famous -- which i believe was taken all the way to the supreme court by her son-in-law but within 10 years of the great victory books are being published that lady chatterji will's lover look like a sunday school track. .. then it is all right. and remember being told about any member -- number. is not the publisher is their job to figure out what people want to read.

but it is not about that. >> host: max schuster did not publish the autobiography. >> guest: no he did not. i remember telling him what a great historical document took this book to those elections in what that said was it is a masterpiece but i do not want my name on the

same book as albert. it is wrong but we will not publish a new book is not easy for a publisher to say that i am not saying random house i don't want to publish a separate probe. >> host: indiana please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: yes mr. korda i have a question about the war's. with your work as a writer

and they have presented but it appears 9/11 was the inside job. >> guest: i will not comment on that. it does not look like that. i think it was an act of terror. >> host: arlington virginia..lhe groundwork for the modern, high-tech world we live in by investing a tremendous amount in science and technology. the creation of the first satellite and the defense advanced research products agency, darpa, and other endeavors that really moved

along a lot of our, you know, progress in science and technology. >> guest: i think you're right about that. i think that ike -- while he was not a scientist -- was extraordinarily aware of the effect of technology on life and on war. in those terms, it was ike whose enthusiasm for the autobahns in germany caused him to produce our highways which changed the face of the united states. and ike certainly was the most thoughtful person in the world about the atom you can bomb -- atomic bomb. henry kissinger has often pointed out that when he published his book on the atom you can bomb and foreign policy, he went down -- atomic bomb and foreign policy, he went down to ike to talk to him about it and was absolutely stunned by ike's intelligence, his grasp of the

subject, his understanding of the subject. i think ike was a very, very smart guy, smart enough that he could afford sometimes to appear not so smart. which is the ultimate smartness. >> host: thomas, santa barbara, california. e-mail: i'm an admirer of u.s. grant and am troubled that his presidency is usually rated among the worst. how would you assess his presidency? >> guest: i make it clear in my biography of ulysses s. grant that i think grant was a pretty good president. he had his limitations, as every president does. but he managed to sew the country together. he failed in terms of civil rights. he tried, but failed. he was a disaster in terms of economic policy. but there was an economic collapse coming anyway, and whoever had been president it might have taken place. but i think grant's presidency holds up as one of the more important presidencies of the united states. he certainly kept us from entering another war, and that

was the most important thing for the future of america at that time. >> host: and a follow-up from vince of shelby township, michigan. you mentioned today that grant's autobiography is one of the greatest pieces of american nonfiction writing. does mark twain deserve most of that credit since he edited the book? >> guest: no. mark twain went over the book. he published the book. he found a means of publishing the book that was unique. he created the book club in order to publish grant by sending salesmen around from door to door with pictures of the various leather bindings you could have on grant's memoirs when they were finally published. it was an enormous and imaginative project which changed the face of american book publishing, as i say, invented the book club. he did not, however, change significantly any word that a grant wrote. and grant wrote what he wanted to do. to my knowledge, mark twain never claimed to have had edited grant in that, in that sense.

>> host: michael korda, is there an author that you simply would not work with again? because of your experience as his or her editor? >> guest: well, i don't think i'm going to be called to make that decision can unless something truly miraculous should happen. at my age, i'm not planning to make a comeback as editor-in-chief of a major publishing company, even if anybody wanted me to. no. but an author i would not publish, there are authors i would hesitate to publish that would make me uncomfortable. jack abbott, for example. for those of your readers who are too young to have heard of him, he was somebody who had been sent the prison for an ec tended period of time -- extended period of time and on his release wrote a very interesting book called "belly of the beast" about his life in prison and his former life in crime. and a group of american

publishers and authors, including norman mailer, labored to get this book published. and in the middle of their laboring to get this book published, which it was successfully, he killed a waiter in a restaurant. i had the feeling then that jack abbott would be a risky person to publish. maybe because i'm more cautious than other people. so, yes, there are people at who i would draw the line, but how and where you draw it is difficult to say. i think any publisher, like anybody else, has to be able to say that's going to be too much trouble, that's going to be too big a risk or, no, i just don't want to involve myself with that perp. >> host: son of sam laws, good idea? when it comes to publishing? >> guest: i don't think it's a terrible idea. i'm opposed to them because it seems to me a somewhat

roundabout restraint on freedom of speech. but in point of fact, if the crime is bad enough and the criminal or defendant can sell the story of the book, yeah, i don't think that it's wrong that the victim could get a share of the profits. >> host: who is robert moses, and what was your relationship when you published him? >> guest: well, we published him. i only met him once or twice in my life because i did a book that he wrote about the new york governor -- >> host: al smith. >> guest: al smith. he wrote a little book about al -- very, very good book which for the first time made me see that al smith was more than the perp who disliked -- person who disliked franklin roosevelt and thought he should have run as president instead of fdr. it was a very good little book. he was not only the most powerful person in new york at that time, but he also was one

who run roughshod over everybody in his path, including me. so i would, i would have been reluctant to do another book, however short, with him. much as i think he was a great man. and i thought that robert caro's biography of him, "the power broker," is one of the great nonfiction books of our time. it is a wonderful, wonderful book. in its own way, as every bit as good as his multivolume biography of lyndon johnson, and i wait for each volume of that. >> host: next call com f >> >> host: the next call comes from georgia. >> caller: listening to your answer of the collar about writing the autobiography i uninterested

because frankly they say yes you definitely need to put this down. i am not famous. so do you have friends or family or someone that you know, that are not famous that you have recommended they write their autobiography and how did that workout? >> guest. >> host: what is it about you or your story that people thank you should write about? >> caller: my wife had ed disease which i will not mention i'd want to take away from people who have that that went to trial in the courts and the politics of losing a job because of

insurance. then tragedy at the end. it is kind of shocking. >> guest: let me say i agree with every publisher that everybody has a broken them but if you can get that on paper to interest anybody else except your mother is a question. if you have a story there's something in your life you think is worth writing about i am all for people to try that. i into addictive of the notion of that everyone of the books would be published but it has to go on paper and you have to make it interesting to other people. >> host: did robert to get

your attention? >> guest: yes. but it probably is a good story but could it be made good on paper? only he can answer that. >> host: denver. good afternoon. >> caller: mr. korda i am a big fee and. over the years i just was finishing up the biography of william paley i have not heard him mention to have a right to know what you thought about him and also the late richard holbrooke wife who had written about the hong carian revolution. your family is mentioned quite a bit in her books. >> guest: i don't think i ever met him. he was a great man. he appears in the unfinished

novel that truman capote was writing. but i have no idea if that is true or not. but kathy is a very good friend i ever great admirer of her book she did great justice to my a uncle alex. and she and i were both awarded the order of the merits of hungry. from the embassy in new york mr. korda the next call is from houston. >> caller: i am very much enjoying the interview. my question refers to a statement you made that had to do with the publishing industry that has not really

changed that much. would you agree the burden has been placed on the author now for self-promotion and i am talking about the newly published author with the expectation that most of the marketing to come from the author? as opposed to it in the past where there is also more money at the time that this is a significant change? and the follow-up to that is as opposed to sell the publishing you will do most of the word kittiwake. >> guest: that is perfectly possible that people will self published on the internet than if it is successful enough that it will pass it to a written

book published by somebody. but the most successful authors have always tended to be very, very clever self promoters. that is one example but anything data publisher could do could not do for themselves that they needed that backing of preferred for somebody else to take the bill. somebody always will take a back burner to publishing. >> host: ohio? we will move forward.

we will move to west virginia. >> caller: speesix. >> host: we are having a little bit of a problem hearing you. maybe you need to move on your cellphone and we will try again in just a second. this is an e-mail. >> mr. korda had to have his prostate review that resulted in physical problems he had to deal with. and reading your book me into manpower you affected by that situation and was it tough to write about such a tough thing? >> guest: yes. it is very difficult. and i would not have done it

if i did not feel at the time that it was important to be as open as i could. that that radical procedure that i underwent 1994 is still long for the treatment of choice for people who have prostate cancer therefore we're reaching a large number of people in that situation and i urge them to consider other forms of therapy them back. -- man that. i am still here. 1994 is a long time ago. [laughter] does it take a toll? yes of course, any surgery does. but you have to live with that imbalance that you have had as a very serious life

changing his surgery. >> host: what do you miss most about going to cited schuster every day? >> guest: imus going past that stadium. and deeply as i admire it i don't wish to come back because it is a different place with different people when you leave it take your stuff with you that imus the daily movement with large numbers of people even extraordinarily as rockefeller center is. i find it inspiring and i remember the loving it you did meet at the coffee shop and jean shallot was part of your daily life that was terrific. >> host: antedate jonathan has your old job. >> guest: yes.

>> host: we will try west virginia again. >> caller:. >> host: try again very quickly. >> caller: speesix. >> host: i'm sorry that is not a good connection. now we have montana. >> caller: it is a treat to listen to you. nixon was a good poker player. what about grant was see any good or did they play chess? [laughter] >> guest: i never participated in a nixon poker game but i heard he was very good.

but lee was born again christian and it was a version as alcohol and tobacco so i don't know his card playing abilities were ever called for. but grant certainly has no reputation as a card player because his chief reputation was drinking too much. but i don't know if it shows grant as a poker player but certainly not lee. >> host: this e-mail was to know what you think of obama as a writer? >> guest: i cannot comment i have now read them. but as a president i do not think he has shown in foreign policy where it matters.

with a steely determination to impose what america wants done in the way like eisenhower did. and that is unfortunate. i am a firm believer if the united states will be a great power one of the applications is to use that power wisely with the determination where it has to be used. grant and lee always knew that the american military force must be used precisely with the great force. it must overwhelm the opponent quickly and not be spread out that what marshal

montgomery as always dismissed. if you go to afghanistan and scatter a company here or there or a battalion here or a group over there. now we have radio communication with the fact is you are committing that elementary mistake with military to scatter your forces. rather than concentrating them where it makes a big difference. >> host: if somebody buys one of your books which one should they buy? >> guest: i'd like "clouds of glory" that is the latest and i'd like robert e. the is fascinating and difficult and fascinating figure so "clouds of glory" it was terrific to do it i don't think i ever want to write a

long a biography of a civil war general again nor do i think my wife would let me. [laughter] but to write about somebody iso with mired. -- i admired but one of the keys is to pick people that you admire. it is hard to imagine touche the right to a long interesting biography. it has been done but i could not spend four years inside the mind of adolf hitler. i would not do it but inside robert e. lee is fascinating >> host: the rise and fall of the of third reich t-bond a huge success. that which is back in the days of the tribune a very

nice man. and a typical book publisher. simon gave him a job when nobody else would. over madison avenue as well. and joe got the book during a the mccarthy years and it was originally called his mother's nightmare. this subtitle was the fall of the third reich. it had a jacket that the title was spelled out but had 30,001st printing nobody read it. i gave the timing from the gallery. and i said you have to read

this book is better than anybody thinks. he came back and said you are right to approach it in a whole different way and the advertising director came up to put the subtitle as the title of the book in to do a black jacket with the swastika. nobody at that time ever put the swastika on the cover of a book let alone simon & schuster. you can imagine. so much fear and dislike and discussed in the book went on had a first printing at 20,000 copies probably one

of the most successful books in the history of cyberdash schuster. millions of copies sold one-fourth -- in one form or another. but it does show it takes courage to hire him in those days. and another who was fired rights box after box page after page on the typewriter that it took courage to look at that and say no. throw away the barbwire as the title of the book to put a swastika where everybody will see that. the book with a swastika on it in the window of my book

store? we told the baps make them do it and they did. you can not be a book publisher and not have the courage to have to do what you think should. >> host: is there a book that you pushed for now you wish you had not? [laughter] >> guest: about south america i was very fond of as a best seller but the big crack in the book he found someone it had a photograph of him to sit down in a cafe and he published that book

it is the schoolteacher that was related to meet. [laughter] and we probably have 250,000 copies of this book. [laughter] but they had a wonderful bit about the south america beauty contest every year but the one thing that we had was wrong and it was not him. so it just shows if you make that kind of mistake to closure rise polder silence then get on with the next book . .

left. >> i know people don't have as much value in the books that are read by the author. but when i heard colin powell and senator obama their book that was the best way to take that book but the question that i have ike was the spy master i know people think that putin is reacting to the containment we try to push on him but what is your opinion? >> guest: he dealt with khrushchev so he could certainly deal with vladimir putin. and i would say yes. he is a spy master. >> guest: i'm all for it. i have only reported one of them myself and i can't remember which one of my books one.

i found for someone who is not an actor difficult and the hardest money i have ever made. i remember saying to my agent i said i never wanted to do this again, reporting stopping and correcting one's voice. the way people get a book doesn't matter. if they listen to it, fine. if they read it, terrific. if they read it on their computer screens, good and if they read it on paper also good. however you do take a book is the book that matters. >> host: michael korda's most recent book is about robert e. lee "clouds of glory" is -- "clouds of glory" is the name of the book and he has been our guest on "in depth" on c-span2. thanks for being with us. >> guest: my pleasure.

up next, rebecca frankel talks about the history of k-9 warriors going back to 1942 and describes the use of dogs in iraq and afghanistan. during this event held at the six then i historic synagogue in washington d.c. ms. frankel is in conversation with james boehlert national correspondent for the atlantic. this is just over an hour.

>> hi everyone. welcome to six tonight. i'm the associate director here. for those of you who have been here before this introduction will seem more personal than usual and that's because i am lucky enough to call rebecca frankel a close friend and to me and too many friends in the audience she is becky. seven years ago i was approaching two years at my first job here in d.c. and it was a job that i really didn't like. i would call my mom crying during my lunch hour at least twice a week distraught in a way that all may and entitled millennial can be about drowning in administrative work and lacking a purpose. at the point when i was feeling like i couldn't get any worse became the director of six then die and there were only a few other people on staff and she wanted to grow the team so she called her contacts and asked if they knew anyone who would be a good fit. one of the people she called was becky and with the biggest

stroke of luck in my life thus far back he recommended me. there is no way to pay becky back for ushering in one of the most interesting and fulfilling faces of my life so when she delicately approach the subject whether "sixth and i" could host an event for the release of "war dogs" because her intelligence is only rivaled by her humility thinking you got me my job here. you have the early show in the late show, whatever you want, just name it. as a friend at becky's i can say that the love care compassion and respect that she shows her friends is the same approach she took in researching and writing the "war dogs." reviews of the book have been phenomenal. jonathan yardley of the post called called "war dogs" an exceptionally interesting and surprisingly moving book and general petraeus said that is truly wonderful inspirational

and moving. becky has been writing about war dog since 2010 and her weekly column called her back as war dog of the week for foreign-policy where she's a senior editor of special projects. this book has been a labor of love for her one in which he has immersed herself in foley. it took becky around the country to a training site for military war dogs in arizona and by phone and in-person into the homes of soldiers and their families for the experience of the incredible impact that dogs and their handlers could have on each other. tonight becky will be in conversation with james a national correspondent for the atlantic and has written for the magazine for over 30 years. he was the founding chairman of the new america foundation. he once worked as president carter's chief speechwriter and served as the editor of "u.s. news and world report." he has written several books his latest being china airborne. james is at six then die in

april for a fascinating event about his american futures project through which he and his wife deborah who is also here tonight have been exploring america's heartland a small plane. toward the end of the program there'll be time to ask questions. please line up of the microphone here in the center so we can all hear your questions and because we are filming tonight's program. then we will have a book signing and additional copies of the book will be for sale. it's my sincere pleasure to welcome you all to sixth and i were this event in particular and please join me in giving a welcome to becki frenkel and james ballast. [applause] >> thank you so much jackie and thank you for coming out this evening. thanks thanks to sixth and i. i couldn't be more delighted than to be here with becky. i have known her for eight or nine years now and have watched it develop as a writer and i

would be predisposed to like this book because my wife and i like and let becky so much that is really great book. the fact that jonathan yardley who is no pushover when it comes to reviews gave us such high complements is well deserved. it's a human story as well as a k-9 story. it's about the culture war. it's about love between the species and really is an excellent book. i'm delighted to have the chance to ask mickey questions and have her tell the story. we'll have questions from all of you. i thought i turn this thing off. it's actually my boss. hi james. i will call them back later. i am interviewing us rebecca frankel. i thought i turn this off but modern technology. let me start by asking becky it is not what i would have expected perhaps from you or your parents might have expected

when they were raising you as a kind of studious person you are that you would be out there writing about war dogs. how did you end up writing this kind of book? >> will certainly was more dogs than military initially. he has been writing the best for foreign-policy and as i got to know him i got to know how much he likes dogs and a grizzled and curious journalist. he has two very small dogs and he loves them very much. as we became friendlier even a powerful microphone can't help me. tom and i were fond of dogs and i did photo research for him found photographs of marines in afghanistan and it struck me as very different and surprising

not just because these marines were hanging out with dogs and they weren't wearing kevlar and they just looked very happy. so i sent them to tom and tom estimate there were more. i started to look into the top topic. >> host: when did you think this is something that's not just the photo feature, not just a stand-alone article but the kind of attention you had given it two for the last two years. >> tom said it was worth digging into more but it wasn't until my mission in may 2011 and this little bit of news about the mission. that there was a dog there supposedly in cairo and i put together a photo essay for foreign-policy and may put it up on line and it did very well.

the opportunity to write the book kind of found me. i did things a little backwards which was lucky but very nice. >> i read this book quickly when i got an advance copy a couple months ago. i have notes about it in here. as a way of introducing one part of your story which is how the dogs do the things they do let me read how becky introduces the idea of dogs following a scent. imagine a leaf floating down the creek shiny and wet it links out from the moving water. this leaf spins in circles like a carnival ride and then made within a current and travels further and faster than you thought possible. powerful unpredictable this is the finicky prerogative of the wind. you go on to say this is how come explain why you get the story belief in the water. >> just to show how it travels and how it moves. i guess it's something we don't really think about that when i was out in the desert and

particular watching dogs trained in yuma arizona this was very important to the training that they were doing. they had to not only watch their dogs that watch the wind. they would kick the dirt and i know golfers do this when they are trying to see which way the wind is blowing it is a similar thing. you kick the dirt and watch and see because of where the dirt goes where dissent is going to go. >> when i understood this to be saying the leap was a metaphor for the particles of the sent, so you describe what a wonderful popular sites detailing hear why dogs are so good at this. tell us what you think most people don't know about the kinds of things dogs can do the machines can do in human beings can't do. >> bay. >> they imprinted. >> bay imprint sent in it much more calm the kid in a layered way that humans to set the example i've been using as an handlers use this example. they call it a stew or a hamburger. what we recognize as do the dogs

are smelling all of the ingredients and they can pull them out. so this becomes important in searching for ieds because the composition of a particular homemade explosive is never going to be exactly the same every time. they are very crude and easy to make in that way. the good thing about a dog is that when i smell a particular amount of vulgar, and particular order and it can be duct tape of something they recognize as part of the stew they will alert on it. it doesn't need to be the complete sense of the stew. it just needs to be the individual ingredients. >> what is the mixture of nature and nurture in training dogs? are all of them able to do it or does the military have to find particularly good centers? >> is helpful in understanding dogs. as a species they are uniquely uniquely talented in this way that dogs are like people such as because they are born with these peace these abilities and powerful noses doesn't mean they

are adept at using them or outside situations or circumstances were different environments and peep them or if they become frightened or uncomfortable even though they have this ability is not always easy for them to put it to task. >> another aspect of your book that i really enjoyed and i predict all of you will enjoy when you buy it and read it to read it and give it to your friends for gifts is the history you tell, the way that dogs and human beings just from the martial aspect. we will get to other aspects later on that tell us about how dogs over the long run have been involved in warfare and what's different now but the kinds of wars we have been fighting the

last generation collects. >> dogs have probably been on battlefields as long as humans have ours long as they have had this relationship between them and there's evidence to suggest that the romans used them to guard their citadel's and egyptians use them to carry messages and certainly in world war i even our allies were using them and the united states did not have the foresight to employ them in the way that the germans did in the russians did. but they were on the battlefield and what they were able to do particularly and trench warfare was to navigate this very difficult and very open for long stretches these terrains were humans could not travel easily and they couldn't travel quickly. so they would send messages from the command to the front and dogs could carry them twice as quickly as people could. they were able to navigate things in the trenches and they were never swayed by a food or a friendly soldier tried to call them away. they were very loyal in that respect and in vietnam they were used again and they were used the way we are using them now as scout dogs primarily. their ability to alert and to give warning to things coming

out to sense danger their hearing and senses but also the thing that bugs have. if you have a dog and you are staying at home and at home and if you're a somewhere you look to them to see what's going on. it's a very similar thing in that situation. >> in the kinds of wars that the u.s. has been fighting for the last decade plus words mainly irregular combat people looking for ieds and snipers and all the rest, take us how a dog is trained for that kind of duty and then what the dog, he or she come are they both genders? how the dog does his or her work on the battlefield. >> so it does depend. dogs could train dependently -- differently depending on what branch of service there and. >> you say that without any mental pause what branch of service the dog is then. [laughter] >> well you know. and in the event they do start a dog training school in the same for every dog and every handler.

they go off to their different home stations and they do play from there as a team, always as a team. the dog and handler to place a team and come home as a team. some of these dogs will go through pre-deployment training which is very necessary and once i saw what they were doing i felt grateful on their behalf that they have this time to acclimate themselves not only to climate but to heat and to the desert air and air-to-air because a dog that is stationed in new jersey or pierre is used to humidity and is going to need a period of adjustment when i go to afghanistan or iraq. it's very intensive training but is also also for all made sure period of time. three weeks goes by very very fast so i was a bit concerned after i left feeling there's just not enough time especially for some of them that weren't as advanced as others. there's always a difference in skill and talent like learning anything. but they learn to train for

explosives. they do daytime tactical training. they learn to navigate very high spaces of these dogs will scale ladders. they can scale walls and that involves the handlers help so they help over while also handlers have to be prepared to carry their dog would sometimes these dogs way up to 98 pounds and not all these handlers are big bulky dudes. some of them are petite dinner women who are just as tough but certainly shouldering a pack of 70 pounds and being expected to carry the weight of an 80-pound dog porcelain as it might be necessary is a lot to get used to. so they got big things like that. >> to some of the dogs washed out in the training? >> they do. it becomes clear sometimes very quickly when a dog might not be the right talk to send out on a "zero dark thirty" mission with special forces with some of these dogs will get sent off to do.

on august the the first time they hear live gunfire paid a lot of a lot of a lot of simulated exercise paths all these big zones but the difference is kind of acute and especially for a dog was sensitive hearing so the sound of the blast isn't going to register the deep shock of having an mortar explode 10 feet away from them as happened to a dog team that i knew. >> you talk about certain breeds of dogs that make up the preponderance of the ones are running about. are their natural gifts? tell us about the breeds and that doing this kind of work provided it. >> mostly right now the military employs german shepherds. that kind of look like like shepherds but they're closer that shorter and they use german shepherds because of their size and when they are training for patrol or training to contain a bad guy the power of their jaws comes in handy. they do warfare training but the

belgian dogs have an incredibly high work drive which means they are going all the time. i drove from one training exercise to another with the stock in the back and we have been training for eight hours that i thought he would pass out and go to sleep but he was moving embarking it couldn't settle down and not something they like to see in these dogs. very high aggression and very high energy and let them work it out. >> we heard yesterday about another fence jumper at the white house where the secret service dogs came into play datagram this person. presumably they had bike training. you went to buy training yourself. tell us about by training in how it works from a dog's perspective than yours. >> the handler in the dog have to learn and become accustomed to chasing down a suspect.

so what you want to do is you want to get them to be comfortable biting in particular places where they have the advantage of their weight and their momentum and running presumably as someone who is running away and somebody is at least at the other end able to stop the dog. i wouldn't recommend it. the bite suit starts off very big and very bulky and it's a protective layer. even though i was wearing one when i did this exercise which is sort of becoming like a do dot -- giant chew toy. he sees you put on the suit and it's very excited and he's wants to come after you does not -- what to say is you can't say i've changed my mind about what to do this. they tell the dog to watch her and whoever the decoy happens to be and then they let the dog go and it hurts even if you are wearing a lot.

i was wearing, wasn't wearing the fake is bite suit because they didn't have one in my size but i was not expecting to feel what i felt. i tried to keep smiling and i was pretty sure, i said i'm going to have to go to the hospital and get stitches and they will be sorry they did this to me. i just had a bruise and it wasn't that big of a bruise. >> at the dogs not guilford? >> i didn't get knocked over partially because we were not in a very big space and also i was wearing so much equipment that i couldn't run so i couldn't go fast enough to get the momentum. i think they were taking it easy on me just a little bit. the dog's name was rhambo though. [laughter] >> there are lots of other operational things which we will get to later on. want to skip to the part of the book that i found the most compelling and i think jonathan was writing about this too. essentially its moral element. the story here is we have got to know each other through different kind of animal bonding.

when my wife and i move to china our beloved cat mike, becky adopted and was his loving owner for the rest of this very long life and couldn't have a better parent. the fact that you are so loving for a cat impressed so much for trained dogs will be it but also this is a book about character and love and qualities of bravery and loyalty and daring. tell us first, tell us the relationship they have at the animals. they are not supposed to love them and what kind of people are the handlers and how are they different from other people in uniform? how do they view these animals? >> i think they consider themselves to be a little bit apart from the military in general and part of that comes with being protective of what they do, protective of their dogs and because it took a while for dogs to be accepted in the field at least in iraq and

afghanistan they came came in originally in small numbers. not everyone appreciated why they were there and they thought the dogs were obtained and they had to take care of his animal and they didn't trust them. they were naturally defensive end i think also they worried about outsiders perceiving what they do to be abused which i never found it to be that. i can say that our right but a lot of people disagree with the idea come to the idea of using animals in war. that's a sort of separate so i think they are defensive in that way. they are also a bunch of troublemakers i think as a group but they have to be a little bit more dangerous. i found a lot of them were what you might call the thrill seekers a little bit but also whether or not they wanted to admit it or to talk about it in a deeper kind of way were very,

very sensitive and emotionally intelligent people i found, to be able to have this kind of relationship with an animal they cannot communicate with you in words but to be able to get them to do the things they were doing and bring them into this particular places and earn their trust and loyalty because that's such a big part. i don't think it is just about training and command and they call it correcting a dog and they give him negative feedback and they stopped doing that but i think it's really about bonding and trust. >> did most of these people, where the pre-existing animal people are dog people people before they ended up in the specialty in the military? >> guess most of the more and most of them from a very young age. they all had stories to tell about dogs that they grow up with. a lot of them trained with animals or have some kind of involvement with them when they were younger or growing up or had some idea. one of them i got to know very

well. he knew when he was five, he went to a police, something in the community where they had an officer or a drug detection dog find cocaine in a bag. he knew right then he wanted to be a dog handler and that was the coolest thing he ever seen. >> everyone as a dream. >> he was surprised when he found his way -- find himself on the way to iraq. >> during the training or in the field there's a most intense relationship between these human beings and these animals. you have stories of handlers sheltering their dogs from fires and explosions and then act as separate. the dogs don't go home at these people who they were living with so talk about that process. >> it's different. police k-9 units operate very differently. they train with a dog and they have a career with the dog for life in the dogs looked with them at home and they were together every day. there's really now unless something happens they are

together always working and at home. but for dog teams that dogs are ours assigned to one channel and a home station and handlers will come in and out into the two years in one home station and then they leave and go somewhere else. that's part of military life. i think it is really hard on them when they have to transition out and they have to leave. not that they are leaving them behind that they have to move onto something else and in particular is very hard in the military to be promoted within k-9 because there are only so many levels in tears that you can go up so you can be a handler. you can be a trainer and a kennel master than you hit a ceiling. when you're you are kennel master also you become in charge of an operation, not just one dog. so a lot of handlers will say to me that was also the saddest day in their life. one of particular was a kennel master and was a brooding tie. he really resented that he had

to give up handling one dog and having one bond to get a better paycheck. but he and a family is but he felt like it too. >> on the dogs point of view all dogs you write about how some dogs melts. they have too much stress and they can't take anymore. what happens to the dogs after they have done their active duty? >> depending on whether it's an injury or the dog is reached the age where it's not good to put them out anymore they deserve to retire, the dogs retired and there is now a very rigorous process. it wasn't always there but i think especially because now there is a lot more public attention which is good. where are all watching to see what happens to these dogs and we want them to get the best treatment possible. they get evaluated by behavior is to make sure they are suitable animals to live in a house with people and maybe they

would be fine in a house with two adults but not with other dogs. certainly not with children but then they adopt them out. usually it's a handler and usually there's a long line of handlers who have worked it out with the dogs that are right there in anxious and sometimes it becomes difficult to gauge which handlers deserves or should get the dog. >> you talk about a program relevantly recently of having retired to the soldiers who are suffering from post -- post-traumatic stress disorder and i want to read another passage to sort of set this up for you which i found tremendously moving. it's about a dog named bo and who had been doing some of this handling or counseling for soldiers who were in trouble. bo was inactive for a total of 18 months. serving serving through two deployments that do that. for the end of their tour the soldier started to see a change

in her. she'd never been a kind of dog are relished being the center of a large crowd. she always accepted the attention off for dinner and indulge the excited fuss the soldiers made what differently patients. after 15 months of being bo sandler i notice when soldiers approached bo she turned away from them. the only time she seemed happy was when she was free to be a dog. she didn't want to engage anymore. it was as if she said she had absorbed too much sadness. tell us about the dogs absorbing sadness both on the battlefield and when they are counseling soldiers later on. >> bo was a unique dog. that was part of an experimental program that the army paired with this nonprofit group called america is that dogs. they do wonderful things. they provide service and therapy dogs for veterans who have problems either coping with coming back or they have physical impairments as a result of their service. bo was part of this program that

paired therapy dogs with combat therapist. the dog was a labrador sold her job was just for therapy. a handler who was a remarkable person we talked a lot and i had a lot of respect for her because of how perceptive she was about her experience and what a difference the dog made in being a therapist in a combat zone. they deployed to iraq during a particularly nasty time. she brought by with her everywhere and sometimes it was small difference is that it would make. soldiers on base were giving bo a lot of treats so bo with anyway. there have actually been a soldier who had also gained a little bit of weight. so he started to take go out for runs to help bo loosely that they were both exercising. it could be something like that

where she described times when soldiers would break down. they wouldn't break down to her that they would sit with bo and she would let them be and walk away and let the dog be a dog. but she did say that bo had had enough, it was just too much and actually what with that said to me was very powerful. there are a lot of bad things that happen in war zones and for her to be a sponge and to kind of turn away from people to have had enough is a remarkable statement and what it must be like out there. >> i will preface this question but that perhaps embarrassing admission that i have been not like my wife a dog person. i raise dogs as a kid but my personality gravitates more cats with their independence than dogs with their loyalty loyalty and too easily accessible friendliness. [laughter] however having said that this i found again really moving and

writing about traits that if we are talking about people we would describe his bravery and we describe his loyalty and we described as love. obviously we are talking about animals but tell us what you are trying to say about these traits like bravery loyalty and love as you think we should understand them and the dogs you are writing about. >> well, i don't know. it doesn't seem that hard to identify them in animals in the dogs to me. but i think there is something to me that was particularly moving and sort of a bare way which is sort of how dogs are. there is no filter. there is no condition. a cat you have to earn that love and that relationship and there's a different emotional negotiating going on there. most dogs don't do that so for me hearing these stories about

how otherwise very mellow and very gentle and not aggressive animals when there is a threat to a handler that they became the first is beast that without question would have put their lives in jeopardy. we may think they don't comprehend the gravity of the situation but it's more to the point of what's actually happening. it's just an instinctive production and there's no thinking. they just act. so i don't know, it's something amazing about that and touching and tender. >> as i say i'm not a pushover for this kind of appeal but i did find it very powerful and convincing. there is another not moral but cultural theme in your book. you say the people you're writing about come the dog handlers are a subset of the military but did you make clear that the military is an isolated subset with america over the years and deployment while most

of us pay no attention. tell us why you thought the dog story was a way to try to bridge that divide to a general readership and what the people you spoke with felt about being part of this fragment of america that the country doesn't think about but our world the time. >> for me initially i hadn't done any real reporting in terms of the military. whenever i went to a military base i myself in a place i'd never been before was always a little bit nervous. i never quite had the right weather and i was unprepared in a lot of different ways. however nervous i was or howev however, whoever i was meeting as soon as they started to talk about dogs everything became very easy and very simple. for me, a sort of started to understand a little bit better talking about war easier or at

least it forged a path talking about more complicated things. because we were talking about dogs it was easier to talk about how hard these experiences were or what it was like to lose a friend and somehow it opened up these people to be a little bit more open with me. i found you know especially after the explosion of interest in this topic for a country that had already been at war for so many years where i think most people are probably perhaps sick of hearing about suicide bombers and i don't begrudge anyone that. it's hard news to get every single day and especially if it's not changing for the better but people were always interested to talk about dogs i felt it was a very natural way to carry on a conversation. >> and to follow-up on the point you are making there and previously talking about you are a petite woman from a bookish

background who is in the military talking to these dog handlers. what were they cultural pluses and minuses of their existing in this role? >> it's an interesting question. you know i think they may be weren't sure what to make up of me are what i was doing there. particularly my experience in yuma arizona which i was very fortunate and i made some very good connections early on. i was able to maneuver around some of the obstacles that journalists are brought to light public affairs officers who make it very difficult. i understand they have a job to do but i didn't have to talk to them much of that made me happy. when i got to yuma this marine whose name is gunnery sergeant christopher nye and he is kind of scary if you don't know him well. he has an intimidating presence

in every single respect of the word. wasn't very forthcoming. i called and he said the m.i.t. income and i said okay when can i come? he said i don't know i'll get back to and they got back to me and i called in to let them know i'd arrived and he gave me straight to the point directions. it was clear he was not going to repeat them. i had to drive two hours in the dark at 3:30 in the morning to get to this massive expanse of land in the middle of the arizona desert and there are no signs anywhere. he was telling me turn left at the jobsite but in the dark ones that look like quest and look like less than what timmy than what timmy know is in the daytime when their people peer shooting from the sky. right after he finished giving me those very explicit directions he asked me what self-service i had any set you are not going to get resection -- reception here and

he hung up. anyway when i got there and we started talking they were very nice and they asked me if i wanted to go back to my hotel. i said you want me to leave? is a time for me to go on is that the polite way of saying thank you so much for coming and we are done here here? i said no we thought you would want to leave already in i said no. after that they never asked me to leave. >> have you been to any offense on military bases as part of that? you certainly will i'm sure. >> i hope so. >> and a couple of minutes i want to invite you to come to the microphone to ask questions. let me ask ask you a few other things about this. you this. you'll spend a lot of your life with animals. what do you think differently about the animal world now compared to four or five years ago? >> i think it's a much more interesting place than i realized it was and it makes me excited to keep checking forward

on this topic and to learn more about it. i am sort of amazed. the things i didn't know i think are things that we take for granted if we have animals in our lives. we tell our dog do you want to go out and answer us and we think they know what i'm talking about. they know what out means and they know this but it's actually really remarkable that we are able to communicate with them in that way and certainly not cats as well. mike has a very smart cat. >> i think hunting is the term. >> that too. i read about all the studies and people are doing wonderful studies about dogs and how they communicate with humans. i didn't know this about humans but apparently we register in motion on one side of her face without knowing if we glanced to the left. we look to the right side and they have done a eye tracking studies on this and it's well-documented.

they looked at dogs and dogs do exactly the same thing. they put screens up in front of them and track their eyes and they consistently glanced to the right side of human faces because they are not only reading our gestures and the tone of our voice or a few works that they know, they're actually looking to glean a motion into clean context and what we are saying what i think is fascinating. there was a study done by this woman i think in sweden where she was working with a chimp and there were these overturned cups and between them. under one of the cops was food. she was trying to show its age jim where the food was and she said it's here. she's pointing and saying it's here. the chimp is looking over here and could not care less that there was this woman in front of her giving her all this information. we are much more closely related to chimps than we are to dogs but then she flashes to this

next scene and there are two bowls over to nomogram. it's the same expanded and from the moment she comes into the room the dog is tracking her face. she says that food is here and he goes right to the bowl. he could smell it also. [laughter] i find it endlessly fascinating. >> you are the one who can resolve the timeless question and therefore there's a cartoon i think the far side where on one panel was his owner saying to the dog well equipped and we are going to go for a walk and then the thought balloon for the dog was blah, blah, blah, gretchen. which is closer to the truth? is it just blah, blah, blah and they are smelling the food or how much of interested? >> it depends on the dog because they are very much individuals but there is a study and an article about this border

color -- border collie and her vocabulary sobered into words. she is probably very high on the spectrum but i would think after having been, i would not underestimate dogs potential to understand if not in words and certainly in chester -- gesture. >> i was asking what you felt differently about the animal world and what you think or know differently about the military and the way it functions and the way it functions in the u.s. now? >> one of the questions i asked over and over again, i almost fell like a little kid that i wanted to understand everything as much as i could and i was always asking why. for example why are there only three weeks of pre-deployment training because i will be honest with you i was not confident that every single handler who left their was as ready as i would want them to be knowing where they were going.

they have had the best trainers imaginable, the man and women who are leading these instructions were incredibly dedicated and devoted and they take it very seriously. in order to do this training they have all had to have outside the wire experience in all of them have had it in. so they are getting the best training possible but why is it only three weeks and who made that decision three weeks was enough? wised up for weeks, why five? why don't they all know how to use night vision goggles when they get here. why have some of them not picked up a weapon since basic training and there was never a good answer to any these questions. my feeling about the military now is i worry it is so big i think probably things that are very important art well-managed and certainly that is not a

revelation but something and in this context and it made me kind of angry to these are really young kids were going out there. >> and on average and i know this is a gross generalization. nonetheless i will ask it. today's young people in the military involved in these grinding wars for a dozen years now did they feel misused by the country? if they feel proud of what they were doing? what are the feelings of the people you were seeing as they are going back and forth from iraq and afghanistan? >> i don't know if i would say they feel used by the country but a lot of them are i would say angry about what's going on. i think they feel like people don't really understand what it is they have been through, especially the ones who had seen some really hard tours.

some of these men and women are 26 years old and they have been to iraq three times and they have been to afghanistan for. that's too many times and such a sure period of time. some of them have experience in what you would call an easy to her i guess. i think they feel like people don't know what's going on and they are not invested. i think they also feel like the partner courses that we have are not supported to put it very delicately. there is a lot of phenom and anger towards that knocked individuals in particular that they did not feel welcome over there. some of their training so i certainly learned a lot and i'm certainly more sensitive to our military and their needs and we are very distant from this experience.

i myself am very distant from all of this. i can't say that i knew more than a couple of people who i would call friends or family who was only one person away from me who is deploying to a combat zone and suddenly i was in this community where everyone was another family and it's not always just one kid but two or three. >> please come up to the microphone and ask a trans-- transition question to becky. you mentioned the difficulty of some of the partner forces. these are muslim countries where dogs are difficult topic. how did that cultural interface deal with the dog handlers in this case? >> in particular iraq is a very out-of-control stray dog population. it's actually very dangerous. it's dangerous to people and its dangers to the dogs when they're out on patrols and they run in packs. there is a spread of rabies so

it's very different and for some of it is -- for some of them it was hard but for some of them whatever keeps their dogs say. some of them shoot stray dogs to protect their dogs. there was no remorse there but one sort of my story is about both the dog that was there for therapy at one of the hospitals. i think it was in tikrit. she and bo would go to the hospital every day in the hospital provides service for anyone who needs it so it doesn't matter if they are servicemen or women or an insurgent, if they become wanted the people in the hospital take care of them. there was this one little girl whose parents were insurgents involved in a shootout and she had gotten shot in her abdomen. it was pretty terrible what happened to her. she was in recovery for many months and so captain o'hara was cautious of the dog when she would bring her by her bed because she knew dogs were not

looked upon as they are in united states or she was was afraid the dog would scare her. she would stay from her but the nurses said you should bring her by, please bring her into the room. she said no i do want to do that. she has been making dogs out of plato when we play with her. she's been making dogs and i think she would really like it. over period of time she would pass the dog and captain o'hara would do tricks with her and it would make the girl very happy. then when she recuperated a little bit she started to take her on walks. i think in that way it was one of the nicer stories that i heard. >> if you have a question please feel free to come up to the microphone and if you would identify yourself please. >> i am alessa caulfield. i am an active duty veterinarian for the military. i have a question about the language.

have you encountered several different languages of training and i'm curious if you have encountered over your research and white dutch is a pretty common language of training among all the international forces as well? >> so and i don't know exactly why but my guess would be because a lot of these dogs are procured from breeders in other countries particularly in the czech republic and not so much from germany anymore but they do train them in different languages. i know some handlers and some camels feel like they want to keep the dogs with the language they were trained on. if they are older dogs made it easier for them to do that but that's actually interesting. >> that's not -- much nicer answer than i intended to give. there's a dog trainer personality that comes through. it comes through in the language i would say.

who has another question? while we are waiting for someone to come up with there any time we felt as if you had placed a -- wrong in dealing with the military subjects that you are revealing something some flash of -- that put you at a disadvantage? >> no, i don't think so. actually before he started this trip and before i went to my first reporting trip i e-mailed tom and i said tom i have all these these questions and i sent him an e-mail that was probably this long and i said i'm worried about confusing marina not soldier. let me know what i should be careful to avoid that he wrote back right away and said just be careful to be yourself. at the time i'm like thanks a lot. that was not what i was looking for but actually was the best

advice possible. at least i might've made some huge terrible gaffe or mistake that they never made me feel like it. it was pretty awesome. >> hi named karen. i have been stalking you on facebook. i noticed the conversation brewing that i found interesting and people asking if there are other animals besides dogs that they bring to our? i think someone asked about pigs and four cats and i was wondering, it's happening and i know people have a workhorse but is there any other animal? >> porsches have been wars a lot. >> they died in massive numbers and world war i which is sad. karen is not stalking me. we are good friends. one of my favorite, one of the most fascinating wars at least

as i found it was world war i and they used all sorts of animals. there are some wonderful books written at the time and some wonderful books. they used carrier pigeons and they use horses as well as dogs, camels. cap i think maybe only on ships. we actually talked quite a bit about whether or not mike would have been well-suited for war and decided he was a much better companion for writing. they certainly were put to great use but i think, i don't know how the horse would go over these days. dogs seem to have remained as the animal but still provide something that we don't yet have in a better capability. >> rebecca one question. i missed the first few minutes so maybe you set in the first few minutes but how many dogs have been employed in both iraq

and afghanistan and how many have died and i have a question for you being dutch. what is this dog handler mentality? explain that a little. >> do you want to go first? >> dog trainer. >> i have a lot of friends who are dutch. and what you tell me your name please? >> and one. >> because i spent a lot of time in asia the touch with their world fearing history they are overrepresented in a good way as her aussies in japan and china and other places. we don't want any national stereotypes here. one of my father's medical partners with the guy from holland and he was famous for communicating with none of the niceties. do this, lose weight, take this pill. that is something i admire about holland as a culture. it seems to be to the point. my dutch friends are that way.

the only reason i don't like going to holland is as the one place where i feel like a midget. everybody there is 6 feet 8 inches. i have many dutch friends and they will tell you that i say this to their face and i say it as a compliment. >> okay. so the question not about dutch. how many dogs? i think at the height of their use there were about 2500 dogs. right now it's probably something more like a couple hundred. they have scaled back significantly and we have in our dog program, our dog program has been cut in drastic numbers. both the marines and the army have what i call part of the dogs search which means they created supplemental programs which got docs on the ground very quickly which means they were trained as dual-purpose

dogs but only as detection dogs. those programs have been scaled back if they haven't been dismantled completely. i think probably the whole of the united states and all bases around the world, i was just talking to the head of the program recently and he told me there were maybe 1200 all told, altogether. [inaudible] >> many have and so one of the things i was not able to do was find out an exact number. and this is part of again one of my white questions. they do keep track of all the dogs, their health and their fate mary records actually is the way that they do it. again each branch does everything a little bit differently and there isn't any mandate on keeping records as to what happens to them or how they are killed or how they died. special forces dogs of which there were many, there are no

records that i could get my hands on. a veterinarian that i got to know very well in the station bagram, they had a wall for for dogs that have been killed in the photos they had of them. i knew how many dogs have died since they were stationed there and their service was only for a year. and there were a lot. but probably the tally that i was able to count, there were a lot of groups of civilians and lot of them are former dog handlers and they keep track of this so they considered their job to keep track of handlers when they are deployed to send them care packages. they are the ones that put up notices when the dogs die or when their handlers are killed. they are the ones that keep track of the names. i consulted with them and a couple of other sources. it wasn't as many as you would think that there were a lot. >> thank you. >> hello.

i'm jessica and i'm very excited to read this book. this question might seem small bore but i wonder if the art of naming a war dog is different than a house dog, a pet dog? >> it is a little bit different actually. any dog that comes out of the military working dogs breeding program is part of the litter and each letter is assigned a letter. the hour letter was born a few years ago so there was a rock and not forgetting their names. a lot of people worth pointing out spelling mistakes to me because i had double letters. a lot of dogs are named after people who have been killed in action. sometimes dogs that are purchased from a breeder or on very rare occasion are gifted to the program which happens every once in a while, so they are given names that have meaning.

maybe not so different. >> there was another incidental and site that you have to surprise me. earlier and you were mentioning the dog that was barking and after the whole time. that is how often one thinks of dogs absolutely indefatigable. you point out that they can get tired of smelling too much and they get burned out by war but also they can just keep sniffing so talk about that in how it affects drug patrol dogs you see in the u.s. or tsa dogs. >> i think like a lot of people in this room when you have been writing or editing for a long time you lose your ability to see spelling mistakes or you're not quite as sharp and that happens to dogs to map it is not that their ability goes away but the time it takes to get from their nose to their brain doesn't snap as quickly so they get tired. it is a handlers responsibility and job to another dog and to

know if he is dragging or tired or doesn't feel well or it's not a good day for us to be leading a patrol and a need a break. >> how long can a dog stay at his or her peak? >> some handlers have told me they work their dogs were 12 lower emissions, 15 are missions and i don't know that is what they would advise certainly but if it's necessary and they feel like their dog can keep up sometimes they will give them an advance of omission and give them a i.v. fluid to keep them hydrated beforehand. all the dogs have shaped patches on their forearms so it's easier to find a vein and they do that a lot. >> two questions. the first one, when these dogs go over or when they were going over are they there for 18 months or do they come home and have post-deployment and then return? that's my first question the second question is are these dogs purchased by the government

or are they gifted by breeders? >> i think with the military would call an investment. they technically own the dogs, so they purchase them through military funds. one dog that i know of was donated to the kennels at the u.s. air force academy but they went so far out of regulations to get this thought he happened to be a very good detection dog in the kennel master really fought to get him. ..