around so long that i know grandfathers, fathers, soldiers, sons and sons of soldiers. so, i found this opportunity to people to talk to people who knew me as an old man that might not read him out as far as how they felt. so the general committed at that time i had every experience with police and fire doing debriefings after critical incidents as. and we had the bright idea that we would try to convert the critical incident model and to get on the road as people came back, the moment they came back as meeting them at the bottom of the stairs on the tarmac and the distant post as many of you know they don't come home to vermont

right away they go to a distant post for four or five days and get angry about something other than what was over there, and whittled the debriefings with these people to read this cost a lot of money. i'm not sure -- i had no idea. we were on the road constantly talking to people and what we told them before they left is as you get on this plan. every way possible and learning how to prefer your redemption when you get home, no matter what he faced. the general, true to his promise, i think i can -- i don't think i missed many downstairs and i love to tell you a little bit later how we did our debriefing and how we stayed with these folks.

all we can say is did we do anything right? some noble said college professors i had a chance to visit with your the last couple of days have asked what do you think works best? we don't know. the guard never did anything like this before and probably never will again. we did know we did it, we did everything we planned to do and did then everything known and tried. it was an experimental. we didn't want to make anybody an experiment but we were on them and if people didn't want to talk to us we talked to them any way. we would go on car rides to meet with them for lunch and through the general's administration as the medical surgeon over here right now, we have carried that throughout and we are pleased with that. did we do any good? i am praying that we did and we continue to plan to do so.

>> thank you. >> you wrote in your book what it's like to go to war. a couple of lessons that you thought you may have wished to have been told before you got to vietnam. >> again, it is our culture. we like to shuffle things under the rug that we really ought to step in the face. several of the things i wish that i had understood before i went and before i came back -- one of them is that you sending me in that case and our kids out to do something that we have told them all their life they shouldn't do and that is kill somebody. and one of the major tenant of the culture thou shalt not kill a human being. yet suddenly that is what we are asking. i was at the air force academy, and i was talking to a woman who

was the general in charge of the curriculum. she said you know we got really talk about killing people. you know, that's because it is the culture. we don't like to talk about that kind of stuff. and i wish that i had done a little more thinking before i went and maybe even before ing and the marine corps. those kind of kids don't tend to think about stuff like that. but you have to take on as adults to make them aware of it. they aren't going to do it on their own. how are you going to deal with that and yet all that when you come back? it's not like to have an answer but at least you have a framework that you are not going crazy, you are not evil, you are not some kind of an animal, all of these doubts and things the culture will have on youth because the dark side on to other people. all of those things are really

handy if i'd known about them. one of the more important ones is the mechanism of how you do kill somebody. and that this what i call a sort of fancy term for turning somebody into an animal and the more politically correct to say you can't dehumanize people, that's terrible. the fact of the matter is the only way you will kill anybody is to dehumanize them. that's what we are asking 19-year-olds to do and to be sophisticated enough to kill an animal, and we call them all kind of names, talf heads, we are great at that. and then immediately get out of it. he doesn't understand what the mechanism as it is when to be very hard to get out of it and that is where atrocities come from. you still think they are horrible animals. they were still killing them as far as the ecology were concerned and if the had been told ahead of time you get in

and not as fast as you can. they were usually 22 and a lot older than the people they were leading. they would have a better chance of seeing what is going on. i got myself -- i taught in the but i got involved in stuff where even i went into a no quarter fight because i was angry. i don't think i needed to have done that i didn't have the wherewithal and the terms of the framework to think about it, so that is a big thing. the second thing i think is important is education about what happens to your brain after you, ' once you are in combat. we all know in combat most casualties occur on the infantry early in the tour and that is because the brain has and adapted. of brain actually starts to switch the circuitry. it's not psychological this physiological. you hear a sound as a civilian and wonder what it is and that is because the process is going

for your cortex. is that a bird or the wind or the leaf falling? by the time you've done that in combat you are dead so what happens you rewire the circuitry. it goes directly to the megadeal of. there is no fault. you hear the sound and shoot. that is ptsd. i bumped my head on the covered in the kitchen and i took it out with my fist. there is my kids and my wife. but in the hell was going on with dad? there is some cans all over the floor and splinters and my hands were bloody. we hadn't a clue. we haven't heard of ptsd. so they were frightened. my wife thought it was her fault. well with just a little bit of education we would have said he has got post-traumatic stress because he's been in the war. he's not angry at us. he just got surprised and took up the covered because he wasn't thinking as part of the deal we better get him some help in some

medicine. it's not our fault. my wife now -- i still do it, the other day my daughter put the chain lock on the door and i opened the door like that. it surprised me. i hit the door a couple times. my wife says you didn't take your medicine today, did you? but that's because we are educated now. we understand what the mechanism is. it's like okay this is just part of having gone to the war and this is the part that you come back with. we can deal with it and learn how to manage but if you don't know about it and the families don't know about that there is no education whatsoever. you have a wife and a corner because her husband is going loony. she doesn't know if it is her fault or what are going on. those are the major things from education about what happens when you come back what happens to your brain and when you are getting an idea that it is

actually kind of normal. this is a normal reaction to these extremes of combat. and then i have time this is what you are really engaged in. this isn't about football, this is about killing people. and here's what you have to think about. >> dr. wright, you are the historian. has it always been like this or is this in the 21st century? >> i think it's always been like this. read the odyssey and he had some good insights into all of this. i agree so much. in my book i say there are two things we teach our children from the time that they are able to be taught anything. one of them is not to put themselves at risk to avoid danger and the second one is not to harm others. and guess what, we take 19-year-olds and we say you better be willing to put yourself in a tremendous risk and you have to be willing not simply to harm but to bring

legal harm and after a couple years we forget about all these things. i think most -- they do control the behavior despite all of the stories about the vets and other things they do control the behavior that they never forget. one simply cannot forget these things. >> anything to add no except i like the point you made about this as a natural response to be part of my research i talked to the air force psychiatrist and she suggested she is working with a team to change the term for ptsd, post traumatic stress disorder to post-traumatic stress syndrome suggesting this isn't something that you have a disorder like a broken leg and you have to park in handicap

facility. instead -- to an extreme situation, and your body will heal itself. if you get a chance. i have had the same suggestion for secondary casualties, and which the medical personnel who become -- they can become casualties from the casualties they are working with if you talk through it properly -- and you can mitigate and then you

can recover and then in the long-term you have the sponsored care but she's taking that framework and this is understanding talking about what we are talking about and also applied to -- vans that eventually this is going to get to you. but it doesn't have to get to you in a way that breaks your brain and causes you to become an alcoholic and abusive to your family if you have prepared, if you have been prepared, and then respond properly after it takes place and so i am hopeful -- the military medicine makes huge strides in the last ten years as a result of bringing people home wounded. i am very hopeful that mental health kazan strides based on bringing people home.

cynics, colonel, you work with the five-year and police for some number of years because they have them to properly prepare the first responders for that. >> the truth is they have done better than we have. they have learned in the last ten years. people will be exposed to the most devastating explosion of the vision, ideas and fantasies of what the country michigan, a chain of command and legitimacy of task and the question is how well they handled internally? we are working with people now trying to sell to the soldiers

the idea of you need to know who you are. i would like to see each soldier get psychotherapy before they go over and they don't go over you get ten sessions before they go as many of you know who have met we expect you to get ten sessions after you come back and to get to the center and talk to somebody about what we call readjustment counseling. now, i like that word. that isn't a scary word, is it? you can get some readjustment counseling, can't you? we are not talking about psychoanalytic therapy. we are talking about readjustment counseling. because mcintyre says, just because you have been exposed to the total of all of your ideals doesn't mean that you can go around as the stereotype of the vietnam veteran, a broken vietnam not for the rest of your

life, - and resentful about everything. you have got to get yourself together, knowing who you are and who you are each one of you folks in the audience is different. your bottom line and a compromised situation with leadership that is questionable. we have to disobey the command to save your platoon. each one of you is going to come to a different place on that. and arrive at a different conclusion in and a different way that it's going to be a way that you can live with even if both situations are going to end up in destruction, it's got to be the way that you can live with the best especially as leaders. even as an individual. you have to come away with your internal truth intact. we believe that can be done. and we are just starting to wake up to that. a couple ways to do that, i want to speak about my boat tie first of all. one of the things we were talking about today is the idea

of ritual. i am a white protestant from boston. we don't have any rituals. we may go to church on sunday or something, but somebody's got to me about rituals early in my career, and i had a hero that had his leg have blown off, and he went to a veteran center after living on the cabin for four years and he started talking to somebody. and he was also an alcoholic. they sent him to 12 stuff recovery. he found a deep spiritual self within himself a higher power, got sober, got a job as an alcohol and drug counselor, worked for 35 years as an alcohol and drug counselor, and he had a smile and the belief that people can redeem

themselves. you know why i'm wearing this, right? i look in the mirror of a morning and i say you can do this. because al bucklan did it. you'll find your own ritual. maybe the bennati and dancing around a campfire in the nude by yourself. some of you have told me that you've done that and god bless you whatever it takes to get in touch with who you are, never mind try again to get the mentality or do that same thing were to do in the book come get your stuff right and then you will have something to offer the rest of us and you are the hope of the future in this audience primarily. we are done. we are talking about what we have heard. now you take it to heart, god bless you. use it and we are right behind you. >> you speak about this transcendence that may or may not be spiritual, and i noticed

you bounced around a lot of spiritual philosophies trying to describe it, but talk a little about that, how you think that to be prepared to go to combat you have to have some understanding of a higher power or higher order of the world. >> welcome a first of all as i was saying before, if you are honest about what you are actually asked to do you are being asked to do two things, one as to the human life or the other is a sacrifice your own life for the good of others. the christian religion is about a god that sacrifices his own life for the good of others. taking of life is also something that is, you know, should be relegated to the gods. i don't care what your religion is to the values that since the gods of a higher power, something humans shouldn't have to be involved in, but we do ask that young people be involved in it. so, willy-nilly, you are

involved in a spiritual issue even though it is horrible it may be the opposite side of the client. the culture is wonderful. i mean, we want religion to be sort of pixie dust. we like christmas, we don't like good friday. it's just the way that we were built the iroquois and the aztecs had a ritual torture and if you think that crucifixion, that is a ritual torture, is it not? and if you think about the demons of the buddhism, there is a dark, dark side to this spiritual reality can get and some of the beginning is just that, you begin to understand i might be entered in the dark side of something which we would generally respect the gods would do that now we are asking just ordinary young humans to do.

the other thing that i thought about is that whether or not it is a spiritual experience it is certainly as intense as a spiritual experience and that is combat. and i suspect it may just be the dark side of the same claim, but i can tell you how similar it is if you think about the mystics of any of the world religions, there are four things in common. one is that they are always aware of their own death. i mean, those of you that our children of the 60's, you remember caramels saying death is always over your shoulder. in combat it is always over your shoulder and the next thing they are always for is the moment. everybody knows it if you have your mind on the past, it isn't real, it's on the future it is only right now is it real and they do years of sight of

physical exercise, julca, to get into the place that they can actually instill their mind and be in the moment cabinet i guarantee if you are in combat you are in the moment. you are not thinking faster, you are right their shoulder to shoulder to get the better thing these mistakes have in common is they do try to subsume their ego for the greater good. you are in a unit and one of the things that makes me so proud to have been a part of the mother to the experience is that i have experienced situations where people literally will buy for everybody else. that is a rare thing that that is what you are doing in combat command of the final thing is all of them are parts of the larger groups, churches if their questions or if they are buddhist or if they are muslim. and you are part of a larger grouping and here we have the similarities, ordinary spiritual

experiences in combat that i think are striking and we have to accept. i'm not going to see the combat is a spiritual experience to and i think it was for me but for some people that may be as intense, but in either way, st. john of the cross have them come back down and flip burgers he will have a problem, he's not going to fit in very well and that is what we are asking our young people to do. >> speaking of that, what did you say the first time that you went to a wounded veteran at the hospital? >> liben the following year in 2005 about 30 times i was down for the christmas party for the marines at walter reed, bethesda this past december. i will go down again in a couple of weeks. i was stunned by what i saw.

people were hospitalized there were taken to a nearby hospital seriously wounded but the have a significant this figuration that there burn injuries. i ask them what happened to them and they tell me what happened to them and how this occurred. i want to give back to my unit and my sense of that is that these guys were so caught up with president bush or change your roosevelt were saying about the purposes of the war in afghanistan if they want to carry the flood again but it's far more basic than that. they want to be within their unit. the one to be with their friends. and when they hear about a trend that is killed strauss and

fallujah his hardest moment came up and he learned one of the guys in his platoon have been killed on thanksgiving day. he said i should have been there to help. there was no way that he was going to be anyplace. but i do think that this instinct to reach out, the sense of being part of the unit which karl didn't experience in vietnam, they circled and everyday devotee a handshake to meet some more people coming in and out of the units i think is terribly important. it's very moving. i've never heard anyone complain or a single person say it's not my fault of this war is stupid why was i doing it. i can't believe the times that

might they don't feel sorry for themselves but they don't show that. it's quite a remarkable generation of young people. >> i was just pitching a little bit here. but the doctor is talking about i think is a natural instinct of those people who were born to become more years and that is that they will naturally protected. that is what they do. they protect and it is a natural instinct. they were world war ii veterans and i would ask them are they frightened for democracy? are you kidding me all they wanted to do is get the job done and get home alive with all of the friends they could as civilians we have to be extremely careful of the people because we have a precious gift from nature which is that you have young people who will

sacrifice body when and life because they want to help and the one to be part of the group we are the ones that have to use it wisely and put it in their place so this idea we are doing it for patriotism and yes they can say that. it was down to the dark and dirty and combat. but we were not thinking about anything like that. it's a natural thing. and then so the adults have to say let's use this gift. let's use it wisely for our republic and it's not wasted and we've lost sight of that. in our part where we can be inflicting just as much death and destruction on the enemy you

didn't use the word empire but are we sacrificing ourselves to protect our people? or are we sacrificing ourselves to put forward some of the local legend of or some geopolitical the agenda it's for any young person and i think it isn't just the question of can the american people for to be an empire we want to be ann panaria do we want our kids over their dying for something that we are not sure is really protecting us it's not to do some real politic you have a line in your book concerning the wounded and one of your characters says

everybody the coast of the war gets shot. i was fortunate or unfortunate dependent on what you think. i was the first class out of west point not to go to the vietnam two years ahead of me and 6090 took everybody and 1970 to only volunteers the took volunteer statements for this rangers colin viet nam and in march the statements for vietnam the nixon vietnamization so i was the first was not to go to vietnam and i left the service 40 years later after 30 years and 29 days after 9/11 so i fell in the middle we worked 20 hours

a day, too. we had eight army calgary killed by a tree and i get to troops run over. we have guys that started the jeep because it was waist deep snow and 5 degrees below zero and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. was a dangerous world and was as if there was no fighting it's just i wasn't sent. i was sent cent. now what then did i discover out of that experience and the experience of my sons who did go? my nephews who did go and the people we interviewed did go, and what i got from the interviews of those people played it back against my career was this idea that everybody knows who is wounded. i had a person come to me with a book and say let me show you the

page with nisha e-verify decided to go to get counseling and actually was that that right there. my god that is what's wrong with me. i've been shot and wounded i just don't know it. and i'm not crazy, but something is wrong in my heart. i can't get back to the center line of my life. i absolutely think that is what happens, as mentioned a very good point about people searching for utility. i suggest one of the things that eventually we are going to find as a cure for this is helping people find utility for their lives. in a way this can come together all the frustration about what it is we want to do about the variety of decisions in washington, d.c. and all of the displeasure about gridlock and congress might be sold about a generation from now as people who have been over, paid the price, come back, can't find

that world changing job they want and suddenly discovered the leadership positions in their own communities and states and nations may be just what the doctor ordered so i'm hopeful about the future out of the starkness that people bring home their maybe agreed late in the nation for the future >> thank you. that is a great line because no one comes at the same, not one person i've ever known has come back the same. ..

my favorite story about survivor guilt is fred forehand, the former chief of the vet center. he was severely wounded. the kid next and lost three lens. the kid next in was crying one night. finally gets up his courage to ask him why he's trying.

the kid says, i'm worried about john c. at my right. the kid next them had lost three lens. did i mention that? , reid. at one of the connected. what a you word for? what you worry about yourself. but, he lost all four limbs. so this guy with three lens got is weeping in the night over the guy who gave all for. fred's conclusion to that, the only ones who don't feel so bad was douglas. he's a little rough and is language on this, but that's not far from the truth. so having said that, what i want to talk about his love for a second year. this iphone society concerns me. was the last time you did have a conversation where someone was

going to me at, i hear you. i think that we need a bit of arms around each other. this early on. people don't want to hug. i learned how to hug from janet. eighteen summers in the woods. the mayors. she hugged people. nobody had a gusty taler we should not be doing this. she did not care. it was to bring much non

sexualized. very deep. one of the great inspiration's that was revealed to me, i can't take any credit for it, we decided to do our debriefings. the suggestion was got to me troops and break them down and to petition levels and talk to them. usually have a couple of years. real soldiers that have been there with them. coming down with us to greek soldiers coming back. i met a chaplain or of that center. and we on the bulletin of ideally 40 people if that is what is left. so even among the one, you send women down to debrief. the answer was definitely probably not. guys will open a bribe women and guys don't ( woman.

oliver, we're having a discussion. open this discussion about this. a live coverage and an edge says , i'll go. it just came to me. we're going to bring. it brings tears to my eyes. a critical moment the west. because we brought him if you will, the great mother with dust on there. forces. and these were not ms. america beauties. sixty-five year-old buses emanating light and love. and after the debriefings i would ask if it wanted to go to lunchers something and as with tommy things like no, sir. thanks a lot. al hang. appreciated. they wanted to be talked to, the women. women tend the fires of hope and arf. this is what we needed to do. but the grace of god we got to

do it. what i guess we need to do now, if you well, i don't care if you never ask me another question among going to tell the story. one of the most heavily decorated vietnam veterans i know. if a fire can tell me, maybe my can. forty-nine these means. he flew as a covert fire in vietnam. very dangerous and former oilman . he became the chief of staff at the national guard somehow because he had a mouth on him that he was not afraid to open. and the administration was really rough. when down there one day. pow mia issue.

so doing crazy things. but once he went by one day in the hall and said johnny, i love you, you know. and i was like, what? this is a business. one of the strong this soldiers of never met and he just went by me and 70. so goes right on. some of you, the first elected tell people is the love the. do you -- i will ask if he think i'm kidding. you will know on not. so we just plain love each other. now, we have to spread them out. we were talking about this.

churches. there up the holder ritual. get the article. the newspaper of there. and the guy in the mail. tell them, because he would not come. we held this in your honor. this could be an annual event honoring you. so, i think we really need to get rid of a society in terms of love and getting down to the level of where things are. without the soul and love, what else we have really. a better job. in not. in not going to feel like you're filled. you have a hole in your soul. it is to be filled with light and love. it is there. we have to encourage people to an unadjusted, mine in out and

spread it out. >> back to the history lesson. i want to get to the ancient aboriginal. but back to the history lesson, i'll have are returning soldiers generally been treated by society? with welcoming, open arms or shunned or told to shut up and sit down? >> today, this generation, i think that they have been treated warmly. think that there really is a genuine affection and sense of support for the returning veterans, but it is also the case that most people don't know who they are, what they have done, quite know what the places where they did it or understand the consequences of having served there, but there is an embrace. it's not the situation that carl and others encountered when they came back. think there is a genuine want. most americans don't have any idea. they ask what they can do to help read it is more of an individual reaching out to help.

a society recognizing this is the cost of the sort of war we're waiting today and we have to realize that there is a common responsibility to look out for these veterans. what happened with these wars, we got started in two wars in 2001 and 2003. nobody anticipated how long it would take. when president bush said mission accomplished the mission had been accomplished for the military. ten years ago today or yesterday that they pulled over the statue of saddam hussein in baghdad. the military did what it was sent in to do. no one knew what to do next. no one expected the nature of the war. no one prepare for the number of the plan is that we would ask people to serve. nobody thought about the nature of casualties that would come from this war. nobody thought about the care for the sorts of casualties that are coming out of this war, and we are still scrambling in terms of maintaining a force, scrambling in terms of the equipment that is often compromised.

we're scrambling in terms of the medical system within the military command the arson is trembling with in the viejo system in terms of handling all the problems of this generation of veterans. and as a society we have to recognize, we ask you to go to war. we should not last year's scramble when you come home. >> i was just going to say, picking a from what was just being talked about, i often hear people saying, well, what is the army doing? what other marines doing about bringing these people home? and again, there is a fundamental misunderstanding. military medicine as well as military psychotherapy, they are like that trainers on the professional football team. they're not there to heal people. you have a fundamental conflict of interest. there job is to get them back into the fight. that is the job of military medicine. it is up to the civilians to do the healing. it is a very big difference and

to expect the military to do the healing is laying a big conflict of interest read the feet. if you're going to hills somebody from posttraumatic stress, that is going to take a long time and there probably not going to want to be going back again. and they want them back into service, and that is not wrong. that is why they're there. so i'll is remembered at quantico, talking to the marines down there about -- to the programs that they're trying -- it all know what works. you don't know the results until ten are 15 years downstream. and this one colonel stood up. he said -- he says, it so frustrating. we are not psychologists. we are marines. you could just see the frustration. it was not what he was built to do. so i think that anybody thinks that it is up to the military, the conservative better. first of all, the stigma of

asking for help pass to be removed. i think mandatory counseling would remove it. you have to see a shrink. the israeli army had a psychiatrist at the battalion level. it comes in and says to my not feeling too good today. the flu or something that your thinking about. well, go to the doctor. they have a very different attitude. i think we just have to make some changes in society about that. the fundamental issue about healing is up to the civilians, up to our end of it. >> so let me tell you what i think who is picking up that slack today because that point is exactly right about military medicine. the point of military medicine is to get people back in the fight. and the military has stepped up to this challenge. as a result we are seeing a real strain in the military budget. the military, the cost of military care is going to roof and is because a lot of money from the department of defense being transferred in this direction. that is really going to

accelerate as we see other costs cut down, arrange time. yesterday's 17 fighter groups are branded as we see military health care costs grow. so who is going to pick up that cost? the civilian community has not yet recognized that this is a community function. and if the military is constraining the amount of money they can put against it, who steps toward to help the wounded , body, mind, and hard to recover? the answer right now is the stress goes on the family. and the quiet store your the story i cannot quite get to in centerline because my focus was these four groups and what they're thinking about in their flashback to the combat and then there flash forward about the moment of arrival. this book takes them right up to the moment they get off the airplane. what really happens that really matters, what i would like to explore the future, what happens when they go home? it picks up the slack? and many times it is the spouse

who is totally unprepared. it is one thing to say to my brave standing next to you in the hospital with my spouse. i put up with the inconvenience while we go through the business of fitting a prosthetic limb and learn to adapt. now we're going to do with the next 39 years? that is a big challenge. the challenge for the children to pick up that burden. we cannot do what we used to. the interaction -- and i said husband and wife. i think there is even something more complex going on if it is a wife to come someone did and has been to has to become the caregiver. what you just described is the healing nature of women. we are about to have an experiment unique in human history as we have more and more women into the front lines. in the question of what will they have as women traditionally , but there are now in a front-line unit. think there will be extraordinary burdens for them to care -- to carry. the burden at home for a husband with the london life.

and so we have not begun to figure out how those stresses resolve themselves. too many times that is left to the family. i am not sure that the military can do this or that you can have three glasses and prepare the wife. this is part of -- i think maybe a cultural change that we -- our one is talking about sharing the burden. who will do the housework. this is a nurturing and caregiving back-and-forth within the family. we may need to rethink their responsibility and dedication. when you sign of to raise your hand and take the oath, it is not know of, i am getting married. it is still one of the new still dedicated and promise yourself to someone in something in the children that come from that. we may have to give some real hard thought about how to recreate the family and as an extension the community in a way that provides that kind of care over the long term of a marriage.

>> you are one of the first ones to get to see these men and women when they do come back from combat. what do we do to get them to readjust? >> talk to them. he gave me a t-shirt that said helpless soldier today. listen to them first. and every case is different. what can you do? i think that we need to bring our units closer together and some white. we need to address together these psychological and spiritual issues. who wants to talk about these? we have range fire and she and move and communicate among with these issues of people really

seeing each about, people did not feel seen. it is a terrible thing to be felt that you are not seen. i think a lot of our soldiers feel that there not seen. the way they saw that, and what i would like to get into now, one of our favorite topics of the last couple of nice to get talking. why the people want to go back to back this myth about the just want to go back because it is a rush among well, number of us have questioned that. i think that they want to go back because -- to "carl, he uses the word because there is meaning back there. women got up this morning and talked about the issue of control. you have some control over your environment.

many have been an environment where there is no control like in the united states, when strange things are happening and you feel you have no sovereignty over, you go back to a situation where you can control the situation, bring some order to your squad platoon or company. i think that we need to take that element of control and keep it local. we need to give people jobs in the military and examine our training. we have a problem now figuring out what all we are going to do with training people of bin overseas. and you folks @booktv they got there are a lot of women in the audience, when in the tens coming up. folks who go out there and have to try to interest people in coming together as units when there is not an immediate threat to. we don't have the luxury of the

rush. instead we are seeking is the meaning in the feeling of belonging. we have to put that together somehow because that is really, without that running through training drills is just a laugh. hurry up and wait. is just a joke. so let's go do that. let's go bring ourselves closer together. what is going to mean we have to behave differently, and it will not happen on an iphone. thank you. >> i think that one of the issues is counting. a college accounting. you can't when you're over there in combat. if you are 90 year-old and you don't do your job somebody can die. you cannot count anymore and that. you come back to the society and is not the society's fault. is just the way it is. basically don't count. you could be the vice-president of a corporation and not show up for a few days. not much happens. now we wonder if you're off on a

golf course something. you're in combat, you count. in you come back here and you don't count. well, i want to go back or i count. that is not an adrenaline rush thing. it is a very different motivation. >> something that occurs to me that relates a little bit to this. i recall a few years ago seeing an interview. it was just a tape down at quantico of a young lieutenant who is back. he looked like he was 22. actually, he looked like he was 15, but he was probably about 22. he had gone through infantry training, gone over as a platoon leader. and within the first week that he was there he had a couple of men in has been killed by an ied. he was there and wants to help pick up the pieces, charlie, of these two men. he was haunted by that. he said, every morning i wake up

and that think i have to forget this. i have to get out of my mind. want to wake up every morning for the rest of my life remembering this. that is immediately followed by their recognition. he said, no every morning for the rest of my life i have to remember this. there were my young men. i cared about them. i have a responsibility to make sure that they are not forgotten. if i forget the mother as well. after member, and that is a burden to carry for a long, long time. i suspect you will. >> let me offer what i hope will be a very short story. for the cadets in the audience here. i faced the problem here. did not go to vietnam. and i had to do was to arrive as a second lieutenant in the unit were everyone else and then to the vietnam war and then i had to establish my responsibility, just as you will do, and the military were people have two to

three towards a new shop as a lieutenant charged. is not an easy thing to do. someone here use the term mission earlier today. i think it was you. and the mission is the key to this. the mission is the key to establishing your authority. make yourself could it your mission. there is something we can do for the wounded coming back is to help give the mission. i will tell you one quick story about being a faculty member at the national war college. we had a commemoration of the battle of the marriott is. very quickly, as i recall it, the american fleet was on the western side of want and the mariana islands and the japanese fleet in order to attack the approach from the last series of the japanese plan was to bomb the american fleet, go on to the other islands, land, rihanna, reset, refuel, come back and strike a second time on the way back to the carriers. that becomes a plan. strike, land, come back. what actually happened was when the japanese struck the carrier's the american dive

bombers, only part of them headed west against the japanese carriers. others went east against the violence. crater deerfield's in the japanese aircraft struck the american fleet and went to land. there were no runways. there were destroyed. there was no second strike. we're talking about this. we have veterans at the marriott is from world war ii sitting in the back of the class from talking, participating. as we talked one of them began to cry. not participate in the conversation. and i turned to him and said, what was your participation. he said to my road in the backseat of a dive bomber. i only looked at the sky. we got to the bottom. their release the bomb. and the pilot had been shot, we died. the pilot not been shot and we kinda like. i was part of a group that bought the island. i thought until this moment that somebody's representative because i lost difference in that attack. and the other guys on my aircraft carrier went to attack

the fleet. we went and dropped the bombs on the stupid right. my friends were killed. and since that battle i have been angry at the world. i have been mad because i thought somebody screwed up and because life is not fair. a ticket out of my wife. taken another my children. taken out of my friends. have been carrying a grudge for 45 years, 50 years. now i discovered in the back of his class from, we were the main attack. if there is something you can carry out of this discussion about helping soldiers and the thing that you could take of this to use for the rest of your career and life, it is this. wherever you go, whenever your assignment is, you, personally, you on the main attack. as long as you are focused on that and focus your troops on admission and take care of them on that mission it will all work out. >> thanks. i think we are going to have

time for a few questions and answers. so. >> okay. they will be bringing a microphone. when you come up to state your name. if you want your question to be answered by a specific panelist, please let us know if you have to come out to the aisle. think there is going to be one on either side. >> one passes in your book the reminded me of what the colonel was talking about, the female influence on the soldiers that were coming back from combat. this was from an ancient irish folklore. >> the story of coolant. the mythic hero. the irish odyssey and the elite

of irish mythology. this fiery warrior and dangerous. and he is coming back from battle. the king and queen the center of the irish culture are standing on the ramparts. the guy, a fierce weapon of this. he's just boiling and steaming and they're terrified. they are terrified. and the king doesn't know what to do. he slams the doors to the gates. to ride the chariot around. showing his left hand. antiwhite some self with. a great insult to be saying to my can take you with my left hand.

the queen steps out and bears her breasts and says, you must contend with these today. and he just comes right back down to ground. that is about the feminine, feminine balancing out that while the warrior energy. and what they do is they throw him into a pot of water and boil it out. and you throw in another one. finally he just comes out steaming. and then he is back to normal. he goes into the castle and sits down at the foot of the king. that is where the warrior is. the warrior serves the king which is the body politic, the culture. and he gets there and he gets out of this wild, demonic stay

by coming back to the feminine. of course and our culture that is carried by women obviously. that is what that meant is about. >> good afternoon. thank you for coming. my name is chris bentley. i just want to make a comment and then hear your reaction to that comment. then i have a question also. so the comment, being an unlisted guy and the marines, i have been on several taurus. i have seen some of the things, you know, you all talked about in combat, blood, killing to all that. and from my own personal experience, that is not the hardest thing to deal with. when you start feeling your heart rate get or you get mad, you can walk away. you feel that coming on. the most frustration comes from the lack of a conduit for enlisted guys to the

policymakers and the strategy makers. and also, by consultants, and listed schieffer anzio on tactics. what weapons to use on this mission. how do we have a good logistics' train for this support these guys? it is never, is this strategy, is this grand strategy working? and that is my main frustration. would like to hear your comments on that. but at the beginning of the panel you all suggested that you had a problem with the all volunteer force or hinted that you want to bring back the draft . how does that play into civil liberties and one not just force our policy makers to actually go to war constitutionally? thank you. >> that is a tough one to handle. let's see. >> i can start with that one. i mean, the first thing is that the frustration that you're never going to get away from.

you know, i mean, i was a lieutenant. and whenever we were going into battle, you talk to the squad leaders. we were all just basically trying to figure things out amongst ourselves. and if nobody knew the grand strategy. i mean, i don't know at what level you do know the grand strategy. if you are colonel. i just think that that is a difficult one. the other part of the question. >> well, it was a lot about where the policy was going and how you could affect that. the other part was the all volunteer force and if you could, you know, maybe put some skin in the game by conscripting sons and daughters. >> i think that i am not asking for the return of the draft to solve this problem in terms of the draft of military, but i think absolutely there should be national service. i don't want everybody in the marine corps.

i'm sure the army guess. because you want special people that can do the job. and that is the shame. i mean, my own kids would not want to be ignoring car with me. i would be delighted to see them teaching people. building forest service trails, groping as to the airport to make sure that the airport security is okay. it would be cheaper. all kinds of things can be done. the question of civil liberties, do you feel like when you pay taxes that you are asleep to the government? this is a republic of the people, by the people, for the people. of the people means you have got to pony up. when the pony appear taxes to pay for police service you're not being a slave. your being part of the community. and to ask you to devote your time to earn money and then give it to the government, you can say, that slavery. you can go ahead and feel that way. that's community.

it is not a civil liberties issue, and i think at the same thing goes for asking people to serve time between the ages of 18 and 23 do you want to chip in and not? out think it is a civil liberties issue. >> i wanted to honor human on the stage and your brothers and sisters in the audience for your military service. so personally and sincerely thank you for your service. i am also really grateful to be able to be here and that you have offered this to the public. , or healing is the business of civilians, not military. as my friend says, were healing is peacemaking.

i am really moved by not just the intelligence coming from you all here, but the humanity a brought to this conversation. this is important. it is important work, this idea of coming home. is going to take a concerted effort, military and civilian. and just to bring that point home, i wanted to address something. mr. coffin, you mentioned the negative stereotype of the craze your alcoholic vietnam vet. i am not sure that i actually have that stereotyped in my head because those guys have all kill themselves. the -- the fact is that more

vietnam vets have been lost to suicide than were killed in combat in the war, and not just a few more, but like twice as many. that is -- when i first heard that, it got me. i got it. while. we are not doing something. something is wrong. something is way wrong, and that is not a military thing. it is an issue for our country and our world. that is an issue for humanity. wanted to just put that out into the room because i think that is pretty moving. and maybe the question, maybe a comment. i'm not sure which it is. if you want to pick it up, mr. mcintyre, but your friend is suggested the change from ptsd to posttraumatic stress syndrome

, do you have any sense that that moniker would have a better shot at entitlements to the purple heart and ptsd does not? thank you. >> it would probably have less. i don't know how we will deal with the question of how this place toward the purple heart. the purple heart, the regulations are pretty clear. physical one is a physical one and because the cause. that is very clear. and, as you can attest better than i, psychological issues and problems, it's very hard to tell when the problem starts. very hard to know exactly what the problem is, and it is very hard to address it. treatment for the problem. earhart's tell when the problem is solved. that makes it very hard to assign a word for the fact that you have suffered that problem. additionally -- word is that come up? does it have to be, related? not necessarily. if you are -- if you treat

remains a dover air force base and what you have done for four years in time of duty is offload flag draped caskets without opening the mouth, he think you might be allowed to claim you have a problem. you might be able to. this one is beyond me. and so this is why this is for lawmakers and doctors. this is why in my book i really try to draw a box of was operating within. the box and property to bring in his books have been wounded and people who care for them and bring them home up to the moment they arrive. and what they're thinking is a flashback to combat have less for to what their lives are supposed to be about. as of that is crime operating in you ask a great question which maybe you should adjust better than i. i really hope we move toward this syndrome idea because i think it would release a lot of people, but i am not sure how that would play in with awarding the more rewarding them for having suffered.

>> respond to that. like to defer that. invite of vermont national guard states surgeon to comment. if you would. because this is of doubtful, brilliant man with five or six stores under his belt. this is not a new issue. a quick comment. >> along the lines of what our questionnaire highlighted. it is not new to this war either. now there are more people dying of suicide than there actually are dying of combat. so this is one of the signature loans of the conflict. i think when you look at this issue, i think the issue of a word, we have tried to migrate what earns a words just on the size of blast injuries and concussion. there have been migration. it is a very -- it is a very,

very hard-line. i think one of the things -- i don't know that there ever will be an answer to that question, you know. i guess maybe sometimes the way i look at that is, that is what the campaign gives you. everybody suffer that. when i talk about, you know, the consequences of the war kabyle was like to use the example, people ask and you know, how rough visit to go to combat. well, at the very minimum imagine going to work one day and not leaving for a year. oh, my god. i would go crazy. that is the absolute minimum that every soldier goes. let alone the separation from family and then all of those other things. along the same lines, the point that we ask them to do something that we in our society have told and don't ever do. we say, hey, look, don't ever kill somebody. we are a society that has shelter death. how many of you in this room have ever seen some big guy.

and so we are not ready for that and that is part of our culture. many other cultures have really integrated death and to the life experience, but we have actually kept it very separate, and that affect creates a lot of the additional banks to the many of our soldiers go through. >> and in your history of the u.s. involvement in wars and how they treat the veterans, through at least the early part of the 20th century it was pretty much public policy that, you know, going to war is just a part of being a citizen. i wish there was something special we could do for you, but that is the price to pay. >> that's right. it was only with the gi bill that was approved in the summer of 1944 that we provided some sort of support to an significant support obviously for returning healthy veterans. before that the best we could do would be support for widows and orphans and beginning with the civil war systematically support for those that came back with some sort of medical wind.

but it was only with world war two that we started giving support to anyone who served during the war, and that has been the pattern in the war since then. >> since we have several people lined up at limited time, said -- could i suggest we take to questions at a time. lets your questions and mini the panel could wrap the answers together. >> okay. >> good afternoon, gentlemen. adverts year. navy rotc to decommissioning as a naval aviator next month. my question for the entire panel is, as the drawdown in afghanistan begins and there is no active units on the ground overseas, do you think the issue of the mental wounds, either for service members and their families would get swept under the rug in kind of forgotten in the coming years similar to how we forgot about insurgency in the occupation tactics following japan and now we have to relearn as things?

>> thank you. >> judgment. thank you very much for coming. i question is apollo. the constitutionality of civil liberties, what about the constitutionality of worst in the war powers, standing forces abroad and we don't have civilian support. ed willey understand what that means. they're not an active -- as active as they were in world war two. how can we put a change in society where people become involved? >> great. >> and so just like you addressed in the atlantic, america even forgot about the wars we are engaged in. and if we keep that information from them, are we taking them out of the constitutional process? you know, electing their representatives to decide whether or not we should go to war and then sending our troops into harm's way. >> have we done to the part where we just don't have that discussion question has not been

the cause additional declaration of war since world war ii, december 8th 1941. and all of the wars since then, a career, the congress authorized president truman to send in some air power. whenever church were necessary to support them. vietnam, the gulf of tonkin resolution which was a blank check. and congressional actions that said it was okay to take action to defend the united states. it was ambiguous. it was a blank check. there has never been a declaration of war. i think that that is a mistake. each of these wars has taken on different purposes after they began. we stepped up the goals. now it is more nation-building in afghanistan. that certainly was not what we were talking about in october of 2001. we were talking about punishing the government and chasing down terrorists in the mountains of afghanistan. obviously it has become more than that. we do need to buy into our wars.

the fact that it is not popular, there is a part of me since no war is popular. it is a necessary thing. but there has to be public and political support. and we have not -- we have not exercise that support. most of the time in the last election 7% of the americans about the war in afghanistan was a matter of great importance. it was not an issue in the election campaigns. the fact that the politicians are ignoring it stresses the fact that we have ignored it. >> just very briefly. the fact that in terms of forgetting it, we have opportunity. the first time and probably the only time that the national guard, separate armies from each state have gone. the veterans going to be forgotten? it is up to us. but the downside is it is up to us in the up side is it is up to us. these are our neighbors and

church members. let's remember, we were there. we were there in quantity and quality. let's not forget. in vietnam we were not as individuals. we went over there to replace some guy. the unit. each of these towns have real people living next door to you who were there. let's keep them of in the light. >> i was just going to answer the question about what we can do about making sure people are involved. two very simple things. first of all, if we have a vote, a clear vote of going to work, declaring war, then each of those members of congress are going to have to go back to their constituencies and explain why they voted the way to be the

way they do now, well, the president made a mistake. you'll want ted take responsibility for that. no. vote. stand up and be counted. maybe asked her constituency before you make the vote but whether they really do want to go to war. i don't think you should ever do it on borrowed money. if you go to war you raise taxes everybody gets involved. there will be war, tax, surcharge. every april 15th the entire nation is going to look at the war tax surcharge and wonder if they ought to pay this time or maybe we ought to stop. what are we doing? right now it is like, go shopping in bala from the chinese. and so i think that is a major, major change. the other one that think we need to have some way that we get the leads back involved, the sons and daughters of the people who do make the decisions. my favorite example, when i was a deal there was a plaque on the wall, as big as a whole

backstage with names of hundreds of dead ely's who fought in world war ii and korea. we lost one in vietnam. and i think the elite universities hardly send anybody as a percentage. sure, some go, but it is small. how'd you get them involved again? i don't know. you can accuse me of being a fascist, but i say if you're using government money your kids are contributing, well, we're not going to give you any more money. come on. row the boat. we're all in the same boat. >> good afternoon. a question for the board. earlier you addressed how veterans are coming home and feeling isolated. in the current job market how do you think the current policies are the main dishes for the government and also companies integrating veterans and to companies and getting them jobs? i constantly hear about that turns up being able to get jobs and become more depressed and more isolated. >> thank you.

>> good afternoon, gentlemen. mostly a question toward the doctors. but start off, you talk about sex and speciation or the turning of soldiers into animals the social ideas and acceptance of killing in society is generally excepted and that despite core principalities taught at a young age and also about having spiritual strength prior battle. i am curious personally since i am also seeking to be a chaplain as a career and i am not exactly going to be killing by will be around people that are, how will i do with that. even with that, dr. mcintyre, he mentioned strategic impossibility of social history. now, future leaders, not me personally cents a still have time to go, people that will be going in less than a month,

however they going to handle that, being able to at least project this global footprint that you mentioned. and because of this idea of sight of speciation and your talk of moral integrity and the military integrity in questionable leaders, how are we going to be able to easily identify this and because i'm pretty sure that in the rotc level, from what i've seen so far this is not something we're taught. what are we going to do? >> thank you. i think we will break those two of. you know, with your work with veterans groups, what is in the works to help opportunities for returning veterans? is there any special treatment? are they feeling even more isolated because now that they're trying to rejoin the economy, unemployment is high

and they don't have the education. >> i think that is a critical point. unemployment is higher for returning veterans and it is for the population as a whole. a part of it has to do with the fact that the economy has changed dramatically. most of these returning veterans , enlisted men and women have a high-school education. they do not have any college. that part of our population is having great difficulty getting jobs. my counseling efforts in the hospital, the ones that i have to set up at walter reed and my own has been to encourage and to continue with their education. i think it is crucial. is a different war than the father's. when they came home from vietnam there were plenty of industrial manufacturing blue-collar jobs. certainly after world war ii that was the case. it is not now, and so i do think that education is critical for them. >> your work on the new gi bill. carry your op-ed in the

wilmington free press, more college's opening up opportunities for returning veterans, should this help the situation? >> it should. absolutely. but i keep telling these guys in hospitals, you can do it. you can go to college. they have not been taking ap prep courses. it's crucial to encourage them. >> is it a fundamental imperative for soldiers going to work? behalf to dehumanize our enemy in order to pull the trigger. >> i think so. you make a false species out of the human being.

i mean, that is my opinion. it is too hard to pull the trigger on a human being. the situation is all the time. i was reading about a british marine who was in hiding with his unit. cal foch. fourteen or 50 year-old kid herding goats came up on the position. the goats were heading right for where there were high rank. this guy was on watch at night. now he has a person in front of them. he does not have the enemy in front of him. he didn't pull the trigger. they all that trouble because if he had killed that kid the mission would have been paramount, but he could not do it. there was just a kid. it was not the enemy. that is the way it's done. it is just -- i think it is imperative that we in the stand that. i think if you are able to kill people all the time that i think your psychopath. a sociopath. i just -- of wanted to address

the man who says he wants to become a chaplain. i always found it difficult when i was young. how in the world can these chaplin's come here and talk to me about god and everything when they're saying, thou shalt not kill. what are they doing? and i am reminded of the story. it happened. i am sure it does happen to almost everyone in this room, but this is the way happened to me. we had a really important football game. and the local priest in my little town was a real football fan. he came into the locker room before the games. there was none of this nonsense about we pray nobody gets hurt and we all do our best. came in there. we want to beat the other team. got to let us be the attempt. want to get to state. so he didn't pull any punches. i'm sitting there. the game against of catholic. they were the powerhouse in the state. never won this game would go to

state will probably win the state championship. he is talking about, you know, beating number catholic. dozens of catholic and a priest? and that is when it hit me. you know, got doesn't care what side beyond. and as a chaplain you have to understand, i think god just express stupid. fighting each other like this. why can't we sell this better ways. but what god is about is about the individual souls. it is about what happens to the individual soul. the crucible of that fiery conflict of the clash in the world of opposites. people have no choice of where they're born. somebody grows up at town in oregon, rice growing village in north vietnam. we face each other on some forlorn hope. pull the trigger and i'm here talking to your and the other guy is dead. what is it about? is about how i deal with that as a personal individual soul. it is not about who won the war, as far as i think the religious

question is concerned. as a political west. so as a chaplain you focus on the soles and helping them through the crucible. that is what i would say. >> quickly. >> i believe every potential soldier or passenger knows what to do. knows what to do. you know what to do. you know what to do. you just is socked in to the hierarchy in some way where you have to make a decision where to save your but we to sit your commanders but. i would just ask for permission to change the story about the british cat with the kid. he just couldn't do it. i would like to change it to he just wouldn't do it. and the reason he wouldn't is new better. deepened his heart and soul in new, i'm not going to do this.

the only guy who came back alive stood up around of who he was in the decisions he made, and he did not come back with one man, not a woman, not one man. where do we lose the idea that we know what to do? we will do the right thing. you have to worry about it. you can see it. we just have to act on it. is not a matter of courage. is a matter of necessity. necessity because you remember the rest of your life, because the inmate. now you'll make the right one. >> fifteen seconds. i wrote a chapter in as a major character because every nurse i interviewed said i could not have done my job without the chaplain. i just found that a striking fact. as of that is why i wrote the men. i wrote them in recognizing that just because you are a guide whose job is losing other people doesn't mean you don't have problems too. i try to reflect the truth in

the book. >> last man for questions. >> thank you for coming my grandfather was an irish immigrant the night his citizenship and then construct -- conscripted to fight in korea although he was treated differently in terms of when he came home and eventually given a citizenship, he was left alone to deal with his mental problems . unfortunately and a supportive family. but when the board was talking about how society has changed, what i want to ask is, do you think that we should focus more on pushing our young men for our citizens to combat or should we be more concerned about dealing with what they come back with? >> i have noticed over the past few years of bit of an anomaly forming, especially within the youth in our country.

i think the colonel test on a lightly earlier. he referred to it as the iphone generation. i have come to call it the exports generation. what i am looking at is a very gross misperception of war, and it seems to stem a little bit from media and from tv shows and movies and especially, especially from video games. and i am seeing children and adolescents and even young adults more and more seem to have just this complete disconnect between the reality of war and what has been brought to them in the fantasy world. and i am wondering, in the long run over the next decade or maybe the next generation or two decades, whenever, what kind of effect is this point have on the military? and if they're is a negative effect behind it, is there any way to fix it? >> let me take the first one. we have to do both of those things. we have to take care of the

soldiers to come back, and we have to have soldiers to go overseas. this is another choice. we all live in a world where we sat down and decided we would like to go back to afghanistan. we will remind everybody, the first firemen killed on september 11th was killed by a civilian who jump from the building because there were roasting to death. we did make this up. this came to our shores. what have come again and again and again. the reason why we went to afghanistan is because our government approached the taliban and said, you have allowed the people who attacked us to build camps in your country and train and move equipment and help the man in control and if you will run them out we won't have to come and get them. that is why we're in afghanistan we can debate about whether it was done in an intelligent fashion and whether there are smarter ways to do strategy. it is questionable whether we need to have soldiers prepared to go to combat. i don't think it's a question. tear all sitting of the last two hours. wonder what happened of north korean border. let me tell you, one our

children and makes a mistake and pulls a lanyard and drops 130 mm round downtown and kills 50 people, we have a problem. we have been a problem. we are back to work. if you think you're going to do it by air power and not have people on the ground and get news for you to read so i tell you, you have a great question. have to prioritize what we will do. as was strategy is. cause and effect of resources prioritized. we have not done as a nation is figure out what effect we want, what will cause it and then how much we will pay for it. until then we have a problem. whenever the solution is to make better include some young men and women willing to pick up a rock and go do what needs to be done, file night and take drugs to the covina next day which is what my son is doing in afghanistan will put them back together, which is with the nurses to or haul them home or to carry them when they get on, which is what the families to. ..

>> iphone, xbox video games make us all killed. i don't think it makes us killers. >> my two boys stayed home at night and play games. they are not killers. but i do think that there is some danger in the sense that empathy is learned. you were not born with empathy. when you hit johnny, that hurt johnny. empathy is learned. video games and xbox and stuffod like that are anti-empathy machines. and i think that's the danger's and it'ts up to paris to says okay, you just look up this up t little thing on your thingi andt if that was a real person, maybe

that would not be good.good. kids will say i know they're not real. the fact that schmidtl. another thing even morenger i dangerous than xbox is the reactions of parents to those t things. f little mary or johnny carson on the floor and there's a television show and somebody is brutally murdered and the parents get up and get another beer, they are going like mom and dad weren't affected by that i guess it is no big deal and again it comes back to the responsibility of adults to constantly be monitoring. you say this is pretend and this is horrible. we don't like this happening in real life. but you get up and get some potato chips what are the kids going to think? so this is something that parents need to teach people coming and the x box and the tv shows it's not just the effect of the kids it is the parent's

interpretation and those machines on the kids. >> i want to thank the panelist. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers. watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> next, booktv sits down with eric draper, the longest-serving white house photographer to discuss his photographs of former president george w. bush. it's just over half an hour. >> host: "front row seat" is thing of the book put together by eric draper.