Andrew calendar Andrew Carroll works with war correspondents, he talked about world war i as described by general John Pershing, commander of us forces in the conflict. From the National World war i museum in kansas city, this is an hour. [inaudible conversations] good evening, everyone, good evening, thank you, rainy day books and the National World war i museum and memorial are pleased to welcome Andrew Carroll, editor of several New York Times bestsellers including war letters, letters of the nation and behind the lines, andrew also edited on a pro bono basis operation homecoming, iraq, afghanistan and the homefront, and words of us troops and their families inspiring the Emmy Awardwinning film of the same name. In 1998 andrew started the legacy products, and initiative that honors veterans and activeduty troops by preserving their wartime correspondence and travel to all 50 states in 40 countries including iraq and afghanistan and collected an estimated 100,000 previously unpublished letters and emails, free of charge to Chapman University which is where rogers and my son went to school. The legacy project has been renamed the center for american war letters and is now part of Chapman University. Andrew served as the centers director, andrew is currently embarking on the Million Letters Campaign to seek out and preserve at least 1 million war related correspondences from every conflict in us history. Andrew will talk about the Million Letters Campaign tonight as well as his new book my fellow soldiers general John Pershing and the americans who helped win the great war. Andrew was also featured in the new Television Film on world war i of the great war, broadcast throughout the country in spring and summer on pbs. Latest gentlemen, Andrew Carroll. [applause] thank you also much for coming out on this beautiful night. Really appreciate it and so grateful to one of the great independent bookstores in this country and laura for her participation, i have come to this museum many times as a sightseer and visitor, researcher and always love coming back and it is a real honor to come back in this role. I will give you some behind the scenes story about it and the creation of the book and so forth. I want to talk about the war Letters Campaign because it is integral to the revocation of the book and i want to show you some extremely rare and i think in some cases breathtaking original war letters from Chapman University. I also love the discussion part of these events so feel free to ask questions and if anyone wants to talk afterwards, if you are considering sharing i would love to discuss that with you. As Vivien Jennings noted, i had the opportunity to travel the United States and goes countries around the world in search of wartime correspondence and one of the most surreal and meaningful conversations i had was in baghdad. I was just about to leave and waiting for military exports to take me to the airport and i saw these young iraqi men standing 15 feet away from me. They were in their 20s, i really wanted to talk to them. I had been to iraq and spend my time with the us military which was an incredible experience but i wanted to talk to actual iraqis about the war and their culture and history and so forth but i was hesitant about walking up to a group of iraqis and i finally decided i will never have this opportunity again so i tentatively went over, introduced myself but i was a writer looking for war letters and i was curious if i could talk with them. They looked at me and then each other, total silence and one of the young men whose name i later found out was omar looked like he was about to Say Something and then held back and i said please, ask me anything you once, he looks at me, breaks in a big smile and says who are your favorite reddish authors . There is a war going on around us and this is the question he wanted to know. I thought you are a writer, this is a slamdunk so i stood for a moment, started thinking and not one name came to mind and little beads of sweat started forming on my 4 head because i felt i was representing the entire American Educational system. I finally got to the point forget favorite british office, just name any british author and i stood there and was also thunderstruck by the question that i could not give a single name. The iraqis to be helpful started throwing out suggestions, wordsworth, dickens, longfellow. After a painfully long period of time i finally came up with the name all by myself which was shakespeare and as awkward as the moment was it helped break the ice. And we had this fascinating conversation about what was going on. My escort arrived and i had to go to the airport. One last question, why do you focus on letters . I was halfway around the world at this point and nobody had asked me that question. We all sort of took for granted that it had sentimental value and there was historical importance but i had never been asked what is it about these correspondences and omar told me his brother had served in the first gulf war and wrote home and hated Saddam Hussein but he couldnt say that in his letters and i asked did you save the correspondence, he said no, we burned them all. That stayed with me, that question of what is it about correspondences and one of the ironies of this project is i have no military connections, never served, no one in my family ever served and to be perfectly blunt i didnt even like history growing up. To me it was just as tedious memorization of dates, names and places and so forth and then something extraordinary happened, our house in washington dc burned to the ground, nobody was hurt which is the most important thing but everything we had went up in smoke and back then when you lost your letters and your photographs they were gone forever. Soon after the fire we got a call from a distant cousin who had served in the military, world war ii veteran, along with another veteran named irwin lauder and he wanted to check in and see how we were doing come all our memorabilia, irreplaceable family items are gone. He said it makes me think i was going through my old world war ii box and i came across a letter i wrote to my wife, he ended up sending me a copy of it and i will never forget, this is the original, three pages wrong long, april 24, 1945, i saw something that makes me realize why we are over here fighting this war. He goes into graphic detail about walking through the nazi concentration camp of buchenwald which had just been liberated because it gets very graphic, i will never forget holding this onion skin paper correspondence in my hand and thinking how fragile it was and yet how significant the weight of the words and what he was writing about and i called him and said this is unbelievable and i will of course return it to you, he said you know what . Just keep it but i was probably going to throw it out anyway. Soon after that experience i was talking with a woman who has become a dear friend and telling her the story and she said my grandfather just read a letter at his 53rd wedding anniversary had written during world war ii and he became part of lost battalion and he wrote this before they were surrounded by germans. They were saved by the 442nd regimental combat team, something i knew nothing about. This is how it began. Talking with veterans and families, i reached out to dear abby because she has and continues to write a lot about veterans, military, support of our military community and i said i want to encourage americans to go through their attics, basements or closets, see what they have and preserve them because we are losing them to neglect and i rented out a po box, wrote a letter saying can we start this project . She went back, lets do this. This was way back in 1998, the floodgates opened, thousands of letters, i got a call from the post office, they said this is andrew carol, you need to pick up your mail. And will be there in 30 seconds, bring a car or a van. There were bins and bins of letters coming in, the very first day. The tip of the iceberg. I will never forget sitting in my car going through these letters, i wasnt expecting that. I got the messages from veterans saying why they were sending in the letters and one woman sent the original letters from vietnam that her brother had written, that was the background and she said my brother is gone, missing and not a pow. He came back from the war but he was so traumatized by what he had seen and experienced that one day he walked out the front door of the house and we have not found him since. And she ended with a sense time and time again, someone to remember who he was. What was important about the cover letters is they gave context to letters that were not merely apparent and this was not the two trejo, begins dear mom and dad, here i am from the philippines in 1944, the middle part of the letter is gone. I hope so too. Love bill, ps, they might censor this letter. I had seen letters with the name of the ship cut out, and islands, some little bit of detail, this is like he gave away the whole pacific campaign. From his brother ernie who sent it in, what i learned, take a piece of paper, he did this time and time again, the last line, he would cut out the middle, blame the sensors, because he hated writing letters home and this was easier. For the servicemembers who decided to write some, the history they were witness to was extraordinary. This is one of the letters received, it is 9 05 sunday morning, we have been bombed for an hour, antiaircraft guns yammering away, he was trapped in the forward engine room with his ship, could hear men screaming over the intercom of people rushing through their gas masks, look at the upper righthand corner, these are the seventh 1941, uss new orleans, pearl harbor. He is right there in the eye of the storm describing what it is like was because he was trapped in the internet there was nowhere for him to go. He wrote a 50 page letter which he could not send originally, he held onto it and thankfully survived which is how we have the letter. Because we get letters, no emails, different generations, you see those echoes over time, people have similar experiences. One of the most powerful letters we received, 14 pages handwritten by a young woman, anna miller who was witness to one of the most horrific days in American History and she is off to safety, not writing it like world war ii, but soon after it happened and writing a letter to her parents and narrating almost a short story and begins in a business meeting not unlike circumstance and shes describing this in the first person, this massive boom outside, everybody stops and there is probably construction from the building next door, sitting there and suddenly it is getting louder, p people screaming, i dont mean to be rude but can we see what is going on . We walked to large bay windows, in the second plane hitting the world trade center, they are in the marriott right next door so she goes on to describe in vivid detail rushing towards the exit, they are told to evacuate the building, Security Guard blocking the way is just as in like he has seen a ghost. We have got to get out, we are told to evacuate the buildings, you cannot go out there, you cannot see what is out there and they convince them they are told by the police to get out of the building and he says to them i want you to run as fast as you can, do not look at what is in the streets which was impossible for them not to do and she goes into detail about what they saw and how she was caught up in smoke, debris, when the buildings fell, and almost died. One little comment i would like to add, this is hard to see but we are meant to be a meticulous with the letters we received, kept in pristine condition and i noticed we too little stains on them. I hope we didnt do anything to this, i called and said i have to be up front, i noticed these two water stains. Where though there before . She said yes, those are my tears, i was crying when i wrote this. People assume, going back to the first and Second World War because of censorship the letters cant or dont say anything. The pearl harbor letters demonstrate they got around censorship but some letters, there is an unsuspecting message. This letter was written april 29, 1945, that is the letterhead, he begins my beloved, another sunday, wondering how many more days you would like this, mainly im worried about you and aunt bertha. Pretty common expression of affection and worry. Then we got a code chief. When i start a letter, my beloved, as he does here, look for codenames of its oracles. There were no its oracles. On this side are all the fictitious names which and ruth, saipan, perl, but, philippine, he goes on the list. In a way the letter was saying much more than it let on especially to the sensors. What was extraordinary about the letter, the paper itself reveals the circumstances under which these troops were living. We have letters from desert storm and Operation Iraqi freedom that are coated in sand because they were written in the letter, letters from the civil war that have splotches of mud and blood on them, letters from korea that the ink is stained because it was written during a snowstorm but the most dynamic is from world war ii. This by a soldier writing to a friend about a close call where a shell dropped next to him and didnt explode so he is telling his friend about his close call, put the letter in his rucksack, gets shot in the back, survives, but this is the bullet hole right through the letter. Those are the singe marks. He did survive. One of the things, in many ways letter writing is the most egalitarian artform there is. The pencil and piece of paper, you dont do anything else, just one of the most powerful letters i came across was by a slave who escaped freedom, joined the union army and he found out his regiment by sheer coincidence was bearing down on the plantation he had been held at the slave and his daughter was still held in bondage. As they approached in 1864, i received a letter from caroline telling me i tried to steal my child away from you. I want you to understand mary is my child and she is godgiven right my own. We are making up one black troops and when we come, we dont expect to leave brute or branch. I offered once to pay you 40 for my own child, im glad you did not accept it. You hold on as long as you can. When i came after mary i will have the power and authority to bring her away and execute vengeance on those who hold my child. You will then know how to speak to me. Spotswood rice. Not all the correspondence we get our solemn or serious, theres a lot of levity laced through these correspondences. One of my favorites is by an Army Sergeant named sharon allen, serving iraq. She roast home an email about a campfire singalong with a group of kurdish soldiers who misinterpreted a famous beatles song we think has to do with finding peace and serenity in the world and they thought was a little green vegetable. I am not going to sing this but i will give you a sense what happened. This is sharon writing home to her family. July 2004, turks and iraqis and kurds, kurds love us. And try to join in. And a lot of kurdish soldiers complete with ak47s, and the beatles, let it be. When i find myself in times of trouble, mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom. Little p, whisper words of wisdom, little p. That was a good day. Not all the letters, and one of the letters is from korea, and on his way back home. It is official as of this morning, sometime before i crash in your door, a few weeks maybe but im coming home. Looking forward to seeing you again but in no hurry to see her expression when you see me. The longest 30 years of my life. And a cup of hot coffee. And hooks for hands and break our backs, what about the wounds you cant see, and tell you now you need a lot of patience with me, patience and understanding. See you soon, see you soon, see you soon. And we see how war affects those who served and those on the home front. The correspondence by myrna whose son charles was caught in an ambush in iraq, lost his leg, very athletic young man and this was a grave injury. She lived near walter reed hospital. She sent this email journal to other members of the family. I brought charles home from walter reed, everything had gone to the wash and dry cycle, dumped a freshly wanted close onto the bed to fold them. It was late and i was quite weary so i wanted to get to bed and try for a better nights sleep than i had been having before. I found one stock, just one. I pulled on the rest of the clothes and still just the one stock. I went back to the laundry room, nothing was there. I looked between the washer and dryer and all around the floor in case i dropped the other stock during loading and unloading process. Still my tired and preoccupied mind didnt get it. As i walked back to the bedroom with one stock in hand it hit me like a punch, there was no other stock. There was no other foot, lower leg or knee. I stood in my bedroom clutching that one stock and an involuntary moan came from my throat but it originated in my heart. This was an email. I cant emphasize enough that we talk about this project, i really do include emails. There is Something Dynamic and important about handwritten letter and when i was in iraq i saw a young soldier standing in front of a video camera and i asked him i dont mean to interrupt you, this is not the original. It is just a facsimile of it. I ask what he is doing . Burning a dvd letter to my mom, just like this. This dvd will probably obsolete within 10 to 15 years just as we dont use vhs tapes which many vietnam troops did, sending home audio recordings. This letter which i am not going to drop is from the american revolution. This is the oldest letter we have and one of the oldest war letters in existence. It is as pristine as the day it was written in mdcclxxv. Moving on to general purging and world war i, like many americans, survey after survey has shown i was not particularly interested in this conflict even after i started the war letters project. After we moved out of the house that burned down we moved into another part of washington dc by american university. As it turned out, a you working on world war i to create the most lethal gas ever constructed by man and when the war was over they just dumped all the munitions in the ground and didnt put up signs about a rural area back then and years later, men with biohazard suits showed up in the army corps of engineers and said we have to evacuate the area, we discovered poisonous gas around the area. This is what intrigues me about world war i, got me focusing on the project and the book. I will say as passionate as i feel about these two i hope my next book does not involve a house burning down or men showing up in biohazard suits, i love this quote, 7 years after the first visit where i found more of this, the Health Department bureau said the risk will depend on what the familys behavior is. A family with children might just soil, have more concern, they spend more time in the dirt. To me general purging was a distant figure when i began this, to be perfectly honest almost as boring as the war itself until i started to learn his personal story. What especially stuck out about general pershing, he went to west point, barely got in, kind of an interesting character while he was there. When he was a very senior officer, he was in fort bliss texas in august 1950, he been brought down to the studio in San Francisco where his family was, three daughters, he wanted them to stay there because it would be safe. He was in mexico, causing trouble, down there by himself with other troops. The morning of august 27th, a phone call came into pershing at headquarters in fort bliss. A reporter somewhat breezily said i need a quote from the general. Pershing picked up his own phone and said what fire . The reporter realized who he was talking to and he said have you not heard the news . Pershing that i have no idea what youre talking about. The reporter said im so sorry to tell you this but your wife and your three little girls are all gone. They all died in that house fire. Only warren was pulled out alive and conscious. Suddenly pershing became human to me and someone i wanted to learn more about it going from that day on as he went to the war and trained and built the army he was carrying his grief with i started looking for correspondence that he wrote, people who have these correspondences dont realize how significant he is. It is like coming across something by eisenhower, pershing is the only general in American History to be given a 6 star in his lifetime. A fascinating character. December 1915, 3 months after the fire company is writing to his wifes best friend and they are both grieving. This is a revelation because in the letter, pershing says warren doesnt know of his loss but includes mama and helen and mary margaret, his sister, and his prayers every night. I cannot tell him, he they are in cheyenne vacationing with his grandparents. That was so stunning to me, this little part of his personal history. A statue more than a man. But a real human being who showed empathy for others in their times of crisis. Pershing was friends with you roosevelt, a regiment, wilson was in no mood to give roosevelt what he wanted calling him a coward and a pacifist, before the war started. Wilson rejected this appeal but teddy sent his four boys, the youngest, quintin, was wanted to become a pilot which he wrote incredible letters about his experiences and on july 14, 1918, quintin was shot down and killed and purging kim jong un 13 pershing reached out to cr, words of understanding from ones friends, i want to express to you and quintins mother my deepest sympathy. Perhaps i can come is new to realizing what a loss means is anyone. Tr responded im immensely touched by your letter, you have suffered far more bitter sorrow than has befallen me. I should be ashamed of myself, trying to emulate that courage. Because of roosevelt avenue status as a foreign president , received letters and telegrams from other heads of state, there was one letter i want to include because it shows a side of tr as well that touched him and it was from a woman named mrs. Freeland. Teddy would send back a one sentence thank you for your message but he really responded to this woman. I will quote from a few sentences from a much longer four page letter and he says the loss is particularly hard on mrs. Roosevelt. Quintin was her baby. The last child left in the whole nest. The night before he sailed a year ago she did as she has always done, went upstairs to talk them into bed a gentle hearted boy. He was always thoughtful and considerate with those he came into contact with. It is hard to open letters from those who are dead. A soldier and pilot killed, he kept getting letters because of the time difference because that is heartbreaking. Quintin at last letter written during three weeks on the front, his squadron on average a man was killed every day, real joy in the great adventure, engaged to a beautiful girl of high character, heartbreaking for her and his mother but they both said they would rather never come back never have gone. He had his crowded hour, died in the glory of the dawn. Despite you roosevelts bravado about war, the loss hit him almost as hard as it did mrs. Roosevelt and he died almost of a broken heart just months later. Before he passed away he could be seen at the stables at the oyster bay home with the horses quintin used to ride as a boy and he would sit there looking out and saying to himself the childhood nickname he had given him, quinty kwei. They received the axle of his plane which was on his plane at oyster bay blues not all the people i focus on in my fellow soldiers general John Pershing and the americans who helped win the great war are president s or famous generals. Among the most telling are the characters that never had their names in history books. I want to introduce you to a nurse who wrote letters in journals starting with her training going over the atlantic and into combat. Like men in the early letter she wanted to see action. She was gung ho to get to the front and participate. Like the men who wrote of combat experience, once she saw it firsthand her enthusiasm was tempered. There was one part of the hospital, wounded coming and that affected her more than any other. It held a group of patients who were so terribly wounded, doctors and nurses can only spend a few days at a time to be replaced. In a low, roughly furnished ward on the fourth floor of the hospital, brings into relief the unfinished walls, one finds the jar, the true conception of civilized warfare are painfully evident. Congregated 70 victims of the war, strong viral young men permanently disfigured, deadly shrapnel has done its dastardly work in most cases and anothers bullets exploded in their mouth. This becomes very disturbing, and she goes on to say these are called upon to bear more than their share of suffering. Is horrible and cruel. What especially affected andrews with other men were coping with it and quite positively. She wrote an atmosphere of heroic bravery and splendid courage is prevalent among them all. Most patients visit around the war playing games, helping one another with their jovial banter. All our said nourishing liquid foods like raw eggs with milk, cream, meat juices and serial. They are fed through small tubes inserted through their nostrils or directly into their throats through which the gaping wounds on the sides of their faces, they help feeding one another taking turns pouring liquid into the finals often joking about the enormous capacity someone may possess. Their speech is almost incoherent and difficult to understand, this surely must be the most pivotal part of war. Here they are so happy and carefree, bravely and during untold physical suffering while exhibiting altruistic concern but how different it will be when they are separated and returned to civilian life. Andrews ends her journals and letters with a visit from Woodrow Wilson who negotiated the treaty of her side, he came to the hospital, interesting story, he was about to leave and said have i seen everybody . You said pretty much, wilson said wait a minute. Have i seen everyone . They said we have a ward you have not gone to but even the doctors and nurses find it so disturbing they cant stay long, wilson said take me there and andrews got to witness this event and she wrote briefly, exhibiting splendid courage, went through the entire ward shaking the head of every man, each so terribly disfigured, they talk to these boys to understand the coherent replies given with such great difficulty. Wilson met with hundreds of men who suffered ghastly wounds. Upon leaving the chamber of horrors, the president was as white as death. And his hands trembled, he appeared to stagger, suffering was on his face and he seems completely crushed. These letters and journals were found here at the National World war i museum and memorial thanks to a wonderful artist named Stacy Peterson that had never been published before. When we think of memorials, we visit massive structures of steel and stone like Liberty Tower outside. In many ways, letters and emails as fragile and delicate as some of them are are among the most powerful and enduring forms of remembrance we have. Capturing history from a scholarly standpoint, put us in the eye of the storm, these troops and families are more than stenographers mechanically recording what they have seen. What they created is real work of art and like all masterpieces they transcend the subject, these are not just about war. They are about love and loss, grief and courage, heartbreak and resilience in many ways. War is never about grand theories and abstract idea but people. The men and women who serve and continue to serve are not just sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen but somebody else child and somebody else parent, spouse, sibling, best friend, these were there words, their voices, their experiences, their stories and no one could tell them better than they can. Thank you all very much. [applause] i would love for you to ask about the project, the book, world war i, feel free to ask and make sure we get a microphone to you. It takes me a while to walk over, go ahead before he finishes, that is all right. Thank you for your lecture, it was outstanding. I have two questions. First question is very much general pershing oriented and the second your reflections of the letter project. Why did general pershing decide not to allow brigades in france to form a division and fight independently. General butler, noted marine corps hero he relegated to desk duty. Second question, having spent a day or two in the military myself i noticed, the type of person who is a soldier or marine transcends time, the research and project, how we differ from generation to generation. Excellent question. Without allowing the two to join, pershing was a man of faults. I dont gloss over those. One of the issues that came up, he did not want the american troops separated. This was one of the huge debates with the french and british, behind the scenes of the clashes, he almost punched a french general in the face when he kept persisting get us troops into the french line and pershing says i will not allow our boys to become cannon fodder, they were thrown in untrained with others who spoke a different language, different rifles, would have caused untold chaos and casualties. He makes an exception to africanamerican troops, is almost dispensable. I go to the issue in the book about pershing. When it comes to marines, and different decisions. I am sympathetic to him, he is bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, and president wilson essentially delegated the entire war to purging pershing. It is not known how much response ability he took. If he said i wanted to amalgamate the troops they wouldve said that is your view do it but pershing held strong keeping american solidified as possible. Very well represented in the book some decisions were not known to others because he had his own reasoning why he wanted to do something a certain way and perhaps he felt if these divisions were treated differently than other divisions would want to be treated the same, we dont know, looking at the responsibility he bore, if he lost the war he would have been blamed, the french and british what is that we told you get is your troops in, you said no, lets wait and we lost. If that had happened americas reputation would have been absolutely destroyed. I cant imagine attention he was under and it makes me more sympathetic to decisions he made, he had his reasons, in hindsight we can secondguess why he made certain decisions but in this case he felt strongly about keeping everything together as an american army. He tried to run the first time he and american army, a major part, they were distinct and he admitted he was overwhelmed, to take over the day to day operation. With respect to the second question, marines and soldiers, universal they are, whether you are at lexington or concorde, as the marines were doing in iraq, the combination of the terror, exhilaration, sense of duty, sense of fear come all these things coming together seem to transcend any generation. How they express themselves is different. When you read civil war letters, so flowery and prophetic, they sound different. That is because most of the troops were illiterate. One book they all read that was written beautifully with poetry is the bible. Letters reflect that same, reading emails today, and as good as they used to be. Marines, soldiers, sailors or airmen, letters are poetic, beautifully expressed as before. The tone overall has changed, much more conversational. That is the difference. Even in world war i you see the switch, and vietnam and korea it is different. Overall in iraq, a generation of writers is brilliant, and proof of how intelligent artistic, a lot of members of the military, they dont get credit for it. Thank you. Any other questions to be represented a little bit . My dad was in world war ii and im reading all the letters he wrote and my mom rose to him, there must be close to 300 from the time in the military, the power of seeing my parents handwriting let alone reading what he said, there are so many, and no one would be interested in. We are definitely interested. This is a great opportunity to talk about the project. If anyone has letters we love getting originals but understand the personal meaning to them. It is a doubleedged sword, family say we cant let go of the originals, that is great, at least there is a backup. There is something about originals that is special because we like to see the postmarks, paper and so forth but what a lot of people said to us, the next generation or the one after that will throw these away. By donating they are preserved forever. When you have letters, it is easy to remember. It is more tube letters. Us. We are americans, warletters. Us and it goes to this archive at Chatham University which i picked with a lot of institutions, i could sense how passionately they felt, students were so respectful to the material, they use them in their own questions, not just history but English Literature and the Theater Department but how supportive the faculty and administration was. My key concern given the collection, they say thank you, we are done. We want this to be the largest archive of american wartime correspondence anywhere in the world and we think it is, outside the National Archives and government institutions. Our hope is people spread the word. Someone have a cousin who served in iraq or afghanistan or vietnam, please get the message out there. Once i will say it like it is a wonderful Family Activity to bring these letters out and go through them. Younger generations, grandpa with the biggest grumpy guy i ever met and they read his love letters, where was this guy . He was really funny and engaging, like a kid. It shows them a different side of family members they think they already know. There is something about holding my cousins letter from world war ii that creates a bond so one we are doing, we let students and others hold these letters, i held a letter by general pershing from the american revolution, that gives other generations what they really do. Thank you very much for your question, your comment. You and i have known each other almost 20 years since 9 11. I know you took the opportunity you went back to vietnam. Could you talk about war letters from the other side that you discovered in vietnam . Part of the reason for my trip, 40 countries around the world was to find letters placing military bases and talking to troops in combat in iraq and afghanistan, i was never in combat but was meeting with them. Like the story with omar and his friends i wanted to see what the iraqis were writing. I went to iraq, talked to a lot of people, the group who promised they would look for letters and emails, came home, had this wonderful assistance from a small town in nebraska, i went to iraq, didnt get any iraqi letters, any iraqis in iraq . He went to the iraqi community, immigrants talked to family members and got all these letters and emails about the iraqi perspective, not the enemy perspective but what it is like to live under Saddam Hussein but vietnam was interesting, at the encouragement of vietnam veterans, what was the other side writing during all this . Vietnam was an interesting dilemma because it is a communist country and her archives are heavily censored and what they allow us to see as well acknowledged. The way i get from the letters i found, i was lamenting to someone about the trouble of the archives, this is a gentleman who worked in a hotel, concierge, he said i have a guy here looking for stamps and a Little Antique shop, he came back complaining there were a lot of stamps but letters he had no use for, that is what im looking for. We went back to this antique shop and the guy said go through with my interpreter who skimmed the letters, this is a battle letter, the stamp collectors, they couldnt care what was inside. It was more south vietnamese letters, really a find and what struck me, the issue of timelessness and this beautiful letter by a wife of south vietnamese offer who was saying your little boy wont let anybody sit in your seat at the dinner table, he said that is for papa. He goes around saying the name all day long. I had a civil war letter from the American Civil War almost identical of a mother writing to her husband saying little robert wont let anybody sleep in your bed or sitting your chair. It struck me how similar the emotions were, this is a human experience. That trip to vietnam was especially powerful because i went there with you and other veterans but what was really highlight for me, this is a group of american soldiers and scientists who scour the world to find the remains of american troops. They will drain an entire lake in vietnam if they can american servicemembers plane crashed, they will scale mountains, go under water, do anything they can, no country does more to retrieve its missing service members. One that came out of that trip was a guy who had the Vietnam Mission and he wrote a letter to his wife about going over with the mother of a young man killed in vietnam and with the experience with her, one of my favorite correspondences is in a book called behind the lines which is letters from all american wars but the russians were writing and the germans and french and british and all these countries to give an International Perspective on how emotions are timeless and universal. One more question. Yes . I will just repeat it. A technical question. World war i they didnt have paul points. They had trench pens. They were ingeniously configured so they wouldnt blot up a lot. It is how personal pens became very common, wasnt just the quilted anymore. They created a kind of ball point pen and it was because of world war i we had the revolution in people using personal pens. To me what was fascinating was the censorship issue. This is the first time there was massive censorship and interesting how people got around those, a local perspective. Young harry truman, i grew up, i wont name names, household of republicans who refer to truman as a failed had salesman who became president , they called him a haberdashery or. Why this haberdashery became president is beyond me, read his war experience, he literally was almost killed several times not just from artillery fire, it was rather impressive a story i hadnt read anywhere else that i included in my fellow soldiers general John Pershing and the americans who helped win the great war, during shell fire his horse toppled over and fell on top of truman and he was suffocating to death. He wrote about this. He said i was within seconds of lights out and lieutenant householder pulled him to safety. All these people, patton, macarthur, wild bill donovan who was again, like truman under fire in world war i, what happened to all these guys . Speaking of truman and donovan they had a big clash in the white house. The Central Agency that gathers intelligence, truman said no, i wont do it in peacetime, to spy on them. Donovan said that will never happen. Donovan said you have to have some sort of intelligence gathering institution. Both men proved to be right, we had the cia and there are examples when they did. The intersections of how they serve together, out of truman big president , and truman trying to win the war and 1 million things, vic sent him a second letter and referred to him as president harry, a term of affection, my grown son has been lost to combat. I know you have all these things going on, if anything will help you find my boy i would be so grateful. I will leave it at that. To circle back to your original point, truman was also a sensor. He was reading the letters, he got around censorship by saying here is what is going on, other troops do the same thing. It was interesting to hear his comments what his men were writing whether it was bluster, this didnt happen or whatever, or they were very modest about their experiences and truman was an interesting character who would talk about how the men said great things about him but, cant believe they are so kind to me, they love their commander, their captain but really did get a kick out of it. I am going to the truman house tomorrow to give a talk about trumans experience in the war and truman president ial library, check them out, you got to slog through a lot of stuff, wonderful gems in there, training through combat and coming home and president ial capers. The intent is to make war human, to show a side of them, especially general pershing but i cannot thank the National World war i museum enough for this opportunity. Thank you for coming out and i look forward to talking to you on a personal basis especially if you have letters and emails you want to share, you so much. [applause] just like National World war i museum and memorial the war letters project is an approval story. Dont forget, war was like us, the global story and if you are looking to see quentin roosevelts proposal or pershings flag it is in the main gallery. Those are there, and it will be more poignant after you have read Andrew Carrolls book. Please join us for the book signing. [inaudible conversations]. He will take your questions live on sunday noon to 3 00 p. M. Eastern time. This weekend under afterwards program john newman details his career as a prosecutor and now is a federal appellate judge for 38 years. Also this weekends Silicon Valley historian Leslie Berlin talks about Major Technology industries. The pentagon papers talks about his experiences as a Nuclear War Planner in the early 60s and we visit ring seal that is all this weekend on cspan to book Tv Television for serious readers. For complete schedule visit our website. Kick off this weekend and just a moment with the Science Behind in a seizure. Weve a bit of publishing news for you. Fire and fury about the inner workings of the Trump White House is already on the bestsellers list. Yesterday in his First Television interview he discussed his book on nbcs today show. Did you interview him for this book. I spoke to the president whether he realized it was interview or not i dont know. It was not off the record. I spoke to him after the inauguration. And i had spoken to him. I spent about three hours with the president over the course of the campaign and in the white house. My window into Donald Trumps pretty significant. Even more to the point this was sort of the point of the book. I spoke to people who spoke to the president sometimes a minute to minute basis. In a sense there was one question on my mind when i began this book. What is it like to work with donald trump how can you work with donald trump. And what is how do you feel having worked with donald trump. To clear this up because the president is saying is full of lies. I think one of the things that we have to count on is that donald trump will attack. This is a 35 year history of how he approaches everything. Now Michael Woelfel be a guest on nbcs meet the press this sunday and he begins his nation wide to her to promote the book including on book tv. Back to the regularly scheduled Program Hello everyone