gun. however, his loyalty and abilities were never in question, and his inspiration is legendary. stubby the war dog survived the horrors of the trenches and became a war hero. this evening, the story of this very special dog and his soldier. ann bausum is an award-winning children's author who captures characters whether they fly under the historical radar or rise to the top of recognition. i can only imagine what historical artifact has set her imagination in motion now. lee's welcome -- please welcome ann bausum. [applause] hello, and thank you for coming out.

i appreciate the work take the -- the work done to make this visit possible. byould like to start thanking the kansas city public library and the national world war i museum for sponsoring my visit here. i am very excited to be in kansas city, talking with you all about this historical figure , and retracing some steps a little bit. theve been doing that over years, following stubby all the places he has been, and one of the places he has been is kansas city. i will talk a little bit more about that as the evening goes on. let's go to the pictures. i brought lots of historical images to share with you. i will tell you a little bit about my own background. himself, of stubby some of the stories behind the creation of the books i have written about him, one for adults and one for young readers. we will save some time at the

end for questions as well. first, i want to make sure we are in on the same page in terms of terminology. when we are talking about dough boys, we do not mean this guy. wentmerican soldiers who over to fight in europe during world war i were nicknamed stubby spent a lot of time with them in the trenches. and as i said, i have these two books about him. is story is one of a number have written about him over the years. i have come to see myself as a storyteller, someone who tells -- takes true stories from our past, and forms them for readers.

one of the stories i will start with is my own ideas about coming and author. if you had asked me in fourth grade, what do you want to do when you grow up, i would have said, i would like to be a children's book author, not really knowing that might someday come true. it is not surprising that i chose to write about history, because i grew up in a very historic town, lexington, virginia, which has a lot of civil war history. in my childlike understanding of the world, i decided the way you could measure how historic you ofe was by the body count famous people and historical figures buried in your town, and we had a lot of them. we had the grave for lee's horse , traveller. also it's of animals were important.

stonewall jackson and other confederate generals buried in lexington. when his horse, who was also famous, died, rather than burying him, some enterprising soul decided to stop him and put him in the museum. this was one of my favorite .useum artifacts with nothing better to do on my meanders home. history, by now, was flowing through my blood. as i got older, i started thinking of other ways to write. i definitely retained that interest in history. it was not until i was quite a bit older -- i majored in english in college, in wisconsin , and it all sorts of professional writing. but it was not until i got older and had kids and started reading all the great children's literature in our public library, like you may do

yourself -- i reconnected with that genre and thought, i should see if i can write for children. i began experimenting. my kids are no grown-ups. this is a long ongoing experiment. they are in college. as i have watched them grow up, they have watched my career advance. i have had pieces in national geographic, including these about stubby. that helps you understand how i got to this stage. let me give you the nutshell description of stubby. if you have not read either of these books, maybe this will encourage you to do so. ofn if you are over the age -- there is lots of crossover potential here. here is stubby and his favorite

doughboy, james robert conroy. the two of them originated in connecticut, on the east coast, the town of new britain. that is where conroy was born. after stubby connected yourow wilson -- i know have been studying world war i with great enthusiasm. even though the fighting broke out in 1914, it was not until 1917 that the united states made the commitment to send troops to europe to join the fight. there were these regional training camps set up around the country, including in new haven. on the campus of yale university, some of the training took ways inside the athletic stadium and the playing fields. there were camps set up with tents and parade

grounds. his was a great place, if you were a dog, to hang out. there was a lot of cooking. were a number of stray dogs that were attracted to this encampment, including stubby, and it did not take long before stubby and conroy had connected. conroy, histe sister, and look who is already in the picture. we have not been able to identify whether this is his brother, conroy's brother. was very much attached to conroy. time toore it had come ship out for europe. time, stubbyome

went along. less assisted by his friends in the camp when the and there struck soldiers climbed aboard a troop train late at night to head to virginia, where they were going to catch their transport ship over to europe. and when they got to newport news, it was a little trickier to figure out how to get the dog but there was some time before they had to ship out. stubby was smuggled aboard with some connections conroy had made with one of the crewmembers on the ship. not on board, hidden in a coal bin, i'm not until the ship was well out to sea did stubby materialize. at some point, stubby was not just thend by other fellows, but the commanding officer, which

presented a little problem, because the dog was not necessarily supposed to be there. in fact, there had been orders given that no dogs were to make this trip. but stubby was quite an adept military figure by then, and he had made quite a study by the military. he understood bugle call. he certainly understood what that one wants, which was dinner time. he understood parade formations and military marching and so forth that the soldiers did. he knew that when the commanding officer showed up, dilatory protocol required -- military protocol required that if you were a dog you needed to sit down and rewrote on your front paws and raise your right pop up to your eye and look very soberly at this commanding officer until he returned your salute. and then you had given the due respect. having done that, the commanding

officer said, fine. he is our mascot. you can keep him. they get to france and there is more training. but before long, they are loaded into boxcars and troubling to the war front -- traveling to the war front. they get to this territory in france which has been overrun by german forces. by this time, it's february 1918, so almost a year after wilson has asked congress to declare war in the fight, and in the phase of the warfare known as trench warfare, and when they are not fighting, they have these that they are able to take shelter in, and we actually that one ofh

private conroy's friends had made, showing probably conroy and one of their underground bunkers. if you look real closely, look .ho is in the cupboard see that? probably stubby, although he is not officially labeled. when they are not in the bunkers, they are above ground, and here is a photograph. bittrench was this little of cover that you had a place for some safety and security that protected you as opposed to being out here in this open area of what became known as no man's land because it was no place for anyone to try to hang out and stay alive. here you had, for example, the .erman trenches we've got the allied trenches, and lots of crossfire going back and forth. machine guns, artillery guns,

shells of all different sizes, including very large shells inspired by the naval guns, also called railway guns, because in order to get them in position to fire, the troops literally had on railroad tracks .o draw the munitions forward ok, this is going on pretty much constantly. the barrage is back and forth, and soldiers become adept at being just about anything in the trenches, whether it is eating or sleeping or taking cover or fighting or whatever else needs to be done. stubby figures out that this is he betterme, and adapt to it, and so he does. he learns how to hang out with the troops would it's appropriate, how to lay low when it's not. if there is major fighting going to go downncouraged

underground to the bunkers, but played the role of official rat patroller. one of his duties was to capture the rats that were running around in the trenches. .e sat guard with the soldiers when someone was doing guard duty, it was not uncommon for stubby to cuddle up to him and keep him company on a cold night. perhaps his most useful skill at this point in the war was that tolearned very early on how detect when a gas attack was about to occur. anyone who has studied up a little bit about world war i knows that this was -- there was a very serious use of chemical warfare where canisters filled with poisonous gas were being fired at the opposing sides, and these could cause serious discomfort, serious injury, even masks so soldiers had gas

that they would put on to protect them. once stubby got to the front, conroy helped to arrange for him to get a gas mask eerie at a lot of animals had them because otherwise they could be injured just like the people. could detect probably with a combination of sound because dogs have such a cute, smell,nt hearing, and could tell that a gas canister .as going to be fired he became quite valuable for his ability to do that and even was credited on one occasion with some of theh bunkers underground and discovering a soldier who had fallen asleep and had not heard any of the alarms and woke the soldier up in time for him to he was gas mask on so credited with saving this man's life.

the trenches,n people are getting injured. stubby got injured at one point during a serious battle in april 1918.in 18 -- april stubby had climbed out of the tonch and started reconnoiter to see what the situation was, and then another shell came over and exploded, and pieces of that metal casing of the shell hit the dog in his chest, and he seemed to be quite seriously wounded, and conroy actually risked his own life to climb out of the trench and rescue stubby and bring him back into the cover of the trench, tried to dress his wounds. the field doctor took a look at stubby and dressed his wounds

further and said he needs to go to the hospital so that he can be stitched up and literally ordered the dog to be placed into the ambulance along with other injured soldiers, and stubby was taken to a field hospital, perhaps one like this one. these are pretty simple establishments. you can see here they even have grass floors or dirt floors. regulationot hospitals like we would find in our community. nonetheless, stubby was sent to this hospital, was beautifully stitched up, and spent about three weeks recovering but did recover and went back and rejoined the troops, and here he is reunited with conroy in june 1918. by now, the warfare is shifting, are beginning to make one last attempt to press towards paris, and americans are joining the french in trying to push them back, and

they are now fighting in this open country with wheatfields and little french towns and so after and fairly soon stubby's military unit joins this particular area, he is part of the yankee division, the german assault collapses. the germans begin to retreat, and the allies keep pushing them back toward germany, so everyone is on the move, and so is stubby .he war dog one of the places they passed through is a small french community in france, and while they are there, helping to defend the town because occasionally, the germans return -- stubby realizes there is hisg to be gas, and sounds usual alarm.

not only does he help to protect the soldiers who are with him, but also the citizens who live there. so now he has got all these fans, too. already, the soldiers are good friends with him, but now he's got all these fans, and the women decide that he is such a soldier, this dog, he needs a uniform. 'sat is literally where stubby little military coat comes from. the women made him this jacket, and you may be able to see there is embroidery on that that explains he is in the 102nd infantry, and he has a yankee division patch on, an official one just like the fellows in the army do. you know, special military buttons and so forth. is truly a war dog now. he has got his own uniform, and he keeps learning. he keeps getting new skills.

when the troops are pressing forward against the germans and they are fighting back and forth in the midst of this retreat and combat, study comes -- becomes a rescue dog. this was a job that other dogs had on the battlefield, too, to help the medics find the injured soldiers. as dogs are better than people at telling whether someone who is lying on the ground is dead -- they have that sense that says a person is alive -- so they were able to pick out the people that needed to be taken care of first. stubby and the other dogs could find people who were hidden in the tall grass or the wheat and were out of sight. they would carry little supplies that if the soldiers were not too badly wounded, they might be able to take out some bandages and help to dress themselves. not content to just be a rescue

dog, stubby also started gardening -- regarding prisoners of war, some german prisoners of war that had been captured as the allies are moving forward pursuing the german troops, and soldier who- as any has served in combat will tell , military dogs developed all kinds of instincts and experience based on what they have observed during the war, so stubby was able to tell the difference between an american and a german. probably mostly by smell. if you think about it, each army diet and sos own forth. there will be a different body owner associated with that. so stubby new very well even before he started guarding germans, what a german look like and smelled like. frame in particular

september 1918 when he captured . german all by himself the details of this are a little bit in dispute, but what is evening,that on one stubby was out on one of his little prowls. he liked to do that. every now and then, he would go as the soldiers would joke, and then show up again. he would go out on little patrols just like his own little garden out. he was out on a patrol and came across this german. some people said he was a german trying to figure out where the american and french troops were. others say he is just lost, under so much confusion, and the troops were moving around so much the soldier had gotten dislocated from his unit. he didcase, stubby knew not belong where he was and began barking. the soldiers told him to stop doing that in start trying to charm him with german doggie

charming speech, which does not have much of any impact on stubby, except probably to make him bark longer. so the soldier gives up on getting the dog to be quiet and decides he better run, and that does not work pretty well either because we all know dogs are pretty weak runners. stubby is not a very big dog, maybe about this tall. he takes off after this guy. hunk of the guys pants and probably a big hunk of the guy, too, at which point he says whatever the german form of "i surrender" is, and because of all that barking, the americans come running. is up toow stubby something, and when they get there, they discover he has captured his own soldier. if he was not already held in

high esteem, he certainly is now. one of the traditions of the battle was that if you captured someone, you got to keep war booty. if they had won medals, those became yours. and a case, this particular soldier that stubby had captured cross, a german iron which was one of the distinguished medals that would have been awarded two german soldiers, so naturally, by right 02 stubby -- and he does have a uniform after all -- so this later, is taken sometime but i will just point out where they decided to hang the iron cross. you can just see it hanging, in this not very polite position on

.he back of the dog's uniform so stubby has one more distinction that has been added to him. of stubby the topic is cheerful in the context of a war, but there is a war going on, and this all kinds of destruction, and of course, and much deaths sadness and trauma associated with the war as well, but it does come to an end, and there's great jubilation on armistice day, november 11, 1918, when the guns stopped firing. there is a cease-fire that marks the end of the fighting and the beginning of the process that will lead to a negotiation for a peace treaty. so the war has ended. has survived. conroy has survived.

over time, the process begins of getting the soldiers home. this time, stubby does not have to be smuggled aboard the ship. he is considered a veteran of the war just like everyone else and is able to march on board when he is off of the ship is considered a war hero along with everyone else, and you can see him here in a parade. this was in new orleans some years after the war. he was was so clever actually put in charge of leading different units of the parade. who knew how to follow a color guard. he knew the various commands to stop and start. he knew when you went past the stand and you work given the order to turn your eyes right as salute to the dignitaries. stubby would turn his eyes right.

militaryry much a veteran and was honored in all kinds of her rates. this was a parade specifically for animals. eventually, he was given this very special harness with all these tags listing all the battles he had been in, which also served to allow him to carry a flag as well in the would marchwhen he in the parade. general pershing, head of all of the american military soldiers andurope, was even asked gladly bestowed a metal on stubby that had been created to honor the dog by the humane society, and so this apparently is the only time general pershing pinned the medal on a dog, but i think he is doing it a great dignity, and stubby is putting up with it as well.

there were other dogs that want to be as famous as stubby. this is sergeant major jiggs, ,he mascot of the marine corps but he was not old enough to have been in world war i, so he really -- and he did not have any particular skills. he did have a cool hat, and he was dropdead ugly, but aside ,rom that, he and stubby were you know -- although they knew what another, they would occasionally show up at the same -- stubby castr a much longer shadow band sergeant major jakes. they would compete for headlines .rom time to time coolidge had all kinds of pets at the white house and was a big fan of boston terriers, and stubby was somewhat related to

the boston breed, but stubby really eclipsed all of these dogs, too, and was so well-known and so well regarded that he actually met oath of these presidents as well as woodrow. theet woodrow wilson while soldiers were still in europe and wilson had come over to negotiate the peace and reviewed a unit of the yankee division and was introduced to stubby and offensively shook hands with the .resident later on, stubby visited the white house. harding was president. he was invited to visit the president when calvin coolidge was president. he was constantly in the news. he was front-page news in "the new york times," "the washington post." when he traveled, people recognized him. we think about how the population knows the president's dog or socks the cat from the clinton era or whatever -- it's

the same sort of idea with stubby. content toy was not just retire from the military, so he picked up a new career when he came home, and he became . football mascot he has his own little uniform, and he would come out during halftime at the game, and someone would start a football chug, and stubby would after it and push it around with his head, and he thought that was great sport, and he would just zigzag around the field chasing after this football until someone told him to stop. he did that for several years. one of the things i came across when i was doing research was thisthis custom of having interruption in the game at halftime with the dog coming out and so forth being the origination of the halftime show. since stubby seems to a done so much else, i think we can give him credit for inventing the halftime show, too.

it seems completely plausible. again, to emphasize how famous the dog was, here he is even .aving his portrait painted people could not get enough of him. a little break. all talk about where the story came from, how it became a book. or two books. i've got additional photos that will take you back in time to stubby's lifetime and his visit to kansas city. like most people, i had never heard of stubby, and i found out about him when i was doing research for "unraveling freedom," which was about world thei and life at home while fellows were overseas. there was an illustration in the book that i needed to write a caption for, and this is a piece

of art that was created before we had joined the war. you can see the various combatants being personified by dogs. here is america -- "i'm neutral but i'm not afraid of any of them," and there's this american bull terrier. dog person. of a i just decided to do a google search of american bull terriers, and instead of finding anything hopeful about american bull terriers, i start finding all these weird websites that are about unusual dogs, sergeant this dog name stubby who has this pedigree that is unbelievable, and i assume it is a joke. like those websites i'm always warning schoolkids that they have to be careful of the internet. i just figured somebody has made all this up, and then i clicked on the smithsonian, and there is this object record about stubby.

it turns out that at the end of stubby's life, he was preserved, and if you go to washington, d.c., you can see the taxidermy remains of this famous dog. i was on a deadline. a reallyhad found interesting story, and i did not want to forget about it, so i made a note about it, and over the years, i kept nurturing the idea. what's not to take seriously about a stuffed dog? over time, that became the idea for stubby. the research for this book was problematic because there was not a lot information out there about stubby. a good deal of it seemed to not be accurate. i did know that because the dog was at the smithsonian, that was a good place to start, and i also knew that there had been there had been a scrapbook kept

about stubby by his owner or his conroy.n, robert on two different occasions, i visited the smithsonian and made a careful record of the scrapbook, and it's an incredible scrapbook full of photographs. archival-fashioned page scrapbooks. travelss from their while they were on furlough in europe. this is monte carlo. you can see little train tickets that conroy had to buy to allow onto theke a dog various means of conveyance that they would use as they traveled around. stubby was on broad bill after he came back to the united states, and there is a flyer about that in the invitation for him to come and be on stage. this was kind of like opening

to find your's to way into the world of stubby. the scrapbook is filled with newspaper clippings. very few of them are helpfully labeled. most of them look like this so that you have no idea where it was published, what eight it was published, but that is ok because then there are these ymcae treasures like the membership card for stubby, making him a special life member, good for three bones a day. for good measure, it is also good for a place to sleep. about this ide card, this membership card that had been created for the dog, this actually created a little bit of ill will. one of the pages of the scrapbook has a couple of lettersin it that were to the editor from veterans honestly,g about how

we've got homeless veterans, and we are taking better care of our dogs -- you know, the source of tension you might expect, and legitimate concern. cutsnroy very diligently them out, slaps them in a scrapbook and writes underneath -- he was a totally optimistic man and had this pr since before we had really even invented public relations, so he writes underneath "criticism of stubby soch proves he is famous," he was very good at spinning just about anything. and of course, while i'm in go visitn, i have to stubby every day and just kind of commune with him as part of the research. his jacket is at the smithsonian. on display with the it iscause the fabric made from is very thin, and are quitels -- medals

heavy, so if that jacket were to hang forever on that dog, eventually, the leather would tear, so this is stored very carefully in an archival container, but i was fortunate to be able to work with curators at the smithsonian who let me .ee the jacket the adult book actually has a very detailed listing of all of the items that are shown on the jacket. if you look right here, this big blob of gold is the metal that purging -- the medal that dog.ing pinned on the i visited the east coast because a lot of stubby material was there. even in west haven, very modest material, but this is a place filled with people who have not forgotten about stubby. this is actually where that portrait is that i showed you. the yale university archives had quite a bit of material about

the yale phase of training. nothing about stubby, but i found great material and wonderful photographs that were useful in illustrating the book, and it was very special to get to go to be yale field. this should be stubby, this is the yale bulldog, the college mascot, but just to see the places where conrad and stubby -- conroy and stubby would have met and trained together. i visited graves, looked were conroy had been born, all the things you are trying to do to understand better about the family. place called the army war college in pennsylvania, which has exhibits, but also a fantastic archive, and i found a lot of great photographic material there as well. it's thanks to all of these archives that you are seeing the kinds of images that are here as credited in the book

illustrations for this history. ok, what are some of those pictures? let's look at some of the other dogs that were in the war. this is not stubby, but this gives you an idea of a dog with and a soldier with a gas mask, too, for that matter. the french, germans, and english all had dogs with official duties. the united states did not develop a canine corps until well into world war ii. it was not uncommon for dogs to pull carts during the war as pulling supplies, pulling ammunitions, etc. these are some red cross an exampled here's

of another rescue dog. you can see an example here with some first division troops. these are french troops. they have a mascot not nearly as well behaved as stubby. people did not draw the line at dogs. this is a wild boar. for this motorcycle unit, and this isops fanny the goat, who was one of yankeecots also for the division in the 101st infantry. the goatubby and fanny would have -- maybe not liked one another, but known one another. some pictures here can help to illustrate what it was like after stubby and conroy came

back. they really were inseparable. it did not take long for conroy to muster out of his uniform, but it was not uncommon for stubby to put his back on. soon after the war, conroy started law school. , whichied at georgetown was what stubby was mascot in at those universities. early onshared a house in the 1920's with a group of guys and veterans, all who had known stubby during the war. it must've been a lot of fun for them to be there together. there were constantly reunions after the war, groups of soldiers -- these are from connecticut. you can see stubby here. here is conroy. this is general edwards, who was of the warfor most of the yankee division. is to kansastubby

city. not surprisingly, he comes in 1921, which if you are up on your local history, you know that is the year that the ground is dedicated for the liberty memorial, and the american legion holds its convention in withs city in conjunction that to take part in the celebration, and participants are given badges. here is stubby's kansas city badge on his uniform, so you all that officiald on article of clothing, and there are pages and articles about this visit. this one has some artifacts on it, including the guest pass that was written out for robert and stubby, our famous war dog, while he was at the american legion convention in kansas city.

over here, we have the menus from the train trip when conroy and stubby were traveling by train. aside from the shock of the prices, i am also interested in all of the hunks of meat that .tubby could have chosen from so i'm sure he was not unsaid -- unfed during those travels. these are just a couple of scenes, and you have seen many, many more of these locally of the crowds that turned out for the plays, and stubby was right leading parts of the connecticut soldiers, who had in thisparticipate great ceremony. this was one of the highlights for the entire endeavor. i'm doing all this research and finding all this great stuff, and then i'm running out of .aterial

i'm having a big problem because was so good atuy promoting stubby that there's virtually nothing about him anywhere in the historical record. the last thing we know about it andhat in 1954, he appears a story and a washington newspaper. he had been at -- his apartment building he is living and has caught fire, and it has to be evacuated. can see this girl has very wisely brought her parakeet. this mother, of course, remembers to bring her baby. conroy, when he leaves, brings stubby. in 1950 four, stubby is not alive. if you look at him, he looks odd, and that's because he is stuffed, but this is one of prized friends and possessions. soon after, stubby pays extra.

just vicariously through some random clippings i was sent by a librarian, i was able to find some information that led me to a grandson. this is conroy late in life and his grandson, and i became friends with kurt. after i have gained his trust, he tells me the story of the blue samsonite suitcase. he says, "well, you know, my grandfather, new the end of his life gave me a suitcase that had all this stuff in it about and i haven't seen it for a while. i think it's at my sisters house in washington. we should go there sometime and find it." these elaborate plans

a few months later to go to washington, d.c., to find the blue samsonite suitcase. it turns out not to be as easy as that, and the suitcase has long since been empty, and the suitcase is in a box. i showed up. i'm so excited. we are not finding it. finally, at about 11:30 at night, we find a box in the , and we start pulling out from --hese treasures these are the most cherished , pictures that help to keep him connected to this friend that he credited with getting him through the war, and then things that helped us understand his story. his enlistment records. this is where we find that photograph that no one remembered. it had never been published

before. it was published in my book. the original photograph of stubby in his uniform. the last story i want to tell you is the story of an and her doll -- ann and her dog. not since i was a little kid had i been very close to dogs because all of the dogs i had ever known in my family had all died tragic that, starting with the family dog that was hit by a car, until i had pretty much become a cat person. that would beught helpful because i would be very impartial when i was writing about this famous dog. the more i wrote about him, the ire i thought are cool -- thought dogs are cool. one day i came down from working on stubby and i looked out of my backyard, and there was a dog. straight out. dog like, "lady, you

are asking for a dog. here i am." took thislly volunteer to the shelter, and immediately, he was adopted by somebody who probably was a much better person to take care of a dog. stubby thatuffed keeps me company, and you have the book. i would be delighted to answer questions. you need to come to the microphone so that everyone can and your questions are carefully recorded. go ahead. [applause] >> thank you. in the photo where pershing is pending on the award to the dog, sitting where we were, there was a young man just beaming -- >> that was conroy.

i meant to point that out. >> do you know who the person was in back looking right at the camera? >> there was an act shea there 'sat was a member of pershing; staff -- there was an attache. there's a woman who looks pretty pleased, too, and she was a member of the humane society who helped to sponsor the award. thank you. >> is there a week hell are? >> why was there not any color in the photos is your question? ? is there any color >> why was there not any color in the photos is your question? there were a few people who had figured out how to take photographs and hand color them, and that was a very time-consuming process, and the technology had not been invented yet that would make beautiful color photographs like we had today and something like digital photography or cell phones that

take pictures -- no one even imagined something like that was possible. was pretty pleased just to have a black and white picture, and that is why you are stuck putting up with them. yes? in like some of to come lower this microphone so our young people are easier to hear. oh, perfect. thanks very much. >> do you have any more of those -- >> i know. i have a group of writing friends that we get together once a month, and we share our work with one another, and when one of us has a book come out, we celebrate, and they celebrated by making me my own stubby. and look, they even put the german cross -- the iron cross in the right place. could be the prototype. you are absolutely right. >> how long did it take you to

make each book? >> i was in the land of stubby for a good two years, and having written -- at first i wrote the children's book. i did not know that i would be asked to write an adult book until i had pretty much finished the children's book, but i had done a good chunk of research already, and then i went back and did even more. i was able to write a fresh text for the adult book. it? at kind of dog is >> what kind of dog is stubby? there's a lot of debate about this. someday there will be stubby scholars who will argue about this, but i would say stubby is mostly a mutt, but he was alive during a time when a lot of effort was being put into breeding what is called a boston terrier today.

they did not necessarily all of black and white the way we tend to think of them now, so he is pretty close to a boston terrier , but he might have a little bit of bulldog mixed in, and maybe some other flavors just for fun. >> do you know precisely why stubby's name is stubby? >> this is an excellent question. you are helping to remind me of all the things i should have said earlier. good look at stubby, what do you think it might be? he had a very short tail. at some point, his tail had been longer, and breeders will sometimes shortened tails to make doll looks look a certain way -- to make dogs look a certain way. news reporters did not always get the facts right back then. just like now, sometimes things get mixed up. i would come across newspaper

articles from the aero when stubby was alive, and they would .all him fluffy, hubby sometimes articles would refer to him as a she. >> when he got hurt, did he make it? .> he was pretty shaken up i don't know if he was unconscious, but no one wrote that down anywhere. if he was, that fact has been lost. when he was taken away in the ambulance, the soldier, his friends, conroy -- they did not know if he was going to make it, but eventually, he did recover, and that helps to make it possible for him to come home again and then march and all those parades. oh, i'm sorry. let's pay attention to both sides. >> did stubby have any children?

>> was he a dad? if he was, he kept that secret, too. there has been no mention whatsoever of any stubby-related puppies, so i think he is the one and only. good question. yes. die? n did stubby >> good question also. stubby died in 1926. we don't know when he was born because he was a stray dog but we figure he was maybe 10 or 11 years old. you know, seven years after the war ended, had a pretty good life, really. >> how did he get hurt? this got hurt when artillery shell, or maybe it was a great grenade -- people argue a little bit about that -- exploded. these shells -- if you think of what a cannonball looks like,

the cannonballs -- the shells only moref like that, pointed like a rocket. the metal around them, when it lands, it blows up, and those chunks of metal are called shrapnel. body, shrapnel hits your it's going to penetrate it just like a bullet would. it becomes almost like a weapon. cut stubbys of metal open where they hit him, so it was pretty serious. some people die from those kinds of wounds. was nots lucky he killed. they were not sure he was going to make it. we are lucky he did. >> did they have to take the shrapnel out, or did they just leave it in? >> that's a good question. was the shrapnel taken out? yes, it was, and stitched up. the wounds were stitched up again.

>> how did the war find the dog? >> what do you mean by that? like, how did the dog and war in debt mixed up together? sometimes things work out that we do not even plan or imagine, and the dog just happened to be born at a time when a war was going on, and he happened to fall in love with and be fallen in love with by these troops who were so devoted to him that they could not imagine going off to war without him. fortunately, enough of them came back to celebrate that we now know of stubby's story. does that help? ok, good. die? and when did conroy

>> conroy lived to be the age of 95. that's an excellent question. .e died in the 1980's one of the things i learned is i got to know his grandson. he had been in the fbi. he had quite a career. he had done public relations and been very, very active with the veteransand organizations and so forth and eventually retired in florida. he was married twice. he had a daughter and the daughter had four children, but he never had another dog, so he was the only dog he ever had. that was his dog. a question? sk ok, go ahead.

>> my question is, you know, that kind of gray picture you said you put in your book that no one had ever seen before -- it's not in the book. >> ah, it's in the adult book. you are very observant. people get paid money to notice stuff like that. to press got sent off really early because it had all those pictures in it, and it had already gone to press before i got to see the blue samsonite suitcase, so we did not know about that picture when that book went to press. this one, the adult book, was still being worked on, so we put this in the book. >> thank you for coming and making a great story greater. >> you are welcome. >> my question is -- what are

you going to do about the movie? >> am going to buy popcorn at soon as it opens. you just connect me up with your producer any time. >> was stubby a sergeant? >> this is the copy editor here, a proofreader here in the works. readingirst started about stubby on the internet, he was consistently referred to as sergeant stubby. the story you'll read on the internet is that stubby was given -- officially given military rank because of his service, and a lot of people connect it to that capturing of the german spy. this all seemed very reasonable, and i read every single newspaper article that i can find about stubby. i went through the historical record and read all these proclamations that had been made during the war. i could find no evidence of this whatsoever.

furthermore, none of the newspaper accounts of stubby written in the dog's lifetime ever, ever, ever call him sergeant. i believe that some well-intentioned individuals or whatever have been referring to him as sergeant stubby on the internet and became our go to answer for insta- questions, so this rank was bestowed on him by his fans some wood on the road. someone is welcome to argue with me about that and prove me wrong, but i do not think the military has done that yet. they certainly could. i see no reason why they shouldn't, but so far, it has not happened. why did you name the book that, and how long did it take ? write it >> sometimes authors name books, and sometimes editors do, and i

think my editor came up with the title for that book. together.l runs i was working on one and working on another and working on the book at the same time, so i probably spent about nine months researching the book and about nine months writing each of the books, and another six or so months helping to finish with the production of them. you added all of, and it's two years or so working on the book. you know, we could be here until that ballgame starts, i think. [laughter] i think there is a ballgame some folks may want to get home for. i see some familiar faces here. you have the last question. the young lady. >> what countries did stubby go

to? .> oh, my stubby would, i think, only have been in france. some of the troops went over to england before they went to france, but stubby did not. his unit landed in france and departed from france. some of the soldiers after the war worsen to into germany to help to establish the occupation -- some of the soldiers after the war were sent to germany to help establish the occupation, but these troops were not. i think france and the united states would be it. i am very glad to be able to have been here. i know there are books in the lobby, and i would be happy to talk with you further, answer other questions, sign books. you can find out more about stubby through my author website . follow me on facebook, and thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

fell 25 yearswall ago on november 9, 1989. we will revisit that historic day on sunday, beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern, with archival c-span video, featuring president george h.w. bush from fromval office, reaction senate leaders bob dole and george mitchell, and speeches from president kennedy in 1963, president reagan in 1987 that galvanized berliners and the free world. that's tomorrow at 8:00 em eastern time here on c-span3's american history tv. >> all year long, c-span is touring cities across the country, exploring american history. recent visitat our to colorado springs, colorado. you are watching american history tv all weekend every 3.ekend on c-span >> garden of the gods park is so magnificent, and many people do not realize that it's a city

park. it has national significance. it has a world-famous view, and nationalthat we are a natural landmark, i really love the description of the garden of the gods park as being perhaps the most striking contrast between mountains and plains in all of north america. the natural history, the history of the earth is almost like an open book here in colorado springs. what we are seeing here is the lagoons,of sand dunes, the bottom of an ocean, and even that haveavel occurred from the last 3 million years. if you walk from the visitor center out into the park, it's like a walk back in time. and about a half-mile, you can go 300 million years ago. the first people that we know of