Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author 20240703

The middle of anywhere you should have access to staffs reliable internet. We are leading the way. Media, along with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. Resident doctor andrew weiss sitting in the middle. University distinguished professor of history in the school of humanity at the university of southern mississippi. I. Reese also the founding director of the dell center for the study of war and society. Several major publications including vietnams forgotten heroism and betrayal for which she won the society for military history distinguished book award. So i know i mispronounce part of that. But take it away. [applause] good afternoon. I have the arm today of posting america war panel here at the mississippi book festival id like to thank the festivals organizers especially ellen rogers and daniels who is out early b wearing this beautiful dress with butterflies on it. You all think or if you see here. And i would like to thank the audience members both here in person and on cspan for joining us today. You will earn a treat you a aren for a trout treat we talk about for books that cover the entire span of u. S. Military history. All the way from how the creeks were set up as a nation to Operation Iraqi freedom and beyond in 2003. Verse and like to introduce our panelists in the order they appear in your program which is also they appear the order i put questions their way first debate to my far rates is emily who worked as a familyy physician on the Navajo Nation for many years. Then taught science and math in rural colorado shes the author of poetry collectionll manifold poetry of mathematics but i do not understand poetry or mathematics i would need to read that at some point her to her problems have appeared in journals today she should discuss her book title 1000 pages left behind. One soldiers account of jungle warfare in world war ii burma. Next is doctor Heather Marie a colleague a fight in the History Department the university of southern mississippi and a senior fellow in southern the study of war and society. She is the author of many books. I will mention to hear saigon at war South Vietnam in the global 60s and beyond combat women and gender in the vietnam war era. S today doctors here to discuss her new book title 21 days to baghdad. And the Third Infantry Division in the iraq war. Next step to my far left is Peter Cozzensit author or editor of 18 acclaimed books on the American Civil War and the indian wars of the American West is also a member of the Advisory Council in 2002 he was awarded American Foreign Service Association highest honor that william our risk and award given annually to one of the Foreign Service officer for their exemplary moral courage integrity and creative dissents. Today peters here to discuss his newest book titled a brutal reckoning Andrew Jackson the creek indians and the epic war for the american south. A final panelists today to my immediate left is chris who is the creator, host, lead writer legends of the old west longform narrative podcast that tells true stories of the American West produce a masters degree in journalism from the Walter Cronkite school of journalism at Arizona State university. As one numerous local, state, National Awards for his writing great today chris is here to discuss his first book titled the summer of 1876. Now lets begin our discussion and i propose to deal with the books in order the authors were just introduced which means i will throw couple questions to emily first. For those of you who have not had a chance to read her book emily is 1000 pages left behind is detachment 101 of the u. S. Army that operated behind japanese lines in the burma theater of world war ii. The unit in which her father served. Japanese had rolled the victories against both us and the british in Southeast Asia ever since pearl harbor leaving us in the military ropes in onee of our first local counterattacks was through the use of special operators with the daunting task of penetrating behind a japanese live ensuing chaos in the tranquil struggles ofce burma. As one of great success. Operating against all odds and fearfuln terrain alongside the local Indigenous Group of the kitchen people i knew i would get that wrong. My first people today why do you think your fathers unit was so successful against such long odds . What did they do right . As you i mentioned this is st of a memoir that was a long time coming. Its 60 years after the fact. He was, for the majority of the time in burma but for the purposes of the book we say burma because thats where all the literature refers to at the time. The americans b were in the northern part of burma and the oss and other intelligence Gathering Services its offices for Strategic Services for those who might not know. It was a military intelligence group. They also, later in the war had the mandate to cause trouble in addition to getting information they were very successful in that. I think the underlying thread through his book that he mentions a lot the most important thing he did there was to learn the language of the local people. Ask for their advice and others were very respectful of the culture of the people. He is a 21yearold figured out the way to survive any village or town he went to haywood asked elders if they would consider going as advisors. All of his adventures he always had a group of elder advisors who went with him. I think this was really key to the extraordinary success they had. I think the oss has a whole has less than 1000 casualties there were at least 15000 casualties in that conflict. Most of it was probably because of the people in the help they gave us and a lot of us dont know about that but thats part of the reason he went to get the book out. Ask the next question i want to ask the china burma india theater is probably the least research especially in the u. S. Theater of world war ii. I teach a class on world war ii and the people are even more underresearched. I had never heard of t them whih i hate to admit his someone who gives final exams on world war ii. Who were they . And why are they so understudied as well . There are a lot of groups which people probably know. There ispl in many different people even in northern vermont. This is the Largest Group in the area wherehe the americans were which is the very north of burma the british were a little south of there. And so they were a good group affiliated with because they did not want anyone invading their country the japanese that already started to do this. Youre already fighting at that point when we arrived. They were a natural ally. And they did a lot for us. Real understanding heroes of that war. Her dad had this wonderful chance to go to burma to reconnect. How long after the war was that . Did he meet anybody hed actually served with because theyll be so fascinating. Yes. All of the veterans wanted to do something for a long time. They mostly were not able to for lots of different political reasons and things going on. But when they all reached retirement age most of their family obligations were outoftheway they started it at that time there was little window and was happening in burma also. So they started some projects to help they had three different projects most brickandmortar schools one is they translated the book where there is no doctoror which is a david warner book thats been around for a while they distributed those but the main project was project old soldier which was a farm promoting thing they got seeds and expertise from agricultural people in the United States. When we went over. This was in the mid 90s from 96 until the last return who was involved died in 2017 the cap this program going. They met a lot of people who were in his battalion but most of the ones in position saturday died. There are a lot of people who served with him that he got to visit it was a really wonderful experience. If you had a chance to read the book you will understand the genesis of it dates only back to your father tell you stories when you were young. What is it like to write a book about your father and what process did you have to go through to collect the y storie . No doubt yourr memory of some of those campfire stories have beloww perishable. When it became apparent my dad was not going to write his book my youngest brother sat him down the tape recorder and a map of burma that was very detailed. We went through looked at where he went he told all the stories. So we had that so 17 tapes transcribed with about 800 pages of stories. Well he was still alive we sit down with him and start working on editing it. For a couple of years editing. Even after he died we continue to edit in fact check. Some of the stories we did not include Secondhand Stores anything he told that happened is some one else, we stuck to what happened to him. We tried the best we could to fact check but then most the people by that time were gone so that. Ard to do there is a book by ray with his Commanding Officer behind the burma road theres other of the historian wrote a book we use those to touch base. It was difficult we tried to do the best we could. If you read it you will note knowwhat it is its an oral hisy told by an old guy who had a lot of great war stories. But had some really good insights into war on foreign soil and what we do and we do that. Except he preached these great books i only have about 10 minutes worth of questions before active onto the nextng o. This is going to be the last for this one if you read the book it has so many Great Stories to my favorites your dad get shot in the butt by a bullet ricochet and a tiger attacking people of all things you have a favorite story t stuck with you the most . I do. My favorite story was a story called guide for general merrill. My dad sent a message he was needed to provide a guide across the stick track of flat jungle. So real briefly went to the elders and asking to get me a guide they all said no we cant know it has been across there. There was one guy who hunted in their one up and said he had a son maybe he could guide you. So they bring hishi son up his n is maybe 12. Every went over the average height is about five four hes also very tiny. We used toki love to hear the story where kids because this little boy says yes i can do this. So my dad takes into general merrill he kind of looks at him but he says okay. So this child leads them through 40 miles of jungle its a great and interesting story because it tells you a little about the people and how responsible they are at such an early age and they know so much about the jungle. So that is my favorite. The merrill she refers to is the famous. Its a big thing for 12 year old to do. The sign for heather to get in the hot seat. I was going to say nobody heres had a chance to read the book its not out yet. Its this wonderful thing when you first get to hold your book in your hand and i got to see dr. Sturt hold her book for her first time in her hand the day that book is 21 days to baghdad, which focuses Operation Iraqi freedom through the career and eyes of general buford blount, who led the us forces of the Third Infantry Division into baghdad in 2003. In baghdad in 2003. Book thats part biography and part history. How does the character hold together because he has complicated history . The first thing that drew me general blunt himself. One of his sisters did genealogy of the family and able to trace ancestry back to a couple of brothers who bought in 1066 so they have a long military tradition in their family. Theyre had ancestors who fought in almost every u. S. War since the american revolution. And so that Family History made him fascinating to me as i got to know him and learn about that. He also has deep roots in mississippi. Relatives in mississippi as early as the beginning of the 19th century eventually settled in the area. He lived in germany, went to high school in london. He just had. A fascinating life himself as the son of a career military officer, his dad was in the air force after world war ii and cold war. And so i was interested in general blunt himself and then as i got to talk to him especially about the invasion of iraq and t the drive to baghdadt became very clear to me how central he was to what went on on the ground in the invasion from crossing from kuwait to iraq all the way to baghdad and i will give 3 examples of that. One, he made the decision early onto split the division take two routes for baghdad, paved road, the highway, the going through the western desert. We do that in a paved road and will take us a long time or split off the tracked vehicles can handle going on the desert sand and meet up just outside of baghdad before the invasion. The reason he came up with that idea is because he spent several years serving with the u. S. Army in saudis. Arabia, he was the adviser to the modernization of the guard, particularly imagining tanks as warfare and it was from that experience that he could quick more quickly. He sold it to superiors and the division did that. Another example to howho the invasion played out is that he pushed for speed. Speed in terms of get to go baghdad. Any waiting allow it is enemy to regroup, figure out what they are doing even when others caution. The division made it to baghdad in 21 days, drive that was initially thought to take 6 months, they did it in 3 weeks. They were supposed to get just outside the city and the 101st first airborne was going to go into baghdad but what blunt realized that one of the areas where the iraqis had some success against u. S. Forces was with their antiaircraft forces. They were shooting down helicopters and really getting at american air power in a way that americans hadnt expected. The iraqis are going to have a chance and get in the way of being successful in an air assault. Let the third id make a land assault into baghdad where we trained for this, we are prepared forhi this and i know that my division can make this happen and, again, his superiors gave him the green light and so the third id ended up being the division that was the first into baghdad. So he h it became very clearo me as i was getting to know him and talking to him that as a Division Commander he actually was very significant to how the invasion of iraq and the drive to baghdad and the entry into baghdad played out. Of course, the conquest to baghdad so quickly and really unexpectedly was an incredibly military feat for blunt and military division was able to pull off. Sadly, we know the war did not end there but rather devolve in long and frustrating surgency. What did blunt think and was this war a success, failure, i know as a player in the war he has to be guarded about that but as, a historian perhaps you can weigh in a little more. Soo the division arrived in baghdad, they completed the commission. Initially it was to get to the outskirts to baghdad and then to get into baghdad, secure the city and that is the mission. That was the mission that the division trained for, that was the mission that the division executed. But once the division was in baghdad it became clear that there wasnt a plan for what happened next. Part of the reason is how quickly the division arrived in baghdad, planners in the pentagon were trying to figure out the next phase because they didnt expect baghdad to fall as quickly as they did. Sola there wasnt a plan in plae for what happened next orceps who would take over once the Third Infantry Division and the other elements, the 101st airborne, 82nd airborne, who was going to come in, and take ove. Meanwhile the conversations are being had, whatwh is going to happen next, general blunt decided, well, the third id is here and we know that iraqi citizens have needs so what we are going to do is meet the needs to the best that we can since we are here. So he began to go out, he would go on his own or a couple of members of his staff and walkthrough neighborhoods and see if there were people out that he could talk to do find out, okay, what do people need. People needed electricity turned back on, Saddam Hussein had a policy where he electrified the partsup where he had support and did not electrified where he didnt have support. Sometimes that involved having to find the person that had the key to the power plant in the neighborhood to let them in to let them in and he was on the ground doing this with his staff. Another thing to see what was needed in hospitals, if hospitals were equipped or if there was mig that the division could provide to hospitals, making sureos that people had propane for their cooking stoves. That was the way most iraqi kitchens k operated, they needed propane. So what his mind set was, we want the people of baghdad to believe that what we did was good for them and so if were here, were still here, lets try to make their basic needs met. Now, one to have issues there are a lot of complicating factors one of them being the soldiers of the Third Infantry Division and their families back home understood the divisions mission toca be capture baghdad, secure baghdad and once that is done, someone else is going to come in and take care of the post war activities, well, the third id achieved that mission but they werent coming home and so soldiers began to morale of soldiers began to decline, families back home, stewart, georgia where thein third infany is headquartered began to get restless, there were some spouses who wrote newspapers to the post wrote letters to the post newspaper expressing this. Why arent our family members coming home, we were told that they were to get to baghdad, they did that, they should be home by now and because of that, conversations about the soldiers morale the division began to be withdrawn and general blunt asked to stay. Send my soldiers home, keep me with the team. Second brigade, general blunt felt that what happened in fallujah was an example to have success that could continue in iraq if there could be some continued of u. S. Presence there. There was unrest in fallujah, antiamerican sentiment but the commander of the second brigade and some of his staff met with the mayor of fallujah and city leaders like general blunt had done in baghdad and figured out what they could do to help in fallujah and from general blunts perspective subdued the antiamericanism and he holds fallujah in 2003 of the success that could have been in the local engagement had continued. Another issue that posed a problem was that the administration of george w. Bush didnt want to have a large heavy Division Like the third infantry, Armored Division remain in iraq. They had done the job that they were given so they needed to come home and then it would be diplomats andnd others who would handle what was going to happen inin iraq and regime change and nation building and those sorts of things. And so the Third Infantry Division recalled by 2003. I talked to his the commanders that were under him and one conversation i had with his Public Affairs officer, mike birmingham, he said that as hes leaving theres no sense among anyone in the third id that anything good is going to come once theyre gone, that theyre already aware the unrest is happening and as we know there was a long and drawn out war in iraq that continued until 2011. And so for general blunt i think he would be honest and say hes very proud of what the division accomplished in terms of the quickness with which they made it to baghdad and the way they achieved the mission for which they trained but its disappointing to see what came after and i think he might say that it was unnecessary, so well, sadly our ten minutes are up because i want to hopefully leaf time for audience questions at the end. So ill move all the way to my left Peter Cozzens and back brutal awakening and monumental and hard to encapsulate on this one, a couple of questions. But creek war that is ran alongside the u. S. War of 1812 and it looks at the creek wars through the eyes of both native fighters and their society and through the eyes of the fledging and the bubbling u. S. Militias, some of the most momentous in u. S. History, central the opening lands to white settlement, infamous trail of tears and finally also central to the rise of Andrew Jackson, became pivotal and controversial figure in u. S. History. My first question to peter then, with such gate importance why did the wars of the American West againstti the native americans have much more play and this one gets so ignored . Thats a very good question and im guilty of that myself because this book is the final volume in a trilogy that i wrote on the west ward expansion of the United States beginning with the end ofeg the revolutionary r through the indian wars of the west. Like everyone else because cinema, popular fiction and all i associated the indian wars with the American West and some of the first line in my trilogy, weeping, the epic story of the indian the whatever. Epic story of the indian wars is the American West and i realized when i finished it, wait a minute conflict that is made victory overor the native americans in the west possible, conflicts were foughtht east of the Mississippi River specifically in the whats isll called the old northwest or modern midwest and in the deep theh and that it was victories in these two areas that, again, made the outcome in the west, you know, foregone conclusion but neither the war that was fought against chief in the midwest or the creek war were at all inevitable in their outcomes. If you read either of both books youll see that the war could have gone against the United States and it very nearly did. I think partt of it is hollywoo, the American West made for sexier cinema, its something about the american part of the buffalo bill and wild west show that is so, you know, imprinted the American West and the quickly became legendary fights against the indians and the american consciousness and also the european consciousness whereas the things that happened east of mississippi were overtaken by the American Civil War andr other developments and never received the the attention that they deserved or recognition of how central they were to the creation of the United States. This is such a complex story that when you read the book and its a fascinating book Andrew Jackson doesnt really show up like for the first third of the book, hes hes more of a character foror the last twothirdstw of the book, so muh of the beginning of the book centers on the creek indians themselves investigating their culture all the way back to first brush with fernando de soto, what did you get at the creek indians and what kind of sources, how were you able to capture their story because the story does come through vividly . Its difficult, the harder it is to obtain any primary accounts be they indians themselves or whites who interacted with them. But o to lay thicks out quickly, in the south at the time of the outbreak of the war of 1812 when the heart of the action of the book occurs, it was divided up between four tribes, cherokee,w the creek, the chickasaw and choctaw. They controlled all of modern alabama and all of western georgia. They were a hugey power and thy also made possible their existence made possible the continued spanish presence in florida. In a way i got to creek source, there had been over the course of time t from the time of the mefirst english colonists there had been a lot of intermarriage among the creeks and english colonists and later americans. In fact, the majority of leaders in the creek war who opposed the United States had names like william weatherford, josiah francis. They were mixed breeds, mixed casts or however you want to pit, mestizo, some of them were literate and left letters and recollections that i was able to draw from creekbu culture but to really develop the picture of the creeks i had to rely on first europeans who livered or traveled among them later on theirr indian agent i also delvd to spanish sources from spain that had not been used before but it was difficult. It was very easy and weeping to get at the indian side of the story because so many of the participants in those conflicts were alive in the 20th century and were interviewed by by anthropologists and others told their stories, the farther back you went the harder it was. A lot of it i had to piece together if the perspective of white observers. But fortunately there were enough, you know, mixed mixed race who left records that i was able to draw that also. As the person of more researches modern battles when i read about some of the battles between largely the red sticks on one side, the faction of the creeks and the various u. S. Militias from the others, what i was stunned by the inept it rude, they attack the wrong village and they run out of stuff and half of the army goes the wrong way. The creek war started ago civil war among the creeks, one faction of the creeks mostly who lived in the upper portion of creek country against those in the southern portion. The ones in the upper portion called themselves red sticks and they essentially want today tarevitalize traditional culture and opposed american pressure on their count whereas the lower creeks had begun to become somewhat i become integrated into American Economy and so it started in civil war and then became a larger war against the United States where part of the creeks actually fought withth te United States but one of the things that made it difficult for the red sticks, the hostile creeks was a the nature of creek society. The creek it was not a nation like the cherokee, the creek were a confederacy, a group offing of largely independent villages throughout alabama and western georgia that were essentially autonomous and seldom came together for any single purpose and so that made it difficult forhe either the rd sticks or the lower creeks who opposed to act in a unified fashion,co coherent fashion to plan a longterm strategy that mightma succeed. That was that was the principal difficulty on the on the side of the red sticks. And they also unfortunately for them they initiated the war a year about a year too early. If they had waited until the british had gotten rid of napoleon and sent troops to the gulf coast i think the british race, combination would have won for the creeks and the british controlled the coast, gulf coast for some timet to come but that wasnt the case. Ineptitude was equal onn the american side and that largely was due to logistical problems. The Administration James madison was so busy fighting the british that as important though it was to defeat the red sticks and maintain control of the south they pretty much let the states of tennesseete and georgia and e mississippi territory doing do things on their own. The three of them, tennessee, georgia and mississippi, they werere separated by modern day alabama, western georgia, they couldnt coordinateth among themselves, they had very little assistance from f the federal government and they had really just badre logistical system. So it was it was a mess. Sadly i have time for one more question but might be the hardest ones. Americans turned good military commanders, bad ones, westmoreland comes to mind. Jackson fit in there . Im still not 100 what to make of him. I really try to get into him as much as into his soul, persona as i could in the book, not only him but also his relationship with his wife, with his subordinates. The two things that you could say for Andrew Jackson, he was not wanting personal courage, the guy had guts and that started when he was a kid young teen and wounded in the revolutionary war by a british officer, in the head, had personal courage and had real sense of purpose andur perseverance that other american militia,ti commanders, volunteed commanders, state and territory governors lacked and by the time Andrew Jackson achieved victory for the United States in the creek warls everyone else had pretty much given up, mississippi territory, their volunteers had gonean home, wel, weid are not going to be invaded so let the red sticks have alabama and western georgia, georgia they called their troops home. They kind of threw in the towel and even the governor of tennessee said that jackson, hey, i want you to come home theres no threat to tennessee. Give it up to jackson. Almost all of his troops, a few troops and people in this room remained with him at one point and the rest went home. He sat there in creek territory, i came for a purpose and see the war to a conclusion, not because he hated the red sticks, not that he hated the indians but he hated the british with the passion and mother had died taking care of american prisoners inev the revolutionary war and he hated the british. The u. S. Government gave him regiment of regular troops. He got some capable volunteers from tennessee and he also got a huge contingent of cherokee indians who actually if you read the book actually won the decisiveht battle for him. Horseshoe wass won by the cherokee and not jackson. Jackson conveniently ignored that to report the battle. I suggest him, w i give him personal courage, he was a terrible loggistition, he just didnt realize that napoleon maxim that soldiers fight on full stomach or they dont fight at all. He did not understand that. He wasnt the the best tactical leader because he tempted to t be sort of he hd hard time adapting to to changes in the course of combat. I grew up in famous stories, cowboys, battles and little did i know until i read this book that merelyar all those stories were condensed together and happened in the transformative in the summer of 1876. The james gang got upshot in northfield. Battle of bighorn, hickok, everything seemed to be crammed together into this summer. So, chris, what got you interested in this specific year. Figure out all this stuff happened in this year and what made you want to write a book abouted it . I figured out through the podcast that i introduced. I had researched each one of the stories. Theres probably five main story lines in the book. I had researched each one individually over the course of trying to produce long form podcast series about them but i quickly realized that i had never seen a book to put all of them together and suddenly hit me that each book that i had read focused on jesse james or Wild Bill Hickok and the other people and once i realized that there was about a 90day period from mid june to mid september in 1876 that so many of these huge pivotal events all happened in the 90day period. I thought that would be an interesting book. I would love to write a book that focuses on the overlap of the stories and not so much a deep dive into any one of those because you can read wonderful biographies of masterson and endless books about custer and crazy horse and sitting bull and Northern Plains, one that i would recommend from the gentleman to my left, the earth hois weeping which you mentioned earlier. I wanted todi focus on the contt and the overlap. You mentioned that you are the host of a very popular long forum podcast. Im a writer and have never done podcast. Podcast and broke into writing, how was that transition, what was the difference between the craft of the written word and the crafter of the spoken word . C oh, my gosh, the difference, huge difference is you dont have to think about music when youre writing a book. When i write podcast, essentially relatively audio books but they have music and sound effects in them but so the podcast series that we produce end up being hybrids with old style radio dramas and modern audio book and i constantly have to think about how to write the podcast scripts to the music or envision what kind of music is going to play underneath the section and i had to go choose all the music and whole different level of protection so it was a little bit freeing to just simply write the book and not have to worry about how i am going to have to myself read it and then hate my own while doing that and then chose all the music and figure how to get the whole thing edited. Theres other people that can handle that stuff. The dreaded editor. One off the things that would have been daunt to go me as as a writer of this book when you read it, i hope you do get a chance to read it, youve got nine plates spinning all of the time. In each chapter theres going to be a little bit on masterson and then jump to the background of little bighorn and suddenly were in the east forming National League baseball. How do you keep all that together because its its sounds daunt to go me . It is, it was very daunting and mind melting. It was just dumb. I dont know what am i doing. This is absurd, choosing five full story lines and each have whole list of characters that go with each one of them and trying to sprinkle in subsets and substorylines beneath those, i thought, this is a great concept and theres a pretty huge difference betweence concept and practicality and doing it in theory or the theory of it and doing in practice it turned out to be there was some soul searching that happened in the early part of the writing of the book that i just ended up plowing through and getting done. It became a balancing act of both time management and how much time i could spend researching each one of those threads and what becomes vitally important to put in the book and which are most important and it really became a balance of priorities. Ri now, one of the things that fascinating me about the book having a dilttante in this area that there seemed to be two or three bar owners that seemed to own a bar every time one of the western guys got in a fight, they got in the fight with bar owners in a different town. Did that surprise you that the barhe owners seemed to be the cx about which everything sprung . To some degree, you start researching each individual topic liketh the wife of wyatt d wife of hickok and you see the same names. There was a saloon owner web thompson who youre thinking of when youre revising that question, who owned a saloon in dodge city. Then to a larger extent because billy spent part of his life on the run for having killed a couple of folks he shouldnt have killed, they ended up being a forest gump character where he seemed to be in the right time and he absolutely had runins with Wild Bill Hickok in dodge in abilene, kansas and then, of course, Little Village in texas called sweetwater where he owned a saloon where he ended help saving mastersons life. So i reading those names in those books, thats what start today really provide the line for the one i wanted to write, the same t guys kept popping upn the hot spots around the west. Its going to be like asking you to pick your favorite child which one is your favorite, neverr to answer but there areo many great characters in the stories, now the one that perhaps gets the most physical space is custer and little bighorn but is there one that just fascinating you the most out of this what six major stories and characters . I think i will be partial for wild hickok, but he ended up dying when he was 39 years old and typically when you see a in the moviesim hes always played by an actor that is significantly older than 39 years old and i dont know how much of a conscious choice goes into that or find a really good named actor to play that role and hopefully you will get people to watch the movie but he did seem like he lived live of ten men. By the time he was 39 you cant believer that as Single Person was all of those places and did all of those things and so thats why i keep getting drawn to him for a quick note, i think peter was talking about a talking about why people are drawn to certain elements of the west and the American West and, of course, i think you were talking about hodwood cinema fixating on certain types of things and the audience wants to see gunfights and bank robberies. Im a lover of the old west and ii want to see those things and hear about those things and one of the cool moments. I think i learned at some point but what people might not know that Wild Bill Hickok participated in what is assumed to be the first recorded quick draw gunfight in the American West. Ny if you remember anyos of the movies where two guys walk into the street and pull their guns and the faster guy livers and the slower does not, that almost never happened in the American West. Very few f instances where that actually happened and it just so happens that wild hickok was in one of those fights in springfield, missouri right after the civil war and since he lived beyondas that he was declared the winner and the other guy was not. So thats one of the few, one of the early distinctions of hickoks life. One last question to bring us back to the theme of the panel, america, you have an infamous commander ors famous commandern your book custer, was he good . Was he a good commander or was he not . Oh, was he a good commander, i think he was in strict military sense andnd i certainly have to qualify this i am not a military expert but i guess i would say that in a military sense he seemed like he could device a strategy but i dont know if i would call him a good commander. He seemed in the research ive done andnd certainly peter has done for Much Research than i have but he seemed to be all the stereotypes you probably heard they seem to be true that he seemed to have a lot of arrogance to him, freelancer who would go and do what he wanted t to do regardles of what kind of military circumstance he was ins. He was also very much a glory lead to his end and informed his Decision Making when he brought roughly 600 soldiers toward a native American Village of about 8,000 people, a thousand or two thousand of which were warriors, so when he realized what he was potentially up against and had chances toin do things differeny he chose not to and he chose to just go for it and hoped that he could make it work like he always had in the past and this time, of course, didnt. Well, technically were over time because we got started about 15 minutes late. Would there be time for audience questions . Your call. I would love having heard this great conversation and somegr wonderful books and some important commanders across american history, do we have any questions from the audience for any of our panelists . And that means get up and ask a question. Hi, there, i have a question kind of initially i was thinking your book about the creeks and Andrew Jackson but i guess technically for all of them, what what role does the terrain that these warriors, that these people in history are fighting on, how does that impact both how they fight and kind of just overall, you know, i guess their campaigns in the war or in these battles . Oh, man. Thats an excellent question and i think all of americas wars against against the indians, the native american warriors had an a advantage in knowing the terrain and knowing how to make best use of it beginning with the defeat of almost the entire United States army in 1791 in when Arthur Sinclair stumbled against a con confederacy all the way to fighting apaches, the knowledge the indians had of terrain in many cases did compensate for generally inferior numbers that had. So that i could spend a whole hour talking about it easily but thats very good question and very relevant and relevant in the creek war too because the creek country by in large was terra incognito for militia forces that invaded it and they were going in blindly a good part of the time. I guess the only jump in, it was a huge part of the battle of little big horn. If youve never been there, it is incredible. Series of Rolling Hills and you can stand up there and stand in various places where some of the battles happened and just look in 360 and see all the hills around you and picture all of them swarming with warriors who were firing arrows and bullettings nonstop and imagine how terrifying being warriors and when youre there you can trace the movement of the soldiers in custers units by the tombstones as they died. They have done ave pretty good b of marking the graves roughly where the bodies were found after the battle and in more recent times excuse me i dont know exactly when but they actually have the battlefield, the monument has outfitted one of the key positions which is called reno hill, you could walk around the perimeter of reno hill where hundreds of soldiers were trapped in course of day and night and you can look where the warriors would havean swarmed ad look at the hills where snipers were fired and you can imagine being trapped on the hill with dead bodies piling up and digging out little pits rifle pits with your tin cup and how terrible it would have been so you can see how the geography helped there. Having been first went to the big horn i was standing on last stand hillus where custer u killed and the men who formed around him andhi if you look upn the horizon, not too far in the horizon to me one of the prettier sites in the American West and that is the Big Horn Mountains. You can see the blue, you know, line of mountains and im thinking, jeez, these guys died in god forsaken scrub grass and there was big awful Big Horn Mountains and i found one of the most poignant licenses, there was so many of us that we didnt even need weapons, we could have just ridden over these guys with horseses and trampled them all o death. Thats how one sided it was. We didnt need weapons. Ride over them. Yeah, i agree thats a great question and terrain was definitely something that affected the invasion of iraq and drive to baghdad both in terms of the desert and then also the urban terrain of baghdad. So one of the few things that slowed down the third ids advance was a major sand storm that hit in march late march and stop Ground Division to a halt. Visibility was at a few feet so they had to stop their invasion and wait until the sand storm ended and that was something that was completely out of control of the army. The a urban terrain was also a major concern especially when thinking about sending an Armored Division into a dense city. One of the issues that came up for planners at the Division Level and at the fifth corps leverage was somalia. The idea we dont want baghdad to be another mogadishi where u. S. Troops get trapped and insurgents come to attack and that sort of thing. Theres a lot of concern about sending tanks into into a city, tanks are great on a desertrt road, they are fairly impenetrable but liability when youre trying to turn corners in a major metropolis, though. And i would say that the jungle is a completely different and very important consideration that people in the jungle, the description of some of the engagements that he talks about, people were as close from you to me and they didnt know that they were there because everything is sort of hidden and this was a great advantage to the guerrilla warfare tactic that is were being used at the time because you can be up close to somebody else and they wouldnt even know it. So thats why intelligence was really important, to sort of find out where people were but it was its completely different and i remember we wern talking about this but my father was sort of opposed to orange because in his war the jungle was his friend. It was what protected him and the people he was withh and they used it to their advantage. They didnt want too get rid of it, so well, were waiting for the next as the next questioner comes up i would say theres really no way to understand a battle without going to the battlefield. We love taking our students to battlefields and investigating geography. Yes, sir. My question is related exactly toto that. So i really enjoy this panel. All of you are writing stories about things that youre not seeing. You are you have heard it, you are putting it on paper and, you know, how much creative license are you allowed to take and how much when i read your book am i really seeing versus actual history that happened because in your book you are describing something that has happened in the past that has been drawn to you through literary transition and from you your father in your case and by general probably. How much of your words and how much of is it is real history . Should we start all of the stories in the book were told by my father, not me, i just edited. So that was by a guy that was in the middle of it and you can read it with that in mind. It wasea written a long time afr the fact of it happening but it was by somebody who was there. Yeah, also a great point. I have not been to iraq but in the course of doing the research for the book i spent the week at fort stewart georgia with the Third Infantry Division getting to know what is felt to be part of a tank division. So i spent time with tank crews, i talked to various levels of command within the division about wanting an armor brigade, Armored Division, and i got i got inside of a tank. Go i got to observe a battle simulation and those sorts of things, so that helped me understand what the soldiers of the third id were doing as far as the technical skill that they had to have to do the job. Do i think that having if i had had the opportunity to feel what the desert felt like it would have helped. I livered in vietnam for a year and just being able to understand what vietnam feels like and smells like, looks like, sounds like, i think really helped me write those books in a way that i just didnt have the benefit of that as far as what iraq feels like, sounds like and, you know, those sorts of things but i did find that spending a week with the division at their headquarters help me understand the job that they had to do and the training that they had. I think that i consider myself, im notm a historian by trade, im a former diplomat but i consider myself first and foremost a storyteller and the Creative Process is very important in writing history to tell a story that is not not only as close to what occurred as possible to decipher but also engaging to read and that carries the reader along. That being said, there are certain licenses that one can take and i have taken, for instance, in writing my biography of brother sony prophet. Di you know, i couldnt know exactly how tecmseh was raised as an individual but i knew how shawnee boys were raised and, you knowings as part of their culture and you can draw conclusions from that and build on that. And one of my personal things, if i ever find myself getting ready to say perhaps or he may have been thinking or, i stop myself andnd i dont go there ad i i try to remain within the confines of of the primary sources to the best that i can and then moving even further look at various primary sources that exist covering a particular event and trying to decipher the ones that appear the most credible and that and that sense i think historians and military historians even more so kind of like, kind of like lawyers looking for the best evidence to put together the most likely chain of events and, you know, i may have gotten wrong in some places but i, again, i try to tell a story in an engaging way using my creative talent such as as they are but never going beyond what i can support with a primary source that is say the writing of someone as credible as possible that is there. Yeah, peter just gave a great answer and thats a great question. Thank you for asking, its interesting. Peter just touched on trying the facts as we know them are should stay the facts hopefully go inrther back you history the moreth difficult its to determine exactly what happened especially in an event where there are very few survivors on one side or the you do your best to write events as you think they happened and i think the next part of it becomes then a persons individual style and how much they want to try to project emotions and and thoughts and things like that onto the people who actually lived them and that can be an individual choice and i know that for myself i try not to do really any of that. I learned during the podcast writing process that what what people who listen to my podcast stories seem to like fun, fast, lean story. They dont want to get too bogged down in too much of the detail and thats how i wrote the thats how i write books, ivexa only written one book and one example of how ive done this. I try to do thehe same thing. Rely on the amount of action and the number of thicks that happened and use those kinds of things to help build suspense and entertainment and thats the beauty of choosing a book that has 5 completely different story lines, theres never a dull moment. I dont have to worry about flowery language. I was going to say, you hitce on the simple questions of being a historian, we are supposed to be neutral arbiters of the past. You biased yourself, a constant balancing act. One more question. Thank you. Im interested in the cultural context. I was struck by the fact that all the things that happened in the wild west were ten years post civil war and presumably a lot of collective cultural that was maybe finding a different expression but the same would be true for the war of 1812 and baghdad and all these other places and i realize im asking a big question with the short amount ofnt time for a response but maybe starting with you, chris, i wonder what connection you think there is from that broader cultural disease, however you characterize that. Oh, lord. You can go a lot of Different Directions actually. I can go a lot of Different Directions with the answer. Probably the easy one to go with is obviously the storyline that is military oriented in my book is the u. S. Army versus native american tribes. This was that cultural aspect in really trying to remove those people from the native american tribes from where they lived and forced them onto reservations and try to systemically remove their culture from them and try to assimilate them into essentially white european civilization thatza expanded across the American Continent and that was a huge part of it, design today force the last free roaming people of the Northern Plains onto reservations so the west ward expansion can continue to happen sose essentially the americans, the White American civilization could open the door to rich lands in the west and so thats the really difficult aspect, you have to live with, you have to come to the term with the facts that most times when youre dealing with native american societies, White Society did something to native american societies there was never a good reason for it, there was never a benephew lent reason it was almost destructive and its difficult to have to live with that and write it and know thats part of the story no matter what. I have no idea if that answered your question but maybe it was close enough. I would just addst to that as far as one off the primary cultural attitudes that i really picked up on in doing the research for my book is this idea that the United States can nation build after a war despite so much evidence to the contrary. We have lots of examples of the failure to do that one of which is vietnam. I was struck by the push to nation build in iraq after a war without really any discussion in the policy making level but what about vietnam and it didnt work there and there continues to be notion for americans that the u. S. Can build a stable political nation, stable Political Institution after fighting a war and we just dont have instances of success with that yet that still remains part of our cultural policy making or the culture of our policymaking i should say. I think part of the problem is that policymakers were looking at iraq, afghanistan, ignoring lessons of vietnam and instead of looking at the successes of japan and germany. Yeah. Not realizing how differences were. Japan and germany homogenous society and societies that were again homogenous culture. Wa iraq was far from that. Patch work of cultures. Despite it was clear that we wanted there was never among the American Indians themselves in the west was never a sense of what i call in my my book earth, earth as weeping, never a sense of indians, never a sense of common purpose, defeating that feeling this, you know, this white incursions there was not a single tribe in the west. It was every unified, you know, in terms of resisting american incursions, american encroachment, forcibly as to trying to coexist. There were always dueling factions. And every and the only tribes that actually displayed any cohesive were those tribes have fought alongside the United States in the west, the pawnee and the shoshone and the crow. So its its very its its very complicated, you cant simply say native americans against against the whites and the government in the west. It was much more complicated than that. In fact, right up almost up to the day of the great broke out in 1776, the u. S. Government against the dakota, they were fighting the indians and considered them a greater threat. Its not a black and white issue. Youre right. It is a story ofpl tribes fightg tribes for a a long time and thn some of those then fighting against the u. S. Army when the u. S. Army came to close proximity. Worked against all their interests ultimately. I would like to thank you guys forgr being wonderful audience and go buy their books. [applause] thank you, thank you very much. 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