Good evening everyone. Welcome to the page turners im the curator and host some of you may recognize this series when it was 6 miles to the west. We are really glad you could be here. We started here last may and we are pleased to be here. Monday night in new york so even on monday night and new york theres other 10000 places you could be the way takes for granted that you chose to be here. Thank you very much and the presence you get at the end of your efforts you meet that wonderful author we are also joined by our friends cspan book tv if you look at the page turners twitter or Facebook Page youll see when this will air. We are not life which is a good thing. And then we will have the q a to be part of the conversation and then please shape your thoughts in the form of a question. If you cannot do that we will politely move on to the next person who has done so to those that can put their thoughts into the shape of a question. The book came out last tuesday and you have the opportunity to purchase multiple coffee the lawn copies and with that is a two book minimum. And then to bring this to our attention so do take the moment to turn off your cell phone take care of your bartender feel free to go to the understudy the next is two weeks from tonight with alvarez the 6000mile marathon an incredible debut memoir who fed on had a life in labor running a marathon from canada to guatemala to reimagine north america two weeks from tonight to hear more of the events too much and now onto the featured author. But with even the mildest criticism from all sides of the political spectrum that they support our troops with the most dangerous third rail. And the cost of loyalty to be on to that perilous track with that precision that illustrates the military academy with those values to endanger the country winning wars but not how they are fought today and to establish themselves as separatist from the Armed Services of the democratic nation with public pulling of the popularity to do well with the disconnect between reality and perception. Those on the receiving end harsh and fair examination with the attack on the but what it is is a leadership document a passionate call for the military to reintegrate for the society the Higher Standards for servicemembers for the role they have chosen to break the decades long cycle of lowering the quality. The consequences. Please join me to welcome tim bakken. [applause] thank you. Good evening thank you for being here. And then to illustrate some of the reasons. And then to draw a line which i think we can do with some precision to what has occurred. But to do that a couple of things with regard to those some people not even call them wars because in the sense it is very difficult to see america has lost wars or at a very minimum has failed to win the wars a couple of considerations is number one in them the United States engaged in battles that can involve the killing of innocent civilians and number two in all those instances United States military was not forthright and indeed covered up some of those events. In the korean war that began in 1850 what became known with the North Koreans soldiers crossed the line into south kore korea, killed people, civilians thinking that they could be soldiers that is a violation of the war the military must distinguish between soldiers and civilians. Over 50 years the military denied that occurred but in 1999 a Pulitzer Prize winning by the Associated Press showed those soldiers that were elderly told him that did occur. So in that particular instance but what could be described as a safe house. And approximately between 80900 People Killed. And the Afghanistan War and the war in iraq that were engaged in the killing of civilians while engaged in war. Sometimes this happens but that we see the most prominent the bridge where people were killed in korea meanwhile in vietnam all of those killings by us soldiers were permitted by one committed by soldiers intentionally not on accident. So we had some questions why we were in afghanistan over the last 18 and a half years but the military and civilian leadership kept telling us we were making progress. We didnt see the progress necessarily but that was the perception we were supposed to believe. But it wasnt until december a couple months ago when the Washington Post revealed the afghanistan papers did not understand we had been deceived during the Afghanistan War to say that every single military leader believe that we were making progress but those wars through today United States lost 100,000 us soldiers in those wars and what was undertaken in those countries nobody really disagrees about this but nobody knows the exact number for sure the range of People Killed between 3,000,006,000,000 people but korea and vietnam those are communist regimes one with Nuclear Weapons afghanistan and iraq are more dangerous now. But you could say the politicians are to blame but in fact it multiple wars there were 37 different Times Congress met in january to have unprecedented support to the us military it is truthful why we lost these wars or if there was any realistic objective view it is useful to look at the military there was the bombing of cities to develop Nuclear Weapons because they were not completely and utterly destroy them once again. But it is happening and i would like to take a look specifically at the Us Military Academy which over the last 200 years the Army Military academy the top generals had originated prior to becoming an officer but to do that there were two considerations that in each instance when there was a tragedy that us soldiers kille killeds of millions intentionally there was a coverup how can that be . Is that something new or that continues for the past 75 years . In 2015 i will read a portion of the book there were two workers who were working at the Army War College who published a study is relatively unknown but is amazing in his conclusions but our civilian society military society have not coalesced to realize is something should be done which obviously emerging something should be done. And basically that the greatest peril of dishonesty is what they describe a facilitation of hypocrisy of the new leaders because they talk in one world while living in another. And then goes on to say rampant rationalization espoused values while through dishonesty these are former Army Officers talking about current officers in 2015. This has a coercive corrosive with fewer knowledge that they correct the end result is a profession whose members hold and propagate a false sense of integrity that prevents the profession from that analogy the duplicity and deceit so that is one reason where does that come from so with the admissions at the military Academy West Point so generally High School Students must receive a nomination from a member of congress. Those nominations well necessary are relatively meaningless in regards to the actual application. To the department of education they must subscribe that has a formal application on file and is accepted, rejected or placed on a waiting list. But the military academy for 44 years very few people understand or recognize there is a perception there is a nomination system and somehow that affects the fabrication that is occurring but that has nothing to do with it. So what they do was count students that are in high school who take an interest in the military academy and that is west points term and then is translated the actual number of applicants each year would be at 2200 was 1200 students. But to achieve 1200 students the academy has to offer admission to 1200 students. In reality it is waived every year at 50 percent. 2008 through 2018 in two year increments every two years the acceptance rate was 56 percent. Today and then the military academy has the acceptance rate of 9 percent for the Naval Academy and 11 percent for west point. Where does that lead us . The statistics are not mine statistics i became aware of the statistics by thinking about why we as a country have not succeeded in the wars in which we have engaged. But let me consider one other thing. But this is not my consideration three social scientist at west point in 2017 conducted another study. And the one from 2015 was published by the Army War College that is supposed to be the Gold Standard of military research. The study showed the following. In the 19 sixties west point or with present military officers had to lower standards to secure enough students. In the early 1970s to accept virtually every qualified candidate to meet quota. From the seventies to the nineties west point continued the qualitative decline. The intellectual capacity hit bottom and remains there today. Some cadets according to information from the authors who are at west point and produce the study, found the cadets produce test scores so low that they would not qualify or barely qualified to enroll at the lowest rank. The richer for the academy in this regard was 2006 when 25 percent of the testtakers fell below the minimum officer candidate school that is another method or another way to enter the army. West point accepted students who scored in the category for range which enlisted recruiting is the lowest allowable qualifying score. America has been losing wars without understanding why. The authors of the study, this trend of deteriorating mental standards strangely enough has escaped social scientists and historians. The military academy has another issue by the mischaracterization of the admission standards and that deals with Sexual Assault was is a problem in the military as well despite hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years, the military cannot reduce the Sexual Assault rate with soldiers on soldiers below 20000 per year. Today at the military academy they dont have to report like every other college. Like every other college is required to do. The number of crimes that occur on campus they are exempt one exempt from the mccleary act but it became so Prominent Congress passed a separate law for the military academies to require them to produce studies showing what Sexual Assault rates were from those at the academy. You will hear the military say regrettably we cannot compare apples and oranges civilian colleges are different from military colleges that that this is on par with the Sexual Assault rate everywhere. That is not an accurate statement from the military zone studies and the department of justice study the most prominent from 2013 shows otherwise the department of justice study to evaluate all College Students in america, Community Colleg college, found a Sexual Assault rate of six. One women students per 1000. If you make a full analysis with the pentagon studies acquired by congress the Sexual Assault rate at the academy is over 30 per year 30 women per year per 100,000 women so it is five times greater the likelihood of Sexual Assault for a woman who attends one of the military academies. There are any number of other reasons why we have difficulty winning wars and a lot of them stem from the quality of the generals that get their education and end with description what happens inside the military academy once the students are admitted. At the academy as has been the case with regard to west poin point, the majority of the instructors are military officers who receive a degree after one or two years and those in every respect nonetheless for anybody else that teaches that similar colleges in the United States. They do not have a professional doctorate in their discipline. They do not have experience or scholarly work behind it. A colonel once told me when i was arguing with him that the soldier teachers who rotate in every two or three years and then are gone 60 percent of the faculty is gone that they should have professional Development Experiences and those in one of the engineering departments that are focused on engineering said that is not their responsibility. I am here so they can go to the blackboard to write with the same color chart, the same principles in the same thing at the same time on the same day in the same classroom. And that is something that has continued to the present. And i mentioned briefly in the curriculum at the academy it is important for the military in the 18 hundreds they are not building railroads today but hiring contractors to do it the most important thing is Critical Thinking that is the last discipline despite those brilliant people in it that was utilized to bring the soldiers into afghanistan in those towns and cities engineering is extremely important but not the currency and the job that the officers are required to do today. It is almost not possible to understand how this has happened there is a culture within the military that continues to circle. And to produce the same kind of thinking over and over. And to produce the same kind of thinking over and over. To take west point as an example over the last 200 years approximately there have been 150 generals this is the commandant and out of those 150 generals, 145 are graduates of west point. They go out into the arm army, taught by people that graduated from west point to come back to west point to teac teach. And they learn what was learned in the 19 hundreds and 18 hundreds. We can look back and i describe it in the book how lessons from the 18 hundreds, the approaches from the 18 hundreds whether writing on the blackboards of the same color chart was at west point. We can see without change it will be a selfperpetuating process with very little change