different. people have always felt the same way, you know, because they have always known what the u.n. is. will we learn all is. everything you and i are excited by or like, there is some version of it before we were born. and when we encounter it then we -- we -- we feel like it has been spoken for previously. i think that is the major hope. and the country remains the symbol for everybody in the world of the best. >> luggage charlie parker died at 34?

>> well, he lived up fairly selfish life. he became a drug addict when he was about 17. see, he had such an incredible well that he was able to still continue to master the saxophone and master the art of playing jazz. from there he was actually able to find his own way to go. so powerful that he and flaws lot of others. >> and we have been talking with stanley crouch, columnist for the new york daily news and author of this book coming up in september, "kansas city lightning: the rise and times of charlie parker". this is book tv on c-span2. >> book tv continues with richard rubin. richard rubin presents a

collection of interviews conducted with menus served in the american expeditionary forces and world war i. this is a little over an hour. [applause] >> thank you. that was a wonderful introduction. i started this book back in 2003. so it has been at 10-year odyssey, but the seed for this book was actually planted many years earlier. it was back in the mid-1970s when i was seven or eight years old. and there was a day -- viagra and westchester county new york, a suburb south of the city. and the son of a history buff. but unlike a lot of people who make that claim, the history buff and my family is not my father. it's my mother. and of her four children i seem to be the only ones to pass that twitter.com/booktv two. she took advantage of it. one day we were driving into the city from westchester.

she pointed at a big building upon a hell. she told me that was the bronx a fee a hospital. then she said there were still man in that hospital who had never recovered from being gassed in the first world war. and this made quite an impression on a seven or a year-old me. even though i was a small child, i knew enough about or want to know that it happened a really, really long time ago. sixty years at that point. and there really struck me that there were men who had lived entire lifetime since then, still frail from what they had endured enough war. did not know much about the war and all. that did not know what it was about. pretty much all i knew was this new bill was in it and had done battle with the red baron.

that stayed with me. it nestled in the back of my mind. in one day in early 2003i was supposed to be working on another book and doing what writers do very well which is procrastinate. and i heard a gentleman interviewed on radio. he was talking about a world war ii generation. he said that world war ii veterans were dying off at the rate of a thousand a day. we need to get their stories now while we still could. and that also made a very strong impression on me, but not in the way that the speaker had intended because for some reason that they i thought, well, what about world war i veterans? i knew a lot of world war ii veterans personally. there'll other stories, but i could not recall having spoken to a veteran of the first world war. wondered if it were to that a ready. did the math. 2003 was 85 years after the

armistice that ended the work. a figure that somebody who was 20 years old would be 105. i don't know about you, but the first section i read the paper every day is the obituaries. so i knew that people did occasionally lifted beatles fares. i thought, maybe i could find two or three in interview them and get medical and that. and that is the way it would have played out, except for the fact that i could not find any. the first place cycle of was the department of veterans affairs in washington d.c. and i believed that they would have a printout from the waiting with the veterans' names in their ages, their addresses, phone numbers, and that they would gladly share with me. this proved not to be the case. i was told the they did not have any such database, and even if

they had they could not have shared with me. in fact, several years later when i was a few years into the search i started getting calls from people at the hospital asking me to share my list with them. i moved out. i started telling local hospitals. nursing-home spirit any place i could think of. always the result was the same. we haven't seen a world war i veteran ten, 15, 20 years. they always signed off with with us know if you find any. and after a few months of this i get very frustrated be added into a more reasonable person would do which is just give up and move on to something else. instead they get angry and decided that since i couldn't find any living american veterans of world war i, would find the mall. it was quite bravado at the time

since i have not found any at. then surely thereafter my stubbornness was rewarded with the first big break a gun in the case. in that came from a most unexpected source. in 19985 years before i started searching faugh the government of france undertook a program wherein they would award the highest military decoration to living veterans who had served on french soil then will war one. this was more than just the art. they really wanted to give this away. they undertook an intensive search. iran ens. by the by they ended up giving out about 550 legions of honor to american men and women who had served on french soil.

as it now that they did just put in the now. they have no leverage ceremony where they dispatched somebody from the french embassy to travel to wherever the veteran in question went. it put on the ceremony and a few cases the french president himself presented the medal. the certificate. and of. letting go of these ceremonies. the vast majority of them took place and 9899. it had been by the time i started this for five years since most of these legions of on i have been awarded. i figured maybe 10 percent of the people on the list were still living. but i needed the list, and i was fortunate in that i became acquainted with the demand at dictum of the first embassy in washington.

have french and half vietnamese who was moved by my quest. on his own free time he xeroxed all 550 were so applications and fedex them to me. he would not take a dime from me and this, i should point out, was right around the same time that the congressional commissary in washington started calling french fries freedom price. this was the spring and early summer of 2003 when there was a lot of tension between americans and france. and while this was going on i got my first big break in finding american world war one veterans from the government of france. so i had a list to work off of. it was awkward going a first pick is upwards of 90 percent of the people on the list of passed away and if you ever call the house bucket for somebody who is almost certainly deceased, you know that can lead to very awkward conversations.

finally i called the house of a gentleman named j. lawrence moffett. this was an -- he lived in massachusetts right at the elbow of cape cod. i will never forget this because i called up and the woman answered the phone and i had already had maybe upwards of 40 conversations that ended with somebody breaking news to me that the person i was looking for have passed away. and so i guess i was a little discouraged. i told her who was and said, is there any chance that mr. moffett is still living. to my great surprise she said he is. and while i was still kind of gasping for breath she said which elects the time. and i did speak to him. he told me a little bit about his service. just a little bit. we made plans for me to come up and interview him soon after that. and in between the time when i learned of his existence and when i first interviewed him, i became very nervous. and the source of this was my

worry that was i kidding myself? could somebody really remember in vivid detail things that they had seen and down and fell to 85 years earlier. i never met anybody who was over 100 years old. we sat down and talked. it was very interesting. the only chair in the house was a comfortable armchair that he offered to me. that he was one of in six years old. started the interview with his name. easy questions and then tried to move on.

been born, parents' names. things are going up very. i was so anxious to whether or not he would be will talk to me about the war. i asked him a question. it seemed very simple the time. i asked him where he'd gone ties cool. want to read his answer in poland and added it. i went to high school from lebanon. that has school was about 2 miles from home. i spent my life and insurance. i was hired by two companies, one and another. i want to world war one. i went to his school in 1914, the army in 1917 in april of 1917 just before war is declared i was in the army for two years. eighteen months in france and the first division to go to

france. the division was the 26 division made up of the national guard of the 691 states. four infantry regiments and a division and artillery batteries with which i am not acquainted. the 101st infantry regiment was made up of the massachusetts national guard. the 102nd was made up of connecticut national guard, that is where i was. 102nd infantry. the 103rd infantry regiment was from a and the 104th from new hampshire and vermont and artillery mostly from brown to. i just like to remind you that this what this man is 106 years old. and we were in connecticut a symbol that new haven. of all the different national guard companies of connecticut assemble in new haven in 1917 july, and from there we went it was sorely in the war there were no transports. you went to my company and then on and how many, by train.

we join several other companies that are ready to go ross and nine day trip, and then across the channel to france and then across france to a certain area. the regimen trained for four months there. in february we were sent to the front. that time the allies, britain and france and belgium and others had been in the war since 1914. we joined them in 1917 and went to the french in february of 1918. so the first sector was the allies at that time were defending themselves against the attacks in germany. we were just in defensive action. i was in the headquarters company at the infantry regiment and on the staff of the colonel with others. i had the rank of corporal. i escape the front line trench warfare but was subject accounts and artillery fire. spent much of the first birthday on the frontline, march 6th 1918. went out on patrol with the

patrol group that night. we spent two months in that sector which was be cemented down. well, that was our first sector. two months later we were moved to another sector, the tool sector. .. >> thinks that it they have seen and done 85 years earlier. in fact, something i learned very quickly, people aged 100-113 is that at that age it's

very much a matter of first and last out. and so most of these people could recall at least to some extent details of things they are done 80, 90, even 100 years earlier. there was a gentleman in fact named fred hale from new sharon main whom i interviewed in december of 2003 am one of the things we talked about was new year's day 1900. i'm not sure fred could of told him what he had for breakfast that morning, but he could recall very vividly what he had for breakfast on new year's day 1900. i soon learned though that interviews really would only get me part of the story. and that the rest i would have to fill in from contemporary books to pamphlets, propaganda, an awful lot of sheet music, and sometimes artifacts. i discovered along the way that sometimes the whole story wo reveal itself to me for

many years. and that i would have to be patient and to illustrate that point i want to tell you the story of a gentleman named eugene. eugene lee had been a marine. i first learned about him not from the french list but, in fact, from a newspaper article published in small upstate new york newspaper shortly before veterans day 2003. the article was mostly about local world war ii veterans, but at the very end there was a short little paragraph and it said that eugene lee, the only world war i veteran in the area still living was 104 years old eugene lee of syracuse. and then added, and i quote, that he was quote no longer able to give interviews. which i take as a personal challenge. i called up the reporter who was very gracious and told me that the source of that information was a jump in named ji casey.

as i said, eugene lee was a former marine. so was jim casey but he served in the late 1950s. mr. lee was a widower and had no children. as close as family was in nice. so jim casey was sort of an adopted son take a look in on mr. lee, took them out to eat sometimes. was a gatekeeper. i told mr. casey what i wanted to do. and he said that mr. lee in fact could be spoken to but that is mainly was kind of spotty. some days it was good to sometimes not so good but when it was is a pretty got frustrated with himself. they told me to come on up anyway if are willing to risk, which i certain was. and so on december 3, 2003, i walked into the long-term care wing of the hospital in syracuse and that 104 year old eugene lee. born on march 24, 1899, in new york, a small town that is not essential to a part of c. refuse. and so he turned 18 just a

couple of weeks before the united states entered world war i. and as soon as the united states did enter world war i, he dropped out of high school. he only had a couple months left to go and enlisted in the marine corps. for those of you are advocates of education and feel badly about that, i can assure you that mr. lee did indeed eventually get his high school diploma. in fact, he was awarded his diploma on his birthday, which was his 104th birthday. he had their proud on display in his room when i visited him that day. so we enlisted right after america entered the war, and was sent down to the camp in philadelphia. and assigned to the 51st company of the fifth marine regiment. they were shipped over to france very early, in june 1917. so just a couple of months after america entered the war or an effect he arrived in france just about a week or so after john j. pershing, the commander-in-chief of the american expeditionary forces, arrived in france.

general pershing was very reluctant to commit untrained american troops to fight. and this was to the consternation of his british and french allies who wanted fresh manpower in the ranks right away. they wanted to use americans as their own troops which was essentially as replacement troops often given the most dangerous duty of distracting the enemy to protect actual british and french troops. general pershing wanted none of this. and so eugene lee spent his first year in france entirely in the training. but then in the spring of 1918, the germans launched a tremendously successful offensive but it was the most successful offensive that anyone had launched in four years. they got to within 40 miles of paris, and the allies were in panic. the french made plans to evacuate the capitol and and the state government to bordeaux. secretly, french and british

commanders were telling each other that they thought perhaps the war was lost, and at this point the french reached out to general pershing and begged him to commit a couple of american divisions to fight. and general pershing responded and agree committee committed the second and third infantry division's to the battle. they were sent so close to paris, as i said only about 40 miles, that today people regularly commute every day between one and the other. the to marine regiments that were in france at the time, the fifth and sixth marines, and privately was in the fifth marines, were part of the second u.s. division. they arrived at the very end of may 1918 and beat the germans back. the germans fell back into well fortified positions that they had set up previously at a place called bella would which is only a few miles away.

there they have set up concrete fortifications and lots and lots of machine-gun nests. the french asked transport if you'd send division up to bella would defend the germans out. so general pershing sent the second u.s. infantry division up there which included those two marine regiments. and accounts of the marines and the entire second division marching from the château a few miles up the bellawood are really wonderful if you read them. this was still very early in america's war. american troops have not been bloody get, and they had been in france 24 year. they were terribly excited to get into the fight to contemporary accounts have them walking up really struggling with the chest thrust out, laughing and clowning around, joking with each other, talking about what they're going to be o once they get there. and the entire way there in

countering french troops, ragged, hagrid, tired, scared french troops coming the other way. telling them to turn back. and there's a famous story about a marine corps officer named captain lloyd williams, from virginia, and a french officer came up to him and said, come a derogatory french term for the germans. bochum bosch of the. you must retreat and captain williams now legendary response was retreat? hell, we just got here. which seem to some of the american attitude at that point of the war. so the americans got there and they dug into position, cross a mile wide wheatfield from bellwether by the way the germans tried to break out. the americans pushed them back. this happened several times. it on june 6, 1918, 26 years to the day before the invasion of

normandy, the marines decided to go on the attack. and it was a bad day. the commander of the second division, general james did not care very much or artillery support of infantry attack. so what this meant was that the marines had to launch the initial attack against entrenched german positions in belleau wood across a mile wide open wheatfield. if you can just imagine crossing a mile wide open we field against machine-gun nest hidden in the woods, you know what they're up against. as eugene lee described to me 85 years later, they would go forward in ways. so one wave would run forward and then flattened themselves on the ground and then another way would follow and flattened themselves on and on and on. even so it was deadly business. onthfirst day, jim six,

1918, the marines lost 1100 men. it was their worst day in history to that point. they did make it to belleau wood by the end of the day, of that first day, but the germans who were notorious for counterattacking, counterattacked shortly thereafter and drove them out. and for the next three weeks this pattern repeated itself. the americans would take all or part of the woods to the germans would take it back. the americans would take it back from the germans, and on and on and on. until finally it on june 26, 1918, the americans took the woods and held them for good. this was the first major military encounter between american and german troops in the war and it was the first major victory for american troops in the war. it was such a victory, in fact, that general pershing, i don't know how much you know about the

man, but you could actually call him stonefaced. he was not given to making bold pronouncements or frankly even smiling very much, issued a jubilant statement that the devil is weapon in the world is a marine and his rifle. and as a result, ever since bella wood has been tremendously important to marines. general amos, the commandant of the mentor told me that it was the birth of a modern marine corps. but it was a very costly birth. in fact, the bill was just all under 10,000 casualties in the course of three weeks. one of those casualties on june 12, 1918, was captain lloyd williams, the gentleman who said retreat? hell, we just got here. he was killed by fire on june 12, 1918. another casualty on that day was private eugene lee, 19, shot through the wrist.

but before he was evacuated, trained to help evacuate seriously wounded marines. and for that he was eventually awarded the silver star, which is the second highest decoration patty murray and can get. certainly one of the highest decorations awarded to anybody i interviewed. he was very modest about it, too. when i told him he said i don't know why they gave it to me. and i said well, i think they gave it to you for evacuating more wounded marines and even though you were going to do so. he said well, he didn't think about that. and he meant that. but he was eventually evacuated himself and he was sent to a hospital. and while in the hospital, he made the acquaintance of another marine who had been wounded the day before private lee had. this is a gentleman named joe. i regretted for many years after that interview that i didn't ask mr. lee how you spell j'same because i tried to find any

information i could about you and america for anything but i tried every spelling i could think of. i could never find any information about him, other than what eugene lee told me. fortunately, transitory a great deal about him. those were some of his sharpest memories were about his friend jill. they met playing baseball in the hospital. they send her nest -- progress to throwing dice to give. joe was quite good at picking made enough money to take the two of them to paris, which is a pretty good place to spend money. and they talked about what to do once they got sent back to the front and what they did after the war. joe winook was from pennsylvania so they didn't live too far apart from one of. they were sent back to the front pretty much at the same time. joe winook had been in the 45th company of the fifth marines bu heested a

transfer to 51st company, eugene lee's company, so they did so because of the internet to be a good thing for both of them that they did so together because they arrived back at the front just in time for the start of the battle of mercer gone. what was the last great battle of the war to start on september 26, 1918 and it didn't end until november 11, 1918 when armistice ended the antiwar. in that time more than 26,000 americans were killed but it remains to this day the deadliest battle that americans troops have ever participated in. so this is what they faced together and i got back to the front. now, i want to move it a little bit back to 2003 when i'm in syracuse and interviewing eugene lee, jim casey zimmerman. after the interview was done and i packed up my equipment and jim casey was walking out, he pulled something out of a little file folder and showed it to me. it was very interesting. it was a picture of a mess kit cover, andar cover

was eugene lee's name and his company. so it was his mess kit cover. it didn't look too good, but that was because it had been buried in the earth for 80 years. he dropped it on june 12, 1918, the day he'd been shot through the wrist. and 80 years later a french world what enthusiastic collector dug it up near a village, part of the belly would -- bellwood of the. he did a little research and discovered to his astonishment that the owner of this mess kit cover buried in the earth for 80 years was still alive. and in a feel good movie, he would've sent it back to eugene lee who would've left i would ho his knees and maybe amusing. maybe it would even be in the smithsonian. but in reminded that life is not

a feel good movie, i was told that what i said was that the collector who found it, having discovered that its owner was incredibly still alive and realizing that this made them much more valuable, sold it on ebay instead. instead. [laughter] i asked jim casey was bought it. he said he didn't know. but he said that if i ever made it to france i should look up a job in named -- he might be able to tell me something about it. so five f. years later i did make a difference and it did look up the man. is a very interesting felt the heat is in a very small town which is very close to bellwood and i grew up hearing stories about bellwood. started scavenging and collecting from a very young age. everything he had was house in a bar next to his house in this little village. very old house in a very old

born. the entire upstairs of the barn was essentially a museum, but it wasn't what you think of when you hear the words french museum. most of the collection was stored in boxes that were labeled 1995 and the like. almost everything was covered by a lot of rust. and he had just about everything. yet helmets and shoes and first aid kits and tobacco tins, toothbrushes and forks and knives, identification disks, about 40 of them. some of them were displayed in cases in the front room. most of it as i said was just in boxes in the back room. it was hard to get too. my favorite thing in the museum and certainly the most striking thing was he had a five-foot tall section of tree trunk that had been carved by a marine that was dated july 17, 1918, and the marine much of that old it is of

time understand because even managed to carve a good likeness of the inland of the united states marine corps, which is an eagle atop a globe superimposed on an anchor. it was something spectacular. as i said, five-foot tall chunk of tree trunk. and i asked him how he happened to get that. and he smiled and said, it wasn't easy. it really made quite an impression but an amusing is very popular with marines. as i said, belleau wood is in them is important in the a great many of them make pilgrimages to the air each -- to the area each year. he proudly pointed out to meet a friend certificate on the wall making him an honorary marine, and it was really something. so after a while of him showing me around, i asked him about

this mess kit cover, and all of a sudden this man who had been so friendly and so delighted to show me around, he is a big guy, too. in the book i described him as being built like a shipping crate. all of a sudden he got very nervous. and he said, yes, he heard about that but he didn't know who had the, who sold and who bought it. and i came to understand that there's a community of world war i scavengers and collectors in france. but it's a shadow we lead, and they don't really like each other very much. they don't like to even speak to each other. and that could be in part because the kind of digging that they have done around ballot would come and have been doing for many decades, has also been

illegal for several decades. in the 1970s france banned the use of metal detectors and scavenging world war i battlefields. and that may be part of it. it may just be the competition but i don't know what it is, but he got very nervous and told me that he did know anything about it in a way that left me unsure whether he was telling me the truth. but i was certain that it was going to learn anything more about it from him. so i left his place disappointed, frankly. now, the next day i was in the village which is close to the belleau wood battlefield and i noticed that the little museum in the village which is really the only thing of any note in the village happened to be opened it i been in air for about a week already. people have been telling all that time that i needed to go to instigate. but like a lot of things in small town france, it -- it kept very to record hours and not many of them. i was delighted when i saw was open to st a ty went in there and looked around.

there wasn't very much that i hadn't seen already in the time that i've been in area, but i did notice they had quite a few world war i artifacts on display but and unlike the stuff that the other place, it was all enacted. it looked like it was brand-new. it made quite an approach. there was a little card next to one of the display cases saying that these things had come from the collection of a gentleman. site as the museum curator it should give me his phone number. and the french not being nearly as concerned with privacy as we are, she gave it to me right away. so i called him up, and rightly he sounded kind of nervous. and i told him i was and why i was there. and i said i had seen part of his clothing is amusing and i like to come over and see. and his response was, and -- which i didn't take as a yes.

so i decided to play the best card i had in my hand right away. i told him that i had met eugene lee. i figure someone knows as much about belleau wood, this will be meaningful to them, and i was right but because his response was, and over. he lived in a modern house, a very nice house, the edge of balogh. very different from the other place which was quite old. and the first thing i noticed when he welcome inside was that he had a state-of-the-art security system which was very unusual in small town france. he seemed very nervous by my presence, but he invited me upstairs. and i tried everything i could think of to get him to be more at ease with me. even to the point of them i should say, his name is george was in sf in at his last name is bailly. so h g bailey.

and so asked him how things aree going at the bedford falls savings and loan. [laughter] he did not respond as you all did. or even at all. but by the but he got a little more comfortable with me and let me upstairs. escalations house in one enormous room, the entire upstairs of his house. and it was just something to see. he had mannequins with complete german uniforms on them. they were impeccable. on one wall he had a rack with 40 or so there's been a spike of german helmets. each and everyone of them looked like they were brand-new, and he took me over and started showing me them, and he showed me that every single one of them was somehow subtly different from every other one. this was from a saxon regiment. this one from a bavarian regiment. this is a calvary officers.

this was an engineer's. he'd go on and on about these things. the bulk of his collection was house in a series of massive cabinets over on another wall. very large doors any open up some and show them to me. one of them was just full of identification disks. that's all of us. it must've represented hundreds of men, german, american, french. another one was full of insignia and pieces of uniform. another one full of bullets and cartridges. another one full of contrary, force, knives, spoons, on and on and on. and on another wall of this large room he had a series of file cabinets. and in each one, each one was full of index cards it in each index card represented a single item in his collection. thousands and thousands and thousands of items, each one detailed on its own index card,

meticulously organized. as much as he had, he knew exactly where everything was. and he got so excited talking about all of this that he let it slip that not only was a collector but he was also a dealer. which in certain circles in france is fighting words. but i recognize this as sort of the moment that he finally let his guard down, so i jumped in and i told him about the mess kit cover, and i asked him who had it. and he said, oh, yes, i heard about that. somebody else bought it. and i said, who? and he just went -- which really didn't tell me very much except that he wasn't going to tell me. whether he knew or not i don't know. then he turned the tables on me and he asked me a question. he said, did you really meet eugene lee? and i suggested it. i interviehim on december 3,

2003. mr. lee had died a day after his 105th birthday on march 25, 2004. and i told him about the interview and the stories he told me about investing in belleau wood and -- in listing and belleau wood. and then georges bailly got a smile on his face and it was a very mysterious smile. and he said to me, do you know the name joe winook? and i just kind of looked at him for a minute, and i said, yes, i do. he was a very good friend of eugene lee. mr. lee told me an awful lot about him. but how do you know the name joe winook? get into anything but he just smiled and he went -- and he scurried over to a file cabinet and he opened a drawer and deflected index cards for a

couple of in italy find one is looking for. he took it out, he held it up, he read it and they walked room to one of those big cabinets. opened up a chore. i saw it was a drawer full of calgary, forks, knives and spoons to conduct around in it for a couple of minutes. and pulled out a fork. he held the fork up and inspect it for a minute and then crossed the room with a trumpet look on his face. he handed it to me. and i took a look at this fork. it was dark oxidized but in perfect condition. and it had a six digit string number on it, and for letters. wnuk. and he showed me the index card, and it said wnuk, joseph f., four, found november 5, 1993. and he had a tremendous amount

of information on joe winook to get the date of enlistment which was april 271970 and in philadelphia, pa. he had his eye patients. joe winook had also won a silver star. he had the day he was wounded, june 11, 1918, the location he was wounded and on and on and on. i should point out he found this fork in 1993. so he found all this information well before google. it was really, really impressive. but there was one piece of the story that he didn't have. and i did have this piece of the story because i had met eugene lee, and that's this. after they got sent back, they worked hard to keep each of the spirits of. they talked a lot about what they've done in hospitals and what they do once they got hundred the fight was often terrible. but never quite areas, too, or relatively quiet. but even during these quiet periods though germans

wanted to let the americans know that they were still out there. so every once in a while they would send a show for mile or two of way just let the americans know they were still out the big the americans would respond in kind. one night, 51st company of the fifth marine regiment was crossing the river and the germans threw up a shell and it that landed behind them in the river. and it killed joe wnuk. and the night in question was november 10, 1918. was the last night of the war. maybe 12 hours left. until the armistice. and like i said, i only knew that part of the story because i have met eugene lee and he shared with me at the last possible moment his memories of world war i, and of the 51st company of the fifth bring regiment in belleau wood and his friend, joe wnuk.

and you know, eugene lee had told me at some point, recounting something is telling me a story he hadn't told anybody else in 50, 60, 70 years. a lot of people said that to me, and asked him why not come and he told me something that a bunch of people told me as well which was that nobody asked. ..

>> now even the last of the doughboys argon we still have these artifacts commander for lucky we know the stories and the memories that are connected to them. that tied the set sundown in the book. up to enjoy it. thank you for coming. [applause] i'm happy to take questions. unbidden yes, sir. >> there is another book that was published in the last two years. it's written by an englishman. you probably know it. it consists mainly of an interview or interview format of people knew experienced world war one. this year but also follow a similar? >> my butt -- well, those books, and the combative interviews and

archives of the imperial war museum. end a very important part of the narrative is who were these people were still around to talk about it, 85, 86, 87 years afterward. and so i tell the story as if i am inviting the reader along minute journey to meet these people. so there is more to it than straight oral history, and that was really more than just high-minded. it was really necessary because when you're dealing with people that old, recalling things that long ago even though, as you know, the answer to where you went high-school, not everybody's memory was so vivid. and there were big holes in just about every story that i heard, and you really have to go around

them to fill those roles in. i felt that it was important to make sure that those polls were filled and because this is really the last opportunity to tell the stories. so thanks. >> did you encounter any one? >> no. i did not encounter any veterans to declined to speak with me, but i did encounter veterans' families who were not interested in having me speak to their father or grandfather or a reboot for fear that this would be dredging up unpleasant memories. and that is reasonable. but the good -- the good part of the story is that not only were the few dozen men and women i interviewed, not only were they willing to speak to me, but theo

me. a lot of them i think recognize that time was short and did not want these stories to die with them. they wanted to pass them on to somebody else. so -- a funny story that i tell sometimes is that this one gentlemen i interviewed, his name was george bryan. he was 103 years so when i met him. his wife was 101 and was not so keen on talking to me. fact the white -- in fact, heat she told me i'm going to have to keep mom distracted says she is that there. i said, well, that's okay. like to have family members in the room. i find it helps our memory. she said, oh, no. you do not want her there. and she was there any way. she was not able to distract her godmother.

sold 101 year-old wife was there. we should point that that at the time i interviewed him, a september 18th 2004, they had been married for 83 years. and i found out very quickly that her objection to my interviewing her husband was not that it might dredge up but pleasant memories but that was not there to interview her. and you will see, i have not posted video, but i have a website to mother last of the doughboys. and i have posted of video clips and eventually will put this one up as well. you will see that only he is on camera, but you can very clearly hear her voice off-camera answering questions that have been posed to him. and that might add in a very thick, cajun accent. so i did interview him. it was one of the more remarkable experiences periods answer your question the veterans were all perfectly

happy to speak with me, and that was probably the greatest lucky break i had an all time. >> i am not familiar with doughboy. where that comes from. >> it is actually disputed. the term refers to an american infantrymen of the american expeditionary forces of world war one, a very specific terms. does not even refer to a sailor. they're is a different piece that was used to describe the assailant. it has disappeared from our lexicon. the origins are disputed. a lot of different theories. the two leading ones as far as i know, the first one dates back to the mexican war of the 1840's the american infantry were spotted marching through a dusty mexican landscape covered in dust. somebody remarked that they look like it had been rolled and flour. the other leading theory is that the salvation army volunteers went over to france and/or one

and set up campaigns serving hot coffee and doughnuts. this was the first time that a great many americans encountered the dog that. before that it was our regional trade. and after that the down that became popular throughout america. like that theory better even though i think it is probably more likely the first one. yeah. >> i remember johnnie doughboy. it really -- my father was one of those people who left school at age 16 and joined the army here from high school. and he was very proud to do that. he came back and finished. went to france. and i have some letters that he wrote to my mother from france. and artifacts, i have his purpleheart. he was guest. and also a bullet shell. and on it 1918.

>> is very common actually. it was a whole field -- >> i have to talk to -- [laughter] >> i wonder if anyone tried to call. that is called trenchard. soldiers at all lot of down time in the trenches. they would often carved things. kind of like sailors did scrimshaw earlier so it is very interesting. i have heard from a lot of people since this book was published we tell me that they never realized that they had somebody in the family in world war one into the open and alceste and found a bunch of papers were opened in all but it was on the shelf and found a letter home. people dug artifacts out of the earth.

you don't have to dig. every time the field is plum, every time. every time those walking through a field in the town of romaine, france. the morning of june of two dozen nine. and a couple of minutes into the found the five bullets sitting on the surface. nearby, five cartridges from a bavarian uniform. just as i was about to leave a look down and there was a shell just sitting on the dirt, and just been plowed up the morning and they gentlemen probably saved me from myself because my first impulse was to bend over and pick up. every year in france people are killed or maimed by unexploded world war one ordinance. experts say that this kind of stuff is going to continue to pop up for two or 300 years.

things like letters and purple hearts and things like that will also continue to pop up. and, you know, keep reminding us that we were in world war one to . >> i have a question. i assume that since you are oriented to the narrative that you did not get much into actual conditions and the chances living in the mud, dysentery, disease, how long people lasted, how they put up with. >> oh, sure i did. >> okay. the difficulty was that the men that i interviewed for the most part were very stoic. and so they were disinclined to remember conditions as being very bad.

and so that gentlemen i told about, the one who i read the quote from, he served in france longer than just about any american. his division was the first division to go over and fall. and i asked him one point, what were the chances like. he just said, there were fine. you know, wooden boards and the bottom. the kind of describe the actual assemblage of a trench. but he did not talk about what you often read about when you read about the trenches which is there were terrible place to be. there were muddy in filthy in full of rats and mice of. he said to me was that nothing can ever really been our firm and is live. i know that that's not true. i asked him at one point did you ever did cast. he said, oh, yeah. practically all of the show said gas and in. i was done because if you know anything about world war one, you know about gas, and it did

terrible things to people. it could kill you combined you, blister your skin, take years and years to kill you. like my mother told me, 60 years on their people and never recovered from being passed. i said to him, was that like? and he said, it was not too bad. i lost my force for a few days. came back eventually. and that was really the stage for what was going to your for most of the people i interviewed very stoic people. an average of 107 years old. >> sow grizzly that they really don't. there were press. >> it could be. could be. we did talk about conditions. that was one of the areas.

another veteran, a gentleman named moses party was a pioneer infantry regiment, and those were combat engineers. they work very close to the front. and when i asked him, you know, did you ever -- were you ever in danger, he said no. later i found a history of his regimen and read a account of the service. turn that he had been in danger of the time, almost every day since he arrived in france. so, you know, that is -- that is -- it could be memory. could be just a lesson. i certainly did ask about it. ma'am. >> women as well. >> i did. interviewed three women, two of them baronesses.

added not get to interview any of them, but i did interview three women, two of them or what was best -- well, there were among the very first ever to serve. this served in the navy. this is a forgotten episode of world war one, but their service was as a result of a clerical error. very long and detailed. went into great detail about everything you had to do to be qualified to serve, but forgot to mention the have to be male. somebody mentioned this to the secretary of the navy in 1917. to his credit he said let this stand. before the war was over 11,000 women enlisted in the navy for and serve in uniform. there were what was known as yell minutes which is a name and sounds rather quaint today, perhaps a bit archaic. but they diy clerical

work in washington, all but five of them served stateside. they were all discharged immediately after the armistice, whether they wanted out and not, but it became very active. they founded the american legion posts. the agitated for better conditions for women and really set the stage for women to serve and much, much greater numbers and world war two. that would not have been possible without the program. the third member i interviewed was a civilian who had been, as she told us, drafted to work for the war department in washington. in 18 year-old rebecca in the bronx, daughter of swedish immigrants. she was a secretary. one day her boss told her to go downtown and take a civil servant exam. she did and a few weeks later she added teledrama their home and abroad to 1:00 in the morning telling her to report to washington on december 17th 1917. she told me she called the war asome tert the next day and

christmas instead and they said no. and she went and worked for the war department and took a cut in pay, she had to pay her own room and board. but she loved it and continue to work for the government for years after the war. so those are the three women now was fortunate enough to interview. >> your book is subtitled the forgotten generation and they're forgotten world war. why did you and/or your publisher decide to call it forgotten? >> well -- >> i don't think of it has forgotten. >> i'm glad you do. but really the world war one has been forgotten. get any big box bookstore in the history of the department and you will see cases and cases of books about the civil war and in cases and cases of the world war ii and the shelf above world war one.

and really, you know, i almost did not notice it as chris said when he was introducing me, there are more monuments in this countrone and any other war almost every time you get to will have one, even if they don't have the civil war monument. but if you want to know all the of to do bike -- it's tremendously important. go across being -- i don't know about germany. i can tell you that in england and france when they say the war, they mean the first world war. and so it is really quite striking. >> i was looking at something in a fashion that your folks did. i remembered.

>> finding housing for refugees and one a legion of honor award. >> you wrote a wonderful book about it, the name of which escapes me. none of the veterans i interviewed had smart phones. in fact, there was one moment to my question i like to ask everybody which was what was something that you wish to see if you never could have imagined a first on my interview franc buckle he ended up being america's last four or one veteran, he died in february of 2011 at the age of 110. aston, what is something to bypass that question, what is something you live to see the you never could have imagined when you're younger. that thing in your pocket their wrangle we were talking. which immediately embarrassed me you know, it is a pretty fascinating thing when you consider that these were men and women who grew up without so

much as electricity or automobiles. snaking into the age a broad and internet and some funds. lawrence moffett, the cinnamon and massachusetts and i interviewed at one point toward the end of the interview as michele i learned about then i had done research on the internet. this was in july and 2003. he said, i keep hearing about the internet. can you tell me about it. i started telling him about it. is this something you join? which makes perfect sense because this is a man who spent his life, has a dull life and insurance. you know, he lived in connecticut and often worked in new york, a member of a couple of clubs. that was how he saw it. i kind of explain it to him, and i said, i think you would really like it. he was quiet for a second. do i need? and i laughed and said net don't

think you all for coming. [applause] vicar -- go to the website, last of the doughboys. photos, video clips, or one music. you can also contact me to the website and i hope you will. >> i live up the coast. so i had to come to maine to write. >> a lot of people do. >> a very good place to write. >> i would be delighted to. [applause] >> wonderful. >> well, thank you. how did you hear rdy

>> history. amateur history. >> phar-mor and permission visit the out this website. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. here is a prime-time lineup for tonight. beginning at 7:00 eastern they present their book the metropolitan revolution. at 8:00 we will hear from andrew, his book is the man who lost america. the american revolution and the fate of the empire. at 9:00 eastern. an interview with scott snyder of the council on foreign relations. she talked about the book brothers of war, the unending conflict in korea. after that at 10:00 eastern the presentation of the adventures in the confederacy by author peter carlson. and we conclude tonight's prime time programming 11:00 eastern with a look at the capture of shape rivera.

all happens tonight on it c-span book tv. >> i had daily nocturnal pain. metastatic prostate cancer, cancer to the loan. and a week ago. i would challenge anyone in integrated medicine to say, could you have done that? if somebody has hiv or hepatitis c you need the right medications if someone fractures a bone you probably need a slang in the good orthopedic surgeon. so western medicine does amazing things. we should not forget that.

somebody needs a liver transplant. i had a patients who could survive zero liver transplants and two years later run the boston marathon. cure somebody's reason. but there is in my mind a certain limit to a. so it has a role. i have experienced. i had arthroscopic knee surgery. out of the blue suddenly money was swollen. i cancelled the gulf war was going to play that weekend which was very depressing. beautiful summer spring day in

boston. and then i made a friend and she said, you had mentioned that you got relief from your back pain, i herniated disk. i actually went and saw that lady. and my knee was hurting. it was swollen. i got acupuncture. in the parking lot of the country club. she kicked her foot into the air. see of it is. so the next day, friday, around 4:00 i called the acupunctures earlier in the morning. i went to see her, and so did the acupuncture. i got up. if you could compare one need to the other, some latest volley is gone, the pain is gone. i could not believe it. i don't understand how it happened. i called. my wife was not there. rider on the cellphone. she was going to come on two hours later from shopping. went to the country club and play nine holes of golf. so i benefited from acupuncture

and things of that sort. [laughter] i'd pass it on. >> have benefited from my practice hospitalized, but i agree with what was said. my question because as a very specific question about enumeration. now, come from harvard medical school. the places like that. but some statistic. [laughter] some statistic. we can look them up. between 36 to 40 percent of patients who suffered from a cartridge and the disease which means disease that has been the result of medical treatment.

it would make a bit of a difference except for money. next time you watch television sexual impotence and cause death. the worst common, coronary bypass. it does not prolong life. it is the most common procedure. the second most common procedure is angioplasty. it does not prolong life or stabilize more than 3 percent of people. alarming statistics. being done everywhere. back surgery, 98 percent is

useless. 95 percent is useless. so we are talking about huge amounts of money that are spent on procedures. my father, our father makes the diagnosis, the neurological diagnoses with precision. today if you have a headache and get to the emergency room, if you don't walk out with a cat scan, mri, you're lucky. okay. nobody has the time to do it. so we have a crisis. health reform reform, it is insurance reform. it has nothing to do with health most of the expenditure is end of life. nobody is allowed to die in the house. i just. i am not going to die and hospital. i am not going to have any of these resuscitator procedures. i have been in community hospitals whether the same

standard does not apply, and i see doctors electing hyperkalemia are idle -- a little minor -- not minor, but aberration electrolytes. if incorrect it would cause the patient to die. keep electing it even know what is there is -- now live there. so a lot of what we call prolongation of survival is actually prolongation of suffering. a lot of patients and relatives, the only people make money by the medical providers. so this has been a huge problem. i have discussed with politicians. i have even brought it up to our president. okay. but we have a system -- [applause] we have a system. [applause] we have a system, and this, again, nothing to do with a gold standard. [laughter] we have a system. for every congressman third 28 lobbyists in washington. they're on the business -- they

are either medical industrial complex lobbyists or they are military industry. so, you know, where do we think our country makes money? pakistan, afghanistan, india. go to dubai. we have huge problems when the incentives for treatment becomes money. becomes. [indiscernible] what is he going to tell you? what do you think -- how did they make money? every treatment. am i saying you should not have? there b? no. i am saying question. i asked everyone here to be a difficult patient. question your doctor's. get the statistics. go and get the information.

you will know more than the average medical provider. [applause] >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> up next, "after words" with guest host vincent bzdek. this week barbara parry and her latest book, the life and times of a political matriarch. using newly released diaries and letters a presidential historian exports the contribution to and influence over her famed family dynasty. this program is about an hour. >> it is good to be here with you talking about the kennedys. i think both of us having grown up catholic, i think the kennedys have a particular resonance for us. i wanted to star ryan often best you your supreme court's dollar, presidential scholar. how do you get i