angeles, i'm travis smiley tonight. a conversation with combat veteran ron capps, his memoir "seriously not all right: five wars in ten years." he was a intelligence officer for the u.s. departmento

"shining star: braving the elements of earth, wind and fire." those stories coming up right now. >> the california endowment, help happens in neighborhoods. learn more. >> and by contributions to your pbs station, from viewers like you. thank you.

>> the overwhelming majority of physical and emotional cost of war is the subject of ron capps new memoir "seriously not all right: five wars in ten years." takes into the reality of the war crimes and the atrocity. aer is military intelligence officer and a foreign service officer for the u.s. department of state and the combat veteran of afghanistan. served for 25 years. now the found ore it have veteran riding project. my please to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> i want to start reading something you write in the text. because i think it will conte contextualize our conversation. as the glove protected a hot hand, riding along allows me to hold onto the memory just enough to shape it. allows me to distance myself

from it. to write my out of it, to write my way home. can that be done? >> i'm trying. i'm doing my best. >> yeah. >> i was diagnosed about 12 years ago with posttraumatic stress disorder. even after i was diagnosed i didn't do a good job taking care of myself. i continued to e deploy to different war zones until i wound up in the desert alone one day and ready to take my own life. i was interrupt. and i considered that a second chance. writing is the way i've found to take control of the drama in my life. >> what are you attempting to say with your writing? >> well the story, this book is really two stories. the story of how i ended up one day in darfur in 2006 ready to kill myself. that i was lost to the thread. i lost all hope. there was nothing i felt i had ever done that was successful. i'd failed t everything.

i failed to save lives in the five wars i'd gone to and i was just ready to end my life. and what writing did was give me the chance to come back. and that is the second story and the story of hope for anyone with posttraumatic stress disorder, that there is a way home. >> when you were sacrificing in the way that you were and others are, help me understand what leads to a feeling of the failure? you are putting your life on the line for your country, for your fellow citizens. some of these wars in the minds of some americans are, you know, wars of -- i'll just say it, expossession e expeditions in the minds of some of us. and yet there you are on the front lines. what happens to make you feel like a failure. >> well in some of these places -- all of these places my job was to go somewhere, some foreign country, some land away

from home. come to understand what was happening on the ground. understand the people, the culture, the grievances. why are they fighting? what do they want? what do they need? and write about that. send that information home. and in many of the places i worked the implicit task was stop the fighting, stop the rape, stop the burning of the village, stop the horrors. and i was unable do so. i was in darfur and central africa. when i arrive in darfur 200,000 dead and 3 and a half million displaced. when i left there were 300,000 dead. i felt like i failed in my personal mission and also the task given my the wrus to me to help stop the war. >> how do you help not take all that on? you're only human. sorry is that impossible? >> for me it was impossible for a long time. i couldn't separate the task from myself.

i felt i had failed. over time i've come to understand that there is nothing i could have done that was different. there were some villages that maybe i could have fought harder to get into to protect the civilians there. to keep the village from being burned. but the fear -- the knowledge really that if i took a certain action, that i would lose my status, my ability to stay in that country and do the job, maybe the whole team would lose status. in koes voe a woman tried to hand me her baby. take my child away she said so thor e er is er is serbs won't kill him. i will never forget that. the feeling of the hopelessness t helplessness to leave that child behind. and i know now someone did go back and some hoff f of those children out but that was the

united nations. >> how do you navigate the process of honor the strict code that you were under as an intelligence officer with the compelling and maybe even greater moral questions that you face? like this woman and her child. about what do, knowing that you could in fact have done nit those moments even though it might vab the violation of the rules and regulations. does that make sense? >> it does. and the act of navigating, how do you that is if change for anyone in that situation. in some cases i did things that i might not should -- might not should have done. in darfur i went outside the chain of command and called washington directly to a friend of mine who worked in the office of the secretary of state and i told her if we do not take action tonight this village in darfur will go away and all

those people will die. and she helped me, she helped that vilem by urging action from washington to addis ababa the african union and a platoon of the nigerian peace keepers went in the next day. and i like to think that by doing something a little wrong i corrected a greater wrong. and that village exists today. but also what happens is by taking an action that is very much counter to one's personal, moral believes or by not taking that action i think we are left with something called moral injury. and this inability to fix a problem, this inability to -- or this having taken an action that really goes against one's personal believes leave's one's soul really very much injured. and there is research by jonathan shea and brett lits at the va hospital in boston on this topic. and reading their research

helped me very much where i understand where i am. >> this context, i think there are a great many fellow citizens who've never gone to war who suffer from a moral injury of another type. but what is there to be done about that? >> i think the first thing is people have to understand that this is an injury to the soul. and we have to treat it as an injury. but we also have to allow that person to forgive themselves. we have to allow that person to understand what they have done in a larger context. and towards the end of the book i talked about could i have done more? maybe. could i have done this much more? no. i could not have stopped the war myself. there is still a war in darfur. people are dying every day. i could not have stopped the war in koes voe. i was driving dick hol brook

around. it was his job to stop the war. but it doesn't change how i feel that i could have done more for a village or a specific group of people. and what i've had to do is reconcile those feelings with this larger context. and i'm trying to forgive myself for my failures. >> what are you learning about ptsd that you think the rest of your fellow citizens still don't get or need to be made aware? >> i would say a lot of people who come back from a traumatic experience are going to be just fine. the vast majority of us mgm%ar. we might need some treatment or medication or talk therapy. for anybody who is hurting i would say there is a road home. don't be afraid of asking for help. mental healthcare is nothing more than healthcare. if you break your leg you come back in six weeks.

in you get ptsd people are going to shun you. but don't get beyond this. ask for help. we're caring for the body, the mind the soul. >> i am pleased that you are writing your way back home. >> thank you. >> i'm please fod have you on this problem. ron capps, his memoir is "seriously not all right: five wars in ten years." thanks for your service and thanks for the text. >> thank you. >> my delight to have you. more to come in just a moment. as one of the founding members of the elements earth, wind, and fire philip bailey sold more than 90 million albums worldwide. he's written a memoir about his life and times entitled "shining star: braving the elements of earth, wind and fire." before we start our conversation a look at the band performing

that big hit "shining star." ♪ >> such crossover audience. after all these years to what to you attribute that? >> i think really the fact that the music is really for the people. and just in writing the songs, the whole vision was the music is for the people. and so that whole message has really been something that's

been very, very compact, you know, inm$r6p terms of, you knol over the world. yeah. >> when you say the music is written for the people, unpack that. explain what you mean. because depending what artist you're talking to, there are other artists who've been on this show over the years who write songs from a very personal space. and so they figure that by putting their own truth out, their own story out, maybe there is somebody who can relate to that. >> right. >> that is a little different i think as a writing technique from what you are saying which is that we're writing songs for the people. what do you mean? >> the concept was to rend aeer service to humanity halftithat. the music was. the songs were written to inspire, uplift and a messages that would resonate with people and give them hope, inspiration. and so that is the reason why

the band -- that really was the seed of the philosophy about earth, wind, and fire. >> you say when i said a means an end. you can't use earth, wind, and fire as an means to an end. but you explained in the book. what did you mean by that? >> i always knew that whatever vision or destiny god had for me, this wasn't it. this was a means to whatever that is. i don't know what it is. it's interesting that in my life it's always been like music has been like the pied piper. and then in some ways it's always been a means to just kind of follow my path to my own personal destiny, that god has for me. >> so the love and the joy and

the hope that you spread around the world, the humanity that these lyrics reveling in, that ain't enough? there is still something else out there that god has for you. >> i really do believe that it's just a matter of me conceiving or perceiving that in my own head. but just being hope, you know. just being open and knowing that, you know, he's able to do so much more than we can even expect or think, you know. and just be open to whatever that is. >> yeah. earth, wind, and fire, to be clear is a fusion band. >> yeah. >> not a funk band. >> yeah, right. >> a fusion band. and fusion, if i look up the definition, it suggests a mix of a number of things. >> right. >> which takes me back to your childhood to ask, what fusion? what your listening to? what were you inspired by in terms of different genre?

>> i'm from denver. grew up loving jazz. but listening to country, and elvis presley, and pop, and folk. carroll king, three dog night, you know, singing in bands and stuff that were mixed. and singing all these different genres of music. so when i got into the band, i was the one that recommended doing the song "make it with you." "where have all the flowers gone." because that was the stuff i was hearing. >> and how did maurice and the guys look at you when you said yes to that. >> he was like yeah. and he was able to really house it in a way that was unique for earth, wind, and fire. >> um-hmm. so between the two of us, they didn't laugh at you when you first suggested it? >> no, not at all. >> what has it been like? we know that maurice stepped away from performing with the band. >> yeah 20 years ago.

>> is it 20 years now? >> yeah. >> i would have lost a bet. i would not have come anywhere close if you asked. >> i know it's crazy. >> maurice stopped performing 20 years ago. >> yep. >> what is hahas it been like tk with a genius of his caliber all these years. >> it really set the stage for a work ethic that is totally off the charts. you know, so we cut our teeth really doing -- putting it down, you know. like really grinding. and so we do the same thing now. in terms of the professionalism and the way earth, wind, and fire rose from our production to management to touring and the whole thing. just a very first class organization. it all came from how he laid it out. >> yeah. let me jump back to the childhood again. you talk about this in the text.

your falsetto. if i had to do a list of the top ten most well-known, most appreciated falsettos. you would be on the list of the top ten ever, i think. >> thank you. >> how did you develop that? i guess what i'm asking is, as a child who were you imitating? because everybody starts imit e imitating somebody before you find your own voice. >> ♪ it's all about de dionne warwick. i always tell her just how much i embraced her. the way her phrasing, her lyric sense. and you know, just like -- and really, myles davis too. the sounded of the trumpet. so i was always mimicking female vocals and stuff, i think because of the emotion of the

singing. but i'm a natural baritone. so i studied opera baritone in college. >> that's quite a gap. >> yeah. so it's been like hooking them all up, you know, between the baritone and wherever else i go upstairs. >> yeah. prince, as you may know has been a best on the program many times. and we've hung out and had conversations all around the world about music. he will tell you very quickly that when he hits certain notes or on certain songs he prefers to signing in his higher register because there is a certain message he wants to communicate. and that higher register allows that. as i singer i expect you to get that better than i. i get it intellectually. but you're an artist so you really get that. which leads me to ask what is it that you hear when women sing in that register that you think really communicates well with the audience? since you were imitating a woman

the there. >> well there is a tenderness and a nurturing and a feeling of the empathy and compassion that comes across when females -- you know, when they sing. you feel that. you know, there is a soothing, a healing. and i think that, you know, those are some of the things i probably picked up on. >> yeah. every band has its ups and downs for shower sure. and you can't stay together for so long without ups and downs. for you personal, and i suspect this might be different for every member of the group. but for you what was the lowest of the downs for you as a member of the band over the years. >> i think we probably all would favor that fateful day maurice called the meeting and said he was going to quote/unquote, put the band on the back burner.

but it was really, in doing so we were going to have to get our stuff out of the storage or they were going to be sold by a certain time, you know. just the lack of fore thought or planning for that situation. because it came all of a sudden. and everyone's lives were just totally thrown into chaos. >> and at that moment, his reason for disbanding the band was what? >> well he just said he wanted to put the band on the back burner. and think that he wanted to concentrate on some other pursuits. he was producing barbra streisand and neil diamond and jennifer holliday and all that stuff. so he was one of the most sought after producers of that time. and i -- you know, looking back on it now i just think everything just became so overwhelming, the responsibility of the band and everything. that he just needed a break. but i don't think he really knew

how do that. >> right. >> and so yeah, everything just stopped. that's the time that we say that real life -- life became real, you know. because we were in a fantasy world before that. for about almost ten years, you know. >> but it's not like -- with all due respect to maurice who i obviously adore. but it's not like you haven't had your moments of stepping away from the band. >> right. >> and having some pretty big hits. >> right. >> "easy lover." it dent get much bigger. >> it was a great experience working with the phil. >> phil collins, for the uninitiated. easy loving, we're talk about the phil collins. >> i always like do things that are going to spark that flame and passion and interest for the music again. because i love doing it so much. and the music -- the business can just kind of zap all of that

enthusia enthusiasm. i've seen musicians are just are kind of a shell of their former selves in terms of just loving the art for the art form. and so i try to do different things, you know, in different genres with different people. and so that was one of the things that i did. >> after all these years to your point philip, what do you still love about it? >> i just love music. it still really, really gets my high, you know, to hear cord changes and all the harmonies and overtones and to feel, you know, the magic of the rhythms and to play. i'm -- what i'm currently doing now is doing dates with ramirez lewis. because i'm -- i like to sing a lot of jazz stuff.

>> yeah. >> let me ask another question. what do you think the gift is that earth, wind, and fire has, what is that gift that still resonates with people all these years later? >> the joy of living, the joy of sharing. when we did our tour with chicago, it was interesting. i came up with a name for my foundation called "music is unity." and we would see the earth, wind, and fire fans and chicago fans, some of which hadn't seen the other band. and by the end of the night it was just a love fest. where everybody was shaking hands and, you know, exchanging numbers and so forth. and it is just the ability that

music has to bring people together. >> music is unity. and the elements have brought a lot of that over the years. "shining star: braving the elements of earth, wind and fire" is the new book that finally tells the life and legacy, ongoing, of one philip bailey with that beautiful falsetto. good to have you on the program. all the best to you. >> thanks always a pleasure. >> that is our show tonight. thanks for watching and as always keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit travis smiley at pbs dot org. >> i'm travis smiley, join me for a conversation with bill medley next time. one-half of the great duo of the righteous brother and his memoir "the time of my life." that's next time. seal you then

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