and uncluttered so we could just concentrate on getting this bird home. we just thought it had too many bells and whistles, and that -- and the second thing that was in the way, we did not have a night lighting system. and so, during the couple years before the flight, we've redesigned with the help of many engineers and other guys in the crew office the heads up display and got the support of the program office to change the program, and we were satisfied with that. then the other thing, the lighting system, we looked at flares lit at fresnel carrier systems, but it was not quite enough for the diseases we were

expecting to see. after working at a lot of people up here in the audnce helped us by flying against these lighting systems on the ground, and i never looked in my log to see how much like time he got, but it waplenty. in addition to dan and me spending all our time on this, i got give credit to mike smith , who was killed later in the challenger vehiclebecause m work, andid yeoman's we would never had solved the thing without him. we ended up with a really simple system. it was made of automobile headlights, red and white, and

for the pilots in the audience, it was very simple. if you were on the correct glide slope, you saw two reds and two whites. if he were high, you sell more and more whites. then we had the big xenon lights illuminate launch pad, eliminating down the center line, and turned them off so they would put a beam of light right down the runway, and as bright as they were, during rollout, the actual amount of light he could see the cockpit was measured a handful of lumens. you could see. for flare, we had a takeoff and

a navy carrier lighting system that essentially was called a ball that showed if you were high or low, or show it if you were on that more shallow glide path. we flew the flight. we got to entry interface at 400,000 feet. dan and i were pointed up at four degrees up at the stars, at the start the entry, and as we went on, we noticed a funny thing. the stars began to dim. they went out, and i glanced over to dan, and i said, going blind at this point is not a good idea. then they started changing colors in all the windows. later, we realized that what we were seeing was the ionized

gases in the foot-thick shock waves standing out in the order as heated up. we saw every color of the rainbow. he could not see upside except for that. finally got down to about mach 7 and it was white hot looking out the shuttle windows. again we thought, ok, god, it is time to let us see. suddenly, just like this, it went away. we were in a steep left bank. i looked out and it was the most gorgeous view of the california coast, los angeles, santa barbara, san francisco. we roll back up and way out into the black hawks no moon, i could see the edwards, those xenon lights.

we crossed over the field at 50,000 feet at mach 1. put it into manual, and dan and i flipped in a circle, and now with the moment of truth as to whether the lighting system was really going to work. we rolled out, and it was the most beautiful sight you ever seen, right there in the center of peking hub was two reds and two whites. and we kept coming down,, and by this time of thistwo reds and whites was all we could see. we got blown off at about 3,000 feet where the top of the frame on the top of the window covered the runway. we could not see that. we kept driving down to pre- flare, and we started a slow pre-flare.

finally, the runway came into sight. it was a helluva ride. [applause] >> thank you, dick. >> could afternoon. i want to say it is an honor for me to be up here with the shuttle commanders, and i have absolutely great respect for all the vere work they did before i flew the shuttle, but before i even came to nasa, to make the shuttle so much safer as the years went by. i am here to tal about discovery. i want to say a little bit about the history and the things discovery did. she was the fourth orbiter built. the contract went out in 1979.

she was delivered in 1983. she flew 39 times, the last flight was just last month, march of 2011 very some of the more famous missions discovery flew, she launched the hubble space telescope, flewhe return of flight mission after the challenger accident and after the columbia accident. discovery performed the first round of woo with -- the first rendezvour with mir. discovery flew the first cosmonaut in 1994. discovery has cumulative days of space of almost a year. almost 365 days in space. of the missions went to the

international space station on assembly and resupply. discovery has flown its last flight, and soon you will be able to see it up close in the smithsonian. we have been asked to answer to questions. if there's something about your that makest different from the others, unique, and makes -- until a personal story about a mission you fle on the order. the first half of that, is there something unique? i thought something hard about it. they're pretty much the same. the only differences are in the payload that are flown, and that will change the way in the center of gravity, and it will change the switches and circuit breakers, but other than that, they were pretty much the same period from a pilot cost point of view, as far as flying the biter, would you

be able to guess which one you are flying? . would say, no flying qualities of the or biter were very predictable. i will say that the pilot will notice a difference not by the orbiter butyhe weight and the center of gravity. if you are flying a light weight rbiter, he noticed that controls are a lot more responsive. maybe is more predictable to fly and land. with a heavy weight orbiter like discovery, i noticed a delay and more sluggish flight controls. all those flying characteristics

could be programmed into the software in the gulf stream that we fly to train. regardless, the pilots are trained and well prepared. you can see delaney as we have made over the history of the program have been very safe and predictable. i have a few minutes left to tell a personal story. i flew my first and fourth flight on discovery. this is about sts 63, and we flew in february of 1995. the highlight was the crew was to perform the first rendezvous to mir. the plan, handed to the crew, was we were close to a thousand feet, and we would test the communications, navigation, and the flying qualities of the shuttle in close proximity to

their space station. we started negotiating with the russions. -- russians. we used translators. to get the russians to trust with you, you had to drink wh them. it was part of their culture. we started negotiating at 1,000 feet. we thought that was too far to complete what was a knapp test plan and find out are we sell, prepared, ready to do the first docking flight. through all this negotiating, we came down to 300 feet. we looked at it closes, that is not close enough. we need to go in closer. we negotiated down to 100 feet. the months went by, and it was not on the happened there. we negotiated down to 30 feet,

and when we launcd, that is what the plan was. launch date, very smooth ascent, no malfunctions, main engine cutoff, still no mel hudgins -- no malfunctions. then we got a master of law. one of the jets failed off. then another of the jets failed. the third one to fail failed because it was leaking creat. it was facing exactly where mir was going to be on its close approach. it was leaking hydrazine. we obviously did not want to contaminate the solar arrays. around a new -- the rendezvous

was canceled. the flight team did a fabulous job down in houston and in moscow. we turned the jet to the sun. we did other things over couple of days. we got public -- we got the leak down to a trickle. it looked like a geyser. it never totally stop. the russians agreed to go in and the rendezvous, and we did and

it was successful. on day four i realize the russians wanted to do this flight test as much as we were. it was to pave the way for future human space flight programs. all that tough negotiating we have done was just their sty, their culture. we learned how to work togher. thatission of discovery reminded me that sometimes small failures can lead to some pretty important lessons learned, and their relationship with our cold war rivals, engineers, flight directors, cosmonauts, while not perfect, was and is strong, especially between the astronauts and cosmonauts. part of the legacy of discovery is the role it played in international corp. and diplomacy.

-- in international diplomacy. thanks. >> had the privilege of flying atlantis on my last mission. the story of atlantis is very rich. it flew 32 missions. and it will fly one more time. it flew -- it took the columba' module to the international space station. it visited mir seven times. it had the shortest turnaround time between landing and launch of 50 days. it had the fewest interim problem reports.

it's set the record and then on its next mission came back and between its mission and its follow-up mission, it broke the mission. was a very clean airplane, and everybody who has flown it has joyed it. i have to live with, before every flight i go talk to the main engines, and i go out on the pad and i talking to the bills. and some of you may laugh, but the engines respond to me. i can tell you that it h worked because i have never aborted or had to unload from the orbiter, and i know some of the people here have had to do that. if they took my advice and talked to the engines, that never wou have happened. when i talked to atlantis engines and said okay, we're

ready to go. we launched, and it is very interesting because on my mission, there were two experienced folks -- three experienced folks and board -- onboard and three workers. we are sitting on that pad, and one of them asked if we were in space yet. [laughter] as a commander, you would not want to say, idiot, no. would say something like, well, not yet. atlantis was a beautiful bird. forrester -- brewster talked

about the way it moved like this. it was a very smooth airplane and got to or but -- orbit, and we had no burns necessary to get it into a circular orbit. the main purpose was to deploy this satellite. this picture the have probably seen a hundred times if you look at in the air force publication or "aviation week" or any publicion that shows satellites. this is the defense support program satellite, and it is the only one launched by the shuttle. i love this picture, because it shows the harmony between space, that black stuff you see on the left, and earth, the blue, and the beautiful atlantis. if you look at it closely, the

big nozzle of the satellite, you can see the reflection of the earth. with rookies, and in particular, this flight, we had an interesting crew. three of us were married and treeless were bachelors -- and three of us were bachelors. before every flight, the significant other was issued sothing called a primary contact apc badge. it was very interesting because for the three of us who were married, it was obvious to the significant other was, and that person could visit us during the times we were in quarantine. dan brandenstein the office director, the officer chief, and

he had the opportunity to decide what to do with these bachelors. i think he gave up, just like i did, and we issued these primary contact badges to any significant other that these three bachelors with light seeking. every day a new set would come in. being a good commander, i just sat there and watched them come in and go out. it was never the same. in fact, if there were two visits aay, you might have three significant others. i will not name the names of the crew members. on orbit, i thinking orbit operation to a pretty standard. we had the defence support program that we launched immediately on her first day, but then we had an army chief

warrant officewith us, tom henning, and his purpose was to determine whether he could look to the windows and look down in an area on the earth to assess the situation, the battle situation, and report that to a military commander. clearly, that did not work. when we came home, i was asked to visit a general who was the aiforce space command commander. of course, i do not think -- i knew he knew it was not want to work, but he wanted to demonstrate to me that he had capabilities to see much finer than we could with our naked eye. he showed me a lot of that. he said, in this particular case, the target was obscured and the satellite could not see what was on the ground.

i said, sir, have you ever had a person in space look down and verify that you could not see it from space? of course, he paused a moment and he smiled and that was the end of that conversation. that was the end of that program. atlantis was an amazing byrd. we came home. we were supposed to land at edwards -- at kennedy, because we lost an inertial measurement unit, we came home early and went to the edwards cricket joe henry earlier showed you his approach to the landing. that was on 05. there will several -- there were several runways there. as we were turning to final, mike hollen --y pilot said,

the you know what strip your landing on? i said i knew where i was going. i said this is what you get when you had a rocky flying. i talked to a atlantis three weeks ago, and atlantis asked me, have you heard that it was going to make its last mission could i said, i have heard rumors. is it true? he said yes because a couple high guy told me that. i found out today that atlantis is going to be stored at kennedy after it lands in june, june 20. the last thing it said to me was i certainly hope this is not the last human flight that we make here in america. i know you guys are going to make sure that that does not

happen. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. anytime you talk about shuttle's about the discussion comes back to the people. endeavor was no different tricks -- and never was no different. i got involved with the program because there was a program to na the new orbiter given to schools throughout the country. it was for suggesting e name and also a science project. two schools won. it was named after captain cook 's ship. kids got involved in the or biter for it rolled out.

it was pristine. columbia looked like it had zits. it was a testimony to the people who put it together. the people who worked on the other orbiters were no more and they were calling to be laid off. the workers got together and had a heck of a party. management was not invited. i did not qualify because i was invited and it was great. they showed up in tuxedos and cowboy boots and had one heck of a party. they were proud of what they had done and were going to go out in style. sts 49 was the first flight, scheduled, and we launched in may of 1992. the primary mission was to

recover and repair ilsat. also, back then the space station was on to be the w -- was going to be built tinkertoy style. the first rendezvous, we had a bar that was designed on earth, the first time we try to capture the satellite, we were not successful. on that first day we did three tries before it tumbled out of control. we back away from it and were feeling bad. you have seven people on the crew, a pretty good job of change. about 30 minutes later we got good news because the ground crew had the satellite back under control and that meant we

had another chance. we changed some of our processes. we tried it again. this time we got six shots at it before it was out control and we could not capture it. then theeam, the people, the crew and ground team, decided to take a day off. going back to the last capture, the six tries, it goes back to the people who designed the vehicle. that baby flew really great. truly amazing design and flight control system. getting back to the people, now we had the crew and a team on the ground trying to figure out at we were going to do on the next day, and we came up with a plan to send three people out and use a good old-fashioned hand to capture it.

everybody concurred with that plan. a long story to tell you. we did it in one day. the shuttle flying up to it, three people stationed out there, the satellite at a bit of wall on it. we had to wait, and we moved up and the ree guys grabbed it, put the bar on it, and we had one more eva left and did some of the mission on me iss repair. forester talk about it, and never worked on its first flight perfect. we had no problems and it was important because we were busy trying to get the satellite.

we had to mess what i we had to mess with computer problems, it would have been harder. since then endeavour has gone on to fly many successful missions, and it is a true testament to the people who operated hit the in and day out. it is a shame to see the shuttle's coming to an end, but just as those people who had a party after endeavor rolled out, the people we worked on a day- to-day basis, their noses to the grindstone, they are determined to do a great job, and i have to what meyer them because they have been a great team for many years. it will be a big loss to our space team around the country. thank you. [applause] >> at 5:15 these and two

additional shuttle commanders will conduct a briefing in the auditorium on the lower level of the exhibit center. go over there, take the elevator one flight down. seating is limited, but registrants invited to sit in. on behalf of our audience, i thank you for sharing your experiences to date. we appreciate your serve to this great nation and its space program. let's hear one more time for our all-star team, the space shuttle commanders. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] ♪

>> tuesday, remarks from kirk campbell on recent bilateral talks with china. and the upcoming trip to indonesia scheduled for july. he will speak to the center for strategic and international studies live tuesday at 11:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. 3 and then a hearing on the security of the electricity grid. that is held by house energy subcommittee and starts live at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. next, remarks from supreme court justice samuel alito. that preparations meant reading legal briefs and documents. he spoke recently at at a

metropolitan bar of st. louis' lunch. this is 40 minutes. >> fellow judges and attorneys, and a non-attorneys who have managed to infiltrate the room -- [laughter] i hope there are a few of you. thank you for the wonderful introduction. he and i were law school classmates, it seems like a couple of years ago. he was one of the stars of our law school class. it would not have surprised many of his classmates to learn, had they been able to foresee this fact, that today he surely would be one of the real stars of the federal judiciary. i want to thank him for the great introduction and all of you for the warm welcome. and i want to thank the bar association for all of the courtesies that had been extended to me. it is a great pleasure for me to

be here and have this opportunity to talk to you this afternoon for many reasons. among other things, i welcome this opportunity to congratulate your bar association for its centuries- long commitment to providing equal access to justice. i am sure as many of you know, the inscription on the front of the supreme court building reads equal access -- equal justice under law. that is surely the highest ideal of our profession and i commend the bar association for its many efforts to translate that ideal into reality. i hope that during the next century, you will redouble those efforts. i mentioned one fact about the supreme court that i think many of you know, the inspiring inscription on the front of the building. what i want to talk about this afternoon are some other things about the supreme court that

some people, even knowledgeable people, either do not know or have tended to forget in reading coverage of our day-to-day work. i got the idea for this talk a couple of years ago, actually, when i heard about a poll that as people to name two justices of the supreme court. what the poll revealed was that more people could name more of the seven dwarves and good name two justices of the supreme court. i was not disturbed by that, knowing that the personalities of justices is not important. i was just relieved that they did not think that sleepy, grumpy, and toby were the names of some of the current supreme court justices. [laughter] that sort of trivia is not an

important for knowledgeable americans to know. but there are some things about the court that should be had -- should be widely known. and many of these things will be things that the knowledgeable people in this room know. but i think we tend to forget them if we read coverage of the court. in the general media or even in general interest legal publications. the title i have for my talk today is often equate the top 10 things that you may not know about the supreme court. everyone watches late night tv, so this is my spin on what you might see during that time. on to the first item, and to introduce this, i want to paint a common scene. it is 10:00 a.m. on monday morning in the nation's capital. our core room is filled with spectators. the first few rows or benches

are occupied by lawyers who are members of the bar of our court. in the rest of the court room is usually pretty awful, and many the people occupying those seeds are simply tourists in town and would like to see a supreme court argument. among the spectators in the general gallery in the supreme court, there are often a lot of students who have heard about the court, studied the court in high school, american history course, or maybe in a college course, and they have heard about a great supreme court bury, of the past, marg brown v. board of education, things of that nature. the marshal of the court stands out promptly at 10:00 a.m. and announces all rise, the chief justice and the associate justices of the supreme court of the united states, and the first

cases called. the audience looks on with anticipation. and then the lawyers and the justices are to talk about something that is incredibly arcane, technical, and for many i suspect downright boring. the truth of the matter is, and this is the first item on my list, most of our cases are not about the great issues of constitutional law. in fact, the great majority of our cases are not about the constitution at all. last term, 75% of our cases were not about constitutional issues. they are mostly about the interpretation of statutes enacted by congress or rules promulgated by one of the general administrative agencies. this term, we have had cases involving all of the following federal statutes, among others. erisa, the always beguiling act of 1974.

is there anyone in the act who knows what the four r act is? you get a door prize. what is it? [inaudible] you really deserve a door prize for that. yes. [laughter] [applause] only one person in this room accomplish lawyers. the reform act of 1976. we've also heard cases involving the federal arbitration act, the veterans review act, the national childhood vaccine injury act, a coppery i had, -- copyright act, the freedom of information act, the privacy act, the false claims act, the securities and exchange act of 1934, the national traffic and motor vehicle safety act of 1966, the bankruptcy act, the internal revenue code, and many others. these cases involve important

questions, but for the most part they are not what people had in mind when they think about the united states supreme court cases. ok, that is 75% of the caseload. what about the remaining 25% or smart suppose that a law student heard oral argument for two days, at least four cases. at least one would be about a constitutional issue. what sort of argument is the student likely to hear in that case? most of you are probably aware that for the past few decades, in legal academia, there has been an intense debate, and intensifying debate about constitutional theory, or original is some -- our originriginalism, and they may e an exaggerated impression about

their importance in actual litigation. and of course there are cases in which. looms very large. a couple of terms ago, we had a very good example of this, that case i am talking about is the district of columbia v. heller. it concerns the interpretation of the second amendment fight to keep and bear arms. the question was whether that means a right to keep and bear arms that is individual and incorporates the rights to keep an arm for the purpose of self- defense. it was an unusual case, because there was so little prior supreme court precedent. really just one unusual little case decided in 1939 in a very short and cryptic opinion. this was the case in which. naturally had an important role.

the opinion for the court, written by justice scalia, was an example of one leading theory of constitutional interpretation. not surprisingly, it was vigorous -- vigorously original ist. the dissent was also our originalist, but justice breyer wrote another which he has articulated in another number of books. it was rigorously pragmatic. theory meant a lot. justice election meant a lot in the outcome. but that was the exception that proves the rule. in another case that came along, a couple of years later, in the wake of heller, it illustrates

this point. this is the second item on my list. most of our constitutional cases are governed by precedent, and not by theory. the case that came along in the wake of the heller case is macdonald v. the city of chicago. this is also about the second amendment right to keep and bear arms. heller and all the district of columbia, so it did not concern the question of the application of the second amendment to the states. mcdonald presented that latter question. for the few non-lawyers in their room, let me back up for a second and provide a little constitutional background. the provisions of the bill of rights as originally adopted applied only to the federal government. they did not apply to the states. it was not until after the ratification of the post-civil

war amendments that the 13th amendment, the 14th amendment, and the 15th amendment, that the question arose about the application of the bill of rights to the states. in the macdonald case, two provisions of those post-civil war amendments, which fundamentally altered the relationship between the federal government and the stage, were at issue. one was the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th amendment prohibiting states from abridging the privileges or immunities of a citizen of the united states. the other provision was that due process clause of the 14th amendment, prohibiting any person from being deprived of rights, liberty, or property without due process of law. surely after the civil war, in a famous case called the slaughterhouse cases, decided in

1873, the supreme court gave the privileges or immunities clause a very narrow interpretation. we might think of the metaphor, since there has been so much flooding in this area, of water heading down to the sea. water is going to flow downhill no matter what you do. it is going to make its way to deceive. and so if you block in one channel, it will find another channel to reach its destination. and that may be viewed as what happened with respect to the interpretation of the 14th amendment. slaughterhouse block the use of the privileges or immunities clause to provide substantive protection for rights that are not specifically mentioned in the constitution. now today many scholars believe that is exactly what the privileges or immunities clause was intended to do.

but actual case law flowed in a different direction and it went through the due process clause of the 14th amendment. almost all the provisions of the bill of rights were made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the 14th amendment, by means of what is called incorporation. just as there are a lot of scholars that think that the privileges or immunities clause was badly misinterpreted in the slaughterhouse cases, and in fact today you can hardly find a scholar if things that slaughterhouse cases interpreter that provision correctly, but there are scholars that think that that you process clause was meant to protect process and not substance. all right, in the macdonald case, but we had a question whether the right to keep or bear arms is applicable to the states, and if so, through

which provision of the constitution? a friend-of-the-court brief that was filed by a group of academics contain the following a plea. as professor of constitutional law, we would look forward to that day when we can teach our students how the supreme court corrected the grievous error made in the slaughterhouse cases. this of meet this as well as the lead attorney representing the petitioners in mcdonnell, the citizens of chicago who wanted to overturn a chicago fire arms ordinance, argued that we should use the privileges or immunities clause and not the due process clause. you might think that this based on solida scholarship would have received a sympathetic hearing in our court. because the current court is the most academic in the history of the country. four of my colleagues or former

law professors, very distinguished law professors, before they took the bench. three of those justices were sitting on the macdonald case when it was argued. but when one of the lawyers raise the privileges or immunities point in oral argument, professor scalia took the wind out of his sails when he said the following -- "what you argue is the darling to be sure, but it is contrary to 140 years of our jurisprudence. why you undertake that burden?" and when the decision was announced, only one member of the court relied on the privileges or immunities clause. everyone else up by the established framework. ok, four #4 -- point #four. this tends to come up in my

house over fans giving dinner when one of my cousins says, are you off this week? and when someone asked me that question, i'd breslin said, we are not hearing oral argument but i actually have a lot of work to do. which is true. a lot often get the impression that people who hear that do not believe me. the releasing to have the idea that sitting on the bench and hearing oral argument is our main job. it is not. and this is my fourth point. during oral argument is a relatively small and if truth is told relatively unimportant part of what we do. for every case that we hear on the merits, we hear one hour of oral argument. that is all. sometimes when justices or judges from other countries attend one of our arguments, they are particularly from another english-speaking

country, absolutely astonished that we would devote just one hour to argument in a major case, and countries like united case would -- the united kingdom and canada, argument goes on much longer. but for us, it is one hour and that is it with rare exceptions. by contrast to the one hour we spend listening to the argument were participating in the argument, we spent many, many, many hours reading and studying the case before we ever take the bench, we will spent hours and days studying the case. the volume of the briefing they now receive is really enormous. last term we had nine cases in which the breeds, including the amicus briefs, totaled 500 pages.

some exceeded 2000 pages. you can see, a lot of time is put into the case before the argument begins. as a result, i think, when we do take the bench, we are really primed for the argument and the justices tend to have a lot to say. last term the court average 120 questions per case. 120 questions/60 minutes is two questions per minute. 40% of the words spoken during the oral argument last term were uttered by the justices, and not by the attorneys. and this term, a lot of observers have commented that we seem to be asking even more questions. if the statistics are compiled at the end of this term, i would not be surprised if we are pushing the 50% mark. if we do not -- this term, i am pretty sure we will in the

future. i personally find that oral argument is helpful as one of the final steps in the decision- making process. but as i said, the truth of the matter is that it is less important than the briefing or the opinion preparation process that follows the oral argument. this brings me to my fifth point. we do our own work. here i am quoting justice brandeis. his exact words -- of and what the reason they think so much of us is that they are the only people in washington who do their own work." [laughter] i am not going to address the first part of his statement about what people think about the supreme court. but the latter is definitely true. we still do our own work. when i say that, i do not mean to cast any aspersions on the president or congress. their responsibilities are now

so vast that an enormous amount of delegation is unavoidable. can you imagine how the president could possibly do his job if, for example, he wrote his own speeches or many of the other things that are done in his name? i am not criticizing the other branches. but we have had the luxury of retaining an old-fashioned, personal role. we have a very small staff. some people are quite astonished that we do not have a larger support staff. we each have three career non- lawyers who provide office support. and we have four law clerks. they serve for just one year. they are very brilliant attorneys comely young attorneys, and their assistance to us is invaluable. but as i said, they serve for only one year. by the time they become fully familiar with all of their tasks, at least one half of

their tenure is completed. despite this, there are those on the outside that think that the clerks are actually pulling our strings. a recent article, after quoting justice brandeis that that justices do their own work, said "today no knowledgeable observer of the court would make a similar claim." but if that is true, then the so-called knowledgeable observers of the court are wrong. keep that in mind, because i will come back to that later. for now, on to. no. 6. we are very independent. we are not met -- manipulated by our courts. and while we give serious consideration to our colleague'' arguments, in the and we each region independent judgment. for the most part, we do not even discuss cases among ourselves prior to the time

when we spoke at a conference. and with respect to what counts most, we are all equal. we all have one vote and no one is ever required to sign onto an opinion with which he or she does not agree. and we always have the right to issue our own concurrence or dissent if we're not pleased with the opinion of the court. of course, there is a big difference between productive independence and a refusal to listen or to take into account the views of colleagues. in this as in so many things in life, the trekked is striking the right balance. i recalled two cartoons about the supreme court that. in the "new yorker" some years ago. i think they brought it the approach that a justice should take in considering how to react

to the views of colleagues when they justice does not agree with his or her colleagues' views. each cartoon pictured the supreme court banned, the justices sitting in their black robes, and in both cases, one of the justices was speaking. in the first, on one side of the bracket, he says, if all of you smart cookies agree, who might to dissent? that is one extreme. the other cartoon that appeared later, again shows the whole band, one of the justices speaking, reading a dissenting opinion, and the justice says, a dissenting opinion will be brief. you are all full of crap. [laughter] i have had a couple of cases in the last two terms in which i was the only person in dissent,

but that is not what i was saying about my colleagues. [laughter] if you read some of our dissenting opinion, you might interpret them as essentially saying that. sometimes they are pretty strongly worded. and this brings me to my seventh point. we are not at each other's throats. to the contrary to the impression that some people might get from reading our opinions. a couple of years ago, and was assigned to write an opinion for the court. i read the opinion and it produced a concurrence. this is a concurrence, not a dissent. it said that my opinion was "meaningless, inconsistent with the rule of law, and in st.." -- insane." [laughter] i did not take them personally and they were not meant

personally. this was the pair knuckles intellectual disagreement that we sometimes have. but it does not mean that there was personal animosity and all. this may not have always been true on the supreme court. a very interesting book was published last year called " scorpion -- the paddles and triumphs of fdr's three supreme court justices." the book claim that some of the justices to serve during the 1940's and 1950's thoroughly dislike each other, and sometimes showed it. it is an interesting book. obviously i do not know for sure how accurate all of the inside baseball stuff is, but it had some interesting anecdotes. according to the book, during a conference one day, the justice frankfurter, a former law professor, made an acerbic remark about something that chief justice vinson had written or said, the chief justice got

so upset, that he rose and started walking toward frankfurter with the intention of punching him in the nose. i can assure you like nothing like that goes on today. after a morning conference when we may disagree quite sharply about legal issues, and they may be legal issues about which we care very deeply, we all have lunch together. we make a point of doing that on every argument and conference day. we have one rule at lunch, and that is you may not talk about any case. so we talk about items in the news. we talk about music, sports, our families, books -- anything but the cases. including the ones where we may have disagreed very sharply just a short period before. shifting gears now, i am ready for my. no. rate. and that is, some of our

opinions mean less than a lot of people think. what do i mean by that? this is so for several reasons. for one thing, the opinion writing has a lot of prerogative. we do not make stylistic changes in the request for each other's opinions. if you have eight people making all sorts of editorial suggestions in an opinion, if you can imagine how long it would take to get anything out and what the end product might look like. we do not mess with the style of butcolleagues' opinions, style sometimes believes into substance. if someone takes some tone from a particular opinion, that person may be reading into the opinion something that is not there. our opinions are also written under considerable time pressure. we do not have as much time to mull over and revise our

opinions, as for example, the offer of a book might have in many instances. and the third is that our opinions of this on primarily deciding the case at hand. so the majority that endorses the opinion and the rules set out in the opinion necessarily believes that the rule is the right one for decades and it covers that case. but the agreement among the members of the majority may not actually extend a lot further than the ground than is actually covered in the opinion. if you read more into it, if you read it as having a much broader application, you may or may not be correct. .

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[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] respect women, learn to speak english. be polite. civil. don't break the law. don't have children out of wedlock. don't demand anything because of your race or ethnicity. don't see working and studying hard as acting -- don't hold judges. be proud to be an american. >> the 10 command identicals? >> you know, probably -- commandments? >> probably everyone in the room can think back to their

grandparents. think about their great grandparents or grandparents who were immigrants. the frarne case is different because of -- frarne case is different because of slavery. their gratitude to this country. that was in a certain sense the key to their americanism. they felt gratitude for what? opportunity and liberty. one set had come from southern italy basically for economic opportunity. not for political reasons. the other side definitely for political. but they had in common, although they never learned to speak english very well, to have one of their kids to be american. part because of their gratitude to this country. i'll tell you what they didn't

have. absolutely didn't have. something that would be poisonous to gratitude and that is an attitude of entitlement. i think if we communicate to immigrants or anyone that the proper -- toward the country is a posture of entitlement that i ought to be taken care of, that just undermines the gratitude that is part of the key to immigrant americans becoming true americans. that doesn't mean that we don't need a safety net or shouldn't have a proper debate about where the state should step in. they have to be take care of. i'm not proposing here the libertarian utopian by any means. that doesn't mean we should just

rock into an attitude of entitlement. i think that does kill gratitude. >> so summarize source to have gratitude, which in fact i saw in my parents, second generation american. not third. now you put them together and they constitute what we call the american dream. there is no other country, i think on earth, for which the word dream follows the name of the country. it is only -- i've never heard of a french dream. [laughter] >> a russian dream. a russian dream i suppose is -- this year. american dream, everybody understands it. opportunity. liberty. political liberty. that's why, as you said, juan,

why everybody could come here. it is precisely for that reason. again, it is unique to us. democracy is unique in america. but that is what i think is what you're calling americanism and what we call american exceptional. >> i think the value of our ideals, if people think we have great institutions or great political ideals, the experience they have, the opportunity given to them and their children, enables people, even immigrant people to be proud when their children fight for the united states in the military. so many immigrant children do. their parents are proud. they understand their children are abroad in harm's way fighting for their country. even though they are immigrants. it is their country their children are fighting for.

>> my question goes to the comment about civic institutions. it has been argued that capitalism and demeanor sy about -- into which we -- democracy about -- into which we -- the question that i have, not in the content of our economy, strength of our economy or strength of our military but in the content of our civic institution, the question, why do we hear such little conversation about those civic institutions that the founders believe is the only place that we can preserve our values? >> well, i would say i think you don't hear in washington because but you do in communities.

i mean, i haven't gotten into this very much. on roosevelt's first point. i really think it is in essence of our country that we work community by community as a speaker out here as the antpologist from great britain said in our communities, the conversation is insessant about civic institutions about churches, clubs and fire departments and organizations and that's really a very distinguishing aspect of what we do and what we can do from here. to create environment in which that can succeed is limited government. >> this is also related to the american principle of dispersion of power versus the european principle of concentration of power. it is not just the states versus the federal government. it is a private parbgs a private flan thropic power.

>> if i could add one part, senator alexander. you were trying to steal us away from a debate about left and right as important or there's essential to a definition of americanism. you were emphasizing and you did earlier, the importance of the civic institutions, the volunteer organizations. but in the legitimate say as the state expands in its power as it takes over roles that traditionally it didn't have, it displaces and supplants and margin lieses the local voluntary civic institution on which the republic stands and in fact we're seeing it play out in europe in that way. not just a few radical arguments. therefore, a debate about the essence of america and what what

makes it unique, exceptional and so valuable has to include a debate over the size, the reach, the scope of government because of its effect on these civic institution which are fundamental as you yourself said. >> yes, is the answer to the question. i think the way that works out in our politics, though, is that we have these principles such as limited government and liberty stacked up on one side and someone might stack up equal opportunity on the other side and make an argument within an american context to say the government needs to add this program to create equal opportunities. i would be able to hear on the right side. someone else might be on the left side with a program based on equal opportunity. i think we're both americans. we're debating arguments based upon american principles.

>> i would agree but rather than question the americanism of your pount on the left, would -- opponent on the left, couldn't you just point out the consequence of overemphasizing equal opportunity you would undernine basic idea of government in which case if you did that, that would undernine entire idea of americanism. >> >> i agree with that i was trying to acknowledge -- because i thought he was wrong. my emphasis would be on two other principles. >> it is not a question of motive. it is a question of consequence. i understand. >> is there one last question? please. >> at the very beginning, if i recall correctly, amy described americanism as being philosophy and poetry.

it seems to me remarkably enough we forget the philosophy in common but we're not sure about the poetry. it occurs to me naurt the phenomenon that you're talking about -- further that the phenomenon you're talking about, the side of that, that people see the poetry of their lives in those ethnic or religious attachments. so i'm wondering where that poetry would come from. it seems to me that at least two or three things were laid out by the panel. it would come from essentially something that would have to be if it wasn't -- essentially our poetry. it has to be something that unites all of us as americans and harvey suggested somehow selling ourselves to others as a common purpose.

juan williams suggested somehow a common purpose is aspirational or to use charles' term, a dream. what has been poet eck about us has been -- poetic about us has been thises operation to do best for ourselves. to improve ourselves. to live up to certain ideals. sometimes, especially with someone like roosevelt, to take that to the world. my question really is i guess what the panel thinks about the possibilities of those -- that -- those things. the source of poetry and also how they would work together, i mean, one is inward looking and one is outward looking. >> i think both are inevitable. i'll give you a line of political poetry that we're all familiar with. that is "the shining city on a

hill" as well as the american dream. what is the point again? men have tried since at least time of -- aristotle to come up with a workable political model for organizing a nation and i think we're agreed here that we have a pretty darn good one and we're trying figure out what the elements of it are. the world, the congress of vee yena have i yena. tries to implode and dissint great from time to time. when that happens, it is a very difficult and horrifying situation. and it is in america's interest i think not to have nations elsewhere dissint greating and imploding as indeed they are in

many parts of the world now. and so we have an outward moving interest in maintaining the american model for those who would like to imitate it, i think harvey is right, that werked make an effort to sell t -- we should make an effort to sell it. that doesn't mean lock, stock and barrel. it would not be a bad thing if other nations struggling to organize themselves adopted some of the ideals and principle that worked. poetry has its place in doing that, i think. >> i would just add maybe one more source for that poetry and that is lincoln and everything lincoln said and wrote but in lincoln wa we really did is that philosophy made poetic and it seems to me it combines both of

the elements that you mentioned. once you secure that new birth of freedom we really do stand forth as an example to world. we need to get back to that, to lincoln's task of the -- of our political institutions and how they might be restored. >> first of all, aristotle, just to be in good -- i think one element of the poetry of national purpose, i'm a little suspicious of the notion national purpose. that is another discussion. but one element ought to be the concept that he brought up, that is the notion of frontier. this is one element of roosevelt that i think is enduring and timeless. i have been critical in many ways but testifies a friendor turner's and -- he was a friend of turner's.

let me put it this way. in europe, the word frontier or its equivalent is a negative term. in america it is a positive term. and i think that is a kind of exceptionalism. it is very hard to translate into abstrabt concepts, but it has something to do with opportunity and something to do with the ability of the individual person to realize hor possibilities, -- his or her possibilities, irexpective of the conditions of the their birth and other incidentals. at any rate, i think that notion of the frontier and its analogs, it is not for fog that politicians repeatedly have to

revise the notion of the frontier, most notably john f. kennedy and the space program as a kind of frontiering. this is part of our national makeup that is i think something that relates to principles but is not -- to them. a kind of story. >> in closing, let me say first of all poetry is found in some of the stories and songs that we have included in this volume. but more important, i want to thank the panelists. i want to thank the bradley foundation and i want to thu all for come. [applause] >> today remarks from house minority whip steny hoyer. he is also expected to talk about the democratic congressional agenda at this vept hosted by the center for american progress. that starts live at 11:00 a.m.

eastern on c-span. while the senate is out of session this week, the house gavels in today at 2:00 p.m. eastern for legislative business. on the jeopardy this week, a bill sponsored by ways and means committee chairman dave camp that apes to raise the nation's debt ceiling. without any spending cuts or budget process changes. also the homeland security department. you can follow the house live here on crmp span when members gavel back in. >> david ax was embedded with the u.s. army in april. he was in logar province on patrols of local villages and on a in addition to clear roads of i.e.d.'s. he talked with u.s. military commanders about security and training the afghan army and

police. the u.s. is scheduled to begin withdrawing troops from afghanistan in july. >> what we're trying to do here is we have the area of operations through provinces, logar and very critical areas around kabul. to try to get expand the security bubble that i'm sure you have heard general petraeus talking about out from kabul to make sure that security governments and development are increased and improved here in these three provinces. so that we can slowly transition the security governance and development of operations back to the capable hands of the after gans. logar province is a hugely critical area just south of kabul. clearly great increases in all

lines of operation. the security forces here in logar in particular are making great strides both in the police, the afghan national army and their intelligence directory. from my point of view over the last five months or so that we have been here, incredible progress has been made with the police, spevely in logar -- specifically in logar.

local communities hiring from within their communities to defend their communities, so they get training by the afghan national police. they get partnership through us and mentorship. they get oversight again through -- and they are aid-equipped, union formed by the ministry of the interior. so it is essentially exactly where the afghans need to be during this critical time of transitioning security over to the afghans. >> from a security standpoint as we look at the afghan army, it is out there parole trolling, securing the population making a connection with the local people and showing them that they are in capable force. police as well, transitioning from counterinsurgency operations where they are kind of focused right now and moving

into those civil policing functions that we see. i think we'll start to see some transitions to that. we're seeing it in some areas, especially very lows to the district center. where the police are able to go out and do civil policing, get out, kind of -- stuff that we have seen back in the states. i really think it is just demonstrating to people that your government is working for you. we are doing development based on the funding that we have and let them know that and showing them they have capable forces that can allow for transition at some point in time. >> i think that security oversaul on a positive -- i

definitely we think we're making improvements. one of the ways we see that manifest sitz people are getting fed up with violence. not only coming to us to seek assistance but also in some cases working out ways to take care of themselves because nobody can take care of people as well as they can take care of themselves. when you start to see that sort of stuff happening, which we are starting to see, i think acceptance is just down the road. there is a local town that is pretty much -- it is near a major road. it is pretty much a battleground at times. when we moved through a area, which is necessary, the enemy comes from outside the town and used that location to fight. obviously people in this town for the most part are uninvolved and are seeing all the negative consequences.

so what we see is encouraging. the people regularly coming here to the district center to see district governor and other government agents we have here and to engage them, to ask for help and even bring up potentially ways that they can help secure their own town. so that's sign of progress. basically, the government is who the people are going to solve their problem toonsd look for help. that is a significant step in the right direction for us. >> have there been any security setbacks? >> there is -- it is not a -- there is an ebb and flow is the way i would describe it. it is not as though everything is on a positive trend all the time.

sometimes you'll move forward in one area and take few steps back in another area. from a security perspective, it is kind of a reassessment of where you need to go and what you need to do. what the next step is. >> to the best of your knowledge, how would you gauge the opinions of the local people regarding the taliban and also yourself, the coalition and u.s. army? >> here is what i would say about a lot of the local people is that they are tired of fighting. and by that, i mean a fight going on around them, a lot of them are not involved if this. i think insurgency is a vast minority of people. a lot of people are fed up with it day-to-day. the danger to themselves and their families. and the concerns about having to worry about security.

i do not think that the people want us to provide their security. i think in a lot of ways people understand they need us right now to provide their security because we are assisting their forces and doing so, but what the people really want and what i see from the people is that they want afghans to provide their security. again, a positive step in my mind. much better than we are really working through the afghan security forces and police. people want them to provide for their needs versus us. i think that is another step in the right direction. >> one of the old adages of warfare is heart and mind. it is cliche but you do things like that trying to win over the local populace? >> we try to facilitate the army

and police doing that. our number one priority is protecting the populace. so the importance for us is providing that protection but the way we go about it is -- through our partners. it is not us providing them something they need. thes not us helping to build a speed bump in their village. it is us setting conditions to allow the afghan security forces to do it. >> the airplane, how are they -- >> army is doing well. they live right here with us. they are just on the other side from us. the police are here as well. pretty much everything you need is in one spot as far as governess, army and police. the army in particular are very

capable here. we're just now getting into the warmer months of the year so we expect activity to increase from the insurgent perspective and also from a security forces perspective. but they are capable. they can communicate. they can provide security. and their leaders plan pretty well. >> what do they still need from you? >> what they really need from us is the next step, what we can provide them that they are not as good as yet is for example, some planning and logistical operations. they want to conduct a week-long operation, we can help you organize a way to resupply yourself. that operation is a week long and not two days long. those are the things that we are applying right now.

not just as at an advisory level br partner level. they operate in the lead but we can contribute some experience just because our army is significantly older than theirs on how to better connect operations. >> police are actually doing pretty well. we have 43 or 45 police to secure the population. that is our primary challenge here. just increasing the manage of the police so they can take care of the populace the way they

need to. they do community policing here. they have military-type patrols they go out on and also have community policing. if there is an altercation in the neighborhood, people will call the police. something nearby, the number of guys they have on the ground, they can handle that and if it is a little bit further away they need support to handle that just so they have enough security to complete that secure mission. but it is very important that they are actually able to fill those things, those tasks. if somebody calls them, they need to be able to provide assistance because if they do not, they will lose the trust of the people and that is paramount. err month a couple of additional police arrive and the numbers keep increasing. what we really do is we work

with what we have. as far as facilitating them and securing their district, the ministry of justice, the ministry of interior, they work to -- suburbs. whenever you have quantity, you also need quality. that may be a better thing to have fewer guys. >> i understand that there are -- within the baraki barak district where the taliban has actually gotten stronger in the past year, two years. how does that factor into your asenment into what baraki barak needs? >> it can go a couple of ways as far as that is concerned. because of the resources we have, we have to set certain priorities. talking about from a partner perspective with the after gaps.

we have set priorities. in some ways you can only be so many places at times. you have to pick those priorities and move forward with that plan. and then reassess and make sure next week you still think you're doing the right things. we are focused where the population centers are. that's our primary task. if we can provide security to the populace, they buy into the afghan national security force. once we have that accomplished in the populated areas, we can start moving out into the less populated areas and conduct a similar sort of method. >> what do you think is the most difficult part of your mission here? not for you personally but for the company? >> i think a lot of times partnering is a challenge on a day-to-day basis just because

our armies are different. we do things differently and i think a lot of the times it can be frustrating when you don't have an understanding of why and how things are being done. it can be frustrating that things are not going the way you think they should. so i think that is one of the challenges we face here. we have cultural gaps that we cross and one thing that is kind of neat about our soldiers is i think they get that pretty well. but still on a day in and day out basis, it is a pretty normal function. >> we go into the -- it is more secure. it is a good time for us to get some practice there.

communicating skills with people. when they go to -- they already have a --. [inaudible] >> as policemen, our whole job is relationships. relationships with the people and showing the people that trust that we build every day when we go out there and talk to them. even with your hour a day, two, three, whatever it is, it is still going to make a difference.

[inaudible] >> how do you think your men did today? did they talk well with the people? are there any problems? anything you would have them do differently? >> really good. give them a -- and they are happy now. >> they are happy. [inaudible]

>> security issues, we got to bring it up. we got to talk with the chief and think about ways that we can -- when it comes to like issues within the populace, speaking to him as a police officer, he can do good by pushing some -- talk to the subgovernor. >> i believe it is my number one key task to stand up the afghan national security forces in my -- through training partnership side by side, shoulder to shoulder operations. like i told you, you cannot have effective government development in a counterinsurgency without

first securing the people and they are much more effective at it than we are. if we can give them the training to allow that -- that allows them to go out and operate effectively as a military or police or security force, they will then be able to take that piece of it over. we can go to more of a metropolitanorship role and we can also a-- mentorship role and we can also push into areas, you mentioned baraki barak, areas that are not secure yet. the more that we can stand up to afghani security forces to operate on their own, the more we can push them into areas that are more unsecure to bring development and governance to their area. >> i understand delegation is an important part of your task. a lot of what you do is

establish environmental climate for operations. what is the philosophy you and your commanders -- >> i think that number one, i think extremely satisfied with our level of training before we came here because as i go around and i talk to -- the soldier level, they come back to me and say i know what's important and it is very satisfying when i hear soldiers talking about the same things that i -- that you heard stories of the strategic corporal. our sold yurs, u.s. soldiers make strategic level decisions every day. something they decide to do could effect president karzai's decision making.

president obama's decision making. so they understand the importance of what we're doing here and they incidence the importance of the decision making that they do every day. probably the answer to your question is respect in getting every soldier to understand that they are here to protect the afghan people and that's their mission. the afghan national security forces and that can only be done through mutual respect of the afghan people. mutual respect of the afghan governments and understanding that they have a different culture. and we have to understand where they come from because they are from a different culture. as a matter of fact, before we came here, we did a lot of training down at the soldier

level on afghan culture. because it is very hard to transplant a 19-20-year-old man or woman to a different country for the first time and say ok, go operate. and oh, by the way, you're not in america anymore so it is very challenging. the important thing is that we are all human beings with mutual respect and you have to understand that they live in a different culture. we have all heard the -- i guess the decisions that have to be made on cutting back on resources. i have not seen that. i have everything that i need to do as a brigade commander to accomplish my mission here in afghanistan. of coursesome summer, as things begin to change, overbly my

government will tell me -- obviously my government will tell me where i have to cut back, but honestly, i do not see that at this point. have i everything that i need to accomplish my mission. >> my question, if you could tell one thing to the american public or at least the american public that represents a portion of our viewership, what would that one thing be? >> i think the -- first of all, i'm going to give you two. first of all, the -- the support given by the american people, the american soldiers is hugely critical to the morale and thus the success of u.s. armed forces in afghanistan. the second thing is that it is going much better than is normally portrayed in what i see in the media. it is -- it is a tiresome war,

as you see in the media these days that many more people are saying that it is not worth fighting anymore. but i'll sit here and say that i believe it is. i believe that we're going in the right direction. and i believe that with the same amount of focus that we have been given to this, we will be able to accomplish the strategic goals of the nation here in afghanistan. >> security in afghanistan depend on where in afghanistan you are? my experience is mostly in the east. i only have a little bit of experience in the south. i understand in the south there is a lot of large scale open combat that is after all the

kind of headquarters, kandahar province is kind of the headquarters of the taliban. in the east, it depends on where you are. just south of kabul, agricultural provinces that used to have strong relationships for kabul, providing food. a lot of traffic in between them, places like logar, today are what i would call i.e.d. galleries. just bombing galleries. a large coalition presence is trying really hard to lock those provinces down in order to protect kabul. every step they take, they are threatened by i.e.d.'s. thousands a year that are killing hundreds of nato troops and many times that number of afghans every year. i've given this before i was caught up in an i.e.d. explosion

in logar province. i accompanied a team of u.s. army engineers whose job it is to find the i.e.d.'s before they ship the other troops. >> my name is captain brandon. >> what are we doing here today? >> today's mission is to conduct clearance. our purpose is to provide maneuver for the ground and also clear the roads for the possible obstacles such as i.e.d.'s throughout -- and also the --. >> why is mission important? >> because it is keep or guys safe to conduct their missions and also the population, providing them the ability to move freely on their roads and not be stopped by obstacles. >> what these guys do is they roll out every day in these eye is gantic armored vehicles.

-- in these gigantic vehicles. another vehicle has a scanner on the front for scanning for bombs underneath the ground and vehicles for protection. export vehicles. they roll out of this big convoy. depending on the nature of the road, if it is a good enough road, the kind of road where -- where it is practical to conceal a bomb, then they will just cruise up and down the road and try to scan for it and hope that it blows up their vehicle instead of the voke for other patrols. they are generally better protected. the trucks are very, very tough. it is very hard to destroy them. even so, they take a higher -- casualties than most units.

the roads that are a little less accessible, where the other troops might even travel on foot, they will get out of the vehicles and walk up and down the roads and -- sort of probe the roads with bayonets and scan with these world war ii style -- and if they hear a beep they will get on their hands and knees with the bayonet and start poking around the ground and try to gently uncover what is landing underneath. if it is an i.e.d., they carefully back away and call in the bomb squad, in the case of

the logar -- they will come in and properly dispose of the bomb by wiring it up with some c-4 and blowing t up in place sometimes using robots. >> at times very tedious and dangerous work. >> traveling, hitting all the major roads, hitting the smaller dirt roads. they kind of live this nomadic, homeless existence that is kind of lonely. on the day i went with them, they didn't find any bombs and went back to base unharmed. just a few days later, they were struck by an i.e.d. and insurgents followed that up with rockets and gunfire, what they call a complex ambush and two

soldiers were killed. >> this clearance we just conducted has proven to be successful with the threat that we see here in afghanistan. our guys using the mechanical tools that they have available and eyes on the ground, we are finding more i.e.d.'s this way than any other way. it is a proven technique that we use. the disadvantage is there is greater risk. we have to constantly change our t.c.p.'s in order to prevent the armies from watching our habits. >> you talked about dismantling the network rather than just going after the bombs in the road. what does that mean if >> go afterthe guys that are placing the i.e.d.'s and paying for these things.

you can clear them all day long but if we're not taking the guys out that are placing them, we're not really having a great effect. we're living day-to-day trying to clear i.e.d.'s. >> how are you able to contribute dismantling? >> my level, company operations, we do analysis, look at the intelligence and try to determine the best way to attack the enemy based off of what we have seen and the things that we witness on these grounsd on a daly basis. -- daily basis. >> embedded with a unit of the -- army in logar province, afghanistan. we are on a mission to visit a

village which is right outside of a major u.s. base in logar. it is -- despite being close to the base, is the kind of borderline town. they have had some problems that they blamed on the coalition on like coalition construction activities and it has some residents who are not all too friendly to the u.s.-led alliance. so they have this idea to go into the village and to take along some afghan troops and some jordanian troops and use the afghans and the jordanians because they are muslims to drop in on the village's mosque. the idea being figure out if they need new rugs or loud speakers and the coalition can pay for those things as the

gesture to the village to try to bring them back to the coalition's side on march 19, we drove into the town in a convoy of american, afghan and jordanian vehicles and got out of the vehicles right outside of town and walked through the town sending the jordanians and the afghans into each of several mosques as we passed by. there was some indication early on in the patrol that things were not right in the village. the village has always been sort of borderline but that day it was particularly irritated at the coalition presence, not uncommon for kids to throw rocks at the coalition patrols. on this day, the rocks were of veritable barrage and one person sitting in his vehicle keeping

watch while the others were on foot, one american gunner was struck in the face by a rock and was bleeding. when that happens, the patrol leader was furious. he came racing back towards the vehicle, checked on his guy and then found -- and yelled at them and said we're here to help. your people are hurting my people. you have got to cut it out. and the elders are like what can i do? it is just kids being kids. and so he and the elder sort of duked it out for a while and made peace and we continued the patrol. we didn't have any reason to fear that the problems would escalate beyond a few thrown rocks. they have route clearance patrol. they go up and down the roads on a regular basis and check for

improvised explosive device. i had been told the road had been checked recently and there were no known i.e.d.'s on the road. that afternoon we left the village and probably got about 50 yards outside the village on a dirt road, just passing by what looked like an abandoned mike: when a bomb exploded underneath the vehicle i was in. there were seven people in the vehicle i was in. five were hurt bad enough to be evacuated by helicopter. myself and medic were sitting in the very back of the vehicle farthest from the blast and were mostly unhurt although concussions are always possibility and sometimes hard to detect.

>> are you ok? >> yeah, imgood. -- i'm good. >> what's up? >> what's wrong? >> my leg. >> we need to get -- >> what's wrong with you? >> oh, my goodness. >> my ankle is killing me.

oh, my goodness. my ankle is hurt. >> are you good? >> in the aftermath of the blast, the army evacuated five of the people inside the truck and i stayed behind as they cleaned up the damage, investigated the blast site and then ultimately we left the village as villagers gathered on

hillsides watching us like some kind of spectator sport. the bomb that struck the truck i was in could have been any of a number of varieties of i.e.d.'s that the taliban or other extremist groups used. in logar province there are bombs made of old explosives like artillery shells and mortar shells. there are bombs made out of fertilizers. there is different kinds of trigger mechanisms. radio-controlled blast, blasts triggered i by a pressure plate, in other words when something rolls over the bomb it blows up. an infrared beam across the road when you break it, the bomb goes off. it is probably not an old artillery shell because those

are the easiest to detect. being metal, you can use an old-style metal detector to detect them. this wasn't detected. it might have been a fertilizer packet with plastic. it struck the first vehicle in the convoy, piecing together the details after the fact, it seemed that the bomb had been buried there for a while. when we reentered the village somebody tipped off the taliban, likely to taliban, and while we are we were in the village having rocks thrown at us, they stole a mike: or -- motor cycle, ran and then only had to wait while we drove out of town and rolled

right over the the trap. the vehicle i was riding in saved our lives. it was a -- what is called a mine resistant ambush-protected truck. these days, it is a standard vehicle for any u.s. patrol in iraq and afghanistan. it is a very tall, heavily armored vehicle with an angled body that helps deflect bomb blasts from underneath and from the side. the pentagon began buying tens of thousands of these things about a million dollars apiece back in 2007 and 2008. after i.e.d. casualties spiked in iraq. today, iraq is not so much the problem but after several years when afghanistan didn't really have any i.e.d.'s they are now

major killer of american troops in afghanistan, around half the americans killed or seriously injured in afghanistan are victims of i.e.d.'s. the pentagon says there are around 1,300 i.e.d.'s discovered in afghanistan every month either by blowing up or being found beforehand. this couldn't -- that doesn't count the ones that are never seized. killing hundreds of american troops a year. it would be many more if we were not spending billions of dollars on the trucks. but as it stands, even the survivors suffer long-term consequences besides the trauma injuries, brain injuries are a huge problem now. i read something like 25,000

american troops have been concussed and suffered brain injuries in afghanistan. most of those are since the i.e.d. surge in that country really picked up over the last three years. i.e.d.'s are the major reason the coalition cannot fully control provinces close to kabul where they have the most troops. it is extremely difficult just to get between two points in afghanistan, to do it with any guarantee of safety at all, although there is no perfect guarantee, requires patrols, which also suffer their own casualties because who is cleang