, he has provided this country an extraordinary service, we are safer because of the work that dave petraeusone. >> before the scandal, before the headlines general david petraeus was on a mission to remake america's military but all that fell apart when he broke his own rule about publicity, never become your own front page headline. joining us now a man who knows a lot about general petraeus, fred kaplan. author of the important book "the insurgents." thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> you add ad post script about the paula broadwell affair. were you surprised as we all were when we first heard about day fair. how stunned were you. >> i was pretty surprised. as you know, wolf, i never met an unassuming four star general. dave petraeus was more assuming than many. this was a guy who when he was commander in iraq he just did things on his own. when he was occupying mosul and no command anywhere in iraq he opened up the boarder to syria, he set up economic enterprises, he held elections, all of this on his own. when he commanded all of iraq he basically set up the

i served along side dave petraeus to include many years in combat.was a great servant to the nation. >> neil: did you have any idea any of this stuff was combing? >> no, i think the most important thing, he and his wife they get a chance to focus on themselves. that is what i think is most important. >> neil: there was no talk of this or fear he was compromising either military secrets or anything in this affair? >> i think this is now belongs to general petraeus and his wife. i think opining one way or the other isn't helpful. >> neil: how about the role of political leaders being your boss. when a new president comes in whether he is a veteran or not, john kennedy was a decorated war veteran. he came in and bay of pigs and barack obama comes in, which is better? >> i would like to study history. the one that jumps out at me is abraham lincoln. he was a captain in the blackhawk war. he is says, all i fought was mosquitoes. when he took over the presidency he was command any chief in the biggest war in our nation to date. 600,000 american casualties.

>> i have known dave petraeus for more than 30 years, and i have served with him earlier and then at war, and i have seen everything that he has done for the nation, so i would just say that i think about he and his wife now and their time to go forward. leave it at that. >> is there something about the way we treat generals? you are a four star. do we celebrate our military leaders beyond what ought to be according -- i mean, there's no taking away from the heroism and none of us in civilian life can begin to fathom the leadership challenge and the basic courage of facing battle as you have, but do people get too large and do they have too many perks? i mean, that's an issue that has been raised. >> i think many any walk of life where you work really hard sort of journeyman status most of your career and suddenly you lead huge organizations and necessarily around you there are many of the trappings of power and the lever that is you immediate to be able to pull. i think everybody has to keep themselves very, very grounded, and i think that the vast majority have both feet firmly on

petraeus followed you. we know what happened with him. you obviously are friends with him. >> i am. >> sean: what are your thoughts? >> well, my thoughts are for daves. i saw up close what dave did for the nation and for the missions we were in and what he did for me and i just want the two of them to be happy. >> sean: all right. i won't go further than that. i want to bring in your wife here, annie and he gets up at , sleeps five hours a night and one meal a day. >> yes. >> sean: and bring us back to the day when he told you he met with the president. >> when he came back in, i never thought ahead of time what i would say, i didn't know what the outcome would be. i think i had an idea what the outcome was going to be, i knew he was ticking his letter of resignation with him. and i never once thought about what do you say and he walked in the door and said the first thing that came to mind. >> sean: i've read this, i've read this a number of times. i don't think this rises to the level of accepting the resignation from a man who dedicated his whole career to his country. am i fair on that? do you think that this was fair? do you sense any level of

that's what dave rolein and the guys were going through. a few years later, only general petraeus can say what he was going through with his biographer he brought to kabul, but i'm embarrassed as somebody who knows these guys, that anybody would be living that kind of life while our troops are enduring what they're enduring? that's not even -- that's just about life. so, i'm embare wassed and outraged -- embarrassed and outraged. [applause] >> i'd like to ask the warriors the question of whether your book has been welcomed by the military and used in the services helping those who have returned, traumatized from post traumatic stress disorder, really work through some of what they are feeling and going through, which i think could be very valuable, and also i think it's fantastic that those of us who have not had access to your experience, really being brought in because it may help the nation be more thoughtful about entering wars in the future. >> i'll go quick. my biggest worry when i wrote the book is what would my brothers in arms think about it. and i didn't sweat the "new y