Transcripts For CSPAN2 David 20240704

Im bill harris, the director here at the fdr president ial library. And were so happy to see many Friendly Faces and familiar faces. And if we have new ones out there to please, welcome to the library and welcome to one of my favorite events of the year, which is the reading festival. Its our 19th annual. Its hard to believe its been going on for 19 years. It is wonderful to believe ive had the Good Opportunity to work with so many of these people here at this library, first in washington and then here at the library over those 19 years and longer. So he wanted the president wanted this library to be a place of study and of community and thats what we can say like this. Certainly evidence. I dont want to talk too long for you. So let me go over the format real quickly. Therell be a 30 minute talk, 30 minutes, and then well have a brief question and answer period. And then the author will go into the library to sign books. If you want to purchase them in our new deal store. And let me introduce our speaker, david kissinger. Youre not spelled kissinger as i was told, chris, in your show. Okay. You see, just never, never, never try to explain it. It gets bad. Thats what happens when you become management. Right . You inevitably get it wrong. So, chris center David Chrisinger is executive director of the Public Policy writing workshop at the university of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. No relation to me or know his name, write and director of writing seminars for the war house, an Award Winning nonprofit newsroom dedicated to reporting on the human impact of military service is the author of several books, including the soldiers truth ernie pyle and the story of over two and stories are what saved two survivors. God to writing about trauma. And hes won the George Orwell award. So wed really like to welcome him today as he speaks about ernie pyle and his work. Welcome, david. A guitar. That that was my fault because people always ask me, how do you pronounce your name . And. I sometimes say, you know, call me whatever you want. Just dont call me late for dinner. But. I told him its like kissinger. But its chris. And thats probably just put it in there is india is mine. So apologies for that. Thank you all for being here today, especially on a rainy saturday. Im sure you could think of other things to do, but you chose to be here and im very appreciative of that. I do plan to read you a little bit from the very beginning of the book. Dont worry, its not going to be a 30 minute reading, i promise. But i want to tell you a little story first. So back in 2016, a very good friend of mine who became who has become my writing mentor. His name is brian castner. He invited me to come along on a trip with him that he was taking to the Mckenzie River up in the far northern reaches of canada. And he was familiar with the Mckenzie River. Okay. I wasnt either. But this is one of the biggest rivers in north america at its widest point, about two miles across, which is just mind boggling when youre there and youre youre very near to the arctic circle. We went about this time back in 2017 and and we canoe that river. I can use about 350 miles with him. The river is about 1100 miles long. So after i had done ten days with him in the canoe, another one of his friends came and did ten days, and another friend came and did ten days. And another, because none of us could take 40 days off of work like he was doing. So what . Why was he doing this . Why was he trying to recreate . Why was he trying to canoe across this river or down this river . Well, the river had been discovered by well, lets say it was traversed by a european explorer for the first time, and that explorers name was alexander mackenzie. And thats why the rivers named the Mackenzie River. But what he wanted to call the river was disappointment. River, because he had thought that river was going to take him to china. They were looking for the northwest passage. Now, heres whats really interesting about the Mackenzie River. It goes straight west towards china right . So youre like, okay, this makes sense. But then it hits the Rocky Mountains and it flows north into the arctic. Its one of the only rivers that flows north. So when you hit the Rocky Mountains and started going north, he knew he was in trouble. And then he hit the arctic, which was full of ice, and had to turn around and come back. So my friend was recreating this journey to try to tell the story of of how this trip was done, but also to tell this story of how he was basically 250 years too early because now the Mackenzie River is a passage to china. It is used to bring materials in and out because the arctic is melting and the the icebergs that were there in his day, in the 1700s are not there today. So i went along on this trip with him, which was an absolutely Incredible Opportunity to be stuck in a canoe for 16 hours a day with an author who you want to be like someday. So i basically got to pick his brain. 16 hours a day. Once the trip was over and he wrote the book, he was doing some events just like this. And before he went up on stage for one of the events that i went to, he told me this little piece of wisdom. He said, if you ever go to a reading and the author doesnt read from the first page, it means they started the book in the wrong place. Now, i dont know if thats true for every single writer, but i have noticed, like if i go to a reading and they flip to page 60 and they start reading, its like, oh, you might just wanted to start with that. If that was the, if that was the thing that was going to really, you know, pull the reader in. So if you dont mind, id like to read you the first few pages. These are the pages i decided would be the ones to start. Excuse me. A warm summer rain soaked the men as they mounted muddy tanks and stuffed themselves into half tracks or jeeps pointed east the smell of soggy gear and idling engines overpowered the sweet scent of the honeysuckle that claimed the gray siding of a nearby three story in in a darkened shed out behind them in a 43 year old pipe cleaner of a man sat hunched over his portable typewriter, ankle deep in straw, his back curved like a cashew. This morning, we are sort of stymied as far as moving is concerned. He picked out with his index fingers to his wife back home in new mexico. So in order not to waste the day, i dug up a white medal table out of a nearby garden. After nearly three months of hellish fighting through the hedgerow country of france, the americans and their allies were 30 miles from the center of nazi occupied paris. Capturing paris had never been part of the allies plan, which involved a strike through to the low countries across the industrial heartland of germany and straight to the heart of berlin, the Supreme Commander of the allied forces in europe, general dwight d eisenhower, had grave concerns that if he marched his men into paris, they would likely bogged themselves down in brutal street by street combat with seasoned enemy troops and reduce one of the worlds most magnificent cities to a charred graveyard, not even an impassioned plea from the french commander, general general Charles De Gaulle had been able to dissuade him. Then on august 22nd, 1944, the french resistance, his chief of staff, roger goga, slipped through german lines on the outskirts of paris and found his way to general george s patents headquarters. The situation on the ground was not what the americans thought. Kawhi told general Omar Bradleys chief intelligence officer. The Resistance Movement in the capital city had infiltrated the police force, and the week before, 15,000 parisian policemen had gone on strike. More than that, the tens of thousands of resistance fighters had risen up to attack and harass their nazi occupiers, even though they were armed with not much more than anticrime rifles and molotov cocktails. In the days following the police strike, many more parisians of all ages and abilities dug up paving stones collected piles of furniture and other odds and ends, and felled trees to construct an elaborate network of more than 400 street blockades, even though they were outnumbered and now outmaneuvered, the germans were nowhere near outgunned and would eventually crush the insurrection and inflict untold amounts of suffering and destruction as they retreated east. Unless the allies came to the rescue. This new intelligence quickly reached eisenhower, who dispatched the Free French Forces under his command to liberate their capital with american and british backup, while the rest of his forces pushed east and north toward the belgian border. On august 25th, 1944, liberation day in paris after a brilliant sun burned away, the morning mist Ernest Taylor pile, better known as ernie to his millions of readers back home in america, stuffed his typewriter into his case, slung his musette bag over his shoulder, and hopped into a jeep with a couple of fellow combat newspapermen. Through most of the early part of the day, they felt their way through garden like country toward the outskirts of paris, far behind the lead tanks and the more daring allied correspondents such as robert cappa, Ernest Hemingway and don whitehead. The outer rings of the city hadnt been bombed much. Ernie was heartened to find and most of the bridges were still safe to cross, not at all desperate to be the first to secure that coveted liberated paris dateline. Under their bylines, ernie and his companions entered the city from the south along the route, doling where they discovered a pandemonium of surely the greatest mass joy that has ever happened. Women in brightly colored blouses and skirts lined the wide city streets in a carnival like frenzy, leaving only a narrow corridor of pavement pavement for the hulking military vehicles to navigate aging veterans of the francoprussian war stood at attention, saluting their liberators, excited children, bounced and waved. Some ran along jeeps with their hands extended, hoping for a shake, but settling for slaps on the back or pats on the shoulder. The demented choir of shrieking shells and zipping machine gun tracers. The allies had expected to encounter that day, had mostly been replaced by cheers of viva la france and viva la america. Even as pockets of german resistance in the city remained, they tossed flowers and friendly tomatoes into a jeep. Ernie later reported one little girl even threw a bottle of cider into ours. Once, when the jeep was simply swamped in human traffic and had to stop, he wrote, we were swarmed over and hugged and kissed and torn at everybody, even beautiful girls insisted on kissing you on both cheeks. At least one ecstatic woman with full pompadour and flashy earrings reached out to grab ernie by the slack in his collar. Before he could protest, she pulled his gray, bearded face, smudged with dust and lipstick to her wine colored lips. Thank you. Oh, thank you, she squealed between kisses. Thank you for coming. We all got kissed until we were literally red in the face. He later recalled, and we must say we enjoyed it. And at long last, ernies ability to relish in the beauty of the world at war, something he feared might have atrophied inside his chest, suddenly flickered back to life after inching so after inching through so much gratitude and joy for about an hour, ernie had the driver pull over in front of a hotel near the luxembourg palace, across the river from the louvre. Theyd heard scuttlebutt that there were any number of desperate germans holed up in the palace, firing indiscreet minnelli at anything wearing green, while others fought ernie and two United Press Corps spaniards wrote their first dispatches from paris in a room overlooking the street below. I had thought for me there could never again be any elation in war, ernie wrote of that joyous day. But i had reckoned without the liberation of paris, i had reckoned without remembering that i might be part of this richly historic day, the day after the city was liberated. Ernie and crew puttered over the sand and passed the place. De la concord in the gardens of the champselysees air. From there they meandered their way to the gilt edged grand hotel across the street from the allied press camp, taking shape inside the hotel screen. Like mary and joseph, when ernie and his companions arrived at the scribe, they were told there was no room at the inn. Not long after the nazi propaganda officers who had occupied the hotel had fled. Some 200 allied correspondents were under an emotional tension, a pent up semi delirious theme moved in and set up shop through the gilded lobby of the grand hotel, up a set of marble stairs and down the carpeted hallway all the way to the corner. Ernie found a room with clean sheets, but no electricity. From the balcony, three floors above the street, he grinned down in the afternoon sun at the joyous abandon below. After so much darkness, grateful parisians had found the light. Standing there with several correspondents in as genteel, away as his tongue could muster, ernie quipped and nengi, who doesnt get laid tonight, is a sissy. In fact, as one military study later showed, eight out of ten unmarried americans soldiers had liaisons at some point during the war in europe. About half of married soldiers did, too. But not ernie. As the sun began to set, ernie and his buddies made their way back across to the street and claimed a table near the bar on the far side of the room. The booze did what ernie wanted it to. It dissolved him. Soon, a couple of dozen war correspondents had him encircled, eager to hear a tailor too. From the little man everyone loved so much. At one point. The other famous ernie. This is hemingway, bellied up to the opposite end of the bar with a swagger of a lonely warlord, seemingly resentful of pyles command of his hangers on, slap. Hemingway stung the air with a heavy hand on the bar top, a grenade he carried with him just in case. Pulled on the inside pocket of his field jacket. Lets have a drink here. He spat from the corner of his bearded mouth. The bartender, baby sitting ernie and his buddies turned hemingway in motion for him. Im ernest hemorrhoid. He roared across the room. The rich mans ernie pyle. He was such a jerk. Was around 11 00 in between rounds of cocktails. Air raid sirens wailed, snapping everyone back to reality. In a raid, a vicious retaliation in german bombers flew low over the rejoicing city, dropping their payloads and strafing anything that moved back. Suddenly was the little note of fear in ernies stomach. Back was the animal like alertness for the meaning of every distance bound back was the perpetual wait on his spirit that comes with death and dirt and noise and anguish. Gin saddened. Ernie pyle realized he had reached his limit, which should have felt like a gigantic relief. Celebrating the beginning of the end for nazi germany had become another opportunity to die. The german air raid killed as many as 200 people who probably thought their war was over. Another 900 were wounded. The next morning, ernie sent a telegram to his longtime editor, dear friend and amateur businessman major League Miller about dunlop. He started physically everything was fine, but dogged, clear down inside and can barely keep columns going. That final german raid had brought home the truth. Ernie was wrung out. There was nothing left to give. It was time to come home. So theres the first few pages. Now you might say so. This is a biography of ernie pyle. And it takes place during World War Two. But it starts with the liberation of paris. Now, this is a technique again, my writer friend brian taught me. He calls it the four one, two, three, five. So if you imagine the order of your story. One is the beginning. Five is the ending. If you take the fourth piece, write the piece where some sort of crisis or climate x takes place, and you start there. Then all of a sudden, the reader hopefully will go, wait a minute, how did how did we get to this place . And suddenly theyre asking questions and theyre a little bit more curious about about the the story itself. Now, i didnt grow up reading ernie pyle. I dont remember hearing that name. And in fact, the first time that i remember coming across the name ernie pyle was back in 2016 when i was on the island of okinawa doing research for a different project. I was researching my grandfathers battlefield experiences during the war. He was a tank driver during the battle of okinawa and i hired this guide. I had all of his unit records, his company records. I knew where the tanks had been. I knew what battles they fought in. And so this historian was taking me to all the different places around the island. It was an incredible trip. And one of the last places he took me was to a memorial called the cornerstone of peace in okinawa. Now, if anyones ever been to the Vietnam Memorial in d. C. , just imagine about six of those, because thats how many people were killed during the battle of okinawa, about 240,000 people between americans, okinawa and civilians in the japanese defenders. And they have these black granite walls that look like waves coming off the shore, that have all the names inscribed of everyone, not just not just soldiers. And so the the battlefield guide, he said, well, do you know any names of people that your grandfather knew that that were killed . And i must have looked a little panicked because i didnt. My grandfather didnt talk very much about his experiences, which is very common. And he said, oh, dont worry, ill show you a name. I think youll recognize. And so he took me over to the panel and he showed me Ernest Taylor pile. And my first thought was, oh, is this the guy that they based gomer pyle off of . Now, that might sound like a dumb question, but did you know there is a john rambo whos on the vietnam wall . And thats where they got the name john rambo for the rambo movie. So this is not a crazy question to ask. If someone found pyle and came up with gomer pyle. But the guy was so flabbergasted that i did not know who ernie pyle was that he gave me a homework assignment and said, you need to go home and you need to Read Everything that ernie pyle wrote. So this set me on a journey of of researching. What i would argue is the best war correspondent in american history. And what made him so incredible. Im going to quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, who had a column that she wrote on a daily basis. And this was after the north african campaign. So after tunisia and algeria, as the american troops are getting ready to invade sicily. And she says the column, which to me stands out as the most human. And vivid story of the men in the african theater is ernie pyle. I would not miss that column every day if i possibly could help it. And i am sure that many people feel just as i do. So at the height of his popularity, ernie was being read by about 14 million readers, or 14 million households. Six days a week. Anybody today would kill for numbers like that. Like even the most popular news broadcaster might have a few Million Viewers a day. Ernie was reaching 14 Million People, 14 million household. So more than 14 Million People, 60 is a week. He was in 98 of the top 100 cities, newspapers. He his column was syndicated in hundreds of papers across the country, hundreds of weekly papers. They were making a movie about him based on his columns. He had two bestselling books. His phone never stopped ringing. The mail kept piling up. He really did become the voice of of the american soldiers overseas because he gave what was called the worms eye view of the war. Thats how he described it. So where other correspondents were saying, you know, heres the goal with this campaign and heres where this battalion is going to go and heres where this division is fighting. Ernie didnt bother himself with those big sort of strategic issues. He was more concerned about what do the soldiers eat . Where do they sleep . How much do they sleep . You know, what is it like to be on a fire mission in the middle of the night . What is it like to be in a foxhole when youre taking incoming artillery . You know, he was basically answering the questions that people back home had about what it was like for their son or their husband or their brother, whoever it was fighting overseas. Now, when he arrives in paris and he talks about how he never thought there could be any more joy in the world. After everything that he had seen, hes not joking about that. By the time he gets to france, by the time he gets to paris, hes been overseas for about 28 months and hes been on the front lines for about a year of that 28 months. And around the same time, this was in 1944, 1945. I forget the exact date the us military. He published a study where they tried to predict how long a frontline soldier could survive of or how long they could they could thrive, essentially be on the front lines before they would become too exhausted or too broken in some ways in order to continue fighting. And what they predicted was about 200 days. So ernie far surpassed that by the time hes in paris and he thinks, okay, this this is this is the rest and relaxation that i need to keep going. The germans come over, they bomb the city, and thats it. Thats the last straw. And he decides hes got to go home. His biggest fear, though, was that people were going to think he was shirking his duty, that he was leaving, too early, that he hadnt done his job. But i just explained, you know, he for sure had done his job. And in fact, the reception he received was good for you, ernie. Go home. Youve earned it. A few months later, though, he decides that hes not made for home anymore and he decides to cover the war in the pacific. And he meets his his end during the battle of okinawa, only a few days after fdr passed away in april 1945. So when i started learning ernies story, it it felt like his writing was answering so many questions for me, not just about what is war like, but maybe what was war like for my grandfather, for my great, great uncle who fought in north africa for other people that they had gotten to know and starting in 2018, i started working as a columnist for the New York Times at war column and for 2019, their plan was to do this big yearlong series on the Untold Stories of World War Two, or presenting stories, in a way about World War Two that hadnt been presented that way before. And when i found out about this, i asked my editor if i could do a piece about ernie, and she said, ernie pyle, i learned about him in journalism school. What do you want to write . And he said, well, he wrote this absolutely incredible series of columns after dday in june 1944. And so let me do the 75th anniversary of dday, and let me write a piece about ernie pyle. So the piece actually ran on june 5th, and by the end of the day, on june 6th, it had received a million views on the New York Times website, which was the record for that column by a by a long shot. And the paper was so happy that they ran it in the paper instead of just online a few days later. And when you opened up the center, it ran across the top of both pages and had this amazing picture of ernie. Very gratifying as a writer and as a as a wannabe journalist. And then two days after that, i got an email from an editor at a Publishing House who said, i read your piece about ernie pyle. I read the piece you wrote about your grandfather and if you ever want to write a book about ernie pyle, let me know because i would love to read whatever you write about him. I can assure you this does not happen every day. This is a very serendipitous development. So the next monday i get a call with the editor, his name scott and he says, all right, pitch me like, how would you do this book . Well, because there have been other biographies of ernie pyle and people know enough about him that a Million People read the article. So what would i do different . And i had been thinking about this for a long time, and my idea was that i wanted to do what tony horwitz did in confederates in the attic. Do you know this book . If you dont know confederates in the attic, it is brilliant. What he tries to do, what he does in that book is he he wants to answer the question, why are people so obsessed with the civil war all these years later . And why are so many of the things that we fought over during the civil war, things that havent really been resolved . And he does this by becoming a civil war reenactor and traveling all over the southern United States, visiting battlefields, talking to people, interviewing you know, trying to pull the past into the present to help us understand. So thats what i pitched to him. I said, i want to do the Tony Horowitz treatment of ernie pyle. I want to retrace his steps through the war. I want to go to all the places that he went. I want to try to talk to people, see what they remember. Talk to the people who survived those battles. What was it like for them . But also what were what do we know about the war now that maybe ernie didnt know at the time or things that he couldnt report on because the military censorship was pretty strict back then. So i tell this to the editor, and theres all of a sudden this long pause where i think either the the call dropped or i just totally blew it. One of the two. Those are the only options. And he says to me, well, you know, i was tonys editor. I swear i did not know that. But i think his pause was him going, oh, this guy is putting me on right . This guy did his research. Hes putting me on. Now, heres where it gets even a little bit more kind of eerie. Tony horwitz had just passed away. So he died of an aneurysm. I believe it was an aneurysm. He was on book tour. He was going for a walk before his talk and he dropped out totally tragic, totally unexpected. And the funeral had been that week. So he had just come from the funeral. And so my editor, scott, said, write up a proposal. I think the world needs another tony horwitz. I think ernie pyle is a great vehicle for this. Lets do it. So between, you know, going from thinking ernie pyle is the inspiration for gomer pyle to, you know, having an editor reach out to me and saying, i think people need to hear ernies story and i think they need to hear it in the way that you want to tell. It was incredibly gratifying. And, you know, i want to say its one of those experiences where you cant really put the pieces together until you turn turn around and look to see how you got here. But for me, its been an incredible journey. Ive learned so much about ernie and and i was so excited to share his stories with with a wider readership. So thank you all for listening to me pontificate about how this book came into being. Im happy to answer any questions you might have about ernie or about the writing process or anything. Im an open book. Yes, maam. And if you if you think. Oh, well. Or is there like a handheld one . Maybe. Or i could repeat your question, too, if you like. Yeah, ive been wondering what other than reading your thoughts. A great idea. Right now, im just curious where i started as a war correspondent in europe. Sure. So the question is, how did ernie start as a war correspondent . And thats actually, i think, one of the more interesting parts of his story is that he was very much the least likely newspaperman that you would look at and say, oh, hes going to be the greatest war correspondent that ever lived. So he was a very small man. He was much older than the soldiers he was covering. He was in his early forties. He looked like he was probably a Lieutenant Colonel or a general or something. He just sort of blended in and he had this way of of sort of being a fly on the wall and doing a lot of listening. And then he didnt, you know, have his notebook out. He he would go back to a camp or to a hotel or wherever he was staying. He would write up his columns and then hed go back out in the field and so where did he learn how to do that . He learned how to do that from being a roving correspondent during the depression. So hed crisscrossed the United States about 35 times, starting. In 1931, i believe, until 1937, 38. And he kind of took turns off and on, but he traveled all over the place trying to find the stories that other newspaper people had not picked up or didnt think were important. And that really became his style. It was finding ordinary people that were doing something extraordinary and then telling that story and really kind of shining a light on the the tremendous diversity of people in the United States. Right. So then when the war started, he was very torn. He didnt know some of his his friends had started getting drafted because the military needed press officers, censors, you know, people with newspaper experience. So a lot of newspaper people were being drafted even if they were older. And he didnt have any kids. So he was really nervous that he was going to be next and he didnt want to be a private on some base running a typewriter. That was his biggest fear. And so he was trying to figure out some other way that he could help the war the war effort. And he told his editors, he said, well, what if you just send me to the united kingdom, where all the troops were amassing and getting ready for the invasion of north africa . And he said, what if you just send me over there and just let me do my thing, let me travel around, ill ask questions, ill listen ill tell ill write the letters home. How you pitched it. Im going to im going to meet all these soldiers. Im going to write their letters home to their family and his draft board in d. C. Told him, you have six months and then you better come back. So six months, he has this this, you know, clock ticking. And by the time the six months is up, his column has gotten picked up by so many newspapers that people are like we want ernie. We want ernie. There were these, you know, and so his editors went to the draft board and they said, you know, you could draft down, but look at what you know youd be missing out on and look at how much he can help the war effort by telling these kinds of stories. And so his draft board said, well, we cant give him a deferment because that wouldnt be fair. So anyone from the vietnam generation is probably going, oh, wait a minute, why now . But it was it was hard to get a deferment during World War Two. So what his draft board said was, well give him a non deferment. Deferment, which basically means as long as he keeps reporting hes got he as long as hes serving the war in that way. So there is a little bit of pressure when its time to finally go home where hes thinking, well, i havent done enough yet. I have to keep this was part of the deal was i have to keep doing this work now. Its a lot more complicated than that. And and i go into a lot more depth into the book, but essentially thats how he got his start. Was he was really good at getting people open up and and he was really good at observing and reporting back the most important details that people were really hungry to learn about. And it just took off from there and his well, when he first goes over there, its the paper thats paying for everything. And he was very frugal. He was a child of the depression. And theres actually not a child, but a person of the depression. He has this little book where he kept track of all of his expenses and would write letters to his editors and say, look, i only spent 4 in the last. You know, however many days because he wanted to be affordable for them. But once his column took off and he got a credited and he was an official war correspondent, then the military paid for his travel, his meals his protection, all that stuff. Yes. Well, im glad you mention Eleanor Roosevelt. Yeah. So he had a column that ran. So, yes. When i mean, yes, a lot of other instances where that has passed. He was writing. So the question is, did did ernie cross paths with Eleanor Roosevelt or any of the roosevelts. Well say. So i had i had kind of a chuckle reading some of his letters from, the time when fdr was running for his third to his third. Why cant i think of the name, his term, third term, and he had written all these letters about great. Now were going to have a dictator in the United States. And, you know, were only supposed to have two terms. And whats this fdr guy . And, you know, he had this kind of sort of funny response to it before he ever became a war correspondent. Eleanor roosevelt was a big fan of his because he wrote a lot of pieces that helped to kind of shine a light on depression era america, which was, you know, something that she was very passionate about addressing. And so they were they were sort of fans of each other from a distance. And at one point, Eleanor Roosevelt invited while ernie was overseas, he was getting ready for the invasion of sicily. She wrote him a letter and said, you know, stop by my place in new york, you know . And he was like, you know, im im getting ready to go to sicily. Im not going to be able to make it. And then she was a big supporter of his work. She wrote about him in her column at least a couple of times. And then there was ernie visited the white house at one point and met fdr. And one of his trips back and forth. Fdr was a big supporter of the work that he was doing, as well as because it was especially at that time when they met, it was later in the war when the war was starting to go into the allies favor. But the costs of the war were not totally understood, especially the human costs. And that was something fdr was was interested in having newspapermen and photographers starting to. And thats where i think, you know, the power of his dday piece of ernies dday is theres no blood, theres no guts. But when you read the piece, you have this intense feeling of, wow, thats what this cost. Right . Yes. Yes. The allies were successful, but it cost a lot and it was going to continue to cost. The war wasnt over any time soon, you know. So he was ernie was able to kind of deliver those hard truths at a time when people really needed them. Yes, sir. 40 oh oh. Thank you. A little bit about his wife. Yes. So ernie was married to a woman named geraldine. Everyone called her jerry and was a very interesting character. I wish i could have found more information about her, but shes she didnt keep a lot of records. We have a couple of articles that were written about her, but but for the most part, she was a very private person, mostly because she suffered with mental illness. And i talked to a few psychiatrists and kind of gave them the rundown of some of the things that jerry had experienced. And they all thought that she likely had bipolar disorder. Obviously, its very difficult to diagnose someone from 80 years and without ever having met them, but that seemed to fit the pattern. And that was at a time she was she would have been, you know, when she was struggling with that. They didnt have a bipolar disorder diagnosis. They didnt have medication. They didnt really have any idea of how to treat it. And so during the thirties, jerry rode along with ernie on the road. They were a team and there is some evidence to suggest that she did quite a bit of the of ernies pieces or that, you know, she would transcribe his notes into kind of a first outline or she would smooth or polish some of the pieces that he was writing. And ernie really saw her as his muse, as was his companion, as his editor. And she started to, you know, get sicker because the illness it became harder for her to stay on the road. She had really bad bouts of depression. She had to be institutional wise a couple of times. Then the war started and this is where, again, ernie was. You know, i try to tell as much as i can of this in the book without judging it. But ernie, essentially felt like there wasnt anything he could do to help her. And that because she was so ill, he might as well go overseas and cover the war, which was a very convenient way for him to think about it. Right. But at the time, there wasnt a ton of treatment that she could receive. That was that was very helpful. She was she was prescribed bromides, was prescribed barbiturates. She was told to drink herself, to sleep by the doctors, that that would help. She received electric Shock Therapy in the early days of like i said, she institutionalized several times. At one point, ernie jerrys doctor suggested that ernie divorce her so that it would shock her into behaving. So this was at a time when folks just did not understand. I think, in fact, if anyones out here thinking, hey, i would like to write a book someday, write a book about how women experienced health care in the thirties and forties. My goodness. So they had this very kind of coded pendant sort of relationship and then when ernie was gone, jerry would get worse, and then he would home and she would get a little bit better and then hed get ready to leave again. And then she would get worse and at the time, ernie thought that this was her trying to make him feel bad, or this was her trying to stop his his career or to his professional goals. But, you know, as was looking back on the archival record, because they wrote a lot of letters between each other, i could tell that they really loved each other, i think. But they were sort of mismatched for the time in the place and it gets harder, though, the farther you get into ernies story, the more you feel from his letters and his writings, like how badly he just wants to be home with his wife and and how that that home wasnt ever really there. All right. Well, i think thats my time. Thank you all. Ill be outside signing books and this is great. I appreciate