tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, first a conversation with a documentarian, sebastian junger, taking a look at the cost of the soldiers stationed in again a follow-up to his documentary "restreppo." then, we will pivot to a conversation carol leifer with, one of the women to break through the boys club of comedy writing. her latest book is called "how to succeed in business without really crying." us.re glad you have joined those conversations are coming up right now.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: i went to welcome filmmaker, sebastian junger, who spent time in bedded with a brigade in afghanistan, an experience that he and a fellow journalist chronicled an oscar-nominated documentary "restreppo."

," his latest film, "korengal previous unseen footage for what it means the men of that to survive the battle. we start with a scene from the isumentary "korengal," which currently in limited release before going wide. >> at the terrible thing about war. you do terrible things, and then you have to live with them afterwards, but you would do them the same way if you had to go back, so what do you do, you know? evil, evil, evil thing inside your body. it is like good versus evil inside their, and everyone tells you, you know, you did an honorable thing, you did all right, and you did what you had to do, and i just hate that comment. you did what you had to do. i did not have to do any of it. sebastian, good to see

you again. >> u2. tavis: i try to look at the "ifference between "restreppo and "korengal." >> new wanted to make a film .hat gave audiences something there were no interviews with generals, no musical score, no news of footage. it was just the footage we shot on that hilltop, and you are stuck there for 90 minutes, and different.was very i wanted to sort of unpack the experience of combat and understand its effects on the young man in battle. tavis: and what is it you hope or believe that the audience will come away with, with regard to understanding better what they are going through? >> well, it is a complicated thing.

the one hand, as he said in that clip, there is moral damage that comes with killing, and i believe that is true regardless of the merits of the war. world war ii, for example, is a war i think we had to fight, but american bombers killed almost one million civilians in the world, and i am sure some of those guys on those planes aim home with some real questions about the killing they did even though the war was arguably necessary, but on the other hand, so they combat morally damaged, but on the other hand, they miss it. they missed the war tremendously. many soldiers missed the war, so footage wewas using shot initially and interviews we did to sort of understand those issues more deeply. best: how would you explain to an average, everyday citizen how anyone who survived to this good miss this. >> yes. it is complicated.

when you are in war, you get doused with two a very powerful chemicals. one is adrenaline. men have a very elaborate response. they get a lot of dopamine. women do not have a dopamine response that is nearly as strong as men do, so they do take some thrill from challenges like that, and you can say. there is some footage in the film of them enjoying a firefight, and they are absolutely cranked up, you know, but the other chemical, if you will, that they get is an closeness.ount of they were sleeping shoulder to shoulder the way our ancestors have slept for thousands of years in a small location in a hostile environment. they are reliant on each other, and that creates a really strong brotherhood that they cannot reproduce back on, and they missed that tremendously. when i see this, and saw

a large i see is to degree a confessional, and by a confessional, i mean these are soldiers who get a chance to open up and share their hearts with us, so it is a confessional in that sense. >> yes. tavis: what is the american -- american audience to do about that? the soldiers open up, and they are supposed to do what with that? what's the soldiers, from their viewpoint, it is not their war. civilians, we sent them, and they have a set of experiences. whatever it is, they have a set of experiences that are very complicated and profound, and they come back, and what they found is that the civilians who sent them off to do the job do not really want to hear the details of the job, and i am sure that american bomber crews

that came back from world war ii with the knowledge that they help to kill a million civilians , any of those young men who wanted to unburden themselves with their moral questions at the dinner table were probably politely told, do not worry about it. you did what you had to do. that is not going to help a soldier. i pay what we need to do is really open our hearts and our minds and listen to what they have to say about the job that they did for this country, and that is not an antiwar statement. it is not a pro-war statement. it is just a reality that we are in right now. tavis: so we listen to them tell us in their own words about what they did for us, a job they had to endure, and then we do what with that? >> i think it is cathartic. i think it is just cathartic.

aa is based on that. in tribal societies, there was obviously a lot of warfare in tribal societies. the men would come back, and often they would both, sometimes they did not, but there was a can art ross says of articulating what happened out there in the killing fields, and that is a very important psychological process that modern society is devoid of. story is still developing the we will see in the coming weeks and months and years what will happen with the veterans affairs department and how these vets are going to be treated into the future, but go back a few weeks for me now. when the story broke, what did you make of that story? >> i am very close friends with rendon. we live near each other. i have heard for years how frustrating it was for him to even get a doctors appointment, and he lives in massachusetts,

and he finally tried obamacare, the massachusetts version of obamacare, and they said, you cannot sign up for obamacare. he needed to have surgery for our o'connell, and they said because he was a veteran, he had to go to the v.a., and the v.a. could not schedule anything for him for a year. he cannot work. his hands are injured. he cannot work. and then i realized maybe one solution is just to allow vets to sign up for obamacare. why not? it is a bureaucratic question. why not temporarily take them out of that and allow them to sign up for the health care that all of us have available? what do you hope the takeaway will be for the soldiers that are in this film, "korengal," and for those that will see it? >> politically, i am pretty left wing, and i try to be very neutral in my work. i think the right wing in this

country does not want to it knowledge the moral cost of the war. they just do not want it. it is an unpleasant conversation. i think the left wing does not really want to technology that the soldiers who fight fight absolutely voluntarily and that many of them missed the war and that that has to be dealt with also, and i think, what i am hoping my film does is undermine the sort of ideology in taking the positions of both political extremes. " is the latest, the documentary from writer and journalist and documentary maker sebastian. good to have you back on the program. >> thank you. to see you. coming up, a conversation with comic carol leifer. stay with us. anyone who has ever watched the emmy awards has strong visual evidence about how writing for

comedy is still a boys club. one woman who broke through is four-time emmy nominee carol leifer, who has written for such shows as "seinfeld" and "modern family." her latest book is "how to succeed in business without really crying." i love that title. why would anybody want to break into this boys club of comedy writing? >> well, when you have a passion to be in comedy, there is no stopping you. whatever sex you are, whatever anything is, you are just going to go for it. they say that people's greatest fear is talking in front of large groups of people. i always say that a comedian's greatest fear is not speaking in front of large groups of people, because it has got to be in your dna to want to get out there. bug, the bug that bit you, when, where, how, why? wasell, you know, tavis, i

always funny in school and in summer camp and all of that, and then i went in binghamton to school and was in a theater group with my then boyfriend, named paul reiser, who was the funniest guy i have ever met. tavis: i love paul reiser. >> and we shared a love for comedy. we could lip-synched the records, and he told me, paul, he said, during the summer i go to these comedy clubs in manhattan, and i auditioned. night, and itoned sounded very exciting to me, so i went, and i watched paul at one of these audition nights, and i thought, i have got to get into this racket, because if you want to be a comedian, you just get a number during the day, and at night, you go on, and then you are a comic, and that is what i loved about it and still love it this day.

it is very low tech. you go on, and there you are. tavis: you make it sound so easy. i have tried this. minutese, i did five one night, and i thought i would die, just trying to get out alive. >> it is not for the squeamish. tavis: it is not for the squeamish, and, again, because when you broke again it was such a boys club, how did you manage the stage fright, or was there no stage fright for you? what when i perform, i still think i get a good amount of butterflies. i think a performer should be concerned if they are not a little bit amped up before, because then you are taking your , but iittle too casually think when you get out there, it is really a matter of being in the moment, being in the now, and that is what i have always loved about standup and especially being one of the only women who started in the late

1970's when i did. i really looked to my mail compositor is -- compositor a -- es to look at situations that have to do with men. stage, if i go on saw three or more men together in a group, i could see them walk into the club and say to myself, they are going to be heckling me. they are going to heckle me. i love the story. i love it. >> i would always have trouble with men heckling me, and i asked a friend, what can i do, i cannot shut it down, and he gave me some great advice. he said when guys heckle you, all you have to say is, guys, where are the dates? where are your dates? and that would shut them up, he cuts he taught me as a man to know what the achilles' heel is, and it still works today. tavis: it still works.

>> yes, because you get them right where it hurts. tavis: you mentioned mel brooks. he was on the show a little while ago. he was great. >> i loved your two parts. , one ofith mel brooks your comedy heroes? >> not only because growing up in my jewish family on long island, the 2000-year-old man was calm you know, like listening to pop roddy -- offer atti, -- listening to pavar and everyone in the family laughing. i hope nowadays, are we having that experience still? i do not know. everyone with their own headphones. when you are a kid, you're kind of captive to your parents taste, and they love comedy. they listened to the first family album and allan sherman records. you almost have to be part of

the tribe to remember alan sherman, but that is what i remember so much about mel brooks going -- growing up. not only that, but he had such a long career, and he has never lost his sense of fun, and i think i admire that so much, because it really is supposed to the fund. tavis: robert duval was on the show, and he said he never read reviews, and he said marlon brando came up to him and said, kid, you are good. you are really good. do notsaid since then, i read reviews, because marlon brando told me i was good. i say that because you are embraced by johnny carson. i mean, what more do you need to hear when johnny carson says that? >> well, that is true, although i tell the story in my book about johnny carson because, you

know, it is such a great story, having been on the show now with the new regime of jimmy fallon taking over. it kind of has a whole new luster to it, but what i talk about in the book is that the johnny carson experience was fantastic, but what i talk about is it took me 22 auditions to theon the show, and i raise story because so much of business, so much of the comedy business is stick to it this -- ck-to-it-ness, at after times seven, it is a little bit like, come on, guys, you are not loving me, but each time, i thought that would be the time to put me over the goal line, and number 22 did. this many years later, i am glad i did, because to get on the

tonight show with johnny carson, to interface with greats like that -- i figured you would tell the story, but how does someone keep their focus when it takes 22 tries to make it happen? how do you stay focused on that? how do you not take it personally? >> well, i think it is a big thing of everything you do in work. not to take it personally. it is hard when you are doing a show, stand up, and it is you. it is hard not to take it personally when they turn you down, but i have also felt that you have to keep moving forward and plowing ahead because you control the things you can, and the things that you can't, screw it, because i can always show up and do my best audition and have my best five minutes, but what i cannot control is whether they are going to pick me or the show or not, so i do not focus on what i cannot control, and i

give these tips in the book because i kind of feel like this is the book i wish i had had when i started out, because in writing a memoir, all of these memories sparked kind of a takeaway from each experience, and i thought, i want to share that with evil, because the great, smart things i did -- i want to share that with people. the smart things i did and the boneheaded things to avoid. not to put you in hot water intentionally, but lovingly, there are those people who said what carson did during the day to give comedians a chance to be showcased does not happen anymore and that late-night tv in particular is no longer the terraform a -- terra forma. what do you make of the lack of opportunity? or does it exist or in other places?

>> i think the opportunity still exists. in fact, there are so many late-night shows for comics who are up-and-coming to go on these days. mediaoblem is with proliferating everywhere and being 3000 channels and youtube and this and that, you know, the tonight show, when somebody went on and did an amazing set, freddie prins, and the next they had a television show, it was because most of the televisions were tuned to the tonight show, and it was such a small pond then, so i think what is is really every other show that you can be on. there are a million shows. it is just the focus of the old days is not there anymore, so there is not any star making show on the landscape anymore. in fact, i kind of think what is a star making turn is when people do their own thing and put their stuff on youtube and

develop a following that way. that really seems to be the sweet spot for making it really big. this is an unfair question to ask with a few seconds to go, but, and i know there is no one answer to it, what is the trick to being a successful comedy writer? and i ask that because i know a bunch of folk in this town right now tom and i see them at restaurants and places i hang out, and they are all struggling, trying to get that gate. they all want to be a comedy writer on one of these shows, and obviously, there are only so me opportunities in the writing room. my own biases that there are still not enough women in these writing words and not enough people of color, and another conversation for another time. part two. our mel had one, and you can have one. what is your advice to those like you a few years ago who are

tried to break through as a writer question mark >> well, i think my advice is to fold. to be a writer, to be a really good writer, what i learned at feetfeld," learning at the of jerry seinfeld and larry david is to look at your life for the own funny ideas, because those are the most unique and hilarious. manicurist with elaine, talking about her behind her back in korea, that happened to me, and how great to make it an episode, and also using my idea,ness in using the and i doubt that a man would have come up with the idea, but my advice is a little unique in the book. most people would tell a comedy writer to write a spec script of the show you like, try to get an agent, and submit it, and maybe a door will open. i think the odds of that happening are zero to nine the. it is interesting advice but not practical. what i tell people to do is

whatever show you love and want to write on, try to get a production assistant, the lowest , that you canter get. just get into the machine. i have seen so many people in comedy rooms over the years who started as runners, who started as a person who got the writers coffee, and then they hung out in the writers room, and they were funny, and they got to stay a bit and pitch them jokes, and i think that is the best way to break into the business. find where you want to be, where you aspire to be, and take the bottom level job. >> -- must be some joy in having made it where you are respected by both the women and the men. i do not want to overstate that. >> yes. no, no. i am absolutely elated that i have the support of so many of these big stars who gave me these great blurbs for my book, and i am so appreciative.

it really means a lot, because, you know, we go back -- i go back to my first day of show business with larry david. he was the mc at a club called catch a rising star when i audition. the same thing with jerry seinfeld. he was an mc when paul reiser and i auditioned at the comic strip, so literally from day one , and i really feel like comedians, there is something so fraternal about it. it really is a fraternity, and what i have also, you know, greatly gotten from, these great stars who helped me along the way. i never positioned my act as am i a white lady. i never segmented the audience like that. the greatest compliment i would that it a jay leno is is material anyone can do. it is not about segregating the women in the audience.

it is just funny material. >> everyone in this town thinks she is funny. i've never seen a book that everybody loves. these are some of the people. we'll be goldberg, j j abrams, sarah silverman, judd cap joe, and everybody loves carol leifer her book is called "how to succeed in business without really crying." i think you will love and laugh all of the way through it. >> thank you, tavis. tavis: that is our show for tonight. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with noah wyle. that is next time. we will see you then.

captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. thank you. >> be more.

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