35-year-olds-- who happen to be iraq and afghanistan war veterans. >> rose: a new antiterrorism policy and creative ways to put veterans to work when we continue. captioning sponsored by

rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with a new chapter in the nation's battle against terrorism. president obama laid out a new strategy in a highly anticipated speech earlier today. speaking at the national defense university, he discussed how the threat has evolved since 9/11. >> so that's the current threat. less capable al qaeda affiliates, threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad, home-grown extremists. this is the future of terrorism. we have to take these threats seriously and do all that we can to confront them. but as we shape our response we

have to recognize the scale of the threats closely resemi-ables the threat wes faced before 9/11. >> rose: the president offered his rationale for targeted killings. >> conventional air power or missiles are far less precise than drones and are likely to cause more civilian casualties and more local outrage. we are viewed as occupying armies, unleash a torrent of unintended conditionses, are difficult to contain, result in large numbers of civilian casualties and ultimately empower those who thrive on violent conflict. so it boots on the ground are much less likely to create enemies in the muslim world.

>> rose: his address comes a day after the department of justice acknowledged that the united states killed four american citizens in drone strikes. here's what the president said in defense of the decision that killed back back back. >> for thback back back. >> for the record, i do not believe the u.s. constitution could kill any u.s. citizen with a shotgun without due process nor should any president deploy armed drones over u.s. soil. but when a u.s. citizen goes abroad and is actively plotting to kill u.s. citizens and when neither the united states nor partners are in a position to capture him before he carries out a plot his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper should be protected from a swat team. >> rose: the president

reaffirmed his tphroepblg close the the tension a a tillty at guantanamo bay. >> our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism or terrorism related offenses, including some folks who are more dangerous than most gitmo detainees. they're in our prisons. and give my administration's relentless pursuit of al qaeda's leadership there is no justification beyond politics for congress to prevent us from closing a facility that should never have been opened. >> rose: joining me now from washington, david kilcullen, the former senior advisor to general tka *ep in iraq and special advisor to the secretary of state. from memphis, tennessee, fill will you please mudd, the former direct o of the f.b.i. and countertryst center of the c.i.a. karen greenberg is the director of the center on national security at fordham university law school.

david ignatius in the "washington post" will be joining us in progress. i'm pleased to have all here to talk about this. i want to go around the table and talk about what the president said and your assessment with what it might mean. i begin with david kilcullen. david? >> there was a lot of anticipation about this speech. people were talking about the president moving away from what are called signature strikes where drones are used to target a suspicious pattern of behavior rather than a known individual. people were talking about changes in significant areas of policy. unfortunately, we didn't really see any of that. what we saw was pretty polished rhetoric, but not a huge amount of policy substance. and the president, rather than walking back on drones, spent a fairly substantial part of the speech justifying how effective

they are. now, that's actually a point that is very much debated and -- with micah in the group i don't want to get into the details of that but it's certainly not clear that as the president said that drones are far more precise than manned aircraft or missiles. he also went into significant amount of detail about guantanamo bay. i felt at the end of his speech that he got very, very close to saying that there's no presumption of indefinite detention and that -- almost to say that the war on terrorism as we've known it since 9/11 is over. but he never actually did that. he talked about revising, refining and possibly repealing the authorization for the use of military force, which would sort of be a formal congressionally agreed end to armed hostilities but he could have done more, i think, to say, look, the world

has changed since 9/11 and as we draw down in iraq and afghanistan it's time to think about what comes after the global war on terror. i think that the speech was well delivered but we didn't quite get the sort of policy outcomes that people were expecting. >> rose: i'll address those issues later. karen greenberg -- >> i think this speech was very -- to put it bluntly obamaesque. he promised a lot in his words and said very little toward a concrete future. but there were a couple of things that are takeaways. one of them was his repeated use of the word discipline and the idea of disciplining the power of the executive. disciplining our definitional standards, disciplining the processes by which we go about targeted killings and our military commissions and our process of detention. so there was some light there. ultimately he does think the this war is drawing to an end and the question is how is he

going to do it. i want to emphasize something dave said which any incremental move away from indefinite detention is a good one. four years ago today president obama gave his national archives speech in which he talked about indefinite detention as a concept that his administration was going to embrace as part of many ways of dealin dealing with guantanamo. and since then, many people, including myself have been disappointed by his refusal to end the policy of indefinite to tension to neither try nor release individuals and it's a very without process. although it might not have been enough, it's something and it's something to put pressure on in the future. >> rose: phillip mudd. >> i thought the president was going to put an exclamation point to the end of the war on terror as he did for iraq and

afghanistan. i thought what he did was take a baby step toward what he's been doing for years which is to say 12 years of war is long enough. this is not a country that can live in a forever war. he tried to put the onus of this action on guantanamo with the congress. the congress told us they're going to punt on the issues so i'm with the consensus here. i thought it was remarkable that it didn't take a more aggressive stance to take us a step further down the road. >> in the runup to this speech there were officials off the record who provided by concrete policy recommendations which were supposed to appear. >> rose: did you see them in the speech. >> none of those and on the issue of targeted killings, the united states has been conducting targeted killings outside of battlefields for ten and a half years killing something like 3500 people, 425 strikes, 375 under obama. no president has addressed the u.s. public of what is the criteria and principles that apply. we thought we were going to get more of that in the this speech and we thought we thought this

administration would acknowledge the controversial aspects of targeting such as signature strikes which are against individuals who are not named and simply military age males who are killd from a distance and you didn't see any concrete policy recommendations when it comes to the targeting issue. last week several officials testified before the senate who said the authorization for the use of military force was fine, they didn't want changes in it. they said the war on terrorism exists anywhere from to boston the tribal areas of pakistan and they said the war on terrorism-- this was a senior pentagon official-- said will last another ten to 20 years. so the president says the war on terrorism and the state of terror is receding but if you look at how the actual use of targeted killings in the field, this sort of sustained -- the sort of sustained policy justifications for this you

don't see walking back on that. >> rose: somebody tell me what went into this making of this speech? >> my sense is a lot of people who had an opinion of what should be in there and too much of it went in because there are too many people playing a role. the c.i.a., department of defense, white house advisors. for a speech that was supposed to be strategic in terms of pivoting the united states away from war, too many cooks in this kitchen as far as i could tell. >> rose: david? >> no, i agree with phil. i think it was a very long speech full of the -- for the amount of policy content. you know, from a conceptual standpoint any effective counterterrorism strategy needs to have three elements. it needs to attack the current terrorist networks. it needs to work to undermine sympathy and support for their ideology, and it needs to focus on making the environment less permissive where they operate. the president spent a lot of time talking rhetorically about the first issue without really giving much subsans. he talked a tiny bit about the

second issue and didn't touch the third issue at all. those three issues have been in official u.s. government counterterrorism policy ever since 2004. so even if he had gone into a detailed discussion he wasn't saying anything new, just restating the current long-standing counterterrorism policy. the way he's interpreted that policy as micah said he's been in favor of kinetic lethal force against military age males outside of war zones and that's a cause for concern. he not only didn't say anything very new at all, he didn't say that much. >> rose: i would add on the issue of transferring drone strikes in the c.i.a. to the pentagon, it's complicated as it is right now. all drone strikes in pakistan are conducted by the c.i.a. all drone strikes in somalia are conducted in pentagon although there hasn't been a drone strike in 15 months and drone strikes in yemen are conducted by the c.i.a. or tgon. >> rose: was that going to change? >> well, the problem is that

under u.s. law you can not acknowledge covert actions conducted by the c.i.a. so, for example, in pakistan, the united states has creeded its strategic communications plan to the pakistani taliban and the pakistani army who allow some really tremendous misinformation to persist because when the u.s. ambassador is asked repeatedly to articulate what is the u.s. strategy for drone strikes in the tribal areas he can't say anything. so if these were shifted to the military we know how the military conducts operations. we mow the doctrine which it's based upon. we know the military tries to prevent civilian harm with the use of air strikes. we can't know how the c.i.a. does that because we can't acknowledge the c.i.a. does the operations. >> rose: how significant in your judgment-- because owe wrote this big piece-- is the reaction around the world against drone strikes? >> this administration has made the point over and over again that they are having an normative influence on how other countries will use unmanned aerial vehicles and that'm laive

the effect is -- has weighed on their mind because where the strikes occur, they're hated. where the strikes don't occur, they're also hated. so, for example, in turkey 90% of the population, in greece 85%. japan is over 80%. i spent time with people at the e.u. missions here and in washington. to country agrees with our definition of the war on terrorism and who can be lawfully targeted. they don't agree with us and if we want to have a normative influence on others we have to align our legal principles and justifications with our practice on the ground. >> rose: anybody add to that? >> i agree with everything micah said. this is in the category of something that seemed like a good idea at the time. in 2004 the u.s. was far ahead of any other country in terms of drone capability. now there's 70 companies that have drone programs and although there's a smaller number that

have armed drone programs people are catching up and one of the issues is that in ten or 20 years we may look back and say, hmm, we said disturbing international parameters around the use of drone which is looked good when we were the ones who had them but they don't look good now. i would say based on what karen said earlier i don't think we should dyseverything the president said. a lot of what he said was very brave in the context of a very strong bipartisan consensus that drones are -- and cyber operations are saw? and so on. there's been a very strong bipartisan consensus for ten years about the war on terrorism construct. the rhetoric is different. but the substance is the same. and i think that's a problem. i think we need to be having a much more active debate, actually. >> rose: do you think the president wanted to make this speech in a broadway to talk about antiterrorism as part of our policy and secondly what the new strategy might be or was

this more a question of wanting to speak to guantanamo or thirdly we all believe he needed to speak to the idea of drone policy. what was the driving reason to make this speech now. >> this is a big week in guantanamo history because of his speech four years ago. so the timing of it is symbolic for people about guantanamo but i think it more has to do with post-boston in some ways that what this president has decided from the very beginning is that he is going to find a way to institutionalize, legalize, codify whatever the united states does in terms of the war on terror. and that's what his speech said today. we are now at the point where we are going to manage this and we are going to manage it legally. we'll bring in congress where we can but it is not going to be an outlier. now, part of that's problematic because of the drone -- because of the drone policy and all of the complexities but i think it

really had to do with him thinking that now is the time that he can start to manage this. i do think the hunger strike has something to do with it as well and maybe the co-panelists disagree but the hunger strike has taken quite a toll on this administration and on the military commissions and on guantanamo as a whole and it is not going away as a problem. and until those detainees who have been released because they are no longer considered dangerous, those 86 individuals are released as they were promised so many months ago, this hunger strike is going to continue and if you talk about drone strikes and how they bring the wrath and the dislike of the world upon the united states, so does guantanamo and so will the death of those men there. >> rose: do you agree with that, phillip? >> i do. i'd like to take a step back for a second to what karen said earlier and that is those of us around the table are policy wonks who are too critical because this is all we do all the time. let's take a step back for just a second. the president's got three and a

half years to go. he has set a tone that says in everything i look at-- use of military force, transition of drones to the conventional military, what we go do with guantanamo-- we need to as a country because some of these don't reflect american values take a step away from the forever war. so he set a tone with the congress says that says "you know where i'm going and the onus is going to be on you to either reflect american values or to keep a bunch of people in a prison down in guantanamo who aren't charged." the tone is clear. >> among all of you and the public at large, does everybody agree that it's time to redefine the war against terrorism? that everybody understands that then if you ask that question has the president done that in this speech? was that part of the motive? >> i think that's correct. >> i agree that it was part of the motive. the president already did a lot

in 2009, actually, to redefine the war on terrorism. when the department began to use the term "overseas contingency operations" o.c.o. as it's called-- to describe iraq and afghanistan and drop the idea of global war on terrorism so this construct -- they've already been moving away from it for at least one term and, of course, the second term of the bush administration moved radically away from some of the policies that were put forward in the national security strategy of 2002. so we've seen an evolution in u.s. policy and in the language for some time and i agree with phil and karen that if you take this in the context not of just one speech but the next three and a half years he may be setting out a pathway on which he intends to move that's more toward the end of the conflict he did mention a few times the 19 months that remain between now and the deadline to pull out of afghanistan so it may be that he's telegraphing that once we

do, in fact, withdraw the bulk of u.s. combat forces from afghanistan that he'll moved to declare a formal end to the global warm on terrorism. but i'm speculating there and anyone who suggests that that's in his mind is obviously speculating until we see more evidence over time. >> i would point out one of the constant efforts of this white house is what i call defining down the definition of war, which is a politically astute move which is always going back to iraq or afghanistan and saying "we can construct drone strikes or we can do iraq. we can put 175,000 troops in your country or we can do manned aircraft which will kill lots of civilians." so it's always about talking down how we should think about wars by setting iraq as the standard bearer for how we should think of war. iraq is a rare example. regime change is not how we should think about war. we should think about the scope of the continued sustain firm footing which this administration wants to conduct drone strikes. they're asking for nine permanent bases in afghanistan,

opening up a drone brace in niger. within five years they will be able to launch armed drones off they value carriers. the president has authored cyber offensive kinetic strike so boots on the ground is yesterday's war but it's steupb kikinetic affects that affect local population. >> you're saying the definition of war is changing and therefore part of that includes how we ought to address terrorism. >> yes. >> but it's not just about terrorism. >> rose: karen first, then i'll come be to david. >> it's not just about terrorism. that's one of the things mica just pointed out by pointing to the cyber issue. the united states may be putting a certain bootsen the ground behind it but the new war, we don't know how we're going to define the enemy in the new war and that's one of the most disconcerting issues before the american public right now. that's what the debate over the authorization to use military force will be about and one of the reasons people are troubled by it is that the president

tonight used the term "associated forces." the authorization for the use of military force does not include the term "associated forces." that has developed over the course of the obama administration in a number of documents and sometimes in speeches by other officials but how that's going to play out into the future if al qaeda's winding down, who are going to be the associated forces and then beyond that who is the enemy going to be? maybe they won't be associated with al qaeda. maybe it will be somebody else. that's the gray area we're unfortunately in and something micah referred to but did not address. >> rose: what do you think is possible in the war against terrorism, whether you think it's a war or not? what's possible. >> i might just pick that up briefly because i think the very first quote you gave in your intro tk *urbgs to the president's speech, listen to what he said. he said that's the current threat. then he talked about a number of threatthreat then he said so ths

the future of terrorism. in other words he was basically assuming where things are at now is going to be the future of terrorism and i think that's a huge assumption. yesterday in london we saw an attack on the streets where two people ran down an off duty soldier and butchered him in broad daylight with knives. that's never happened in downtown london or anywhere else. we're also seeing massive changes across the middle east. we're seeing groups like al news a become really important players in the war in syria. al nusra is the successor organization to al qaeda in iraq so to say that al qaeda is on the ropes, you're ignoring the entirety of what's going on in syria. it's a big call to say that where we are now in a constantly evolving phenomenon, that's how it will be in the future. we don't know that. >> rose: is the threat larger today than it's ever been because it now has many tentacles? >> i think that there's one

element that points to that. but the other point that i would make is that the instability and human tragedy that's been along to go on for two and a half years in syria is undoing stability that was achieved at such enormous cost in iraq 95 people killed last week in sectarian-related bombings across iraq. still low compared to how things were during the surge but this is a war that is rapidly destabilizing the rest of the region. so the idea that terrorism is a static threat and once you draw down the prime al qaeda guys in afghanistan and pakistan that it will stay at that low level ignores the nature of it. it's a constantly evolving, adapting phenomenon. and the virus has escaped the lab, as it were.

it's highly unlikely it will stop mutating. >> rose: david ignatius just joined us. david was out doing reporting is where he was. the conversation has been about whether the president's speech went as far as it should have. what did he accomplish by this and what did he, in fact -- what is it that's commendable about what the president said. >> i was struck by the breadth and ambition of the speech. i thought president obama really was taking the central issue the country's been struggling with since 9/11, the terrorist threat against america and the wars we've been fighting and trying to turn a final corner. the war in iraq, he's ending a war in afghanistan. he ran on that a a central campaign theme but today he told the country that he is preparing

to end the state of war against al qaeda and its affiliates that's defined in the authorization to use military force. he was not specific about how he will revise or repeal that, but he did say that that was his intention. i thought that was striking. he took what is arguably the most politically unpopular issue you could think of: namely; closing guantanamo and sending those prisoners to prisons in the united states, took it head on after having backed away after his initial efforts on that and said we must do that. and i was struck by the passion with which he spoke the words in his speech. but even more the way in which he spontaneously responded to the woman heckler with whom he clearly was in some sympathy. how remarkable. this woman trying to screamown the president saying "your policies are creating ever greater problems for the united states. they're making the muslim world hate you." and the president was almost

agreeing with the heckler and saying she has a point. so i thought, charlie, it was a speech of some intellectual clarity on the fundamentals. i thought it was a speech that really goes to the heart of what barack obama would like to leave behind as his legacy which is having taken this unwieldy dangerous national security apparatus for the inherited and trying to rationalize it. and i thought today we heard the final pieces that he has in mind. >> rose: okay. anybody react to that. david's observation of how he thought the president had these very large goals and was trying to do something very significant. >> sure. i think there's truth to. that i mentioned earlier he's setting a tone. i'd like to add an asterisk here. something i found as a former practitioner quite interesting is he's saying that as we look at threat from affiliated groups down the road, in most areas he's stepping away from this war

on terror, that's correct. but he's also suggesting, at least to me, that if we see threats in areas like africa, for example, where there are suicide attacks just today, that we're still going to use kinetic force short of war to kill people to protect the united states. that, to me, was an undercurrent but that's significant. >> rose: karen? >> i agree with that. i also think that while the president thought that he might be turning a corner and that i think he would really like to turn that corner, he gave no specifics for how he's actually going to make this guantanamo move to the united states come about. he gave -- he kept the predator with a disciplined regime. he kept the targeted killing programs to be used in the future. so he may be turning a corner and he may want to end the war on terror but i didn't see him ending the concept of war. so david i understand why you think this way, but i -- i think

the country was expecting a lot more and it's been a long time now to be in this war and a long time to have guantanamo and a long time to have a targeted killing program that we've known very little about. and it makes me wopbder are we accepting so little so late? so that's my response? >> rose: david? david ignatius first then david kilcullen. >> i think those are all good points. certainly president is not suspending the ability of the united states to pursue its adversaries. he was very specific that as long as the war in afghanistan continues with our main combat force there through the end of 2014 he will reserve the right to use drones. as i heard him, in the theater. which means in the tribal areas of pakistan as well as in afghanistan. and he didn't offer a blueprint

for how he's going to end these things, as karen and so many people would like. but the very fact that he's saying these are -- we're going to move from title 50, deniable covert use of drones to title 10, military use of them with all of the oversight and, in effect, transparency that title 10 military operations imply i thought was describing a move into different terrain where it will be possible to challenge things in court. where the same kind of rules that apply to military actions will apply to this area and i think that's a big change. >> rose: what's interesting to me is whether the president-- i think the president -- i'm asking this, really, rather than making a statement, has always been bothered by guantanamo and wanted to find a way to get there. on the other hand, i think that he has not been bothered by drones and, in fact, has liked what he thought was the

effectiveness of drones and this controversy has just arisen so he knew he had to address it. do you agree? >> i think that's exactly right and the controversy arose specifically because of some work of investigative journalists and a few leaked memos and then the confirmation hearing for john brennan to become the director of the c.i.a. that's when the issue arose. it's important to understand that drones are different than all their uses of force. they lower the cost and risks to policymakers to authorize using lethal force. unlike putting boots on the ground or offshore cruise missile strikes and because it lowers the threshold, it makes the use of force more likely. again, of the 425 targeted kill it is u.s. has done, less than 20 of them were not by drones. 97% of them were by drones. and the fact of the matter is, you're more -- >> rose: what is it? 95? >> 95% were conducted by drones. and if other states emulate u.s. practice and lower the threshold for which they'll decide to use military force and follow our emulated practice, that would be a dangerous world. >> rose: go ahead. somebody, anybody jump in.

>> i was going to agree with that. that's a very, very important point that we need to take into account. i would also just point to one other thing which i think micah may want to pick up on as well. when talking about the raid on osama bin laden, president mentioned that it depended on a very substantial infrastructure in afghanistan. somethat that a lot of people don't realize about drones is that that effectiveness of that policy also requires a infrastructure. the drones are controlled from places like the air force base in nevada or places in upstate new york but they're flown from bases that are actually forward deployed very close to the target. so there needs to be a forward engagement and forward presence of u.s. elements for it to work. and, you know, this is not necessarily something that we can rely on when 90% of people in a lot of countries hate drone strikes. i also think it's worth pointing to this issue that david ignatius raised of -- i believe it was ma dia benjamin from code

pink, the woman who interrupted the president. there was clearly very significant sympathy of view point between what she was saying and what he was saying. i couldn't quite hear what she was saying now the extent that i picked it up, i heard her say something to the extent of "look, you're the president, you have to power to release these people now. they've already been reviewed and approved for release, just go ahead and release them. why are you whining about congress when you could actually act as the president?" i'm not a lawyer so i'm not sure of the legalities of that. but i think that is the bind in which he finds himself and i think that moving past that is a key challenge here. >> rose: here's what interests me as well. there's the question of national security of the united states. there's the question of the changing nature of warfare. there's the question of the specificness, having to do with drones, having to do with guantanamo. there's the question of having to do with the nature of terrorism itself. and these conversations have been taking place, but here the

president sort of brought them all into one and what might happen in terms of the beginning of a real way to rethink all of this that might involve a whole range of different people. is there any merit to that, phil? >> i think that's correct. what he said is here's the path that i want to go on for the next three and a half years. i'm going toome at you with, for example, legislative fixes to how we deal with detainees. just a quick aside, we haven't talked about his comment about returning yemeni detainees to yemen. that's significant. a big proportion of those detainees are yemeni. we've had a problem with the yemenis securing those guys. a lot of them escape from prison. that will dump a lot of the guantanamo prisoners outside u.s. control. but, yeah, i think he's setting a path and asking people to come to the plate and say swing at it. i've given you a ball to swing at and if you don't want to swing at it, give me a better option. >> rose: all right. i have to end it there. thank you very much. thank you david ignatius, david kilcullen, phil mud.

back in a moment. stay with us. >> rose: memorial day is a commemoration to the men and women who have died in the service of the united states. it's also an opportunity to think about what happens to our returning veterans. in twelve, the unemployment rate for new veterans aged 18 to 24 stood at-- it's hard to believe-- 20.4%. that's more than five percentage points higher than nonveterans of the same age. two men want to change that. they want to harness the unique skills of veterans to help america at home. to do this, they have launched a nationwide job program. it is called "the veteran job corps." they are dylan ratigan, former host of "th "dylan ratigan shown msnbc and from san diego general, melvin spiese. he retired from the marine this is marge after 37 years of active duty. he was formerly commanding general for training and

education command. i am pleased to have both of them here. welcome, general, welcome, pleasure to have you. >> thank you. good to be here, charlie. >> rose: let me begin with, you dylan. tell me what happened to you. i mean -- the last time i -- (laughs) >> how many people do you ask -- how often is your opening question on this show "what happened to you." i feel like i'm talking to a parent. >> rose: (laughs) exactly. tell dr. rose what it is that happened to you. because here you are living in the media capital, having a fun time on your own television show. >> yes, sir. >> rose: you didn't dislike that. >> it was wonderful. >> rose: you fell in love with something else. >> yeah. well, i mean, particularly the last -- >> rose: what's her name? >> exactly. we'll get down to this right out of the gate. as you know, particularly the last couple of years at msnbc i really had dug deep and really the decision -- >> rose: jobs, jobs, jobs. >> jobs. and also at the same time in my narrative on jobs was, okay, if every problem is a job we have no shortage of problems and that

seems like it's a lot of jobs and a lot of those problems revolve around dated infrastructure and outdated systems in general. health systems, food systems, educational systems, pick them, right? at the same time, we're invested a million -- we are always talking about employment specifically and the training that has been invested specifically in logistics and deployment in a group of millennials-- 25 to 35-year-olds-- who happen to be iraq and afghanistan war veterans. and so you have all these young men and women who have been trained for logistics and deployment but there's not a mechanism that can create custom training for them to do other things and so, you know, it wasn't -- this wasn't in my head per say a year ago, but it was apparent to me that the resources, that the people, the money, and the problems already existed and that it was simply a matter of figuring out how to arrange those things with media and financing resources to try to move that resource of those 20% that are unemployed that are young, that are millennial and strong and robust and have

already self-selected for the willingness to do things no one else wants to do because they volunteered to fight wars no one else wanted to volunteer to fight! and it was really just a matter for me of figuring out how to do that so that just began with my moving to archie's acres which is -- >> rose: back up here. moving to archie's acres. how did you find out about that? >> they were our guests on the show. >> rose: that so? man and wife? >> man and wife. >> rose: and what's their story. >> they're a cupel from california, she's a war protestor. he didn't tell her he was going to sign up for marines. he goes as a casualty replacement on the first tour, on subsequent tours as a squad leader, sergeant, leads a squad in the second battle of fallujah which is the most intense urban fighting since the battle ofway city in vietnam as part of the lima company 31. while he's doing that he checks the internet and sees the water bill for the avocado farm he bought with his wife in california. it's $900 for the month, which

is what a sergeant makes for the whole month and he realizes he has a problem at home with the cost of water in southern california and that really was the beginning of his road to figuring out how he could produce produce on this farm without using water the consequence of that has become a school he opened with his wife to train his fellow combat veterans on how to deploy the same type of farming which is really in colin's case and colin and karen's case driven by colin's motivation to take care of his brothers who which are those marines he was fighting with. the reason he would go back for a second tour or a third tour and so many of the men and women i've met since i've been out there is primarily because they're concerned about the well-being of their colleagues in the theater. they don't go back to the war. >> rose: so the plan is to do what? >> so the plan is to find somebody somewhere to lead these

veterans through the necessary training transition. i don't know who that might be-- general spiese-- who can do that because i can't do that and then find a financing portal that can cultivate those who have been trained into resolving those issues and that was where i went to people like gary and frank and to take people that are already good at what they do and hopefully marry them with what i hope to be good at which is not just leadership with them but what i know i'm good at which is telling the story of the general and the incubator. >> rose: so your role is is to do what? >> to run and launch this veteran-led incubator with general spiese until we can ultimately transition that into a broader management structure. >> rose: help me out here. where did you get involved in this and were you retired when he came to you? >> my wife got connected with the farm well over a year ago and drug me out and i saw what

was going on there and frankly became intrigued and then she talked about the this guy from new york who was on msnbc leaving his job to move out to the farm. i found that a little bit interesting and as dylan started talking about his vision and his proposal it frankly started to make sense to me and truthfully, charlie, i'm concerned about the veteran transition business, too. i paid a lot of attention to it my last couple of years on active duty and i'm not sure we're at where we need to be with this. >> rose: you haven't found the right answer? >> this is correct. this is an attempt to try to change the practice a little bit and frankly we want to do it a little differently and change the narrative on how business is being done. >> rose: what do you believe is possible? >> i think it is possible -- first of all, when you take a look at the young men and women we're talking about, these are

buy thes and gal cans can do just about anything. they've already demonstrated that. what we want to be able to do is retool them and put them in a place where somebody has invested in them and is committed to the outcome of the work they will do in whatever particular area we end up building into. so it's matching these high capacity high capable people that are capable of being trained to do just about anything. with people who are seeking to invest in their hard work and the outcomes of that hard work. this isn't about sympathy, this isn't about looking on them as victims but really an incredible resource that simply need a little bit of retraining and unleashing them a place where they can be successful. >> rose: and you seem to believe that you have talented people coming backing who have leader swho *eup have a lot of skills. at the same time they can be an

-- there's a way they can help america. what they'll be doing will not only make a profit but it will also benefit america because of the net result of this farming. >> i think so. and i believe in talking with dylan we do believe this is part of the appeal. these are people that have already committed a portion of their life to serving their country. >> rose: let me put this aside for a second and assume this is a good idea and it will work. but why and how has the country fail to provide the kinds of opportunity for these men and women coming back? what's the problem there? is it ideas? is it will? is it budgetary crisis somewhat

is it? >> my observations, my instincts are that there is a perception as it related to veterans and people are averse to taking the risk of seeing them for what they are and can be and have built paradigms around them that get them to turn their back on these young guys and gals as people with real poe potential. >> rose: were you looking for -- you've become enormously interested on the pulpit about jobs with me and everybody you knew. >> yup. >> rose: so this comes along. because your job focus about america. >> totally. >> rose: it wasn't about helping veterans. >> no. >> rose: and when somebody showed up and talked about farming, was that simply about

jobs or were you thinking veterans? >> as you know, as i would harass you when i would see you about jobs and anybody else that i could get their ear it was seeing what he was as a man. i had the benefit of the millennial generation as i know you do with your staff and the folks we all get to work with who are younger than us and understand the way of problem solving that i've had to learn. it's not innate to me and when i saw this young strapping man who was a shorthaired blond man from california talking crazy hippy talk about basil and kale and saving water. >> rose: (laughs) basil has to do with finance and- - >> right. i was like how does a man who has this history, this guy is lima 3-1, fallujah, elite, grunt marine and he's talking hippy talk about basil and kale, it confused me, charlie.

really! >> rose: (laughs) hear hear. >> i never considered that you would have somebody who was subordinate to someone like major general spiese and who worked in an apparatus as the elite of goless mission based execution at the highest stakes and all the things we associate with the marines and military and it was in the conversation with colin that it became apparent to me that just listening to him as he said to me, listen, i'm the 1%. i'm the 1%. i'm the one who volunteered. no one else wanted to volunteerment my wife didn't believe in the war. she was protesting against george bush in 2003 and he's off fighting. the more i talked to colin i said in my mind are there more of you? can you do things other than farms? and i started going out to san diego and visiting with them and meeting mike hanes. i can go down the list of these young men who are of similar

characters who served at a level of mortal risk in a situation that most people -- many people in this country didn't believe we should be in and not only were they not resentful of what their experiences were, they were the most compelled to take whatever the necessary next step was to continue to improve the country because they already self-selected for that and it went from an interest of mine to a man on a mission, if you will, when colin invited me to the marine corps ball in san clemente at a hotel of the lima company 3-1 and it was the first reunion of that group that had been in the battle of fallujah, the first time they had seen each other since 2006, this was fall of 2012 in southern california and in spending the evening listening to what they went through and listening to how many of them had killed

themselves since 2006, they'd lost more to suicide since the battle, we all know the statistics and thinking about the privilege of having a friendship with someone like yourself and so many other folks that i had the benefit of being able to communicate with and collaborate with over the past 20 years in new york and thinking to myself well, gosh, what if we created a mechanism which has now matured into this incubator and partnered with people like dan rosenzweig in the valley who is expert at these things and the people that can do the things i can't do and surrounded those people, the generals, the fiennes years, the media elite, around this generation of millennial veterans who have already self-identified for the desire to be the first person in and for a willingness to subordinate their go and feelings to the mission *r mission if there's clarity as to what the mission should be that made it such that

i had to help. >> rose: so you sold the porsche? >> sold the loft, sold everything, packed a bag, rented a furnished cabin, brought my clothing and started showing up at archie's acres asking how i could help and that led to the -- a dinner invitation on board camp pendleton atneral spiese' house which is like getting invited to a scene out of "top gun." you're like okay, we'll go down and talk to the general but who knows what to expect? i think there was a football game, the baltimore ravens -- general spiese is a ravens fan. >> rose: they did well this year. >> and we just started talking. i went with colin and a marine sergeant and he could tell you better than myself never gets to go to the major generals house when there are in the major general's house. >> probably drives the major general's car. >> if he's lucky so for a major

general to open his home to a grunt-- which what colin is, a marine sergeant, and allow myself and colin to paint a picture for what we thought was possible with all of colin's peers was humbling for us. >> rose: i got everything here. >> you got it. >> rose: except hydroponic farming? what's magical about hydroponic farming? general, do you want to take that or dylan takes that? >> well, i think the key to this, charlie, is clearly that it orients on some of the major problems we have today it's much more efficient. they can turn the product over more quickly. we use less water. you can do it organically. >> but what is it? >> well, you do the growing in

p.v.c. gutters for lack of a better word. you recycle the water through. the roots sit right in the nutrients so they're not competing with the ground as nutrients dissipate. done in a greenhouse so that you can control the climate around it. it grows better, it grows faster, you do quicker turnover. you can really make a business out of it in a relatively small footprint. >> rose: and it's proven that k.g.b. be successful and that you can employ ten people per acre or what? >> remember the only reason this is a decision that i was willing to commit to and i suspect also for major general spiese is this is a business that's effectively a prototype that's going eight years old has 18 graduating classes, 60 farms founded by or being worked on by v-sat, which is the training programs graduates.

there are hydroponic organic greenhouses that exist. there's a 90,000 square foot version of this by a whole other group of folks that aren't veterans but it's proving the technology at a building in chicago. there's nothing proprietary to us uniquely in the hydroponics. hydroponics represent the efficient they the general bribes. >> rose: and what's the role of government here. you met with the first lady -- >> go ahead, general. >> . >> i think -- well, first of all in the conversations we've had the department of agriculture is excited about this. why? because it's getting people into agriculture and we're seeing a significant decline in that particular demographic. in fact, they're very old and there's some concern about what the future looks like in agriculture in the united states. at local levels it's an opportunity to move past some food december deserts and bring not just fresh food to local

markets but good paying high quality jobs so we're not looking for handouts for government. this isn't about getting government money, this is about being facilitate sod we can grow and expand and seeking those opportunities to open doors rather than anything else. >> rose: so what are the impediments to success? >> the matching up of the investors can break a logjam because now we have access to the capital necessary to produce the farms and get these things up and running in the right places and then through the training program we can generate the talent that can go out and populate these farms and turn them into productive businesses. >> rose: great to see you here. thank you for joining us. see you next time.

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