>> afternoon come everyone. welcome to the navy memorial. thank you are coming out on it tuesday afternoon. my so jump right in.

we have mr. right here today. during vietnam, an excellent book. instead of giving it a quick note come will have the upper talk about it. without further ado, mr.. [applause] >> thank you, fellas. i like without further ado. it is an honor for me to participate in this program that displays, an institution committed to protect team and sharing the rich legacy of the united states navy. it is a particular pleasure for me to be here with you today. i'm delighted to see veterans and friends and those of you who are curious to learn more about

the vietnam war. i am honored to contribute, to try to contribute to the process of learning. i do want to talk about ipo. that is why i'm here today. i hope that is why you are here. maybe the best way to do that is to try to describe why it is i wrote it, what it was trying to do and why i was trying to do that. last year, my wife susan and i attended a performance of hamilton in new york. many lines from that place struck me and stayed with me. but one of them kept running through my head. eliza hamilton, the widow of alexander hamilton sang with the chorus of founding fathers, who

lives, who dies, who tells your story. this is relevant to my remarks. it is relevant to my boat because in any war, in any armed confrontation i guess the first question or the determinative one, who lives, who dies. stripped of all other explanations about the purposes and the goals of war, and this is the fundamental human question that those who go to war must face. indeed, it is a cruel purpose of war. it is best never to forget this, who lives and who dies. that's why it's had so much trouble in recent years as politicians and continents about

boots on the ground as a metaphor for sending combat troops. i keep pointing out we are not talking about shoe leather. we are talking about flesh and blood. we are talking about are young and we are asking of them who lives, who dies. but the burden after all of the shooting stops in any war is the lingering question, who tells her story. that shared narrative of battles fought, of the dead forever young in the memories of the survivors. this is critical for framing that story, the narrative of war. it provides an assessment of why

lives were lost. it reminds us of who they were in marks forever the lives of survivors who knew them from the survivors to vote kerry their memories. i believe in the most perverse and cruel way there may be nothing more human than war. of individuals than war, testing their courage and values, testing themselves than needing to do so much as actively that they've been taught all their lives not to do instinctively. they must confront the basic question, who lives, who dies. i interviewed a number of people for this for -- a book.

a number one conversation i had with the man who didn't go to vietnam himself, he was a teenager when his brother was in vietnam. 14 or 15 years old. he lived in a small town in pennsylvania. there is a knock on the door when he was home alone one day and went to answer the door and there were two soldiers there and they asked if his parents were home and they said no but they were running an errand and they should be back in 15 minutes or so. he said please wait if you like to. he sat on the porch and joined him there. he told me he was so in news to house soldiers there. he said i have a brother who's in the army. my brother is a helicopter

pilot. he's in vietnam. i'm so proud of him and what he does and it's going to be home in a couple months. i can't wait to see him. do you know my brother? he was struck by the fact these two soldiers sitting on his porch relate to say much of anything to him, didn't acknowledge his questions. his parents came home and of course the soldiers informed them that his brother would not be coming home. his helicopter had been shot down and he was dead. he told me he ran up in the woods behind the house and just wept and wept and wept, inking about his brother and a little bit embarrassed sitting there asking the soldiers, do you know my brother when they had come to inform the family that his mother was dead.

we all need to assist in the responsibility of carrying and sharing these stories. these stories need to become embedded more international narrative the human face of war and it's critical to note that this narrative is not simply only about those who died, those who served with them also have important reflections to share and they need to have an opportunity to do that rather than to remain burdened with the silent memory is that so many war veterans to kerry. in this country, the narratives of wartime service have really been subdued since world war ii. many people point to the vietnam war as a factor in a declining

interest in veterans and their experiences and there's no doubt the vietnam veterans were seldom celebrated and that clearly related to the fact that surely by the late 1960s the war had become very unpopular. it didn't necessarily follow that the unpopularity of their war also make them unpopular. the outright hostility toward the men who served while unfortunately was present was not widespread. but what was wide spread was an indifferent, and maybe even an embarrassing difference and unwillingness to engage them, to talk to them. if americans really did not know what was happening on the ground

in vietnam. it's also the case that most were not eager to learn not through the veterans. so their stories remained largely untold. in my book i quote from a poem that we shared with me by estée lauder. he had been serving on a patrol boat down in the mekong delta in april 1969, he'd watched a very close friend of his, anybody die when their hopeless and pushed -- ambushed by enemy troops on the delta. pretty hostile territory for those in these vote. the sailor had gone to saigon on a brief r&r and he described in his diary sitting in his hotel room looking out the window and watching the storm come onto

this city. he wrote, the sky is dark now, illuminated now and then by silent strokes of lightning. people hustling about before the storm before the curfew. but soon, and the rains will, and cruel assault and slowed the motion in this city will become quiet under the soothing rhythm of the rain. people will move inside and watch the monsoon downpour from a darkened window and some perhaps will reflect on that date just ended. the closing line and some perhaps will reflect on that date just ended.

i can assure you that those who were there had never stopped reflecting and it's long past time for the rest of us to understand something of derek's eerie and fitness for, telling their story, hearing it and all of us reflecting on it is a burden we share. so i want to share a few of my reflections on the days that that war now and it the year is about war now and it to discuss the very human experience of those americans who served in vietnam. in 1965 when the american ground war began, president johnson sent marines in march of 1965 and they send insignificant army unit throughout the spring.

the dominant public interest in the united state that year, of those serving in vietnam was young heroes fighting communism in the jungles of southeast asia. there surely was protest against the war. president johnson escalating by sending in ground troops. most americans out of those kids who are over there as being her relic americans on the front lines in the battle against communism. but within a few years, as american casualties increased significantly, as the draft picked up and drew more and more young americans into the army and if people read stories about

some of the things that were happening to the vietnamese as a result of this major war being fought near their villages, as people began to have less confidence in a resolution to the war, the attitude towards those serving their changed. not in a negative way, but many now consider them to be objects of sympathy who had been sent over to fight a very cruel and ill-advised war. but after the story of me live became public in late 1969, in the minds of some of those at least who protested the war, those who are over there fighting it he came the perpetrators of that cruel war. the stereotype of the drug addled psychotics who were in

vietnam. the apocalypse now boot the image. i have described in this book the movie apocalypse now as vietnam meets with stock. they may indeed be a very good movie. it is considered a good movie. it is not a story is that the economics. in spirit i have to say a few weeks ago in burbank, california i made that same statement in the first question from a member of the audience was i was a screenwriter on that movie and it was accurate. we worked very hard to make it accurate. i did not debate that point with him. i would say that except gain for some remarkable book written by the veterans, particularly the

fiction of people like tim o'brien and jim webb, few of the popular accounts of the vietnam war recognize those who served for what they were, scared kids. scared kids who had signed up for it difficult and very scary assignment. we knew then that the baby boomers, as the 60s generation, as the wood stacked celebrated come in the antiwar protesters on our campuses and her streets to stereotype hippies who challenge the boundaries of american culture. but it also is clear to me and it should be clear to everyone that this is not the face, the full face of this generation. not at all. for example, about 40% of the

60s generation served in the military. about 10% went to vietnam. more than died in vietnam then went to canada or went to prison for evading the draft. so my book tells the story of, reminds us of some of the members of that generation. it is enriched by over 100 xt interviews that i completed with men and women who served in combat or medical unit in vietnam. and they really did focus on the ground action, the combat, the war fighting and yet non. i describe in some greater detail the book the spring of 1969, which i think of as a pivot point in the nature of the war.

i talked to my interviewees about why they went, what was on their mind. i talked to them about the experience of serving in vietnam. and i talked to many of them about being with friends when they died. and i talked to them about coming home and their experience when they came home. i also interviewed members of families who confronted the military delegate of the front door who told them that their son or daughter would not be coming home. so a couple of weeks ago, in late march i set out personally inscribed copies to each of these 160 people that i interviewed for the book and told them they were collaborators in my effort to tell the story.

in this vote, i try to describe what it was like to grow up in the post-world war ii baby boom generation, about the exciting america of those years, about the expansion of possibility and opportunity, about the emphasis on education. it was a heady time for those of us that remember growing up then. but i also detailed a scary world in which this generation grew up, about worries of impending nuclear attacks, certainly for the first half of the 1980s, we are warned to break a relief that it could happen any time. we need it to be ready. i talk about the duck and cover

drills that we had in the schools where kids in schools and small would midwestern towns like mine were trained to get under the desk, duck and cover if the nuclear bombs started hitting. and about the conviction, and a shared fear the world would be at war and the remainder that this nation and this time have to be prepared to fight this inevitable war, that this nation and its citizens would need to step up and all of us would have to assume the responsibility that came with citizenship in this republic. it was an era of the peacetime draft in my high school graduating class in 1957, there are 25 boys, but i think it was

13 of us enlisted immediately after graduation. five of us in the marines. it was still 17 years old. it was just going into the service was part of life and part of the culture then. now, i am not in this book or any place else sympathetic to those political leaders who took us to vietnam. but my interest here is less than assessing the foreign policies and commitment of president from truman to nixon. other historians have done that and more will provide this history. my interest is in relating what it was like to grow up in the world that was described by political leaders and educational religious leaders at the place where we all needed to be prepared to stand up for freedom.

anyplace in the world. the world war ii veterans, the children of in the next generation, just this indelible lesson of world war ii failing to stand up to aggression or dictators only encourages more of it. these are the parents of the baby boomers and they warned what would happen if this country does not respond to challenges and threats. john kennedy had is not duration in january made it 61 said ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. now, if this summons to a sense of shared and common responsibility of for the well-being of the public seems claimed in 2017, it was not

claimed in 1961. there is a sense of a global responsibility of and we had to be prepared to meet it. ironically, this global responsibility would play out in vietnam of all places and the vietnam war was never truly about vietnam. it was about this much larger conflict can we just had a sense that this is where we are being tested and we have to stand up in this place. and so we found ourselves in this war that kept escalating. young americans, baby boomers found themselves in impossible places. one of the most distinct descriptions of the tactical combat decisions of vietnam was provided by colin powell.

powell had first gone out there in january 1063 as a young army officer. president kennedy was sending more advisors in uniform that the south vietnamese troops, our van the army of the republic of vietnam in various places throughout the country. colin powell was sent up to the asha valley to distill a desolate place in the northwestern part of the old south vietnam just a few miles from laos. he was with an outpost out there and after his orientation he asked the south vietnamese commander of the unit, he said tell me, why are we here? why is this out those in this place? the south vietnamese commander said well, this outpost is here

to provide protection to guard this airstrip down below us. and there is a small grass airfield down there and powell said well, i guess that makes sense. but tell me why is the airstrip there and the south vietnamese officer said to him the airstrip is there to provide the south post. colin powell who would be over again during heavy american combat and later in the 1960s said he wasn't sure he ever heard a better explanation as circular as it was for what we are doing in some of these places. working on this book in addition to my research and reading in interviews and intellectual framing of the story, they certainly knew i needed to visit vietnam.

not just the current tourist spot and thriving cities. i wanted to get out to the delta, to the high country, the sentra islands. i want to get out to the jungles, the far reaches of my court, places where the baby boomer generation fought and were the stories of some of the men i was describing had died. i visited the delta and visiting there even today, you can understand what the young kids are patrolled along the waterways and the canals on the more hostile and scary places, the trees and brush hanging over these canals. traveling up to beginning i went to liberty bridge with so many americans who served their

india. the marines call god city, north of liberty bridge and they left behind some moments as they are for who were killed in two different ambushes with the third battalion seventh marines, one with kilo company in july 1968 in the second a classmate of the first with my company less than two miles away in november of that year. i look across the charlie ridge, still dark and foreboding 35 years later. i walked around the ancient said adel what the site of intense fighting in 1968. i went up along with the old demilitarized zone along highway nine and now to the rock pile, razorback and mothers rage,

names that i can ensure you most americans never knew, but those names, rock pile and razorback and ridge are seared into the memory of those who served at the outpost. i walked around the field at caisson, soaked in blood and 1968. i visited quite cool and spent some time in the highlands. i walked around there on the old airstrip where the rv 299 combat engineers have withstood vicious attacks in 1969. up in the asha valley pipeline hamburger hill in late summer heat and humidity. i met in the morning there was two north vietnamese army

veteran who stopped the americans on hamburger hill and i was surprised when they accepted my invitation to climb with me. but not that the americans who fought there would call hamburger hill because they ground the mob like a hamburger grinding machine. greeted by a brief summer shower, the trove was deepened the paris. i stumbled and i stumbled and i slid and isolated and they wondered how the young men of the 101st airborne had climbed that hill in may of 1969, noting that there were over 50 years younger than me was not a significant explanation. no one was shooting down at me and i was a carried more of the equipment and weapons.

it took our small group about two hours to reach. it took them 10 days. i should say it took 10 days for those to reach the top ..

>> and i had tremendous regard for him, and i came to really have an affection more his son. for his son. i picked up a couple of pieces of lead sulfite in the graham mine and kept them on my desk. and a few years later in the spring of 1969, i know that -- i learned that michael, my boss' son, this young kid, had been kill on hamburger hill when a rocket-propelled grenade had struck him in the chest and killed him immediately. i told these north seat9 ma news soldiers about him, and i pulled out of my pocket a piece of lead sulfite of galena that i brought over there with me. and i said i'm going to bury this hill -- this here. i'm going to bauerly this on --

bury this on the top of this hill where my young friend never reached the top. but now a piece of his hometown was here, and i assured them that this lead from galena, this lead sulfite would last as long as the red clay would last. in many ways in that brief moment on that isolated, hot, humid, triple-canopied, quiet hilltop in vietnam, my research, my personal biography, my commitment to working with and supporting veterans and to remembering those who died, my scholarly focus, my personal interests, they all overlapped. i have a chapper on hamburger -- chapter on hamburger hill in this book. it's the only battle in the war

that i treat in any detail, because i think it represents and symbolizes so much about the war. my interest has been to tell the stories of the human faces and the human tragedies, sharing their stories is something that is important. i've always found it troubling that perhaps the name most americans knew of a vietnam veteran was lou tent william -- lieutenant william kelly who was commander of that army unit that massacred the vietnamese civilians in 1968. i can assure you there were some truly impressive kids who served in vietnam. they did some remarkable things. they demonstrated as much courage as anyone who fought in

any of our wars. vietnam was a war without heroes, but it was not a war without heroism. there were plenty of these stories. they did this on our behalf, but few noticed and few thanked them because the war was just something that we all wanted, preferred not to talk about. i'd share with you my dedication that i wrote for this book. this book is dedicated to that american generation who honorably served in the veal name war. and this book -- vietnam war. and this book salutes those who sacrificed. their stories deserve to be known and their lives remembered. the difficulty of this american generation's war and the controversies it engendered made their willingness to serve and

the sacrifices that they made the greater and not the lesser. think of what they did when they were asked to serve. not all were eager to serve, i can assure you, but they were asked to serve, they did. they knew the war was unpopular. and within a few years, they knew it was not likely to be a war that would be won in any traditional sense. but they went. i try to pass along the stories as eliza hamilton encouraged us to do and as that sailor in saigon reminded us to do. a few of the stories in my book, i talked to a young marine officer -- well, he was a young marine officer when he was posted to vietnam. he was a platoon leader with an infantry unit. and his in-country orientation

he was told that the critical thing for an officer was not to cry. never to cry. never to show that emotion. within several weeks one of the temperature men in his unit -- top men in his unit was killed in an ambush, and he remembered 45 years later when we talked how he struggled so hard not to cry when he learned that this young man was dead. this marine just died in the last month, and he encouraged me before he died to be sure to tell the stories. and his wife shared with me some things he had written including ten or a dozen years ago where he was writing in a diary in sharp detail about this young marine that had been killed on that ambush on that day. he didn't forget.

i tell the story of a young massachusetts man when joined the army. he was drafted coming out of boston college, and he talked to somebody down at the army recruiting office to ask what his options were, and they said, well, you're a college graduate, you could probably apply to ocs and go there and be an officer. he said, why would i want to do that? i'd have to serve for, what, two more years in and the recruiting sergeant said i'll tell you why, you can either be inside the officers' club drinking a cold martini, or you can be outside the officers' club walking guard duty for those inside drinking a cold mar tinny, what would -- martini, what would you rather do? he decided he would be an officer. i don't know if he ever had a cold martini in vietnam, i don't think so. i know he had warm beer that was served to the men there.

but he told the story of a young man and his unit that they all had such regard for. a young sergeant from the twin cities. it was on the fourth or fifth day on hamburger hill, and they went up another assault, and the knot vietnamese -- the north vietnamese hit them with some rockets. one young man in the unit was badly wounded, so they stop to try to organize a litter to get him down because helicopters couldn't come in to medevac them with all the fire from the top. they had to go down to find a clearing at the bottom. so they organized a litter group, and this young sergeant from minnesota was going to lead it. and just as they started, they got hit by another rocket. the kid on the litter was killed, two men carrying it was killed and this young sergeant from minnesota was badly injure. lieutenant sullivan said, don't

worry, we'll get you down. we'll get you to a hospital, you're going to be okay. and he organized another litter party. and this young sergeant said, no, i'm looking over jordan right now, what do i see? i see a band of angels coming after me. and they said don't you worry, we'll get you to the helicopter. they got him on a litter, and they started carrying him down. three different men who were there that day told me that they still remembered all these years later this powerful voice singing, ""swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home." he was dead by the time he got to the bottom of the hill. i remember interviewing this

woman who was a young iowa wife. she and her husband had both opposed the war, but when he got his draft notice, rather than go to canada, she suggested -- he said, no, if i don't go, somebody else will have to. don't worry, i'll look out for myself, and i'll never kill anyone. he went to vietnam, and he died shortly after he got there in a night ambush. and the army organized the funeral back in this small iowa town, and she said to the army contingent that came, no firing squad, please. at my husband's graveside. there's been enough gunfire around him. no more. i don't want any firing squad. i interviewed some family

members of a young marine from quincy, massachusetts, jimmy hickey. jimmy hickey was part of a strong irish marine culture there. and he was going to join with some of his buddies when he was a high school junior, only 17 years old. he delayed going in with them because his girlfriend persuaded him to stay. but the following winter, in february of 1968, one of his dear friends who was in that original group that went in was killed during the tet offense -- offensive. so jimmy and a group of his friends dropped out of high school and joined the ma reaps. he was in vietnam by early 1969, and he was killed in may of 1969 on hill 55 northeast of liberty bridge. dodge the city. there's a square in quincy,

massachusetts, today named after jimmy hickey, and at last count there were 19 other squares in that city remembering young men who died in vietnam. jimmy hickey's uncle, phil burns, was remembered by family members as a very sentimental irishman who was in love with jimmy hickey. he wrote a poem that they read at jimmy hickey's funeral called the magic horse. the family shared the poem with me, and i reprint it in this book. the poem tells the story of when jimmy was growing up. he insisted that he had a magic horse that no one else could see and that he kept tied by his bed at night. this magic horse protected him, and it took him to some wonderful places. mr. burns told that story in his

poem, and the last line was, dear jim, i'll lead you home upon your magic horse. the poem, written in 1969, evokes peter, paul and mary's puff the magic dragon. dragons live forever. but not so, little boys. i tell the story of a swift boat, patrol boat veteran who told me that one time they were hit by an ambush, and and they swung back with heavy firepower immediately, and apparently they hit an ammunition dump where these people were hiding. and there was a huge explosion, and he saw two bodies fly up in the air from the explosion. and how he and the men on his boat did what was the 1969 equivalent of a high-five around the boat and how for the next

several years when he was around telling people about vietnam, he told this story, and he said and we fired at them, and the little bastards went flying through the air. we got 'em. but then he said about 1979 he was on a church retreat in the shenandoah valley, and part of this recrete was for -- retreat was for everyone to go through a maze on the church grounds and contemplate their lives and the meaning of what it was and what they wanted to do. and he said he started thinking about this, started thinking about those two bodies flying in the air. and he said, you know, maybe we -- if we hadn't killed them, they would have killed us. and that's what war is. but he said, you shouldn't celebrate that.

these men probably had families at home that were eagerly waiting for them to come back. i killed two men, and i should pray for them rather than celebrate them. and he started weeping, and he said he was crying so hard, he had to run up in the woods and just sit down out of the way of everyone else until he worked his way through this, and then he came back, and he said i can assure you i never again celebrated the death of anyone at war. it's the face of war. this is really the heart of war. and these are the types of stories that need to be told. and as i point out in my book, these are the types of stories that often have no end. i spoke on veterans day, 2009, at the vietnam veterans memorial right here in washington.

it was an honor for me to be asked to speak there on that very special day, and it was a move experience. moving experience, standing in front of that wall. it was a cool, rainy day, but there were some gold star mothers sitting right in front of me, and we were surrounded by veterans who had come to remember and to salute again their friends. i concluded my remarks that day with a plea, a remine per, and i guess -- a reminder, and i guess it's one that continues to frame my engagement and my objective in this book and so many other things that i've done in recent years. i said casualties of war cry out to be known as persons, not as abstractions called casualties, nor as numbers entered into the

books and not only as names chiseled into marble or granite. we need to insure that here in this place of memory lives as well as names are recorded, lives with smiling human faces, remarkable accomplishments, engaging personalities and with dreams to pursue. we do this for them, for history and for those in the future who will send the young to war. and i guess in many ways trying to remind people of this has been an important part of what i've been doing for the last several years. in the play "hamilton," george washington, the old soldier, sings along with ely saw hamillson -- eliza hamilton the line, "let me tell you what i wish i'd known when i was young

and dreamed of glory." "you have no control, who lives, who dies, who tells your story." i hope that through telling the stories that someday somebody can answer affirmatively the question, do you know my brother? my regards to the veterans who are here. thank you for your service and your sacrifice. but all of us, veterans and non-veterans, need to join in telling the stories. and even more importantly, to listen to the stories. and most important of all, to learn from these stories. thank you very much for joining me in this lunch hour, and i guess, phillip, i'd be prepared to answer any questions people have. thank you.

[applause] >> yes. >> how did you get involved yourself in telling these stories? >> well, that's an interesting question. i wrote a book that was published in 2012, "those who were borne the battle," and it's a history of america's wars and those who fought them. and that flowed from some of the stuff i've been doing working with veterans and particularly injured veterans since 2005. but when i finished this book, i thought i was finished then with writing books. , but you know, vietnam was still hanging there, and i wanted to write something about it. i thought of an op-ed of the vietnam generation, but this doesn't fit in an op-ed, it doesn't fit even between the covers of this book. and so i said, well, maybe i'll try another book, so i did.

yes. >> can you talk a little bit about the experience of veterans from the vietnam generation and those today when they come back to civilian life and especially in higher education? i know you've been very instrumental in -- [inaudible] veterans at dartmouth, for instance, but a very different time all in the vietnam war. >> yeah. i think veterans who come back today have, are greet generally warmly and welcome people -- and well. people applaud them when they see them, when they're identified. they thank them for their service. vietnam veterans did not have that experience. they, people really did not want to talk to them about their service. i'm not sure that americans today know too much more about what it is that we're asking these kids who are servinged today to do on -- serving today

to do op our behalf. i'm not sure we fully appreciate the nature of these complicated missions that we send them on, about the rules of engagement that are necessarily a part of these wars, about the multiple deployments that they have and all of the pressure that's on them and their families. they're older than the vietnam generation was. over half of them are married. it's a different military today, a more professional military. the vietnam veterans were not greeted warmly. as i say here, i'm not sure there was as much hostility. some of them did experience that, but it wasn't widespread hostility, but there was a widespread indifference to them and even an embarrassment. they at no time want to talk to them -- they didn't want the talk to them. i think, you know, we've worked our way through that, and we're trying to acknowledge them in some ways. but as one vietnam veteran said

to me a few years ago when somebody says to me, oh, you were in vietnam, thank you for your service, he says i look upon it as the same sort of reflex we have when somebody sneezes and we say, "bless you." we no more really are blessing somebody who sneezes than we're being thanked for our service in vietnam. and i think there is some truth to that. it's kind of an embarrassed, instinctive thing that we do. i think the vietnam generation has done remarkably well. they've provided leadership in so many areas in our cup, they've contributed significantly to our politics, our culture, our economy. but they still bear a lot of these memories, and i don't think that most people have wanted to know what it is they're remembering. yeah. >> my name's chase. can you remark on the practices, beliefs, customs or prejudices associated with translating a

native language while in present conflict in a foreign country? >> i'm not sure that i have much authority to do that, chase. i think that it's a complicate thing. in vietnam very few people knew vietnamese, very few americans who served there -- >> literacy ring as it exists in the military? >> oh, there was a literacy, but there was not a full understanding of the seat9 that please. in fact, most of the veterans that i spoke to came to appreciate very early on that the vietnamese really didn't want them to be there. they could pick that up without knowing the language, that they did not -- >> remark on the present conflict with north korea? >> well, i think, yeah, i'm not sure. we have trouble understanding north korea. i think it's very difficult to understand north korea and its leadership. it's not always rational in the

way that we in the west think of as rational. and i think that the concern many people have is a misunderstanding or a miscalculation -- >> thank you. >> -- could be quite devastating there. particularly given the vulnerability of seoul and the northern part of south korea to a north vietnamese -- or to a north korean attack. yeah. >> why do you think in today's day and age there is such a difficulty getting some concept of national service? when in those years, the book is about it was just somed my brother went -- assumed my brother went to the army, my person from hanover, new hampshire, brother-in-law was in the air force and i went into the navy. yet nobody seems to have, you know, they could go teach school, they could go do anything, but we blow it off because, mind you, there's no draft. >> there's no draft. you know, the draft ended in 1973.

and even during the vietnam war, the military did not need all of the 18-year-old men. and so there was some selections involved. as i said, only about 40% of that generation ended up serving. those that didn't serve did not for a variety of reasons. a complicated range of reasons, but they didn't serve. today it's -- i'm over 75. my generation of men, 52% of us are veterans. those who are, and there are men who are in their teens, you know, it's less than 2 president are veterans -- 2% are veterans, and that's actually with declining, and that's not going to the turn around. so the question is, could we have a draft today? yes. it would have to be a lottery, i don't think you could do it any other way with. but in 2010 the last figures that i saw, i think there was something like 4.5 million men turned 18 that year, and the

military right now is needing about 170, 180,000 a year to sustain the size of a force. so which 170 and 180,000 of those 4.5 million are going to serve? and i think the military would prefer to have those who want to serve come in. the center for new american security had a study that came out this week pointing out, you know, not just are they not representative of our society, but there really is increasingly a military caste system in the country. caste, i don't think that's a word they use. but those who serve in the military are often the children of those who served in the military, and it carries on. and it means that more and more of us really don't have any idea what they do. now, could we have a national service for those, the other 4.2

million 18-year-olds plus the 18-year-old women? i guess we could. without being cynical though, you know, we have trouble on this pennsylvania avenue that we're on today agreeing on some pretty basic things. and can you imagine us agreeing what would constitute national service and who would monitor over four million kids a year and what they're doing to make certain that they met that objective, and if they didn't, what would we do with them? i worry about how you could ever implement it in practice. but, absolutely, there is the sense today that we do not owe something to the common good. and i think that's a major loss for the republic. >> thank you. >> all right? >> if there's no more questions with, i'd like to present you with one of our -- [inaudible] it's one of the more practical desktop versions. [laughter]

>> i like that. i like seeing that out in front here. thank you, phillip. >> thank you. thank you, everybody, for coming. >> thank you. [applause] >> where's the books? >> they're in the gift store. [inaudible conversations] >> every summer booktv visits capitol hill to ask member of congress, what are you reading? here's a look at some of their answers. >> i just finished up devil in the grove, which is a book by a guy named gilbert king. it's all ant the life of -- about the life of thurgood marshall before he was ever

anyone's judge, but was litigating cases in the south at tremendous risk to himself. but, you know, basically fight for justice. >> there is a daniels book i want to read, it's "bringing out the best in people." and i think every once in a while it's like, you know, to get a new perspective on how you lead a team. i always say you lead people, and you manage assets. >> hampton -- [inaudible] book kingdom of ice, and i'm just wrapping up "all the light we cannot see," moving into the narrow road to deep north which is another novel. and the sixth extinction by elizabeth colbert. >> we also want to hear from you. send us your summer reading list via text or video or post it to our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. on twitter @booktv or e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org.

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> here on c-span2, "the communicators" with a look at the future of or wireless technology with ctia president meredith attwell baker. then the relationship between the trump administration and the media with journalist and author molly hemingway. after that, we're live for a discussion on the future of u.s. military air power starting at 9:30 a.m. eastern. and at 10 10:30, live coverage of a forum on turkey's political future after last year's failed military coup. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and