value good writing of course, but that's not what i i asked my writing. i asked my own writing what is good for what impact will it have in the world. that's what i want to do. i want to write advocacy writing. so with every book, for example when i wrote that book i had a strong sense that teenage girls were being misunderstood. and. and i wanted to write something that allowed the adults in their lives to help them in a more intelligent, compassionate way. the. the same way with this book a lot of misinformation about refugees, a thorough lack of understanding of the enormous problems that they come from an enormous problems they face our country. and so at the end of this book the main thing i encourage readers to do is become a cultural broker get involved in your community work at a literacy center, work through your church. if you see a refugee walking down the street carrying a

very heavy caps on is back stop and talk to the person an offer to help them move that catches different way. if you see someone confused in a grocery store about how to check out, help them understand. there is always people from other countries and most american cities that can benefit from an experienced american stepping up. and when that happens the interesting thing is i don't urge people to do this as some kind of moral duty or oppressive task that should take in the busy life ..

what is a rough rider in the vietnam era? >> guest: a rough rider in the vietnam era were one from the first screen division and we ran the tracks up and down highway one. right out of denying and north through the notorious for treacherous paths to points north. anybody who went on those convoys through the dangerous passes in vietnam, they nicknamed us the roughriders and it was some time before i got there and 66 or 67 and when i got there they told me i was

going to the transport battalion and those were the roughriders. >> host: first of all what is highway one? >> guest: highway one was the main highway in vietnam but stretched from the delta which is the area through the central islands into the three core and then into ichor which is where i was from da nang all the way north to the dmz the main highway. it was just called highway one. i believe that so-called highway one. >> host: what was your job? >> guest: my job as a convoy commander who is responsible for everything the convoy does and if there's an ambush they get through the ambush with this minimum trouble as possible. >> host: what made up of convoy? >> guest: a the convoy was made up of anywhere from 67

tracks the biggest one i was on was 140 trucks, vehicles from all branches of the service south vietnamese. we tried to get them to break it up into cereals going over it three or four day period. we went through operations and they turned us down and my surgeon told them we are going to get hit. the sergeant took a pencil this is in the book. he took a pencil and he marked three places on the map on the northside of the past. he said they are either going to get as here, they will hit us here or they will get us here. they hit us on the third and we went back and we rode our after action reports and their operations people for kind of red-faced. it was predicted a convoy that pit 140 trucks is going to get hit because of the smoke in the air and everything and there's a tendency coming out of the high ground pass of the trucks developing a gap which would

give the enemy enough time to set up a mortar team and walk them and on us which is what they did. >> what was contained in those convoys? >> we had artillery, shelves for various artillery batteries 155-millimeter. anything that i unit needs to stay and not gration. that really did not need to be airlifted in. they just put it on a convoy and usually ride its destination three or four days after it was ordered and it was our job to get the beams up there. >> host: were you drafted or did he volunteer? >> guest: i volunteered right out of college, class of 66 and i went to officer candidate school. there is no exclusive marine corps military academy. they did get a certain percentage from the naval academy. i went to officer candidate

school. >> host: why did you volunteer? >> guest: i was tardy in the navy. i did two years s. hospital carmen on the ticonderoga which was involved in the gulf of tonkin incident in 1964. after i left active duty i went back and finish my degree but while it was going on i saw what was developing in vietnam and it was going to be the biggest issue for my generation. i had a question with myself, should i go because i redid my time and a lot of people in my class in my peer group who were very supportive of president johnson and they were all for it it. let the other guy go. that really did something to me and s. hospital carmen i had a robbery with their marine corps attachment on the ticonderoga so i put these things together. on top of that i met a young woman and we decided to get married.

that's patty, yes and we decided to get married and it was a question of waiting for me to come back with penny possibly being of plato at the age of 22 and we talked it over back and forth. we had a lot of growing con discussions about it through friends and family and we finally made the decision we got married. i was a second lieutenant for six days and i got married in my dress blues. >> host: frank mcadams were you supportive of the war when he volunteered with the marine corps? >> guest: i was very supportive of it. so where the members of my class at quantico. the 42nd officer candidate class. my class lost 44 killed over there. i've often wondered what some of those young men could have could have done with their lives had they survived. >> host: how long we over there? >> guest: 12 months and 23 days. >> host: what did you learn? >> guest: what did i learn?

i learned that war is hell like the man said and sometimes the wrong people end up doing things. they put me into moral dilemma with my company commander. i was number to his executive officer. the most despicable person i've ever met. i found out after a couple of incidents that i was working for captain quaid. the day robert kennedy was shot he did a tap dance in his office office. the office told us he said it was time someone shot that commie and then we found out he had 2000-dollar price on his head. then he was checking mines when i did on that mound of earth with a wood headstone at one end of the mound. the wood headstone had his name on it. he got the message and at that

point he became extremely paranoid spend all this time in his office came up with reasons not to command the convoy because the convoys were rotated between the companies in the battalion and he always came up with an excuse that they needed him. he was the commander on that 140 trucks convoy. we found out later he disappeared off the radio for 12 minutes and in that time we took a bunch of casualties and i was trying to get ahold of him so i could relay the enemy position for him to call and what they call counterbattery fire. that never happened and we took a lot of casualties and he came up with some excuses. after that day june 10, 1968 he never took another convoy. he never took a convoy. a hot area. something in the office had to be done and i had to take it or

the two other lieutenants had to take it and at that point we knew what was going on. he was sleeping during the day in his jacket with a loaded 45 nearby and i realized i had a moral dilemma on my hands. i was going to have to answer the proverbial watergate questions if the troops did get him. what did you know, when did you know it and what did you do about it? i would have been appointed. the ap article xxxii investigation which is similar to a grand jury and i would have had to answer those three questions. i was in a real moral dilemma. it was the biggest moral dilemma of my life and that is way the editor at the university press wanted me to write a book because it was not a in the jungle book. i was not only facing the enemy but immoral to mail him a my own company commander. sometimes they have more respect

for the north vietnamese and i did for him. >> host: did you name the book? >> guest: that was a pseudonym. the other was worried about a -- he died of lung cancer in 2004. his favorite was marlborough reds. he thought that was very manly so i was facing a moral dilemma and what i had to do was make a decision on my own. i went outside of the chain of command and the first marine division headquarters i went up and had a meeting that didn't take place. i told him exactly what was going on in his first impression was isn't this just a bunch of troops pulling off hot air? do you char is complaining about something and i said no and i gave him a couple cup when i told him about it and he just stared at me.

he was doodling on a pad as i remember and he looked at me and he said frank get your college-educated rear end out of my office. this meeting never took place. i got in the jeep and drove back to battalion headquarters. i thought to myself i may have just really screwed myself. i'm going to get a bad fitness reports. i'm outside of the chain of command. something is going to happen. i think the major might say something to my commanding officer my battalion commander. he didn't and i ran into one of the office clerks two days later and he had a big smile on his face. i said what was going on and he said the captain is getting transferred to headquarters company. so they really took them off the road and he thought he thought he really had a nice desk job and he was going to ride out the rest of his tour but one night

the troops caught him in there a four folder and have it blanket party for him and they beat him up. he was carried a flashlight in they took the flashlight away from him and used it as a blackjack. he didn't go to the staff officers club for four or five nights until his face he obeyed if i got the message. we never found out who the culprits were and we never found out if they came from the transport company for my company. >> host: was this an unusual incident to have a commander who did not garner respect and was frankly beaten by the troops? >> guest: for me it was very unusual incident. i have never been placed into such a moral dilemma that my whole life. i often think about it. there was a time when my editor at the university of kansas mike grace when he first asked me would you care to write about what you went through in vietnam vietnam, and i didn't want to

write the book. then i was looking at files a day or two later from an old banker's box and i open the file and literally went back in time. i saw these photographs and memos and things and i e-mailed my editor back and said i had changed my mind. i would write the book and then he said fine send me a proposal and we went from there. that was one week before the kentucky derby in 2011 and my deadline was june of 2012. i had a lot of the book already written because of the files and memos and letters. i kept in contact with a lot of people. there are four or five people in the book who are written under pseudonyms. >> katechi 43 years. why did you not read a prior to that? >> guest: i did. it was called stagecoach robber. he was a drama. when i was in film school at the

ucla school of film and television it won first place in 1979 for the screenwriting awards. i got a lot of publicity. it was right at the time of apocalypse now. it got me a lot of meetings and a new agent and nothing happened because people told me that marines don't kill their officers. that subplot of the young lieutenant and the captain really didn't hit a lot of people because a lot of people felt usually most people go through life and don't have to face a war zone. they go through high school and college. they get recruited by the company and they have 2.5 kids in suburbia with a white picket fence and they see the war on tv. they have never had to face a sunset and wonder if they might be seen the following morning. war brings out the best and the

worst in men at the same time. i saw the best of some of the troops that i served with. i saw the worst with the men i had to serve under. >> host: do you still have anger about what what happened in vietnam? >> guest: i thought it was a life experience. i had ptsd before i went over there. i had a recurring nightmare for the proverbial four horsemen of apocalypse used to chase me through my neighborhood in chicago. there were four of them. they had ak-47s and all i had was a 45. no matter where i hit or ran to a new where i was. i would wake up and eddie would shake me. i would wake up and my teacher would be absolutely dressed. once i got over to vietnam i got into my first convoy ambush. those nightmare stopped and i never had any problems. coming back i never had any problems. a lot of my friends did. i saw a lot of men with a lot of

problems. i tried to help them. i joined a veterans group. once i joined the veterans group and saw it taking place i realized how lucky i was coming back. i didn't even get wounded over there but some of these guys who did not get wounded also physically but they were wanted psychologically. some of them didn't fare so well. at that particular time in the early 80s vietnam veterans had an astronomical suicide rate and i think it can be compared also to the same suicide rate with vets from iraq and afghanistan. >> host: frank mcadams what do you do at usc? >> guest: i've been teaching here since 1991. i was teaching ucla extension uc-irvine extension and also taught at cal state fullerton. there was a professor in the arts department.

he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. i got a phonecall on wednesday in 1991 in the spring. frank can you come up and look look -- teach a class? i came up wednesday. the class started thursday. i had to hit the ground running. i took over after the second week and that was in the spring of 1991. i have been on the faculty of her sense. >> host: what was your homecoming like when he came back from vietnam? >> guest: my homecoming. with my family they were just glad that i survived. i became a company commander at camp pendleton and infantry training regiment at camp pendleton and i was sending young men over to where i just came from. the same time as interviewing companies because i knew i was going to leave active duty. i had a real rough time for some

of those business interviews. i went through four or five of them that were not nice. they didn't like vets for whatever reason. one of them told me you will be coming to work with a lot of top-notch people and the pause in the said it won't be like leaving a bunch of high school dropouts against some is stupid machine gun placement that i wanted to come across the table and put my fist right in his chops but i would look like a crazy vietnam vet so i just kind of grimace through it. i tightened up my fist under the table and that my fingernails into my palms and i looked at him as the gentlemen thank you and i won't waste anymore of your time or mine. that happened on four different occasions. in the book they wanted me to compress it into just one which i did do. >> host: who is this on the cover of the book? >> guest: they picked that photo off of the internet. that's from the transport

battalion. the young man on the 15 caliber gun mount is from the denver colorado area. he found out about it from some of his friends who were just walking through barnes & noble. he called the publisher and from the publisher he got ahold of me by e-mail and we have had a nice relationship back and forth. he sent me one of his self-published books. i also rejuvenated a lot of friendships from vietnam vets and people from my own battalion after 43 years getting in touch with me. i heard from several people just last week. it's really been something. it's quite an experience. i'm glad that my editor mike breaks at the university press talk me into writing the book because it's a book that had to be written. i think people have to know about it. i think you should be discussed at the high school level to let

young men know like henry fleming found out in badge of courage what war is really like. once you survive it it follows you for the rest of your life for good or bad information think it followed, the solid me for the rest of my life for the good. >> host: in what way? >> guest: i look at life differently. i just came back from cuba on a fulbright insight to her and i got to see with the cuban citizens were like. i understood what they went through with the revolution che gueverra fidel castro, the bay of pigs, the cuban missile crisis and they have survived it. they have a certain well down there and i think that will comes from surviving a situation like that, a terrible situation

for which sometimes you have no control over any really does something to you. it guides you through life i think and it's something that when you wake up in the morning you are just glad that you are alive. >> host: here's the cover of the book frank mcadams is the author, "vietnam rough riders"." this is booktv on c-span2.

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c-span2, 48 hours every weekend nonfiction authors and books. this past week booktv one upped in new york city and we did some to ring and had some interviews and we are going to show you those now. first up we took a tour of "the new york times" book review and we talked with the editor pamela paul and we visited the shopping center for research in black culture which is part of the new york public library system where we interviewed khalil mohammed and finally we talked with publisher adam bellow who is the son of author saul bellow. all this coming up now on booktv. >> host: pamela paul what is your job? >> guest: i'm the editor of the new times book review. that means i edit delete a section that "the new york times" puts out every sunday and it's done so since 1896. >> host: how many people work on the new york times book?

>> guest: it's about 16 people. we have editors who recall preview editors at the section. they are the poor souls who have to go through the hundreds of books and decide which ones are worthy of review and try to come up with people who they think would be good at reviewing them. ..