>> tonight, q&a with the author of "what it is like to go to war." after that, prime minister's questions on policing efforts after the summer rights in britain. after this week on "q&a" karl marlantes discusses his new book, "what it is like to go to war." >> karl marlantes, in your book "what it is like to go to war" on page 114 chapters 6, i want to reduce sentences.

one of the greatest test of characters is telling the truth. the vietnam war will be infamous for the way thosthose who perpetrated it lied to those who bought and paid for it. >> i feel strongly about it. i then we got ourselves into a bit of a morass there. it was leading off the way statistics that inflated. you find yourself in a situation where you are being judged by standards that is not -- it is like when you write fitness report for people. if you did not give everybody a positive perfect score, it hurts them. if i do not give a positive score it will hurt me.

you have to say well i tell the street when everyone is not? you get into this morass. vietnam was the one that got into it. >> use a lies in the vietnam war were more prevalent because that was bought without meaning. >> that is right. i spot about that a lot. what we get ourselves into that situation how do we get ourselves into that situation? we have no overall meaning. he have an objective. like we're going to defeat the enemy and gain ground. people can see you are succeeding. there is a way that you can justify what your actions are. it is an overarching code or

moral standard. we are fighting fascism or these people are threatening my people. if you do not have that moral position, then you are going to have to find yourself justifying its. you find yourself justifying it in ways that are not honest. >> you said you lied. what is that story? >> sometimes when you get into a light, make you can use a life for a good moral reason. p-dog was a young marine. he was excellent. he had been wounded a few times. i have just been transferred out of the bush. i was made the what officer for the battalion. it is night time.

you're the senior officer on duty. p-dog had gotten in trouble because he and a couple of his friends or smoking marijuana. this is 1969. smoking marijuana was considered a very bad crying. they were coming down very hard on this. it was virtually mandatory that the kid would be desirable discharge. here i have a good kid who had fought his way through the cold war. he was two days from going home. he did this. what of my going to do now? what i did was i said i have not touched these. they are your guys. i had to go take a leak.

we waited for them to get rid of all the evidence. when we get back, we will search and there will be no evidence. we got back and they started flipping their pockets. p-dog opened his pocket and now called a joint. my heart sank. it was in front of about 12 or 15 guys. including a very a ceo officer. i thought, and is this where he is going to end up after serving his country for a year, it is honorable discharge our something kids are doing all the time? he is 19. i picked it up. my hands are like this. i went over to a marine corps gunnery sgt. >> your microphone just fell

off. can you could bet on their? >> yes. we will stop and fix that and come right back. what happened to him? >> no. the chiy took the joint and said this looks like tobacco to me. i did not know what he was going to do. he was wonderful. he took it and went around every marine in the headquarters and asked "is this marijuana or tobacco?" everyone said it was tobacco. he said i do not know this marine, if you say he is good, i will say he is good. everybody said it is tobacco. it looks like tobacco. p-dog took off.

>> when did he get out of the service? >> a couple of weeks after that. >> what would happen if you have not done that at >> he would have gone to a court-martial. if he did not serve the time, he would have gotten a dishonorable discharge. it was like mandatory sentencing. it had gotten to that point. there is no other recourse. >> the years to search, what were they? >> -- the years you served, what were they? >> they have an officer candidates program. that was in 1964. i started on active duty in 1968. >> what year were you in vietnam's? >> october 68-october 69. >> go back 30 years to write

your initials on novel metadal. this took a year. >> i wish i could tell people that. i would sound like i was really quite be disciplined guy. i fall asleep on airplanes and in hotel rooms. i senator writing this in the early 1990's. -- i started writing this in the early 1990's. nobody would publish it. no one would read the manuscript. i do not hold -- this is the marriage of literature or writing and business. they have to make decisions about whether these books are selling. maybe in 1990, a book like this would not have sold. >> matterhorn was about the vietnam war. >> yes. >> how many copies sold? >> i am not sure.

it must be over 21 50,000. >> why did take three years? >> the same issue. i tried to sell a in 1978. the reaction was this is what we want to forget. i do not think we can sell it. through the 1980's and through the 1990's, i would get people saying he missed the mark. hollywood did it with all the movies. then it was like maybe if you wrote it and put it in the gulf war we would have a chance. it has a mountain. the gulf has a mountain. there are trying to see if the market will accept it. they never know.

my publisher is wonderful. he said he will find books that are just wonderful and then he calls it the gods of the book market. you do not know people will read them and not. i think that what happened is that the country have gotten into a situation where we're in a very similar war. because of that, a war novel about vietnam which is also character driven becomes popular. the other thing is the baby boomers, those of us at a young age, are much more at a reflective stage. i will go to readings. i will get questions and answers of people starting to talk to each other about what we were doing then. it does not matter what side you're on. it has been a major factor. >> go back to the chapter on

lying. the body count flying -- count l ying, how does it work? >> if you have no objective, you hit the beach at normandy and you hit the sand and the rind. you measure your progress. and vietnam it was not clear what winning was. you heard phrases like we will win the hearts and minds of the people. to a 19-year-old kid who's having to do the fighting and it to the military, that is a fuzzy way to measure. if there is no territory to be gained or and the capitol to and up with, if it is this fuzzy thing that we are questioning whether we are in the police role or not, you get confused. how the measure success? they begin to measure success by body count.

to me that is not moral. you are not there in the military -- i am no pacifist, i am a proud marine -- you are not there to kill people. you were there to stop them from doing something that is hurting your people. measuring the success by the number you kill it gets you off kilter. that is the only way your success is measured. the military all wants to advance. they want to make it to major and capt. at just like you do in a corporation. you have a body count. the tendency goes into an exaggerated form. i make fun of it a bit. if it did work this way. you have a kid in a firefight. he did not care. he does have a friend killed. his adrenaline is pumping. people say "how many did you

get?" you do not know. it could have been five. it could have been 15. he says, and think we killed two . in the city must have some probables. then add a couple of probables. after all, there should have them probables. it is logical. it gets exaggerated. it is a measurement so people do not care. it is on a shaky moral grounds. >> in your opinion, that lying that went on in vietnam, did it have any impact on this country today? is there something that has come down from there to now from what you have seen? >> you know, i really hate to stick my neck out.

that we areeling backu more cynical about what government tells us. we're more cynical. there is a fine line. i remember telling somebody when i was in college the president would not lie to the american people. i got laughed at. i was from a little town in oregon. that was naive that the -- nice le naivete. the sense of family trust the truth has now slipped more to the cynical side. they just said this. who knows. think that has been a change. i think that slipping into cynicism is dangerous.

we are every public. we have to vote. if we do not believe the truth, then what does that mean? >> let's fill in the blanks about you before we go on. what town were you born in? >> it is at the mouth of the columbia river. i grew up in seaside, about 50 miles south. >> how long did you stay there? >> until i graduated from high school. it was 18 years. then i got a scholarship to yale. i left. i join the marines. i went to yale. they had this program where i would go summers for training. then i of the marines three years when i got out that i would be commissioned as a second lieutenant. i got the rhodes scholarship in 19607.

i thought the marines would not let me go. the war wonderful. they let me go. a sign to me an inactive status. i friends over and the and on fighting. pfeiffer and to my high school died of there. here i was drinking beer in england and running around with the girls. the war was looking dicey. this question of what is the truth, it did they really attack as or not, i was get a little wobbly. that pales in significance to my feeling of you are either in the boat are you get off the boat altogether. this is just not my

constitution. i gave the scholarship up. it took them a week to get me to quantico. >> you went to africa? you took a side trip? >> i was 22 years old. i was struggling with a very difficult moral issue. where and this hierarchy of values do you come out of loyalty to your friends and? loyalty to an oath to support to the president? what happens if you think it is an immoral war and you cannot make up your mind about what i do history and what is not. i had to go with my heart. i took off to africa quite frankly from the money from the scholarship. i just spent a couple of months trying to make my mind up. i do not know how that works with humans.

it just worked on me. one morning i woke up and said i am going. i hitchhiked up to a navy base. by this time i had a camel haired joe although -- interest in i had camelhair. there is some young officer there. i said i am reporting for active duty. this guy just looks at me. he pushed his chair back from the desk. why me? >> what did he tell you? >> is there any way i can get out of this? where is your duty? the assigned me to london. go to london and tell them you want to go to active service. so i did. i hit tight to london. i wrote the letter. >> there is a girlfriend and their. >> there was. was met her real name?

>> it was not. that is the first time i was deeply in love. this was very difficult. she was opposed to the war. i was struggling with this question about whether i should go oration not go. -- or i should not go. i did not talk to her. i had a feeling i did not want to burden in the well with my problem. she had the opposite view of things. now i can understand that. she wanted me to talk to her about what those trying to decide. it hurt her that i kept my mouth shut. we basically split up. she sent me a letter when i was in vietnam saying it was over. it was a very difficult "dear john." i see her side of it now. i hope pirated barely in the book. i cut her out.

>> you have a footnote in there that you met up with their later. >> i met up with their five years ago. i married now with five kids. i had written to her. she lives in the northeast. we get together to sort of talk about this painful, poignant part in our lives. it was painful for her as well. i tried to get back together with her. she would not have anything to do with it. there is one from call "are you all right?" i said yes. i got hit a couple of times. she did not mean that way. i was a typical guy. i was on the physical, her on the emotional. she was glad i was ok.

i did not make contact with her for 30-40 years. we have a wonderful meeting. it shed pictures from that time. we just talked about it. it was up for the war and against the war, of being confused about it. why did you do this t? we were a couple of kids that hurt each other. we did not know how to articulate what we were going through a. >> how had she changed? >> she had a successful law career and is now married. she had gone to the accord on blue -- le cordon bleu cooking school. she's a wonderful person. >> you live now where? >> i live outside of a small town in washington.

it is about an hour east of seattle. >> what have you done for a living all these years? >> i was in business. i went to work in the lumber business. wanting to write books, i thought i'm going to have to try to do something. i had a bright idea i would do consulting. i managed to get myself into a consulting business for large corporations. i focus on energy. the problem with my strategy is that in between consulting jobs i can write books. and forest lake, you are spending all your time trying to find the next consulting job. i ran a corporation that made batteries. i was there managing director. then i moved into international work. all these times i was writing both books. i was i there in my own

consulting business or running a corporation. >> how big a deal is getting the navy cross? >> i can go to any navy base or marine base in the world and never pay for a cup of coffee. it is the highest award that the navy even get out. the medal of honor is higher. that is up to congress. it is quite a big deal. i talk about metals -- medals in this book. i never know what to make of it. it is a difficult process. how the people make judgment calls about what somebody did? as i say in here, i myself --

and i know people i have talked to -- really are not sure sometimes about the medal. most people realize that there are people out there that have done more brave things than i have who went on recognized -- unrecognize. people forgot about it or did not notice it or did not write them up. one guy was written up and the paper got lost. it things like that happen. you get pretty humble about the particular medal on your chest. you always have a sense of i do not know if i did as well as that guy that earned it. there are people that may have a medal that did not earn it. you never know. >> what day did you get this? >> i remember very clearly.

it occurred over several days. we had made an assault on a hill. we were surrounded. we took a lot of casualties. we lost most of the officers. i ended up taking over a couple of platoons and combining them under my command. i was an executive officer. that particular day was a final assault on the hill called for 84. -- 484. where i say i'm one its is that we all read where i say that i won it is that we were -- where i say i won it was that the aircraft a mess. they hit the ron hill. the clouds are coming in. you have to go of it out in the prep. that is very difficult to do.

-- have to go in without any problem. that is very difficult to do. we got taken under fire by machine guns. everybody went to the ground. we included. then it occurred to me that if we stay here, and they had more during us four days -- mortaring us for days and we will be really waxed. you either go back words, and orines and not godo that, you go forward. i was thankful for standing up in the middle of a fire and going of the hill. there was one regular bunker right there that had a machine gun that was holding as down. i thought i was by myself.

i got a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye. i rolled on the ground. i looked behind him. i can get teary eyed about it. all the marines had stand at a tiny camera of the hill. they say i took out for bunkers. 0-o four bunkers. that is true. i was not all by myself though. all the marines are coming with me. they're just a couple of seconds behind. where i feel proud about the navy crosses that moment of standing up. some people would say that is what a leader is supposed to do.

>> i have the citation. i heard a little bit of it. it puts you in context of the marine corps. the president takes pleasure inl marlantes for extraordinary heroism was serving as executive c, firstf companies sey division, said in connection in opposition against the enemy march 6 in 1969. he was a engage in a combat operation north of the rock pile and sustained numerous casualties from a north vietnamese army mortars, rocket- propelled grenades, a small arms, and automatic weapons fire. where is the rock pile? >> is probably -- if you go from

the city west, there is a road called route 9. it is in the middle of the country at the edge of the flatlands called the high mountains. it was an incredible geographic formation. it is straight up like this. i cannot remember how high it was. you could barely get to the top. the economic get on and off the top with helicopters. we had a reconnaissance team up their stations to do observation. it was a landmark everybody could see for miles. it be used that. >> what is the difference between "matterhorn" -- it was what? >> #7. >> what was the difference between that and "what it is like to go to war?"

>> a novelist can get inside the heads of people who are not himself. he can set scenes that he was not physically at. most of the things reduce all the things and "matterhorn" i had seen. by creating characters you can allow a reader to actually experience the experience your writing about. and they get involved in the character in and see what is gog on. as a novelist, you do not know the character they will identify with. in a nonfiction, you can only comment about what you know personally. you cannot, you know, well, people pretended to make things up and got in trouble.

they were not there. you have to keep to your own viewpoint. the reader then understand that everything that is going on is from this one viewpoint, the authors. that is different. there is this difference between the two kinds of truths. this is the nonfiction, a trip on the outside. fiction is all made up. it is actually true on the inside. >> are your parents still live? >> no. >> what did they do? >> my father was a high school teacher. then later he became the principal, much to my chagrin. i was in high school. my mother waited tables and was a bookkeeper. >> where did you get your interest in writing? >> you know, i think that i probably got my interest in writing from four high school

english teachers. i was blessed with for english teachers that were extremely important. by the knowledge them and "matterhorn." they said you ought to think about doing this. have you ever thought about being a writer? in a waiting carriage me. they would help me. -- they would encourage me. they would help me. that is the first time i got people who were taking an interest in that. i had been riding. my cousin and i wrote a "novel" thet aspace invaders and world being saved by a nine year-old boys that for us. i do not know what happened to that. i have been interested in that. it was the list features that started to get me serious about it. >> what role did your diary in

vietnam play in your ability to write both books? >> i do not think it played much. first of all, i cannot find it. it is gone. i have no idea where it is. >> when was the last time you saw it? >> 8 or 10 years ago. it was a diary or do we were busy. i was not rising in it every day. i would sit in there and write things down when we got out of the bush. the data you had is that writing things down soon after they happen probably helped keep it in my head. i do know when the shredding early jassem "matterhorn" i would look at the diary and tried to remember what i was feeling. that was valuable. to knows where it is. i wish i could find it. >> 20 rejection letters or more?

>> way more. i started during the away. at first i will keep them. after a while, i have no idea. 30 or 40? 35 years of it. i would not keep doing it. i would go up to the point where i would get 15 or 16 and then i would quit. i would say it is not going to go this time. and then i would go about for five years or maybe more working on making a better. i will get comments. they would say we cannot sell large fiction. i would try to cut it. quite frankly, i am glad because the book got way better. i got more mature. i could not have dealt with some of these characters when i was 30 years old. it would not have been as good of a book. i look back on it. i used to feel very sad. i rejected. if i had not have been rejected,

it would not be the novel it was. >> who bought it first? >> a little outfit in california that is just to people -- two people. a friend of mine called me. he said tom might be interested. do you want to send their? i told my friend, you have to be kidding me. this is a novel about marines. you want me to make a $50 a copy and send it to a woman in berkeley california? he said i will pay for it. i said it was all right. she loved it. she gave in to tom. tom loved it. they decided to publish it. it is nonprofit. they have to go out by money.

and their idea is that it is so hard to get good literature into the commercial marketplace. if they give the writer a product instead of a manuscript, he has a better chance of thing going to new york and selling it. he made 1200 copies. my pay was 123 copies to do what i wanted with. that is the first publisher. what happened was a series of mymen, starting with ckit, wife did the same thing. i still got the same reaction. it is too big. nobody's interested in it. my wife said no one will read it. i said yes. why don't you send it to contest? >> we do not have the staff to do that. if you figure it out, we will send it. it went to the barnes and noble

discover great writer's contest. a woman reader loved the book. she sent it to new york. knew thatamed cecily new \ if they pick did this tiny house when not keep up. it does not sell. the retailer sends books back. she took the book to her friend in new york. when cecily says i like this book, everybody salutes. he read about half of it. he was on the phone asking about it. >> there is a pattern. you talk about your first wife giselle. did you brought back the vietnam war to hurt? be married after the war?

-- you married her after the war? what impact did ptsd have on the impact? >> i met giselle in washington. i was assigned to the marine corps here in washington, d.c. she was teaching yoga a year. i fell love with my yoga teacher. p t s d is a physical change in your brain. i never even heard of it back then. if you read literature, odysseus had it. if you read the odyssey, tell us about the war, he exhibits every symptom of ptsd. i had never heard of it. the giselle and i have four kids. i started getting increasingly flaky, rages, moving

constantly, nightmares, thrashing around, getting startled, crazy things. i remember once i bumped my head against the covecupboards in the kitchen and i took them out with my fist. that will scare somebody. the giselle did not know i was going on. the kids did not know what was going on. it was very difficult. after some years, there was a local group of psychologists that were doing stress tests. come and do a workshop on this. i went to that. she said you better go. i started telling the sky about my symptoms. -- this guy about my symptoms. i would run outside and jim brown without knowing what was going on. a car would honk.

i would be angry. i would attack the car behind me. he said, have you ever been in a war? that hit me so hard. i was in a room with 80 people. i started bawling. it's not was coming out of my nose. it was that simple. when he finally got me back under control, he said he halfptsd. have you ever heard of it? i said no. he said take this card. take this to this man now. not tomorrow. and calling him on the phone. you walk down there. you see him. that was the beginning of getting healed. the marriage did not last. gone too long with the symptoms. families that destroyed with this. we need to prepare our families when veterans come back.

they are changed, the way the process and put changes. it goes from the cortex -- is that sound a leaf? is it the wind? by that time you are dead. the brain under extreme adrenalin is just the input out of the cortex straight to the -- is not the medulla. it is a primitive part of the brain. you are not thinking anymore. from then on you get startled and out comes a rage. life is thinks that it is in danger. you can overcome it. you can learn how to cope with it. the va did very good skills with me. i had just been taught that no

one is trying to kill you here. it is ok. you are safe. all those things that made life smoother. not just for me but for all the people i live with. >> where did you meet your current wife? >> i met her when i was living in seattle. i was there with my youngest daughter, sophie, she was going to seattle community college. a matter on an internet dating service. -- i met, on an internet dating service. >> when it to mary? >> four years ago. >> what is the real jewel of the vietnam war on your husband, what would you say? >> he is pretty flaky run before the july. she knows that the medicine. somehow the combination of medicines keeps me from going

completely farrell as she calls it. -- feral as she calls it. she can see it in my eyes i do not take my medicines. it just happens. she will not let me see war movies. she says if it is an important one, we will watch in the daylight together. she has been fortunate. she knows what it is. she's also a psychotherapist. she knows it does not hurt. that is what is hard on these families. these poor women wonder what they did wrong. you did not do anything wrong. that is just the way is. she is able to step aside and see it is the war, not me. >> or you drawn to her because she is a psychotherapist? >> no.

i turneder degree whiland into a soccer that. i updated her while she is going to college. i was drawn to her because we were compatible in so many areas. this is comfortable. this is easy. new know, it worked out just fine. >> what is the answer to the question on your book. "what it is like to go to war?" what would be your first thought if you tried to answer that? >> that it is a live changing experience. in its intensity and actuality, it is a spiritual experience that is beyond ordinary life,

normal life. it is very difficult to come back down from it. it is difficult to function in society. it is remarkable how many veterans do. the majority return from these experiences and function. some better than others. most do raise families and get the job done. a large number commit suicide, and up on drugs and alcohol. it is those we need to look after. >> how many of your fellow marines did you see killed or wounded? how many of the enemy did you see killed or wounded? can you quantify that? >> i have never haadded it up. of my own marines, 30 or 40. in that one battle, i think we lost 17 killed.

you know, double that at least wounded. over the course of a time, quite a few. of the enemy, it is harder to tell. there is the jumble. they're trying to save their friends and pull them out of the way. bodies removed. i know i killed 20. i've seen the bodies as a result not just of me shooting directly but hitting them with napalm or bombs or artillery. once that is over, you can walk around and count the bodies. >> what is the difference between your first kill and your last hill in your own head? >> i do not think there's any difference. you get numbed by the combat in the beginning. i might have to second-guess

myself. you get increasingly numb. when you're there longer and longer, i think that on the spot you are not as shaken by its as the first one or two. when you get back from that situation, you get in your 40's not50's, it becomes difficult at all. the one that haunted me was in the middle of the numbers of people that i killed. for some reason, we have broken through. here's trying to kill me with a grenade. his eyes locked with mine. that is rare. he was human. most of the time when you're killing in combat, i call it pseudo, it is psychological protection. your raise not to kill people. then you have to figure out how you will do it.

you kind of make them not human. you go at it that way. that is this numbness that said sen. there are a tad ahead. they are a group. today are a jap. when you're older, you realize what you have done. >> what has impacted you about war in general? you mentioned earlier that you felt the vietnam war is a bad idea. what about the iraqi situation? the city supported it. did you change your mind? >> in afghanistan i was all for going after osama. i think we should have. we did eventually kill them. the problem that happened was he was not there when we try to get in the first time. i think we got ourselves in a situation that the bridges that into four times in the russians into one time, this civil war.

there we are stuck in the middle of it. suddenly, what is the objective? to get osama bin laden. that is clear. now it is get stability in afghanistan. one is a stable? how do we know when we have one? -- what is stabled at how do we know when we have won? no one intervened militarily in africa. you cannot play rugby with us. we managed to make a big impact. they had to do it themselves. the help of the world community made it easier for the anti- apartheid community. we could do it differently and still achieve its.

i was very careful with iraq. i do not want to be second- guessing. i wrote it down. saddam hussein has weapons of mass destruction. he is used them against his own people. he is a dangerous man. i am in the white house, i need to protect the american people. i will go to war to stop this man. it turned out that there were not any. i would have voted to go and then be disappointed when they were not there. >> i'm going to try this. we do not have a lot of time. i'm going to read the headings on each of your chapters. we will see if you can give us a 32nd synopsis of people can get an idea of where you went. >> temple of mars. >> we discount the spiritual

side of this experience. it hit me once that mystics all have the experience of death, understanding it is eminent. there in the moment. they get to the point where live in a larger group. everyone of those things is extended in combat. what did happen? >> killing. >> we're talking about some of the questions you were raising. what warriors do is take lives. we often get people involved in the military under false pretenses. you learn a skill and will help you through college. that is good. that is not what it is about. >> chapter 3 is built. >> you have to deal with it.

you are raised in this christian culture they give people do not kill people. -- that good people do not kill people. unless you are a sociopath, you always feel that way. then you come back. how do i feel with that? it is tough. >> chapter 5 is the enemy within. >> i talked about the union concept of shadow. what gets us into trouble when the rage comes out? it is our own inner peace. and so we recognize our own inner beasts and stop projecting it, we get ourselves into deeper trouble. >> we will skip chapter 6. chapter 7 is loyalty. >> that is an interesting issue. it is loyalty to whom? you find yourself at cross

purposes. suppose you get an order from a higher authority. your loyalty would be to support the higher authority. on the other hand, if it is clinton heard the people that are below you, it is my loyalty to them. -- if it is a blank to hurt the people that are below you, it is my loyalty to them. >> heroism. >> you have to go at it with the right attitude. i got a bronze star. i was brave. i pulled a guy out from under a machine gun. the went after him in part because i wanted a medal. he died. it was me that the killing will of their him. he was on the ground. are trying to get the machine guns head down. had i gone there with the right

intention, i would feel less bad? >> why did you want a metadal? >> self-esteem. that is what i talk about. why do people want to be recognized? you want to be professional. everybody knows you did well. i can go back. i can show somebody i did something they have not. there is mixed reasons. >>,. >> coming, is a big part of the war experience. we handled it badly in vietnam's. we're learning to handle it better. it is how to bring veterans of that so they can be members of a larger group. >> the club. >> when i was a kick, all the dad and uncles were in world war ii, said they knew something i

did not know. i wanted to know what it was. i call that the club. >> no. chapter 11 is relating to mars. >> what is the proper way to the war year in the modern world? is an ethical warrior? where -- how would you stop short of unnecessary killing? >> the first sentence of your book is i wrote this primarily to come to terms with my own experience of combat. have you done its? >> yes. i'm quite satisfied. there will be no more books for me about war. i think this is it. this is 20 years plus a lot of

time before. i feel fairly satisfied now that i have come to terms. i recognize where i fell short. >> how old are your kids? >> 33, up 30, 25, 24, 20. >> have they read your books? >> yes. i do not think the girls have read this recent one. the others have read all of them. >> can you summarize the impact on them at? >? >> it helps them understand being raised by combat veteran. i know why dad did that. i understand why he behaves like that. that is a big impact. >> what is your next book? >> if i get time to write but it is about a woman who is a labor organizer in pacific northwest.

i deal with this conflict in our culture between being an individual and been part of a group. we flip-flop with that. >> what is your schedule? >> right now there is no schedule. i will be up this tour. i will start writing it. >> the name of the book is "what it is like to go to war." karl marlantes, thank you very much. >> thank you. it was a pleasure. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> for a dvd copy of this program calls 18776627726. for free transcripts are to give us your comments about this program visit us at www.q-and-

a.com they are also available as part casodcasts. >> upcoming guests on "q&a" include call money perhaps congress and what to do about it. simon winchester talks are rising over 20 books and is planned for anyone next year. carl colby reveals his new documentary film about his father. >> next david cameron takes questions at the house of commons. after that, an interview with the new hampshire's secretary of state on the primary. then another chance to see "q&a" with karl marlantes. tomorrow on "washington journal"

jonathan alan discusses whether the reduction committee can work out a recommendation by november 23. ann stock and allan goodman talk about the 2011 open doors report on student exchanges and international and rahman. then rob mandelbaum on school programs. it is like every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> i want to make sure we have taken every step possible to bring peace of mind to the family members of our fallen heroes. and for that reason this review commission will look at the processes and procedures there and make sure we are implementing the highest standards in dealing with the standards in dealing with the remains of our