curious in the majority of cases there is a traumatic event that it can be traced back to or it just develops and there's nothing you can attribute it to? >> that could be an accumulation of things. the shade term of moral injury. people are starting to pay more and more attention at that and that's not pretend this all makes us us on the military side of the equation. there is trauma in the civilian world as well. you guys might disagree but to me the commonality here is when something happens in your life whether it's a single event or an accumulation of things but it's not just trauma. something happens that just rattles you down to your bones. you either succumb to it or you get busy trying to recover and whether it's tbi or ptsd or a

civilian in the military is one of you guys were saying life comes with. trauma necessarily comes with attempts at recovery. that's what we do and to get back to an earlier point of the whole idea of what has to be careful here because of the whole notion of perpetuating the stereotype of a soldier and so on. the fact is they are our broken soldiers from these wars. it doesn't mean they are going to be forever broken. probably most of them -- back but that doesn't mean you dismiss this moment as you know other words were tougher trade we have always had a version of this. people have figured out themselves, we don't have to act as reactive before. we can advance an act with more compassion and understanding than we have in the past. >> it became one of the legal

issues and the benefits trial for my son whether we could point to a particular incident that had caused trauma. and we couldn't. there were three possibilities of times that he had been in trauma that one of the symptoms was that he wouldn't talk about it. and i think that is a frequent symptom and certainly something we learned about the second world war, that vast numbers of people came home from the second world war worth vastly changed and wouldn't talk about it. that's part of a soldier mista mistake, a man of few words. and clearly what helps is getting them to talk about it. in many cases. >> hi. you mentioned, was mentioned on the panel bush and cheney and i think even rumsfeld. what i wanted to know is what the panelists are doing to prevent the united states from

going into another war particularly ukraine where we contributed to overthrow the government. syria which is heating up again and all the other places that we are meddling in. what are we doing to prevent this so we don't have more discussions about ptsd and tbi and all these things under a democratic president by the way. >> so i wonder what you're doing. >> to answer your question i guess for me and i'm not specifically a politically, don't see my role as political activism but there is a political inextricable lyrical element to ptsd and the sense and i think this is where it's good to recognize that there are broken soldiers out there because the soldiers that are suffering are symbolic of all of the suffering that went on and all of the suffering that the war has conflicted. and i was one of the original

things about the original architects that helped set ptsd down and get recognized by psychiatry. we don't want, we don't entirely want this to be a curable condition because we must remember the pain of a war. we must remember the losses of war so as far as how we interpret the work i'm doing now and trying to use ptsd come a think ptsd is many things that in addition to it being a psychiatric disorder as recognized as also symbolic in a poetic thing. it's a symbol that you could talk to someone and you can see there is a symbol of a soldier who paid for his country that we are forced to pay for his or her treatment and to deal with their story, to deal with the testimony. people are more interested now in ptsd than they are in the wars that we just left because people are seeing their spouses and children come back with it

so it's an issue that people are wrestling with. i think that is -- i can't think of many things i would do a better job at keeping us out of fighting another stupid war. i don't know if i fully satisfied your question. >> my answer would be that writers write and the way that we try to be activists, those of us who do consider consider ourselves activists hactivist and unlike the journalists i do because of my experience but you know, your question is a valid one and the answer so pitifully small. i don't make $25 here and sign a petition they are but what i am really doing is writing the story that i went through. >> we are out of time but i think we have time for one quick question. >> one of my subspecialties at cal state is teaching university level mathematics to learning disabled students.

i had a first ptsd this semester. strategy. we don't have a medical diagnosis. all it is ptsd. the circuits are broken. tragically impaired. no adequate diagnosis and we don't have -- we have ph.d. so we don't have medical doctors. the tragedy continues. >> please thank the panel for coming. [applause] we will all be around after a bird -- afterword. if you have any more questions. [inaudible conversations]

>> i tell the story about how i do use every aspect of whose identity is in one way or another a threat to israel and my gender is male. my religion is muslim. my citizenship is america but my nationality is iranian. my ethnicity is persian. my culture is middle eastern. everything about me sends off all the warning signals for israel. so the experience of an iranian american single man trying to

get through the koran airport in the 21st century is there a minder to everyone that despite political position has brought us closer and has diminished the boundaries that separate us as nations as ethnicities as people and cultures despite all of that all you have got to do is spend a few minutes trying to get through bangor in airport to remember that those divisions, those things that separate us are still very much alive.

>> attorney kenneth feinberg has announced a compensation plan for victims and families of people killed or injured in car accidents related to the faulty ignition switches and general motors cars. he spoke at the national press club for an hour. >> good morning ladies and shoeman and thank you all for coming this way. my name is kenneth feinberg and i have been assigned the task of designing and administering the gm admission compensation claims resolution protocol, the gm ignition switch compensation program. i want to spend a few minutes this morning a an overview of the program and how we got where we are. secondly i want to summarize the eligibility criteria for claimants who can file a claim and third, i want to explain a bit of dollars and the

compensation is available under the program. we started drafting this protocol ii months ago. initially at gm's request. we have reached out to a wide for i.d. of individuals and institutions to get as much information as we could about what ought to be in this program. i think general lotus for their total cooperation in establishing this program and they are finding it without any cap on the aggregate amount of money that's going to be available. gm basically has said whatever it costs to pay all eligible claims under the protocol they will pay it. there is no ceiling on the aggregate dollars.

also, gm has said under this program anybody who already settled their claim with general motors before they knew about this cover-up or this ignition switch problem, may rip up their release they signed an come back into this program to get additional compensation. so i have read that there are some individuals who already settled and give up their right to sue in return for compensation. they may now ignore that release and come into this program and receive additional compensation. the program will begin to receive claims on august 1 of this year, a month from now and i want to thank the deputy

minister at her my colleague for 35 years camile who is right here in the front row. camille has worked with me on virtually every one of these compensation programs over the years and she will be hereafter the press to answer additional questions that the individual media may have. the program will commence on august 1. it will begin to receive claims between now and august 1. we will have the claim forms, the web site. we are translating the claim forms into french-canadian and spanish. but it will be august to one when begin to accept claims. all claims must be postmarked no later than december 31, the end of this year. for accidents that occurred anytime any time up to

december 31, the gm bankruptcy is no bar to filing a claim under this program. there is no bar. if an individual was injured or killed as has been unfortunate in one of the sacraments of the four after the bankruptcy it doesn't matter the date of the accident. the bankruptcy will not be a barrier of any type to the filing of a claim. now we want these we have to stick around in 22015 because people will file claims, some of them late in the year and will need time to process the claims during 2015. but if you file a claim a few points should be made about the overall program. first, the program is entirely voluntary. nobody is required to file a claim. this is a voluntary program.

second, once your claim is submitted, and we deem it substantially complete, that is the test of documents necessary, we will process that claim. be there if it's a simple claim that will process it within 90 days. if it's a more complicated claim which i will explain in a bed, we will process that claimed within 180 days for the time it is substantially complete. we will work as fast as we can to get compensation voluntarily submitted claims out the door to eligible claimants. a few other points about the program. any contributory negligence of

the driver intoxication, speeding, texting on a cell phone etc., irrelevant under this program, a relevant. this program is about general motors and ignition switches. we have no interest in evaluating any alleged contributory negligence on the part of the driver. it is totally irrelevant. we have no interest. this program is aimed at compensation for disaffected switches, not anything about the driver. who is eligible under this program? let's discuss eligibility. the following individuals can find under this program the driver. any passengers in the automobile, and a pedestrian,

and the occupants of the second vehicle involved in the accident all eligible to file a claim. you are not limiting this program to just drivers of a particular vehicle. and as i said contributory negligence not a factor here at all. now, eligibility. there are a couple of prerequisites to filing a claim. first, as the protocol spells out on pages two and three, for a claim to be eligible, it must involve one of the model make in your automobiles listed in the protocol.

if the automobile that was driven and above of an accident is not listed in the protocol that you have, the claim is ineligible. don't bother filing it. i am confident i will get many claims involving automobiles that i have listed. i will get claims based on experience, mercedes, jaguars, cadillacs rebuild it and they will come. you will get a great many claims that the only automobiles that are eligible to be considered are the automobiles listed in this protocol and if that automobile, that model, that year is an automobile involved in an accident that automobile is eligible to be considered for compensation. if the airbag deployed in the accident -- air bag deployment

seatbelt deployment means the powers on the automobile. in eligible. it couldn't have been ignition switch. now i haven't seen a claim yet eligible. i'm trying to work my way through potential claims. i have seen many claims were at the airbag did not deploy or we don't know whether the arab bag deployed. eligible. if we know the airbag deployed the power is on. there may have been a verbal accident but it's not the ignition switch so it must be in a legible vehicle with don airbag deployment or uncertainty is whether they airbag deployed in the seven major eligibility prerequisites to filing a claim. but again, none deployment

eligible vehicle drivers passengers pedestrians occupants of other vehicles violate claim. we will evaluating claim and we will evaluating quickly. individuals who have suffered terribly in this whole experience to serve prompt treatment and we will do that. any individual claimant who lost a loved one or any individual claimant who suffered a catastrophic injury defined in the protocol i will be glad to meet with you privately, confidentially and chat with them privately on any item or anything they would like to talk about. honored to do so, glad to do so. now, if you file a claim, the test for eligibility will be was

the ignition switch defect a proximate cause of the accident? that's right in the protocol. that's right out of the first year of law school. was the ignition switch defect in an eligible defect where the airbag did not employ a proximate cause, also known as a substantial cause of the accident. now here is the challenge. here is the challenge. unlike the 9/11 fund or the dp oil spill fund, many of these accidents occurred years ago, a decade ago. what evidence, what circumstantial evidence can be produced that will demonstrate and ignition switch failure as

the cause of the accident? well, we have done quite a bit of homework on this and there are six, seven, eight different examples of very valuable evidence that will help demonstrate a link between a commission switch failure and the accident. here they are. one, the car. it is very useful with the automobile is still available. unfortunately some of these automobiles the accident took place along with the automobile is not around anymore but if the automobile is available that is the best evidence. of course we will look at the automobile and the lawyers at the claimants can show that was the ignition switch. that's wonderful information. but the automobile in many of these cases, and maybe most cases won't be available.

second, do we have the edr blackbox data from a data from a car or? very very useful. that edr blacks box -- blackbox data if the data was captured at the time of the accident by the police, by the insurance company by the claimants lawyers, by whoever that edr day that edr data goes a long way in demonstrating in action switch failure. so even if you don't have the car, do you have the blackbox data? very helpful. three, what does they were police reports say at the time of the accident? some of these police reports are extremely valuable as circumstantial evidence. and airbag did not deploy, the steering wheel locking or the antilock brakes are not working,

witnesses that were interviewed at the time by the police reflected in the police report, very helpful information. for cops, the photographs of the accident. we have already learned that photographs of the accident are enormously helpful to us in demonstrating ignition switch failure based on the impact, the way the car was hit for what it hit. very useful. contemporary photographs of the accident scene, very useful. next, the insurance company. what do the insurance companies say in its file about the accident? what is in the insurance files that insurance companies can be rather thorough in their examination of accidents and there on expertise and what it is the insurance filing showing?

what does the medical record show from the hospital, not just about the condition of the innocent victim but what did the witnesses tell the doctors in the hospital and emergency room about what happened? my car lost power, my steering wheel locks. my brakes didn't work. what at the hospital records tell us not only about the injury but the cause of the injury? very useful. next, warranty and maintenance records. we have found that some people weeks, months before the accident to their automobile to the dealer or to an independent dealer complaining. my car was stalling. when my key hits the ignition switch it fails. my stars -- car stalls and i'm having trouble steering that i'm having trouble with the antilock brakes. we would like to see as part of

the submission of a claim any warranty and maintenance records that will help us. then, there are some claimants, some individuals who file lawsuits that are pending where there were pretrial depositions taken, where there were written interrogatories filled out, where we have expert aga reconstruction experts filing reports. we would like to see those depositions and that information. all of these examples, and there may be others, there may be others. i mean we have talked to gm. we have talked to plaintiff lawyers. elizabeth cup race, bob hilliard, lance cooper. we have talked to the center for automotive safety, joan claybrook, these are people we

have been talking with over the past few months to try and get a better understanding on the key issue, who is eligible to even file a claim. before you get to compensation you have to be eligible and this is all part to eligibility determination. now you will see the protocol that if a claimant files a claim in the claim is deficient we will not deny that claim. we will work with a claimant to try and help the claimant get other information that will cure the deficiency and make that claim eligible. so, that is sort of a summary discussed in the first few pages of the protocol. that is sort of a summary of the eligibility requirements and we will work with claimants in an

effort to find claims eligible in meeting the proximate cause standard that the ignition switch caused the accident. it is a real challenge because of each of the claims some of them, but we will work with claimants and their lawyers. it will be very helpful here and trying to do the right thing. compensation. there are three and look up the protocol and i will summarize. there are three categories of compensation. one, we will compensate eligible death claims. unfortunate innocent victims who died, remember contributory negligence not a factor. we are not even looking at it. we will compensate individual

dems who are eligible. second, a second category, a special second category. we will compensate eligible catastrophic injuries defined in the protocol. .. amputees, pervasive burn victims with burns over their entire body. these are the type of catastrophic injuries that are a special category as defined in the protocol. the third category of compensation, less serious, more moderate physical injuries. requiring either hospit requiring either hospitalization within 48 hours of the accident

or four of those moderate injuries were the victim of the accident did not even go to the hospital did not stay overnightt within 48 hours of the accident. that is a third category of compensation. now, the two priority categories for this program, clearly a priority, are the individual death claims and the catastrophic injury claims. these are the individuals and their families most in need where we want to try and get the compensation out within 90 or 180 days as fast as we can. just as with the 9/11 victim compensation fund which is really the precedent we used in coming up with the compensation model, every single individual filing a death claim or a

catastrophic injury claim may choose one of two paths to pep sayings in the -- compensation in the protocol. track a. all we need under track a is the age of the victim, how much she or he was earning at the time of the death or catastrophic injury or the if he or she was going to school, we go to the bureau of labor statistics and come up with a number, annual wage number as if they were working at the age of 25. so if somebody died who was 5 or 10 or 17 or going to school, we have the formula included in this program. and whether or not they had any dependents. that's all we need to know on track a. that's all we need to know. now, we can meet privately with individual family members if they want to talk about other things. that's find.

that is fine. that's fine. welcomed. but under track a if somebody will just provide us the age of the victim, how much that victim was earning at the time of the accident and whether they have any dependents, that's all we need to calculate a track a award based on national statistics about what that person would have earned over a lifetime. the claimant doesn't have to file track a. it's up to the claimant. but if the claimant wants a quick, prompt processing of his or her claim under track a for death or catastrophic injury, they can do so. we will add to that claim, in addition to whatever economic loss is calculated by the bureau of labor statistics, we'll add $1 million in pain and suffering under track a for the victim,

and in addition $300,000 for any surviving spouse or dependent. that'll be added to the calculation. same, that's for death claims. examples, now, these are presumptive examples without regard to any individual claimant, but i want to give you some idea of the scope of the compensation under track a for death or catastrophic injury. a 17-year-old driver, single, unemployed going to school, living at home, no dependents, $2.2 million. track a. $2.2 million. economic and non-economic be loss. a 25-year-old, married, two

children, earning $46,400 a year, $4 million under track a. a 25-year-old, 'em low -- employed earning $75,000 a year, married, two children, died, $5.1 million. examples under track a. any individual family member who doesn't want to use track a but wants to come in you should track b -- under track b and explain in their claim form other extraordinary circumstances that should be brought to my attention, those numbers don't apply, we will look at the individual claim submitted under track b, see what other extraordinary circumstances exist in that claim just like we did in 9/11.

and these numbers will not apply. we'll be considering track b. catastrophic or track a. some two examples if you go track a for catastrophic injury, just two examples, a 10-year-old individual, young person, no earnings, of course. paraplegic. track a, $7.8 million. if you go track a. a 40-year-old paraplegic earning $70,000 a year, haired, no children -- married, no children, paralegion irk -- paraplegic, $6.6 million under the fund.

again, the reason i can just project these numbers is it's based simply on national averaging. it is not -- just like 9/11, it is the bureau of labor statistics providing us the data. any individual family member or victim who doesn't like this track a presumptive model and would rather have a tailored track b consideration of extraordinary circumstances, glad to do it. in 9/11 we had a series of track b extraordinary circumstance cases. mr. feinberg, my daughter was going to be married next week. she was our only daughter, and she died in the world trade center. we recognize that as track b. mr. feinberg, we lost both our children in the world trade center or on the airplanes. we recognize that as track b.

mr. feinberg, in the general motors matter i represent a client who ten years ago was driving when her boyfriend was killed, and for ten years she's thought she was the reckless driver. it destroyed her life. we want to go track b, of course. of course. track b. we will work with individual family members to try and develop track a or track b for death or physical injury. catastrophic physical injury. then there is the third category , less serious physical injury.

all we want to know under this fund, under less serious physical injury, we do not want to be flooded with less serious physical injuries and medical records and doctors' reports. so the protocol builds on the virginia tech program that we established and one fund boston marathon that we established. we just ask a couple of questions. one, assuming you're eligible, how long were you in the hospital? hospitalization is a pretty good surrogate for seriousness of injury. how long? overnight observation? $20,000. over a month, $500,000. in between, a sliding scale.

mr. feinberg, i didn't go to the the hospital, or i went to the emergency room, and then i went home. now, originally we weren't planning on including that as eligible. we got such pushback from so many people, plaintiff lawyers, center for auto safety, others, the protocol does permit eligibility for outpatient medical treatment, $20,000. capped at $20,000. now, on these less serious injuries, there's a prerequisite. all we want is the claim form filled out with a simple letter from the hospital or your doctor confirming medical treatment, hospitalization within 48 hours

of the accident. why not a week? why not a month as some suggested? the priority here of the death and the catastrophic claims. these less serious physical injury claims we want some contemporary documentation that people received immediate treatment. so it's 48 hours. now, if you received outpatient medical treatment within 48 hours and three weeks later you went in the hospital, that's fine be as long as there's an initial hospitalization or medical treatment within 48 hours. and then the sliding scale in the protocol kicks in. a flat amount, no calculations. those are the amounts that will be paid. i will agree, as i did with 9/11, as we did with boston marathon, as we did with

virginia tech, as we did with aurora, colorado, and newtown, connecticut, i will meet privately with any family member or their lawyer privately who wants to chat with me about their claim, about their lost loved one, about their needs, about life's unfairness. whatever they would like to chat about, my door is open. i will meet with them. it is easily, without a doubt, the most difficult part of this assignment. meeting privately with family members. it is very stressful. but it's essential, because there are family members who want to be heard and want to have their voice heard, and i'm the fellow that's the administrator, and i'm willing to meet with them and chat with them about anything they want to tell me. this program is designed to help

claimants. this program is not designed to punish general motors. if people want punitive damages, if they want to use litigation to go after general hotters, then -- general motors, then voluntarily they should not submit a claim to me. because if you submit a claim to this program and your, with award a certain amount of money, you have to eventually sign a release that you will not sue general motors. don't sign the release if you want to seek satisfaction or you want to sue general motors. but remember, the program is voluntary, and you don't have to decide whether or not you want to participate in this program until we offer a resolution, here is what we're prepared to

a, you're eligible, here's the amount, track a or track b or hospitalization or outpatient medical treatment. only then if you are satisfied with the program will you participate and sign a release. and there will be many family members who will want to see me personally before they agree whether or not they want to sign that release, and i welcome those meetings. i welcome those meetings. that's the program. now, two final points, then questions. the 9/11 fund, 97% of all the eligible families that lost a family came into the fund. 97%. $7.1 billion. taxpayer money, the 9/11 fund.

bp, 92% of all eligible claimants came into the fund. these are tough statistics to match with this program. one fund boston, 100%. virginia tech, 900%. -- 100%. newtown, connecticut, 100%. these are tough statistics to hatch. to match. we will work with the lawyers, with the families the try and do this. i must say in a way it's a pretty poor substitute. i say this all the time in the these programs. money is a pretty poor substitute for loss. you could give people $20, $30, $50 million. it's a pretty poor substitute. it's the limits of what we can do, unfortunately. we can't bring people back, we can't restore limbs. it's the best we can do, and it is a pretty poor substitute.

hopefully, the program will work. the only test, how many people participated. this summary, all the words in the world don't matter at the end of the day. the only thing that hearts at the end of the day, how quickly did you get money out the door to eligible claimants. that's the only test. so when people say to he, well, it sounds like this way or that way, i've hard from some lawyers we'll see, we'll see. it sounds maybe this can work. we'll see. i agree with that, we'll see. but we're ready to start the process. august 1 we will be ready, and i'm ready to take questions from you. yes, sir. >> quick question. based on your conversations with general motors, with attorneys, victims' families, do you have

any sense of how many victims -- general motors keeps saying 13. do you have a sense the it's going to be over 50, close to 100? >> i will not speculate about this. i've been asked over and over again even before announcing how many death cans, how many serious injuries? what will the cost to the program -- i haven't got any idea. it would be pure speculation at this time. seem have to file their claims -- people have to file their claims. we've got to look and see what they're submitting. we'll do it as fast as we can, but i will not speculate op numbers. >> and one quick follow-up, have you talked to any victims' families as you've been putting this program together? >> no. i've talked to many of the lawyers representing victims' families. i have not imposed myself. i didn't think it was appropriate. families grieve in private. it's not my place. if victims' families as a result of this conference today want to meet with me on the phone or in person, wonderful. i'm glad to do it.

can you just tell me when you ask a question who you represent? >> thank you, mr. feinberg, poppy -- with cnn. we've heard this number, 13 deaths over and over again from general motors, they have acknowledged that may rise once you go through these claims. a key question throughout all of this is we have talked to victims' families. will deaths be counted that occurred in a pack seat of a car? >> yes. >> they will? >> absolutely. >> even if they didn't die as a result of an airbag deploying -- >> doesn't matter. >> what about side impact? >> doesn't matter. irrelevant. if the person, if it's an eligible vehicle, the airbag did not deploy, driver, passenger, pedestrian, occupant of another vehicle where the airbag might have deployed, doesn't matter. eligible. >> side impact crashes? >> eligible. >> thank you. >> yes, ma'am. julia. from reuters, right? >> yes, thank you. thank you, mr. feinberg. some of these families have said

they want to go to court to seek punitive damages against gm because they feel that will bring gm further to justice for covering this up, for lingering this problem for so long. why should they take what you're offering rather than -- >> they shouldn't. they shouldn't. if an individual family member wants to seek to bring general hotters to justice -- general motors to justice in their mind by seeking punitive damages, they should not come into this program. they should sue. now, i would say this about litigating against general motors: it's one thing if somebody wants to litigate to get additional monetary punishment of general motors. i'm here to compensate victims, not punish general motors. i'm here to compensate victims, innocent victims. sometimes i hear victims tell me

or their family we want to litigate because it's the only way we can find out what really happened. i'd be careful about that argument. there are other, more efficient available mechanisms and avenues to pursue to find out the facts about what really happened. the congress is very interested in finding out what really happened. i read in the newspaper the u.s. attorneys and the department of justice are very interested in finding out what really happened. there are other avenues to pursue to do that. if it's the money that drives the punitive damage avenue, then this program is not for you. but if compensatory damages -- hopefully, very generous -- are what you seek and you'll use other avenues to find out what really happened, that, to me, is the optimum way to go.

yes, sir. affiliation? >> [inaudible] "usa today." just to be clear on something, although i think i already know, is the money that you pay in addition to actual expenses the person might have incurred, or is it designed to be total? >> total. >> okay. >> total. we're not netting out other expenses or what have you. we are calculating a damage on a blank slate and paying the total award to the claimant. we're not factoring in attorneys' fees, we're not factoring in other costs. we're paying the lump sum payment, all in. >> so whatever you might have spent already is out of your pocket or out of this settlement? >> well, that's an interesting question. if what you have already spent is litigation costs or expert investigative reports, yes. if what you have spent are medical expenses, well, we'll

see about that. we'll -- we in the protocol look at the very last paragraph of the protocol. we will work with the claimant to make sure the claimant gets a lump sum payment, and we'll work with them on the medical expense problem which is implicit in your question. note the last paragraph of the entire protocol in that regard. >> thank you. >> i'm sorry? >> my name is laura christian, and i'm the birth mother of amber marie rose. i have another family with me here today. i have personally found 165 deaths. i have this information in my hand. would you like it? >> i would, indeed. >> thank you. >> i would like not only that information, ms. christian, i would be glad to meet with you or your family members privately, and i would like to know anything you have or anything you think would be helpful in this program. i would love to sit and chat

with you at your convenience to learn more about what you think and how this program can be made the most effective way. >> thank you. i welcome that very much so. now, as far as the non-airbag deployment, we have evidence in a few cases it looks like, and the black box shows, it looks like the driver actually managed to get the vehicle on a second or two before impact. thus, the airbag deployed. would you consider those? >> let's see what you have to offer. i'll be glad to consider anything you have. i haven't heard about this. if you have some, you know, relatively rare example like that, at least i would like to hear a what you have to say. absolutely. >> thank you. appreciate that. >> anybody else, anybody who hasn't had a question yet? yes, sir, up back. david? >> dave shepherds, detroit news. two questions. one, in terms of the protocol on the newer vehicles, can you explain why it only applies to vehicles that had the part

replaced? >> gm tells me -- and you should direct that question to general motors -- but gm has told me it's not just the ignition switch problem, it's the whole context in which the recall occurred on the 2.6 million vehicles, this inability to disclose it, the fact that gm should have disclosessed it, information in the lucas report. gm -- i'm not an automotive engineer, but gm tells us over and over again that this is a unique problem at gm that arose. it's not simply the defect itself, it's the context in which it arose and the failure of gm to respond. so they have decided, they have decided this is the limitation of the authority i have under this program. >> and will you make a public accounting of your findings on an aggregate basis, how many claims approved, denied and payouts? >> absolutely. now, it gets tricky. i will at the end of the ram,

camille and i, we -- as we always do, we will have an audit, an executive summary; how many claims, how many were eligible, how many ineligible, aggregate dollars, etc. we have to be very, very careful here that we don't discloses at any time -- disclose at any time the confidential submissions of individual families. they don't want people to know that they filed or that how much money they received. we found out in all of these programs, 9/11 and other programs, that in order to maximize participation, confidentiality is critical. and that, many, many people just don't want any of that information disclosed. but we will come up with, as you say, some summary information that will be useful. let me just say one other thing before i forget that i neglected to say, a tip of the hat to the center for auto safety. joan claybrook and clarence

diplow. their number one issue with us was notice. how do you reach people and tell them about the program? how do you though that people around the country and elsewhere, canada, will know about this program? we are notifying by letter 2.6 million people who are the subject of the recall. we are notifying be by letter hundreds and hundreds of people who have already notified gm that they this think that they were involved -- that they think they were involved in an injury or death claim involving the ignition switch. we'll send a letter to them. we also at the center for auto safety's personal usualing, we will notify -- urging, we will notify all former owners of these vehicles so that the

former owners who no longer -- who sold their vehicle or traded it in or whatever, if they were subject to death can or physical injury, they can file a claim. it is going to be about as -- [inaudible] a notice program as we can come up with. and this was a big issue with ms. claybrook. and we plan to have as expansive a notice program as we can on this. but remember this also: this program is limited to physical injury or death. i read in the newspaper that there are all sorts of lawsuits pending involving damage to automobiles, diminished value of the automobiles involved. that has nothing to do with this program. that is off on the side. we are not in any way involved with any economic property damage claims.

this is strictly physical injury and death claims. julia. >> these numbers, i know that you -- thank you. when calculating the money that would two to these victims, i know you're looking at bureau of labor statistics, but just when you're starting with that baseline of one million or for the hospital stays, who came up with those numbers? did gm give you those numbers? >> no. >> how did you reach them? and then i have a follow-up question. will these families be told to keep silent if they do sign and take the claim? >> entirely up to them. these families, if they decide that they want to call a press conference in taking this money is entire my up to the families -- is entirely up to the families. i wouldn't begin to impose any conditions on families. i've learned over the years that's none of my business, and they can do whatever they want. that is not my business. now, where do we get the

numbers? these numbers aren't gm's numbers. these are numbers that camille byros and our team of modelers, economic modeling, we came up with these numbers. non-economic loss, $1 million for a death claim under track a. where did that come from? well, 9/11, which was a long time ago, that number was $250,000 as an average settlement number for than economic loss. that number today is $750,000 average. we decided the number should be higher, and we went to $1 million. bob hilliard, bob hilliard, a lawyer in detroit and in texas and other lawyers as well, ms. cabresa and her colleagues, mark landier in texas all said even on a presumptive award --

we don't have to take it, but presumptively -- it ought to be more than that. $1 million. and the $300,000 is much more than 9/11 in the average as well. now, you also asked -- oh, the second question about silence or a condition. no such condition imposed on families at all. yes, ma'am. cnn? >> yeah, poppy harlow with cnn again. in looking at what you have done in the past in terms of the bp oil spill and 9/11, they're different in that it was very clear who died as a result of the deepwater horizon rig explosion or who died as a result of 9/11. here can you talk to us about the process? i mean, are these victims and their families and their attorneys basically going to be holding court in front of you with you as is sole arbiter to decide? and also you talk about having to be expeditious in getting the money out. at the same time, in some of these cases there's a lot to pore through. how do you make that determination that the proximate cause was the ignition switch

and also do it in the time frame you'd like? >> it's very, very difficult, it's a challenge. but now, don't, don't be misled into thinking that we didn't have the same problems in 9/11 and bp. we did. in 9/11 you'll recall the statute creating the program said that physical injuries had to occur in the, quote, immediate vicinity, unquote, of the world trade center or the pentagon. and and that medical treatment had to be immediately thereafter. well, we ran into a storm of problems with first responders delaying their medical treatment -- >> [inaudible] in terms of deaths. >> well, the deaths, you're right. they were traumatic deaths, it was easier in 9/11. now, in bp, of course, we had a huge problem not with deaths, but with whether or not the economic damages were caused by the oil spill. this is a challenge. it is a challenge. the main problem we're going to

have here and we'll work as we say right in the protocol to cure deficiencies is that so many of these accidents occurred long ago. the car is gone. and we've got to come up with circumstantial evidence that satisfies proximate cause. now, all of the menu of ways you do that we've laid out, but you're right. speed is going to be challenged here while people collect information. and we'll work with them to try and do that as fast as we can. it is going to be a challenge, no question. >> [inaudible] with the "wall street journal." i just wanted a little bit more on the interaction with gm. you come up with a claim. i know that they'll be able to also give you information, but are you going to meet with them and sit down and talk about your methodology to coming up to it, or are you just sending them the claim and say pay it? >> read the section -- good question. the section in the protocol that gives the claimant and gm the

opportunity to be heard. the claimant files a claim, that claim information doesn't go to gm. that stays with us. but we'll notify gm of the basic nature of the claims this week or whatever, a spread sheet that just says these are the claims. if they have any information that they want to present to us, if gm has any information that they think would be helpful to us in making our decision, fine. i welcome either side providing me information as long as i'm not exchanging anything confidential. i'll give either side the opportunity to be heard. but here's the key in this protocol: once we make a decision, eligible x dollars, the protocol gives us sole, final discretion to do that. gm may not challenge it in court, gm may not reject it, gm

may say that they think we made a mistake. that's fine, but they have to honor it. and they have to pay the claim. and they cannot refuse under the protocol to pay any final determination that we make on the grounds that it's a mistake. we heard you, gm, we respect your right to disagree. we've decided it, and that's the end of it. yes, yes, sir. you're with to who? >> [inaudible] several of the members of congress investigating gm have sort of taken an interest in the victim compensation fund. did you meet with any members of congress or did you brief any of them sort of on the final protocol? is. >> i met and briefed the most visible, i think, one of the most visible members of congress, senator blumenthal of connecticut. extraordinarily helpful. i met him personally with his staff. he had written a letter to the

justice department urging compensation. i met with him. he expressed certain views about helping claimants and some suggestions that he hoped i would follow up on which i have, and i welcome any input or think suggestions from members of congress other than senator blumenthal, and i'm glad to meet with them as well. >> ken, phil lebeau with cnbc. quick question on your interaction with mary barra from general motors. how often did you talk with her in setting this up? can you characterize the nature of those conversations? >> i met with mary or spoke with her two or three times. almost all of my conversations involved other people at general motors, but i did meet with mary two or three times. absolutely 100 cooperative. ken, we want to do the right thing. general motors is a great company, we want to do right by

those who are innocent victims, and general motors has been extremely helpful. i thought it very important not to limit our input from just general motors. i went to various plaintiff lawyers around the country and asked them what they thought about some of the features of this protocol, and, of course, the center for auto safety here this washington. but i must say general motors at no time -- now, they don't agree with everything in this protocol. they signed on to it, and you'll have to ask them what they like and don't like about it, but they did sign off and approve it. they're paying the freight on this. but healthy debate, very open, transparent discussion, and i give general motors a lot of credit for participating in this program. no cap on the ago e are gate -- aggregate amount of money. that is so important. i've found that when there's an aggregate cap, inevitably a

claimant will say you're giving me less because you have to save more to pay somebody else. it's human nature. with no aggregate cap, i can tell every claimant you don't have to worry about what somebody else is getting. there's no cap on this program, and you will get whatever you're entitled to. so, again, that's -- general motors waiving contribute, agreeing no contributory negligence. general motors reopening old, settled claims and allowing people to to come into the program. general motors not using the bankruptcy bar as a, to undercut what would otherwise be meritorious claims. i can't speak to the history of this problem, but i can certainly speak to the last three months, and i must say mary barra and her colleagues at general motors, absolutely 100 percent cooperative. >> just a quick follow up. there's a section in the data there that you provided talking about the --

[inaudible] seat belt, so does that mean that if an airbag didn't deploy and someone was wearing their seat belt, they would be be ineligible? >> it is an and/or. all i've seen so far, airbag doesn't deploy, seat belts don't work either. but that's ap engineering issue, i'd have to see. i don't think it's likely that airbag didn't deploy, but seat belts work so you're ineligible. we'll have to see based on the individual claim. i don't know, i think that's right. yes, sir, with who? >> [inaudible] >> wait for a microphone. >> i'll be asking the question, sir. >> i'm sorry. you're next. you're next. >> jim healey, "usa today." will all the awards be lump sum, or will some be structured settlements? >> that's up to the individual claimant and their lawyers and their accountants and their

advisers. i wouldn't begin to require any conditions on how individual claim malts want to receive this money -- claimants want to receive this money. we'll do whatever they want, that is entirely up to them and their adviser. lou? >> thank you. you consulted data from federal agencies. now, granted that no amount of money is going to compensate really for death. but d.o.t. has a policy, has a policy of $9.1 million for each, for the value of a statistical life. okay? and i'd like to know did you consider that when you arrived at your protocol, which i have not read yet? >> you haven't read the protocol yet? no, i don't believe we did. our experts may have, i don't

know the answer to that. but i have an overall policy answer to that which is very important and something that the plaintiff lawyers around the country constantly remind me about. whatever that presumptive number might be in an individual case, if the claimant or her or his lawyer aren't comfortable with that number, they have the option under the protocol of going track b, presenting information like that that will result, in their mind, in raising the overall value of the award. we will look at it, we will examine it, we will meet with the claim planted or her or his -- claimant or her or his lawyer, and we will try and work that out. if the track a number is deemed by any claim planted in a particular -- claimant in a particular case to be insufficient. ..

no evidence yet it is a gm car or and ignition switch freely come anything like that. they are just combining these. we will take a look at those. [inaudible] >> names of people? >> what.

[inaudible] any of the questions here? yes, sir. with who? [inaudible] >> a question about the second category of injuries -- >> catastrophic? >> no, described them as more moderate injuries. it looks like the death claims and the more catastrophic injuries, associate with them come is that the case for the lower category of entries? if you lost an arm or an eye and you couldn't go to work? >> well, no, no. if you lost an arm or and i and you couldn't go to work, these less serious injuries are limited to how long you are in the hospital and that is all. if you lost and i are -- lost an arm and you don't think you can go to work for three months or six months and you're in the hospital for 30 days, you'll get a flat amount of $500,000, and

that is it. that is all in and that is for the hospital session over the last arm. >> so if the injury did prevent you from going back to work at all in that profession -- >> you may opt out of this program if you think it's too little, indicate that plan. any other questions? i want to -- okay. i want to thank everybody. i appreciate this. it's a complex program but i think it's easy to apply, and after this press conference if anybody has any other questions about the mechanics of how you will file online, by mail, what is expected, where to go to get 1-800 information. my colleague will be here until we get the edge those questions as well. thank you all very much.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> several live events until you about tomorrow morning.

>> book tv sat down with former secretary of state hillary clinton in little rock to discuss her new book. >> getting to the point where

you can make peace is never easy because you don't make peace with your friends. you make it the people of your adversaries, of kill those who care about, your own people of those you are tried to protect. it is a pathological drama. you have to get into the head of those on the other side because you have to change their calculation enough to get them to the table, talk about what we did in iraq, a lot of economic pressure to try to get them to the table. we will see what happens, but that has to be the first. what we did in afghanistan pakistan, trying to get the taliban to the table or comprehensive discussion. but in iraq today i think what we have to understand this is it is barely a political problem that has to be addressed. the extension of the soon be a

strenuous is taking advantage of the breakdown in political dialogue and the total lack of trust. >> more with hillary clinton saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern and sunday morning at 915 on c-span2 book tv. ron capps is a combat veteran and founder of the veterans writing project. up next to talks about his book "seriously not all right". this is a little more than an hour. >> hi, folks. welcome to the half king tonight. it is a >> hi, folks. welcome. we elena absolutely thrilled to the welcoming mr. ron capps here tonight. he has written just an

incredible more. would like to think bycapps her. i would like to thank scott manning and the shackner press for having the wisdom to publish a wonderful book. i know a lot of you know ron personally but for those of you who are not as familiar with him ron's bio reads like one of the more interesting novels of all time and we are lucky to have it captured here. he served as senior military office and u.s. observer of state and he is a combat veteran of afghanistan serving in the army and army reserve for 25 years. entered as a private and retired at a lieutenant colonel. he served in rwanda, coast, iraq, and the darfer region of

sudan. he was awarded the medal of service and received awards from the american service association. his policy writing has appeared everywhere there is to mention and he is the founder of a non-profit that provides no cost writing workshops for veterans and their families. we are thrilled to welcome here to share his memoir "seriously not allright: five wars in ten years." welcome, ron capps >> thank you. i cannot tell you how thrilled i am to be here. this is the hard launch of the book. the first night. big event. had press today and some of you, i know, heard that press and

thank you for coming. some of you i have known for too long to mention and it means much too you here. we have c-span2 and booktv is here. i will talk, tell stories, read and then we will take questions and michael and james are going to move around with the microphone. so if you have a question, just let them know r. there is two stories in the book. if you have read it, at the very beginning i tell the story of driving off in the desert with a couple beers in my truck and a pistol when i was getting ready to kill myself. obviously something happened and i didn't get to do that. that is the central point of the story and where everything changes. so the first half of the story

is how i got there and the second half is what happened afterwards. i think the second half of the story is more interesting for hopeful but it doesn't make sense without telling the first half of the story. what i will do is read from a couple sections. afterwards, i served as a soldier for 25 years. half of the time i was in the regular army and half in the army reserve. during the time in the army reserve, my civilian job was as a foreign service officer for the department of state. i was a political officer and got sent to a lot of interesting places. the first half of my career i tell meme people it was dull, i never did anything interesting or got shot at.

it was a peace time. then i joined the foreign services and went to places where they shoot at people regularly and things got interesting. this begins in 1996 and runs through 2006. those are the ten years i was e deploying. starting with a story in kosovo in 2008. i worked as part of team of diplomatic observers. our job was to drive around kosovo and stop the fighting and get the rebels to stop killing each other and civilians. we arrived in cynic a day too late. the infintry came through the day before and this is what we found. it is part of an essay i wrote

that was published called "yellow" and now it is a chapter in the book. let me get started with that. yellow. their skin was yellow. they had dirt under their fingernails and feet were dirty. six of them, all women, some lived long enough to have the wounds banned up before they died and some were killed right away. they were dead about 24 hours. we came to witness the funeral and stand a type of guard. if we were present the snipers wouldn't shoot at the family members as they buried their dead. it was the first time i saw war dead. i remember being surprised their skin was yellow. my experiences with death before that was a few funerals a. friend's older brother, my

grandmother. none of them were yellow. i was surprised. this was the first time i saw what dead people looked like if no embombing was done or what make-up and a nice suit of clothes. they were just dead. lying in a tangle of limbs under a blue u.n.tarp on a trailer that carried food the week before. i could not see all of their faces. one had an arm resting across her forehead and one had a bangladesh ban dade on her head. we saw dogs up the trail. the agency field officer who led us to the scene said what all of us were thinking. the dogs probably got the body of the 18-month-old who was m

missing. the mother was resting in the house with a bullet in her upper arm, passed through her baby, through her breast and lodged in her arm. the father said the child was killed instantly. the bullet tore the child in half. a doctor from the red cross was treating the mother's wound. there were ten women and a 72-year-old man in one airless room of the house. all of them had been wounded in the attack. they sat silently on the floor, backs against the walls of the room, lost in their pain and thoughts, waiting. we did this pretty much every day for two years. driving around kosovo trying to stop fighting. almost always arriving a day

late. just in time to conduct investigation of a war crime. a crime against humanity. ethnic clensing and murder. i would write reports about what i saw and i would go back and sit and write dry reports about horrible acts of cruelty. but i knew this wasn't enough. i knew i needed to document more. i would go home then to my room or to my tent and sit down and write the test of what happened. and those sessions of writing grew into this book so what i wrote about that event i sat down and typed out the words yellow, their skin was yellow and that is where we are. that day we were up in a small valley, a little draw between two ridge lines, and the

infantry swept through and fired in front of them, clearing thing path and coming through with infantry. they were shooting at women, children and old men who were driven out of the town by mortars in the day prior. they moved up into this valley to be save and then the infantry came through. we drove back into the town and this is what happened. the villagers wanted to bury their dead in plain sight and we could see the snipers. the land, they said, was taken in the 1940's. they reclaimed it in the 1970's. it belonged to these people and they were going to be sure they

understood that. the woman they killed spent their lives growing the fields and giving birth to their children. we parked our vehicles to stop the shooting. certainly they would not shoot at the white and blue vehicle. but i was shaky sitting around. the ground was hard, it took time to bury the dead. the men works with shovels and picks to dig graves for the women. we stopped on the way out and used our satellite telephone to call washington and tell the state department what we saw. it seemed far away from the hill side but the officer on the other line was a friend, colleague, and classmate. had it been somewhere else i might have been more animated in the description, but doug understood what was happening

without resorting to being hysteric. six women and one child dead. yes, i counted them. yes, we are sure they were dead. i verify it. we made a stop off the hill where an old man flagged us down and wanted to show us something the serbs did. i glanced through the house and saw a group of women on the floor, rocking and surrounding the body of another woman. she was laid out on her back and wrapped in a blanket. part of her face and head were missing and what remained was vealed in a colorful scarf.

the man said a meter exploded near her body and he held out his hand to show the distant. he was the dead woman's father. having felt safe enough to remain with husband and children rather than moving up to the draw with the others, she decided to make food up to her neighbors. she was at the base of the draw when the attack started. the mortar shells probably came in groups of three. punk, punk, punk as the rounds left the tubes is then the breathless agonizing 5-6 seconds while they flew and then the final barking and echoes off the walls of the cannon as they exploded. they probably set the fuses to go off one or one and a half meters above the ground. about head high.

it was an awful story and i could not wait to get away from the smell, crying and death. i felt outraged and horrified soldiers fired mortars at women and children. i focused on her scarf colors rather than the wounds. i watched the woman rocking her and looked at the woman's father. i took notes about what the father said. then we left. eight dead. down the hill at the intersection marking the proper a crowd of women and a few men gathered. boys were filled with boxes filled with cigarettes, crackers and chicklets. they sat expressionless as a small crowd swarmed the vehicle. i pushed own the door and was pinned up against the vehicle. one woman pushed through the crowd and held her baby at arms

length. i was face to face with the child while the mother spoke. she wants you to take your son so the serbs won't kill her. i looked at the woman and said to mimi say this, we are observers we cannot we locate you or your son. if we do we will all be ordered out of the country. i felt feckless as the words spilled out. for the first time i understood the follow of observing. a tourist among the victims. it was hot and with the son beating down on me i felt c coweredly. i thought the red cross would refuse but i wasn't able to muster the courage to tell the

woman and others around me there was little hope she would get out. i found out i was wrong. several officer s arrived and oe of them took several children. i had to tell the mother of the missing child we didn't find her baby. it would serve no purpose to tell her what we thought happened. i could not find those words anyway. that evening after returning to the office, i drafted by report that was three pages long. just things we understood happen based on what we saw and what was reported. i said it appeared a serbian unit swept from north to south proceeded by a burage of fire and seven women and one infant were killed and 11 others wounded including a 72-year-old man. vehicles, clothes, food and

other supplies were burned. no evidence of weapons or insurgeant active among the villages. i didn't mention the funerals, dogs or the woman begging me to take action to save her child. i didn't mention the look on the old man's face. i listened to what was told to us with what we saw ourselves. i made the people in the village the center of the report rather than my own actions. i let my teammates read the repo report. i had documented a war crime. the war went on for a number of months. we stayed until the bombing

campaign began. and we went out into masdonia and spent the three months and a few days interviewing refugees and people loaded out on to trains and shipped across borders in europe at the end of the 20th century. we did go back and kosovo is now an independent nation. some of work we did was sent to the hague and used to document the case against them and i feel good about that.

there is a special place in hell for people like that. i went back to kosovo and spent another year and returned to central africa where i spent a couple years prior and worked in rwanda for two years during the war that was fought as an ex tension of the genocide. we documented war crimes and went through fighting with rwandan military. the united states was attack and i was called back into the regular army to go to afghanistan. i arrived in afghanistan not quite a year after the rangers jumped in. i showed up as a reservist not

knowing what to expect. they didn't know me and i didn't know them. i was in charge of a couple hundred people that were spread out all over the country. i was tasked to send them off to do interesting and dangerous things. i came to understand i was suffering from ptsd. i had images of the dead from rwanda and kosovo coming. i would wake up at night and see dead people standing around my cot. when this happened during the day, i understood where was in trouble. this is what that was like. in the cold pre-dawn, i can hear generators and vehicles moving on the other side of the base. but it is quite in my tent. none of the other soldiers i share the tent with are storing.

i have been awake but i stay fighting the overwhelming urge to run away. the taliban launched a couple rockets near the base so we are on edge but that is not what is keeping me up. i am trying to control my racing hard and trembling because the dead have come to talk to me. they have been coming every night pulling me from a sleep into a series of wide awake dreams. tonight it is the dead who were burned bible black and twisted into hideous shapes. they lie in the cold rain that falls through the burned away roof. do you remember us, they asked? most assuredly. the night before it was the dead

from a village of 45 shot in the head and left to die in a rocky ditch. they dropped by for a chat. why didn't you do more to save us, they asked? why indeed? night after night they appear on the big screen of my mind. night after night the murdered and mutilated come back and each time i am scared and ashamed. i know they are not real and images in my head but i fear them no less for knowing this. they terrify me for what they remind me of: the fighting i didn't stop and the lives i didn't safe. they terrify me for what i represent. i can no longer stop them from taking control. i lie on my bed eyes wideo open and see the dead in front of me. the trouble begins over time and by the time i am aware of it i

am having graphic violent dreams, waking shaking, heart racing, crying sometimes, always afraid to go back to sleep. i am loosing control of my brain, of my mind. in time, i start seeing these images when i am awake. during the day i am unable to focus and i sit at my desk and go to planning meeting, shaking until i have to leave and go outside. i fear i lost my mind but i am afraid to ask for help thinking i will be ridiculed. you see in the army culture asking for help is a sign of weakness. my medals and special operation units, nothing matters, asking for help is seen as breaking but with when in the middle of the day i am forced to hide, shaking

and crying in a bunker, when i realize to deny this would endanger the soldiers i was asked to help. i asked for help. i told someone i was having problems, explained by symptoms, he listened, reached out, put his hand on my arm and said are you a danger to yourself or others? which is a question you get asked a lot when people think you are crazy. they look at you with an m-4 over your shoulder or 9-millimeter on your hip and ask if you will start shooting. i said i wasn't a danger, but i

knew i needed help so i went to see the psych that day and they are trying to keep the tv on so you cannot hear the stories of the people coming through the front. ...

>> i brought my soldiers home. i was home for four months and then deployed until iraq. spent time in iraq, came home >>ç t >> which was i thought delicious irony being in iraq with the state department when the army calls. i began arguing as much as one can. and it got to the point if you volunteer to come back so you don't have to be mobilized you get your choice of assignments. and that means different things.

this meant the democratic republic of congo or sudan. well i was an africanist and i chose sudan. i had never been there. i volunteered and went there just after colin powell said it was genocide. 2.5 million displaced and 3 million dead and i was sent in into the african union's cease fire commission. our job was to stop the fighting. we had about 1700 people in an area larger than iraq. the place the size of france. among people who don't want to stop fighting. they are not tired of killing each other.

i spent nine months there. got a phone call from my wife that said your mom went into the hospital and the doctor says come home. i went home and spent a month sitting by my mom's bedside while she died. that was tuesday. wednesday i went to get a suit for her funeral, lunch at the whitehouse on thursday, and friday buried and monday back to darfur. here is what is going on. the only think you need to know is the capital is elfascer. i was there to organize and run a training exercise for the african peace keeping staff. i was the scenario writer. the scenario were roughly like this. an emergency develops into a security crisis, deal with it. a security crisis develops into

a humanitarian crisis and bad weather, deal with it. the kitchen sink was deal with all of them. the officer had a staff on the u.n.team and helped and he gave the solutions to the colleagues on the staff but they still failed. they were uterally unprepared for this mission. i was failing, too. i was falling a part. i was deep into a bad ptsd episode, drinking myself into a stooper and having an affair with an official from the un. i had no real safety net to catch me or anything during the

day to hold me together. i had few actual responsibilities since the scenario was written. i was mostly along with the ride. i was managing well until the woman who i was having an affair asked me what happens when this ends? we were having fun in hotels and dodgey guest houses and drinking and playing but noises about next step set off alarm bills and dragged me back to the fact i had a life outside the war bubble and i would have to go back. i wasn't rational. nevertheless, i was functioning at a high level and writing scenario for a modernish fighting force and operating in a complex emergency and continuing to collect

information about the forces and disposition and writing reports for the embassy about what i learned at the same time i having an elicit affair. but in my head, i was convinced my life was fucked up and all i was doing was hurting people. i failed to stop the fighting in kosovo, might writing sucks, my mom died, my marriage was a failu failure, i was a failure, every i touched got worse. the dark stuff in my head tri p triumphed. i decided to kill myself. i thought about it through the morning, scripting the steps and mentally locating the tools i would needed and thinking about the aftermath. lunchtime i had a plan, by afternoon i acquired all of

tools and late that afternoon i began work. i grabbed a couple beers from the ice box and wrapped them in a t-shirt and put them on the seat of the toyota. i went into the u.s. team house and baorrowed a pistol and he loaned it to me no questions asked because he had no reason to suspect i was anything other than a compitant career officer. i drove into the setting sun toward the reservoir. pulled off the main road to the north side with clusters of huts. and stopped the truck on a low rise just high enough to see the sun falling towards the desert. i opened one of the beers. i started crying, but i don't know why, i was filled with a sense of failure and frustration, and a sense of conclusion. nothing i touched had ever

succeeded, nothing i had done was ever good. i went through five wars in ten years and did nothing to stop the killing. iraq, afghanistan, kosovo, sudan, and darfur. i opened the second peer, picked up the pistol off the seat, it felt good in my hand. i pointed it out the wind shield with the magazine resting on the windshield and curled my fingers and imagined pulling the trigger there wasn't anything to shoot out and even if so i am left handed so it wouldn't have been a shot. who else could have hurt doing

this? my wife, maybe. my sister, maybe. i thought what i was going to do would leave a whole in lives. i thought about someone having to clean up the truck and thought maybe i will do is outside. but the clarity passed and i was overwhelmed with a sense of sadness. i failed to stop the wars and so many people were dead because of my failures and images were rushing in. 45 dead, raped man, and a man with red rimmed eyes and a mutilated family near cynic. i picked up the pistol, my hand were shaking, i loaded it, put down the beer and put my hand on the safe. the pistol was ready, i shifted it to my right hand and looked at it lying on high hand i took

a deep breath, calmed myself, i was ready. then the phone range. it scared the hell out of my. i jumped, startled, almost pulled the trigger which would have been ironic to shoot myself in the foot while prepare to shoot in the head. i saw it was my wife calling from washington, d.c. what was this? karma? luck? uncanny timing? with my thumb i put the pistol back on safe and laid it on the seat while i talked to her for a few minutes. i watched the sun setting over the rocky desert, the ringing phone had broken the spell. after the crying, shaking, mor moralizing and justifying, the focus on charging the weapon and taking off the safety and preparing to put the barrel in my mouth, the ringing phone

pulled be back from the brink. i took the sergeant back. i called my boss and said i need to come home. two weeks later i was flown home to washington. and i landed and no body acted long anything happened. no mandatory medal screening. no one asked how are you feeling? a found a job in a quite office full of introverts. they say in the state department you can tell the extroverts and introverts -- the extroverts stair at your shoes while talking to you. i got medical care. i started. it took a long time. i am still on the road home. writing is what is doing it for

me. as part of the medical care i went to the department of veterans affairs and asked for help. i received medical care there but also asked for an ajudication of the case so i was combat disabled and this is how that went. the old guy in front of me was using a cane as he crept through the hospital door t. was the last week of july in washington, d.c. and the temperature was 90 with in tolerable and cruel weather. he was wearing a tan jacket and i saw it zipped up to the neck. at least he had a ball cap on that said world war ii vetera d across the front. he was carrying a large brown

folder. my held notes combat deployment, medical records and others. it was my first visit to the va hospital. the washington va medical center is as charmless as you can imagine. a big white box in a center of half a dozen parking lots that are overflow. it is like any other hospital filled with the sick and health care and administrative staff scurrying about and bad coffee. but it is entirely different. it is the place where combat veterans enter the system for the treatment. walking in from the parking lot, i started to feel all of the familiar sensation. the stress rising in my gut. breathing sort and irregular. the memories of five wars and the dead hovering off stage.

inside there was an information desk with a guy in a wheelchair behind it. he looked me up and down and made a judgment about me. i could not imagine what it might have been. a stammered explaining i came from my first appointment. my hands were shaking and i held them down. he pointed the way to the registration office and walking through the lobby i imagined everyone looking at me saying look at the psycho guy home from the war and damaged. what a pussy. i took a number and waited. the waiting room was part of the main lobby. i kept my head down until my number was called. inside the office, a women looked over my paperwork, i brought papers that shows the

training, awards, combat served and she started entering data in the system. he was pleasant and did a good job ignoring my symptoms until she asked if i want to go the emergency room instead of the green clinic. i was interviewed by someone knew into the system. maybe a recent graduate with a qualified supervisor attending. i started talking about rwanda, kosovo and afghanistan and my treatment and iraq and dar darfer and i cried over the memory loss, my fear and anxiety, and my inability to control the images of the dead

appearing in my head at all hours of the night and day, high weird hypervigilance issues, and getting lost in my neighborhood and going to the grocery store at midnight. ... the interviewer looked stricken. her supervisor quickly looks down at her notes. shame wild and my throat and eyes. my humiliation was absolute.

even the doctors were laughing at me. welcome to the office of veterans affairs psycho boy. [applause] thank you thank you very much. again, thank you so much for coming. i really honestly very, very much appreciated. we have some time for questions. michael and james are going to circulate with the microphone. any questions? i am happy to take them. about any part of the story, past, present, future. boy, that first one is always the hardest, isn't it? someone is going to ask that first question. thank you. i say that before i hear the question. >> been to your story is a very personal one, something that is much larger and yourself.

so stepping back from your disempowered act of witnessing, at least you were witnessing, do you have a broader conclusion about how international organizations can operate more effectively? >> i have a couple of things that i think are very important about the international community's work, which i don't think is going to completely answer your question, but i will take a stab at it. a few years ago there was an international norm accepted among the nations of the international community that is called are to become an responsibility to protect. there are some experts here in the room on that. what it means basically is that

the of any nation have a responsibility to respect their citizens. and if they fail to do so in the national community has a responsibility to step then. i am paraphrasing, of course. almost every nation has signed on to the spirit the north koreans are still outstanding summer. surprise there. we are faced with this question every day in syria. we are faced with this question in ukraine, all around the world why aren't we doing more? america, the united nations command every individual among us. the answer is that we cannot -- week, america, the one thing cannot fix a problem. we do the best that we can. tough that's why u.s. policy was going to fail. did not need to be pressured.

i was at least willing to say so . >> the hindsight of six or eight years, that was a really, really our problem. and to put millions of dollars worth of aid was a pretty big step to solve that problem. i don't know what might have done it other than a military intervention, and that is what i argued for. we were already engaged. to the engage militarily in a third muslim nation, this one in the middle of africa in a place that made logisticians go crazy because it was hard to get to was too hard. and i was not thinking very clearly because i really felt strongly that is what we should do. it's hard to like ukraine. why are we doing that? the answer is it is just damn

hard. giving them the money, giving them the support, giving them what they need to get then. we the government will not are cannot take on. beyond that i do not have the answers. i felt like i was beating my head against the wall. a lot smarter people and i had to come up with a shrug. i wish i had a better answer for you. i don't. man. [inaudible question] >> yes, my wife is here. it is important to know the woman who called me in darfur was marine. this affair that i was seven was

just the last drop. since before went back. [inaudible question] >> she did. absolutely. she is recognized for it. we still talk pretty regularly. any other questions? here comes the microphone. >> is this on? since you just went to the va, have you seen -- what kind of progress have you seen on behalf of the va? also, perhaps in their willingness to work with nonprofits like the writing project i no there are signs of

change across the country and new funding coming out of the va for nonprofits through supportive services programs and things like that. wonder if you get some small sense of hope there that this big dinosaur may be making some important changes. >> thank you for the question. i do see -- could you guys here that? could you hear the question? is the kaytoo getting better at what they do? the supervisor was laughing at me. the answer to the question is yes. remember, the va is not one organization. there is the benefits organization which takes care of people when they -- which gives people a small pension, takes care of widows and orphans, the health administration which is hospital and the bed center where you get ptsd treatment and the cemeteries. then there is the over arching organization that controls it.

the benefits organization is best of. there have been best of for a long time. but they are getting better. they had a huge backlog of 300,000 cases that were over 125 days from beginning to adjudication, and that is their target. they had 350,000 cases of something that were well beyond that. mike case, just 400 days. i filed until they call me from my -- it was three under 65 days until they call me to come and. a couple of months later the adjudication. north has been halved. they are making huge progress. some hospitals are better than others. some offices are better than others. the joke is, if you have seen one, you have seen one.

the stuff that has been going on in phoenix, seattle, that is limited to that hospital, i think. i have received excellent health care at the va. i use va education benefits to go back to graduate school and study writing. that is i came to fund the veterans writing friends and. up our work for me. getting into the system and getting our cases adjudicated which was up part of where that supervisor was laughing at me, about was health care, adjudication. and so that is getting better. the va had recently opened an office for complementary in alternative care looking at things like riding as therapy. i hope there will call. i would love to talk to them about it. we are working with the department of defense at walter reed teaching writing there. we are not therapists.

we are riders. but therapists there are using riding is the tool in a program that i wrote. so the department of defense gets it. i'm not sure that the va has yet, but hopefully they will. >> any other questions? >> first, i would like to think you for telling your story. recently a retired marine going through a lot of things the you have gone through every time the lead here i am not alone. so much more reassuring for me to go on the next. i would also like to thank you. i did not know that you were part of -- you were heading up the writing program. definitely received a lot from that personally. thank you.

we have a thing. it's all about getting some. from the day you go to boot camp to the day that you hit the beach, you are getting some. you are trying to get that combat action which really kind of reassures you as a marine. in the eyes of your colewort it makes you, you know, the warrior that you claim to the. but i know for me there was a point where it went from some to have enough. it was a point between joining, you know, the last few seconds, all right. over, whatever.

i know as an officer, maybe things are a little different. you already have stuff. my question is, did you have that moment where it kind of switch from the glorification of being in the military and the nobility of being in the military to, oh, my goodness, i am in the military, at combat, seeing people being killed, seeing, you know, people dying. it is partially my fault. >> absolutely. thank you for raising that question. i understand get some. i was an unlisted. [silence] was an author. i was there, too. for me that moment you are talking about, that epiphanies that this is what i do came

very, very late in my career. because i went back and forth between the military and the foreign service, i was so proud of myself and my was an american diplomat, the first member of my family to get a commission. my father was in the military. both my grandfathers were in the military, all my own goes to my cousin's. the did my surgeon put his arm around me, no, i can do this. i did. was proud of him. that moment for me and, everything changed. after our went home i got back to -- a couple days after that i was blown out and have a couple of weeks to close out my accounts. remember physically taking my phone less. my phone and handing it to another officer who was 20 years and then i was. and they're really very much felt like i was passing through

time to the next generation. and i was of terrifically smart and qualified officer may better choices than i did. and after his time took more traditional kind of assignment to give himself time to recover, rest. and so if i was able to not just pass on what i had learned in the fields, not just pass on the material so that he could carry on my job. i feel i have also passed on to him something and learned in the field which was, you have to take care of yourself as well. i'm glad they are taking care of yourself. i no you're not alone. there are a lot of us out there and we'll have to stay together. then i answer your question? thank you very much. >> it almost follows that

question. what i am thinking is with -- you are not alone. i mean, you are often the group, a small group, but it almost seemed to me as if any thinking, humanitarian person in that situation would have that response. and even if it was not the military way to discuss that with your colleagues, do you really think that -- do you not think that they will all kamal of your colleagues were responding in much the same way, even if they did not have the wherewithal or the presence of mind to go home after writing the report of what happened to

them talk about or think about. >> sure. one of the doctors that i worked with over the past few years has been a recurring theme. posttraumatic stress disorder, the disorder is not a term that a lot of people like. one thing that they have said to me over time is that what has happened to you is a perfectly normal reaction to a long chain of abnormal life events. and i have had a number of my colleagues come to me privately and say, i am so glad that you are taking care of yourself and you have inspired me to go get some help. will also say i tried to reach out to some of the people i served with in afghanistan. i would send them e-mails. for a couple of reasons. hey, did you know that i was struggling?

and also has a way of closing the loop on research because i wrote this book, and then i went back and looked all my notebooks to check dates into was actually on the call. it's always good to say, hey, what do you remember. a number of my colleagues in afghanistan have refused to be in contact with me. i don't know why. i worry that it is because they feel that maybe will ruboff. i was weak and there are embarrassed because i broke. i don't know why. the ones -- the people who are the most a danger to the cells of the ones who won't get help because you cannot help them if they're one task. >> they too are waking up in the middle of the night. >> absolutely.

>> i guess i just want to address a comment to what you just said which is. >> a lot of people deal with it and maybe deal with it is not the right word. the reason i say that this my father was a marine in the pacific theater in world war ii. he did not talk about it to anyone for 50 years. i mean, he wrote about it maybe two years before died. that was the first time any of us knew anything about anything we did. >> very typically of the world war ii generation. and they were mostly men then, very small percentage of women in the military at that time. they came home from the war and immediately we are told thank you for your service.

get back to work. by the way, now we have to fight the soviets, and we will fight them by being the best, have the best factories and the biggest cars and the fastest jets. the research i have seen shows us that it was 30 years after the war when these men were guys are starting to retire that they then started asking for help. that is when they needed it. just one last thing. a book written by an barack veteran. a young infantryman. and his book is called killing time. it is a really terrific work, but they're is a part in it or they come in off of a major fire fight downtown. he is sitting by the side of his vehicle. but jen sergeant walks in and says, you're right? i don't know. he describes of as happened in the firefight. a platoon sergeant says, look my dad told me when he came on from

vietnam the way you get through is is is you put all this stuff in a box and deal with that later. and if there is one lesson from my book, i hope that you're going to have to do with the stuff. it is better to deal with it on your own terms than deal with it when you can't. i have assigned to my office to assess either you control the memory of a memory controls you. my road home has been getting control of those memories. writing about them. >> thank you for writing about your vulnerabilities. aziz said, supposed to show the

control. so i wanted just so you about my perspective than says, hiring in the basement, people like this in error over year and you may seem like saviors. and at no point we have seen u.s. these vulnerable people they are talking about. see the news. now the them thinking about it, i try to forget. people who i know, you know, the same.

something about the system that actually takes care. i know want to take too much of your time. this is so complex. undoubtedly it would make you feel if you are of low bit sensitive it will make you feel like you have. but now after recovering your struggles to you feel that it is worth it, whenever you have done ? the report, and a decision making. >> thank you. i hope so. >> look, about three days out of ten years that i can look back and say i got that one right.

there are some made as i look back. why didn't i work harder. why did not try harder. was wrong? of village in the middle of darfur exists today because i broke the chain of command, went behind my kernels back -- now my colonel, my generals back khar'kov washington and ask for intervention. it happened. the next day that village became a base for an african union peacekeeping team, and that village existed. riding a cable back to washington and saying, look, you are not doing it right. here's what is going to happen, nothing really changed. i felt like i got it right. the fact that i know that reporting that i did, reporting that i collected went into the case against milosevic, will always be proud of that. i wish i could have been more

successful more often i wasn't. >> do we have time for one more? is there one more? >> by grabbing a microphone. thank you very much for your contribution, being very open and sharing your story. as my friend, i am from coast of low as well. it is very interesting and revealing to hear this kind of story, this part of the story. i was also then 99. i was little at that point. definitely true that we saw anybody that helped albanians in that time and during those troubles those being our friends so it was a very welcome change for our country. i did have one question pertaining to your career and the way your work unraveled.

do you think it had anything to do with maybe they're wrong decisions or the lack of success, if you may raise it that way, the sense that international officials seem to offer a while, at least, feel very invincible and all-powerful? we witnessed on the other side of our glorifying the international a ministration in particular cause about and later on have been critical of their mission or lack of successful reform or maybe partnering to closely with political elites that were more harmful to the wrong people and beneficial. would you consider this as sort of a misjudgment of individual internationalist issues are more weaknesses of the system? >> i think i would maybe try and

stay away from characterizing the senior leaders. i came to goes of o very early in my political career, my diplomatic career as a political officer. my job for couple of days was to drive full birth around, you know, i was a driver. and to be a round hole broken crystal and the guys who were fighting every day, is try and stop that war, i learned a lot. what they said among themselves, if they had the self doubts, i don't know. i was not party to that. i would say it would be very, very hard not to have that kind of doubt, but i think among people like colbert, he may not have had those doubts. he was camino, so much more

senior than i will ever be. and he, you know, it does his job to stop the war, my job to drive the truck. i still feel like i failed because i did not stop the fighting. i don't know what he felt. asked him once. we had a chance to talk. and never really got a straight answer out of him. it is humbling to fail, to go somewhere like roosevelt, to go somewhere like that eastern congo, to go somewhere like to for and be told, your job is to stop the fighting and to fail over and over again and to see the lives of the civilian population disrupted the way we have, it is very humbling, and it does change the way you feel the world, much different person than i was 15 years ago.

i don't know if i am more hopeful, but lance certainly more empathetic. as far as how the echoes of low people view the americans that were there at the time in the birds there were there at the time to my good friends go back every summer to teach at the american university there. some of these stores have been translated into albanian and published. we're working to get this published right now. maybe an hour. working to get the book translated. we hope we get to it into the hands of a lot. at think that is it. [applause]

>> thank-you, all of you, for your thoughtful questions and insights. we are thrilled to have had here tonight. there is some much more to be experienced in the book. i hope you will grabber coffee -- copy. otherwise please come see us here. thanks again. have a good night. between

deployments. this is 45 minutes. >> all right. thank you. [applause] there we go. thank you so much for coming here. good to be here. this is my first time in l.a. it be good to me. it is a thrill to be here with towny. so the book is told store -- told short stories of from different perspectives. i am going to start out with, just reading the opening of the story about an artillery unit.

so this large base. and and is this weird thing where you are in a combat zone, but there are large, secure, and they are like little miniature cities. workout facilities and the chou all. you know, there would be some who never left them who were referred to as bobbitt's. and this story is set on. some marine had recorded the song said to the chin of photo california, and the course was welcome to the hotel camphor loser. you're in a combat zone, garbage restaurant on. that sort of gives you the feel for them. they are actually engaged. all right. this