> >> our guest today is david

martin. he is the national security correspondent for cbs news. he was a researcher for cbs news in new york. he was a news writer with the ap broadcast wire. he was a fellow at the washington journalism center. he was an ap session -- a.p. special assignment team. -- he was an ap special assignment team. he worked for newsweek. he was a cbs pentagon correspondent. he received his b.a. in english from yale university. his books included wilderness of mirrors, best laid plans: the inside story of america's war against terrorism. our guest today is david martin. he is the national security correspondent for cbs news. he was a fellow at the washington journalism center. he was on the ap session assignment team. he worked for newsweek. david martin was a news writer with the ap broadcast wire. [program begins now. [program begins now] why do you do what you do? >> because i like it. i really do. >> you can really just run free. the base is in the united states. the war is overseas. it is just an exciting job. it is life and death. you can never feel blase about what you are dealing with. you are dealing with young men and women. >> your father was in the cia for 23 years.

what impact did that have on you? >> i did not think much. i did not know what he was doing. when i was making all of my early career decisions, in fact, i was in high school at the time of the cuban missile crisis. he did not come home for several days. i knew i know about what was going on in the news. many years later, he told me that there was a coup in algeria at the same time. it was a time when the cia did not officially exist. on my school forms, i could only put that my father was a u.s. government employee. i could not say that he worked for the cia. i think that the event in my life that probably got me to

where i am now was the vietnam war, in coming out of the college and deciding to go into the navy before i was drafted. then, when i got out of the navy, i remember 1968 being a huge year that it was. the assassination of bobby kennedy and martin luther king and the tet offensive, that is what got me interested in news. the only new skill that i had after three years in the navy was the knowledge of military affairs. that is how i began. >> you went to princeton. what a mistake -- you went to yale. >> i did a brisk start of

graduate school. i had to be honest with myself and tell myself that i was facing the draft. >> what years were you in the navy? >> 1956 to 1969. >> you were on the destroyer the entire time? >> based in pearl harbor. we would spend six months and come home for about a year and then go back. that is what i spent my three years doing, going back and forth. >> in your report, you're attached to the pentagon. name one place that you would go all the time to stay up with what was going on.

>> the one that i always had the most interesting time at, and most surprised by, is the army's training command. that is where they figure out what the next war will look like and how they are going to train for it. the amount of thinking that goes on down there, the amount of technology that they use in an effort to train soldiers, to me, it is almost mind bending. they are much further ahead of where the institution of the united states army is. they are really pushing the envelope. we are never going to predict where the next war will be. >> is this at fort monroe? >> yes, the oldest military

installation. >> where is it? >> it is down in virginia in the area around richmond. >> we have a clip from one of your reports. let's watch it and we will continue the discussion. >> he runs what is undoubtedly the most high stakes video gaming center in the world. it is posted on a website where soldiers bound for afghanistan look at the latest in a tactics. that is just the beginning of what the army has in mind. >> this is the latest in serious gaming. that takes a soldier and puts them in the environment. in this case, we are in a humvee. >> 3d video simulations. the idea is to download these into a warehouse big enough to hold an entire platoon of soldiers that are learning to

clear a village whereever the next war might be. >> we can go somewhere in the philippines. you are only limited by your imagination. >> this is good to go for a hollywood produced ride. the landscape is in california in scenes in cowboy movies, only now it has got a lot of roadside bombs. the aim is to use the most sophisticated tool, the human eye. the enemy can bom you in unexpected ways. >> i do not know how close to the real thing that was, but it was very convincing and it takes you totally by surprise. sergeant, were you ready for that? >> i was. >> this is a very different

kind of shock and awe. >> is everybody okay? >> why would the military let you in there to see that? >> they are spending taxpayer dollars on building all of that. i think they are proud of it. they think that they are on the cutting edge of technology, or at least training technology, to get soldiers ready for whatever. that is the principal mental breakthrough in all of this training. you have to get ready for whatever. you cannot just say the next war is going to be in any certain country. and they try to teach the soldiers to adapt training methods.

we were in a room where all the battlefield reports from iraq and afghanistan come in. forensics on the last roadside bombing is printed out on the screen and they immediately crank that particular event into their training scenario. after 72 hours, it is beamed up there for the next group of soldiers. >> how many soldiers go through that? >> i went through a show and tell.

that humvee was still just in the beginning stages. if i remember correctly, there were no live soldiers that had been through that, yes. it was just coming on line. now, every soldier going to afghanistan goes through one of these rooms where they take these video games that they have extracted from real world experiences in afghanistan and subject the soldiers to that. >> how would you describe the relationship that the pentagon has with the media today? >> it is interesting. the pentagon has become less user-friendly than when i first started covering it. that is more of a product of the construction of the building

than anything else. indeed pentagon has made it harder for a reporter to walk around because more and more spaces are now behind cypher doors where i cannot go unless i am escorted. i think that after nine years of work, wartime security has taken hold and they have gotten very good at compartmentalizing its permission. they are much more sophisticated about talking. i do not mean that it is hostile towards the military, but i think the opinions of the media were much more hostile when i began than they are now. when i started, we were still just coming out of the post- vietnam era.

i think they blamed the media for some of that perception. now, you have the most widely respected institution in america. they realize that we are the conduit to the american public that are not at all hostile. plus, the fact that they now are aware that this is how it is going to be. we have to be better at it than the enemy.

they are bound by having to get your story straight before putting it out. they are always going to be putting the story out. >> we are going to show a clip from earlier. your wife is what kind of a doctor? >> she is retired, but she was an obstetrician. >> your kids? >> one kid is a reconstructive surgeon. another is getting her premed requirements so she can go to medical school and another daughter is taking her junior semester abroad. >> what about the reconstructive surgeon? >> he is a male. >> where is he doing this? >> he is doing this in baltimore. >> let's watch this report.

>> as we begin this new decade, the world is more dangerous than ever. nations around the world have assembled massive armies to defend themselves. russia is 21 million strong. china is 3 million and north korea is 5 million. the united states has 2.5 million. david martin shows us how the u.s. military plans to defend the country against an ever- changing enemy. >> american soldiers are hit by a roadside bomb. something as simple as a homemade booby trap americans plan for a quick and easy victory. the report card is written in blood and treasure.

5300 are dead. but 6000 more are wounded. more than 950 amputees. more than half have left family behind and some have served five tours. 480,000 are now in the va system. the soldiers that made the sacrifices are compared to those that pay the bills. the problem is there for all to see. the most powerful and sophisticated military force in history is stretched almost to the breaking point. shock and awe turned out to be a myth. >> they commissioned a series

and asked for ideas. i, along with the producer, submitted a proposal that said that the question is not if we are ready to fight, but can we adapt to whatever the next unexpected event is? he immediately locked onto that and said that that was a great idea. so, that is when you started turning it into television. that is where there the relationship between the reporter and the producer is

most important. we finish each other's sentences and communicate with raised eyebrows. we instinctively go off in the same direction. i go down there and see everything for the first time. that allows me to be more genuine. it is kind of , you really say, "oh, gosh," and you mean it. it takes a ratio of 10 to 1 of

what you shoot as to what you use. i write this script and then she and i almost always agree on it. she has always got ideas on how to make the piece look better. at this point, there is no pride about who is right and who is wrong to make it a better piece. that is what we do and then you show it to new york and new york always has one or two things that they want changed. that is fair because we are immersed in the subject and we might gloss over something that confuses somebody.

>> did the substance of the report, you site something compared to our 2.5 million. >> russia is still a basket case. they have nuclear weapons. obviously, they have the capacity to destroy us or somebody else. as a working, functioning military, they can overwhelm georgia, but they could not overwhelm the united states. they are not remotely equipped to do that. it takes a generation to get back to where you were. >> what about china's 3 million? >> china's 3 million is worse.

if they ever change their foreign policy, they are basically just wanting to be left alone to conduct their economic miracle. the problem is, they need a lot of energy to conduct that miracle. that energy is in short supply. you construct scenarios under which there would be competition over those energy supplies. right now, the u.s. could always control the seas from china. china, as always, has this enormous land mass and enormous

army but totally discourages anyone from trying to invade. the do not have the ability to project their power. that is coming. they are working on it. there will be a day when they have the ability to deny the u.s. or make it extremely difficult. >> how many times have you been to iraq or afghanistan? when you travel with the joint chiefs of staff, how do you protect yourself from not being spun?

>> you work in that bubble. they are doing the same thing that you are doing. they are trying to protect themselves. when the big cheese shows up, everyone says that we are doing great. they say to give us a little more time and we will get the job done. particularly, in afghanistan, you can see the progress going in exactly the wrong direction. when we went with the chairman, they said, "congratulations, you will always eat well, but you'll never see the truth again.

>> the one bubble that he is trying to break through is the one that he is trying to project is one that is under control. in terms of the spin that goes around this city, the military is a distant second to the real professionals in the white house. >> when you are having a quiet moment with the top leaders in the pentagon and others, what do they say to you off-camera about barack obama? >> i am trying to think -- i am not sure that any of them -- if they had a negative thought about him, they wouldn't voice it to me even off camera.

because loyalty to the commander in chief is what the military is all about. if they had any thought that would be disparaging to the commander in chief, i do not think they would say it to anyone but someone that they have known all their life. they say that he is extremely attentive when they meet with him. he asks very good and very penetrating questions. they are impressed by his intellect. there are relations between the white house and the military that have not been that great in the first year. the military keeps giving him advice that he does not want to hear. we need a lot more troops in afghanistan. he did not want to hear that.

now, the commander in iraq is asking for some flexibility on maybe not meeting the 50,000 troop ceiling. that would be advise that the president does not want to hear. then, what really angers the white house is that when the military tries to constrict the president's options. the president said long before, the chairman said that the u.s. would probably need more troops. the president thought that it put him in a box.

>> another report from you back in 2009. before we go to it, it is about reconstructive surgery. >> my son was probably my most interested viewer. this was the kind of ll that he does. his hospital does not have a program like that. it is a one-of-a-kind operation. >> you did this report. >> our cover story is recorded by national security correspondent david martin. >> it is his 21st birthday. how is that for a face that says "life is good?" they suffered these scars for us.

this happened to him nearly two years ago in afghanistan. >> what hit you? >> a mine. >> so it was the blast and flames? >> i burst into flames. >> the head of reconstructive surgery is inspecting the results of his first attempt to repair joey's face. >> can you close your mouth? that is amazing. >> at one time he could not close his mouth or his eyes. we could elevate this a little bit more.

>> now, miller first saw the wounds of war as a young doctor in a mash unit in korea. >> do they produce a particular kind of disfigurement? >> absolutely, the roadside bomb is an incredibly destructive device. the depth of the burn is usually very deep. >> it is so significant, that his mother and himself spend quite a lot of time at the burn unit. it is a philanthropist that came up with the idea and the money to get disfigured soldiers

into the expert hands of dr. miller. >> a bad burn is about as severe an injury and as painful an experience over a long period of time. you could imagine. >> how much miller can do to give joey back his looks is based on how much unburned skin he can find. it is the divine right of man to appear human. >> how did you get that video of the cathedral? >> you know, i do not know. the producer found it. >> i am sure it is out there on

the web someplace. >> when you watch this, is the war worth what happened to this man? >> how can i answer that question? i do not know. what that young man has been through, what is worth that? >> what do they say? >> they say that it is worth it. i think that they have to believe that. my cop-out is when im" if kuwait was worth dying for. he said that kuwait was not worth dying for.

>> what did we miss in that report? >> what you missed was a very inspiring story about another young marine, octavio sanchez. he received third degree burns over 70% of his body and he had lost his nose. when he got out of the burn unit in san antonio and went home, the first reaction was that he was so glad to be alive and out of the hospital. you do not want to see the inside of a hospital again. you are used to the way you look now. you are just prepared to live with it. he would go with his kids to the shopping mall and the kids would notice people staring at him.

the kids would get upset. he finally went to see dr. miller and he grew him a newmnose out of other parts of his body and gave him a nose. now, octavio sanchez is a handsome young man and the scars make him look more rugged. he has a prosthetic arm and his left hand is largely useless, but he decided to keep it because he could feel enough to stroke his kids' faces. it is as attractive a family as you can find in america. it would not have happened if they had not been one of the lucky 24 to get into this ucla program. there are 800 burn victims.

they have been through brooke army medical. there are soldiers that have not had the benefit of world- class plastic surgery. the army is second to none at saving lives, but they are not very good at reconstructive surgery. in fact, dr. miller told us that the first operation he does when he gets a patient is to undo what was done by the reconstructive surgeons at brooke army medical. >> what is their reaction? >> i do not know. they know what the standards are in the united states. they know that they are not up to that standard.

there are programs that will go down to brooke army medical for a month at a time. >> a philanthropist is paying for this? >> if anybody spent money better, i do not know who it would be. he made his fortune in the credit-card business. i think that when you swipe your credit card, he makes money. >> how much does it cost per patient? >> that can take about a million dollars.

20% of that is likely to be covered by various forms of government health insurance. >> how do we do as a country when it comes to soldiers that have been injured in war? >> as individuals, we do pretty well. there are a number of organizations. the wounded warriors fund is one that comes to mind. the system is just such a huge bureaucracy. it is so difficult for a huge bureaucracy to get soldiers to special care that they need.

particularly when all of these alternative forms of treatment are now available. the va needs to see hard proof that the treatment works. if the soldier thinks it is worth it, that is ok for me. that is not how you get something covered by the by the va. you see a kid with two prosthetic legs, but you do not know about all the infections and all of the bone growth that you get from these wounds. he always has to be refitted for the prosthetic and all the pain medication he is on. on top of that, they have to do this bureaucratic battle to get

the va to cover their treatment. even when they succeed, it is after a time frame of about six months when they have just been living on pain medication, waiting for the va to approve it. >> back in october 5 of 2005, why were you there? >> i was not in [unintelligible] if i was, i would not be here. it came very close to being overrun. there was a platoon of 49 american soldiers there. nine of them were killed. they suffered about half of the platoon. they had pulled out and you could not get there from here.

>> so, you get everything from here? >> we got as close as you could. there was still a number of valleys between us. what they have was the gun camera tape from the apache helicopters that came in from overhead and we had a report on the battle. that is what we worked on. i can just remember watching this gun camera tape for the first time. it goes on for a couple of hours because there is more than one apache helicopter and tape that you have to look at. your heart is in your throat because these kids are getting killed down there while you are watching. >> did you get the exclusive? >> we had the gun camera tape exclusively.

>> how did you do that? >> i cannot tell you. we got it from somebody who obviously had it and was not supposed to give it to us. >> you did not get from the pentagon? >> no. >> let's look at this. >> this is the gun camera tapes. buildings are in flames and the only officers on the ground are calling for help. >> be advised, we are in a bad situation. >> the apaches will have to lay down their gunfire within 10 meters of the troops. >> the helicopters are shooting down on the buildings and they

make one run after devastating run. they come in firing their cannons but the taliban keep shooting back. >> a desperately needed helicopter tries to get in but instantly becomes a target. >> we are taking fire. we just got hit in the lower belly. >> the apaches clear a landing zone. >> we will be able to pick up two now and probably two more later. >> finally the reinforcements arrive and the battle turns. >> this has triggered an investigation into why the 49 men of the platoon were so exposed. >> the platoon was under an incessant attack.

they were surrounded by high ground and could only be supplied by helicopter. lt. jonathan brostrom showed the video to his father. >> i was shocked. they were getting attacked and probed every day. heavy attacks by enemy forces. >> we dropped 861 bombs with few questions asked is what a senior official said. >> was that confidential? >> yes. >> they did not want you to see this?

>> when we had it, they did not fight back. they talked to us. the investigation blamed this on the local afgani police commander who was in collusion with the taliban and helped engineer the assault. the original investigation said that this incident should not make future commanders think twice about going into enemy territory. he made a whole slew of mistakes. those soldiers were put out there in a position where they did not have adequate defenses. i think that is true. there has been another investigation.

that one has not come out yet and i have not seen it. we do know that three officers were singled out for letters of reprimand for not preparing the defenses adequately before the fight. a soldier was given a silver star for his bravery in that fight and now he will receive a letter of reprimand for the same battle for not having taken adequate precautions ahead of time. to me, this encapsulates small unit operations. the only reason we know about this one is because it went so

badly and nine americans were killed, but that is what this is like. in 2009, when the president ordered the 30,000 more troops, afghanistan was officially called an economy of force operation which is a euphemism for not enough troops. what had really happened is that they did not have enough troops. there should have been two platoons in there. commanders have to make perfect decisions every time. those commanders will tell you that they made wrong decisions. but there were mistakes, the kind you and i make every day. >> you reported one trillion dollars has been spent on iraq

and afghanistan and in this report, you talk about 861 bombs being dropped in this little area. again, i ask the question, is it worth it? >> they pulled out of this space two days later. the territory, which had been so important to america that you would put a platoon in there at the bottom of this little valley where you're just a fish in a bowl, that is the way it was until nine american soldiers got killed and then the next day, they are out of there. >> here is another report from april of 2009. >> specialist carl mccoy survived two tours to iraq before taking his own life. >> he shot himself.

he was in the bathroom. >> in this house? >> yes. >> he knew he needed help and scheduled an appointment with a mental health counselor. >> but that morning, they called and canceled. >> they did not have anybody to see him. >> maggie was also a soldier. she planned to stay in the army until she saw this e-mail written by her commander after carl's suicide. >> i know she has a lot of problems. >> that may sound callous, but it is the reality of life in the face of war. >> we saw the numbers go up in the past four years.

we should have been more proactive. >> this general has never seen anything like it. >> i have been doing this stuff for 33 years. i have never run into anything as difficult as this. >> carl mccoy was one of many suicides last year. this year, the numbers are even worse. 54 in the first three months. here is another alarming statistic. each day, on average, three soldiers call a national suicide hot line run by the department of health and human services. that means that each day, there are three soldiers out there thinking of killing themselves who are afraid to ask for help within the army. >> it is the soldier that wants to reach out to someone who is not in his chain of command because he feels that if he does do that, he is going to be thought of as a lesser soldier.

>> fort campbell has the most agressive suicide prevention program in the army, but that has not stopped this. one of these came during a visit. one of the toughest soldiers does not protect them from inner demons. >> the one common thread is relationship problems. >> problems that set in after the honeymoon of the homecoming is over. he is nearly at wits end. >> it has got to stop. >> it has not. every soldier was required to watch this video on suicide prevention. the next day, he killed himself.

>> you know that the audience has a lot of different reactions. some would say that you're sensationalizing suicide in the military. what has happened a year later? >> that is his no. 1 job, to stay on top of suicides. the number of suicides is down from the record levels in that peece where there were 23 in one month along. the last figures that i saw were for february and i think that there were 13 in the army. >>it was 13. is that a good number? >> obviously not. it is probably below the national average. it shows that soldiers were killing themselves more

frequently than the public at large. >> they were killing themselves after coming home. >> one-third kill themselves when they get home. one-third kill themselves while they are there, and a third kills themselves before they go. you have the apprehension of going, the depression from being away so long and then maybe something going wrong and you get a dear john e-mail. you come home and find a totally changed situation from the one that you left, where your kids are a year older and have a totally different relationship. >> what about the charge that the networks are biased and all

that they really care about is making money and you are looking for ways to titillate people? >> do you think that is sensationalizing? >> i am asking you. you get criticized. i just had a guest a couple of days ago that said that every time katie couric does an interview, she sneers. >> how do you sensationalize a tragedy like that? don't you think that people should know what they are going through? these are not just casualties of war. but there they are. >> you have been at the pentagon for 27 years.

people are in favor of this war in iraq. they are opposed to the military. >> my experience has been that the media is anti-statistics. that is what we do. we're supposed to challenge the conventional wisdom. at the end of the iraq war, we did a pitiful job of it. we bought off on the white house intelligence that saddam hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

they should complain about us being not aggressive enough. >> we have one last clip. this is only about 1.5 minutes. >> the general is up for 3:00 a.m. and out the door at 5:00 a.m. for his morning run through the buildings and trailers. this is his idea of leisure time. >> how many miles is it? >> i run an hour. >> in another life, he could have been a monk. >> it is the lap of luxury. >> what else do you need? >> it is functional and comfortable. you get very used to it. you have what you have and that is all you need.

one thing that you miss is family. besides that, it is pretty much perfect. >> he lived like this for five years as part of a unit that captured saddam hussein. being a general didn't stop him from going on commando raids. >> i never said i was a great command of. there is a value to the old man coming along just to show that he is willing to do that. >> it is kind of dangerous, though. >> we got him first. >> that trip, did you go by yourself or with the military? >> my producer and i flew over there with a crew and then we would travel around the country with them.

we would break off and travel around with the 82nd airborne. >> how closely did the military watch you on a trip like that? >> it so happened that that while we were on this trip, a cbs radio reporter was hit by a roadside bomb and lost part of a leg. they were very nervous that something might happen to another cbs crew, so we had to have a colonel and a master sergeant assigned to us so that nothing bad happened to us. we went to that base where she was hit. it was a very real experience. >> what is her status today? >> she is an outpatient at walter reed.

she is still facing more surgery. >> why do people like her go into the middle all this? >> it is where the story is. the rest of us live more comfortable lives and we sit back at a removed distance. we occasionally dip in and dip out. they are there every day. it is what gets them up in the morning. it is an adrenaline rush. this is real news. i do not know. i think it probably is different for each person. >> we are about out of time. what impact has this had on you that you served in the military

for three years. does the pentagon think differently about your approach? >> i do not think so. that was the draft military and it bore only a passing resemblance to the military we have today. the relationship i have with people in the pentagon is just built on the relationships that i have built over the 27 years that i have covered at that building and not as a result of any previous experience. the one thing that it does is it makes me too tolerant of screwups. >> you were born here in this town. >> i was. >> you worked for the associated press before you got into this. david martin, national correspondent for cbs. thank-you for joining us. >> my pleasure.

>> for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a is also available as a c- span podcast. >> next week on q&a, author michael lewis. a look at the subprime mortgage crisis and some people who profited from it. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

up next live on c-span, we will take your comments and questions live on "washington journal." and after that a brookings institution program on arms control. >> when i hear president obama say he is president of all america, i am glad. black people helped make you president of all america. >> tonight, tavis smiley's forum. that is at 8:30 eastern, on c- span 2. this morning, we will talk about how congressional democrats and republicans plan to present the new health care bill to their constituents over the easter recess and beyond.