Hemingway and john doess owes john dos war i passos during world war i. Ambulance drivers. The talk was hosted by the National World war i museum in kansas city, missouri. Ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to your National World war i museum and memorial. On behalf of a really tremendous group of colleagues who put this event together this evening, they really did a spectacular job along with our president introducedd i just i will introduce myself shortly. I am the curator of education, l ora vogt. Welcome to the only museum solely dedicated to the First World War in the United States we are here in kansas city where we have been since 1926. And hopefully, you all have been enjoying your delicious hemingway daiquiris. Hopefully we can set you up for some really good questions shortly. We would like to welcome all of our friends on cspan and those of you watching online. I would like to welcome those of you who are members. It is your support that allows for Great Community gathering opportunities like this one. Moreu would like information about membership, please contact emma. Have pastor as you were as you as that pass to that glass bridge. Looking atitted to the enduring impact of world war i from a global perspective and we would invite all of you to to the gallery to visit a variety of new things going on in 2018. Many would consider this the last years of the centennial of the First World War. We have a modern sights and sounds reason that was inspired by the writings of Ernest Ernest hemingway. And i would like to thank steve for contributing some of the interpretation for that. Love for you to come back so you can find some resources to find out more about relation to world war i. Is a new and very exciting things going on next. Onth we are opening a brandnew gallery. The wily gallery will be opening february 23 with a spectacular exhibition john singer sargent. Yes, you can absolutely clap for that. [applause] lora this british masterpiece is on loan for us. You do not want to miss it. February through june 3, i believe is when it heads back. Art is not only painting or sound sculptures, but it is also riding. We are joined by two preeminent scholars. Specifically, we have two deeply influential authors within the canon, Ernest Hemingway passos. N dos a fixture here in kansas city who has recently retired after more than four decades as a rider and editor with the Kansas City Star covering culture and crime and absolutely everything in between. And like the best people i know, retirement means that life has only gotten busier. He is the editor of kansas city shortan anthology of fiction, new ink, a new perspective on ernest m in way for life and writings, and particularly germane hemingway at 18, the pivotal year that launched an american legend, which will be available at the book signing after our conversation. James has spent a decade as a journalist and a classroom teacher. I also found out recently he does radio broadcasts. In a few seconds you will hear the dulcet tones. He is the author of biographies and nonfiction including the first lady of the black press, pulitzer a life in print, politics, and power. Rose man of sing sing, a true tale of life, murder, and redemption in the age of yellow journalism which was a Washington Post best book of the year. His newest book, the ambulance drivers hemingway and dos [ passos provides a history of the two men. , particularly from the economist. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me and welcoming them. [applause] so, in january of 1970, woodrow 1917 report wilson was celebrating with the slogan he kept us out of war. There was a lovely country club down on about 49th street, a place most of you now know as the plaza and a bit further, there was a section of kansas early, missouri. 26 of them had drinking establishments. Paul ords of steve kansas city was a brawny place with edges and rolling terrain designed by limestone outcroppings. Consumed thelly hemingwayhere pro kansas city stretched 40 blocks or more from the north end where the city hall and Police Headquarters stood in its pass the impressive headquarters on ground and onto the hyde park neighborhood. So, steve, why dont you set us . Scene for we have this young cub reporter named earning hemingway. Thank you, lora. I love seeing plays in this auditorium and i am really looking for to this conversation. 1917, Ernest Hemingway graduates suburban oakool in park, illinois. He spends his summer, as he cabin did at his familys or up in northern michigan. He did not know what he wanted to do in life. Short, a Long Story College was going to be out of the question. His sister was a year older, but so they both ended up graduating in 1917. She got the nod to go to college. Hemingway talked about it, but ultimately did not go. He had some influences that kind of pointed him towards journalism. He had written for the high school paper. There was a family friend who encouraged him to think about newspaper work and he had an to college with an editor of the Kansas City Star. Hemingway did not like his uncle all that much and put off the decision for quite some time. He tried to get hired in chicago , but got turned down and finally at the last minute, he said, yeah, i will go to kansas city. He had a friend of friends he there was ah and friend, the guy named carl who happen to have a job in kansas city working for at this point, more than 100 of 2017. , mid october andngway gets on the train comes to kansas city and starts working at the Kansas City Star as a reporter. Short, helong story spent 6. 5 months at the newspaper. This is a story that is wellknown, but i think people forget some of the details. He joined the Ambulance Service to go to the war in italy. War,s eager to go to the he was still 18, too young to sign up without his parents permission. He talked about getting into the war at some point. Through a friendship he made in kansas city, this idea. We will get to that more. He goes to italy and it is history. Ernest hemingway is a familiar name for most. He was also from chicago. Intoou give us insight this american author . His context, where he was prior to 1917 . Hemingway a with birthplace of being born in chicago. He was the product of a new York Attorney having an affair with a widow in chicago. He was it was a mark against him. He would have been likely called illegitimate. He was raised in hotels because it was the only place his father and mother could meet without question. The fathers wife finally dies, so they get married. At this point he is in boarding school and his name is changed. It is a hard upbringing for a sensitive kid. He was empathetic toward folks who had less means. He gravitated rapidly to left wing. He went to harvard in 1912 or so. He found it was an intellectual meritocracy. Only the rich went to harvard. He ended up being as significant as hemingway. History is cruel to some people. The though he shows up on list of greatest 20thcentury authors, few people read him. As a storyteller, because i was pairing them. What we will be getting to his that they both share a common generational reaction to the opening of the great war and the necessity to be there. As most of our audience knows, the great war didnt really start, officially until april 2 of 1917. Still a great deal of american involvement prior to that. Hundreds of thousands are involved and millions are giving their funds. There was a great deal of american volunteers and philanthropic involvements specifically within the ambulance corps. That is going to be formed. A lot of the involvement comes with this perspective of religion. Privilege. You can see the ambulance upstairs. Mentioning the exhibit, i visited the museum this afternoon and it would be a mistake for me not to make a comment. 10 years of teaching high school, many of you supported financially. This is a unique museum. It is unique in a number of ways. It really explains the cost of the great war. It doesnt embellish it and gloss it over. It has a remarkable International Aspect to it. Somebody from europe can see this museum and appreciate it, it is not just an american view of the conflict. It is a Teaching Institution of extraordinary quality. You will see an ambulance upstairs. The ambulance corps is an interesting subject, thats what brought these men together in the great war. Already broken out before the United States got involved. People shared this sense that this would be the defining moment of a generation. As somebody my age felt during the vietnam war, it was a defining moment. They felt a necessity not to miss it. At harvard he became leftwing and radical. He thought the war was a useless exercise of tyrannical governments leading the governments to slaughter. He thought to miss it would be the central event of their lives. A large number volunteered to go into the ambulance corps. Joining the ambulance corps, a voluntary organization before the United States entered the war, was a way to become a witness, to be at the front lines. The i begin looking at ambulance corps, you find this list of towns the 20th century people. That thely conclude path to success was to volunteer to go to europe and be an ambulance corps driver. Quickly corrected me on that. In order to be an ambulance driver, one of the qualities was you need to have money, because you are going to pay your own way to get to france and drive these vehicles. And you need to know how to drive, who knew how to drive . Mostly wealthy kids. It wouldnt be a bad idea if you spoke french. I just described the kids at harvard, el, princeton. With theke a gathering exception of hemingway. These were kids who shared an upperclass background, many who felt artistically inclined. They threw themselves into the front lines of the great war bringing these Wounded Soldiers back. They had a gruesome insight into what was going on. Later in life, when they took into paper, those words would be changed by what they saw in the battlefield. What were some of hemingways motivations . One of the great friendships he made in the city was a young man named ted. He was the son of a prominent judge. He was one of those ivy leaguers who, in 1917, partly because he ad to leave cornell after golfing accident that took out one of his eyes, it makes me feel bad for laughing. Wouldnt qualify for military service. But he didnt qualify for at the time was the first phase of the voluntary ambulance corps. He went to france in 1917, spent five months and came back to the city in november of 1917. In the newsroom of the Kansas City Star he meets hemingway, hemingway writes the story of his return and already published a long letter about the violence he had seen and the hard work of the Ambulance Service in france. Him,s ted who encouraged who also wasnt expecting to get into the military himself, even though he did join the majority guard and did some maneuvers out in smoke fark while training. Was the sole influence on join thes big plan to Red Cross Service in italy. An announcement had been put out for volunteers who want to go to italy, this is february of 1918, exactly 100 years ago. Around that time, ted wrote this impressive narrative story in the start about one night in the Ambulance Service. A horrible night with missiles and picking up bodies and corrugated roads. Violence and neardeath, gas, all of those things that these young men were encountering. And he survived. Was very hemingway much not only influenced, but moved by their experiences. It was part of the encouragement of saint this is how i want this will get us to the war, i dont have to be a combatant, but the Ambulance Service was what would work for him. Hemingway spent several months writing about military bludgeons, parades, all of the war fever had spread through the city. Hemingway was in the middle of all of that. You wanted space sector you will did spectacular research. Hemingway said i will not go i couldnt face anybody after the war and not have an in it. That is young hemingway. The power you have as a moderator. Last shot of the Kansas City Star. Per second, 1917, Woodrow Wilson is going to go before congress and ask for a declaration of war against germany. Using these words that are going to change the face of americans toward policy. The world must be made safe for democracy. There is a phrase that both republicans and democrats can rally around, i believe that when is it. Until april 6 for the United States to enter the war. , roughly over 50 of those who served went through in kansasstation city. Not all go overseas. I will talk more about kansas city. Problem. Ty has a drug booze, tooo much much easily available to young men training to go off to war. When it is easily available, loose women are not far away. Kansas city officials got a wakeup call when the secretary of war that hemingways new city on notice. Soldiers being sold to is easy and access upon visiting kansas city. On your cooperation in securing and maintaining clean conditions . Good luck with that. [laughter] americans, that was almost the extent of their experience, they didnt go overseas, they prepared. Over 60 working in preparations that are not on the front lines. Others, like this fasos, it is a far different story. I am dying to write, but all of my methods of doing things in the past merely disgusting now. All former methods are inadequate. There can be no more. The gray, crooked fingers of the dead, the dark look of dirty, mangled bodies. Their groans and told things in the ambulances. The vast hum drum of the guns, the riemann the ripping tier shells, the song of shells outgoing like best woodcocks. Some beautiful quotes in your book. It is really fantastic. What you see behind me are some images that you have provided, as well as some of those from our archive. I would invite you to take a look at the website the world war. Org. E ends up in verdun you can understand the type of destruction he is going to see. If you have seen our main gallery and seen that crater, just one of those shells makes that type of crater. Thats why it is still pockmarked today with craters. Even 100 years later there is still water at the bottom of these divots on the fields of verdun. When you see those moonscapes, in peter jackson, that is verdun. This is john despite those. You will see hemingways witnessing of the war. , it he got off to verdun was horrible. He is a very sensitive guy who studied poetry. He started poetry as opposed to news that hemingway was exposed to. Disks overwhelmed by the death and destruction. I remember him having dinner as more french troops were being brought up and this white dust would come off of the roads and settle on them. They would look like corpses being taken to battle. When he brought back the wounded, they overloaded these ambulances. When you see how small it is, every time they hit a bump, they would be groaning and moaning. He was exposed to gas, which was lethal and gruesome. Horses on the side of the road with eyes bulging. He worked in an operating room where he carried buckets of amputated limbs. Because he was reflective, he noticed he was eating a sandwich next to the operating room and began to feel the same thing hemingway probably had, reporters tend to build a wall between what they see and experience. It created a very different vision of the war, which steve will contrast with what hemingway experienced in italy, where John Dos Passos ends up being there. The war to him is let no one who participated in it or witnessed it untouched. Because dos passos wrote as opposed to going back to the United States and picking up a job in advertising or being a lawyer, we can see in his writing how deeply the war touch tim, touched hemingway, and touched American Literature forever. Field passos was on the when Woodrow Wilson declares war. Was there any impact on him . Certainly, he had been part of what had been the voluntary ambulance corps, which was a much looser grouping because it was none of the military. When we began to enter world war i, we had tremendous repressive measures passed by the u. S. Congress. Certain kind of things in a letter would end up putting you in prison. Cummings and his colleague made a few remarks which seemed to be sympathetic to the germans, even though he said his interrogators i like the french people, too. They were in prison for three months. When we entered the war, army took over the ambulance corps and disbanded the voluntary ambulance corps in september. For several months dos passos hung out in europe having a great time, he joined up with another core being formed. Thats where these two writers eventually met. Gruesome images. When hemingway arrives in june of 1918, there is an immediate assignment. I want to make the point that for hemingway, this was so much of a neighbor in venture eager adventure. Parisbefore he lands in on the way to italy, he berates a taxi driver is taking them on a ride through paris looking for the shelling from germanys big bertha gun. He wants to get close to these explosions. They spend at least one hour doing that. The next day when they arrive in milan, they are immediately assigned there had been a munitions pant plant that had exploded and they were going to pick up the pieces. That was his First Experience of the war, to go to this field and discover these bodies, most all of them the bodies of women who worked in this plant. Body parts, picking up pieces of skin and flesh from a fence. Behold, maybe this has to do with censorship, within a few days he sends back a postcard to his friends at the star that starts out having a wonderful time, we carried them in like at the old general hospital. Bodies on the stretchers. Response to what he later wrote in a very aarkable story called Natural History of the dead, he brings back the memories. From there, it is a sign after that assignment he is assigned to section four of the ambulance corps. Villa where there they are housed in an old mill. There was not much action there. There was so little action that hemingway essentially got bored and finally wanted to see the front. There was so little action that the place was referred to as the country club because they mostly played baseball, big in the river, eight spaghetti and wine in the mess hall. Hemingway within a couple of weeks got antsy and wanted to get closer to the front. He ended up leaving the endless service, volunteering for what was called the rolling canteen that took him much closer to where the war was raging. The austrohungarians had broken the line and hemingway gets close to the trenches of that action with the canteen service. Observation which is did hemingway actually ever drive an ambulance in italy . I was prepared with the question. Let me show you a couple of pictures. We have what the Ambulance Service looks like, the american field service. This would have been what it may have looked like. Imagine those small tires. What that would have felt like. This is in italy. As is this lovely photo of some americans. Soldiers,re italian where Hemingway Hemingway would deliver, ride a bicycle from a back unit from the trench and deliver cigarettes and coffee, chocolate, postcards. Known as the dvano americano. There may be a reason why this picture has never been published in my book. Im certain hemingway took it. He describes popping his head out from the trench, shooting across the river to the austrian trench. It is hard to read. I thought it was fascinating to see an image that hemingway took. He had a camera and that is one of the pictures he took that this report back to a friend. He is going to also we hear about venice later on. We take a moment for a slight station break and tell you we do battlefield tours here. The type of things they were talking about, i think dos passos quote is that he wanted to paddle up underscore word river undiscovered world rivers. You can certainly see some beautiful vistas that they saw. We would invite you to join us. We will be taking one. We will be heading to france this year. I think the American Red Cross headquarters is where John Dos Passos had to go back to so he did not get into a serious amount of trouble for not responding to his draft, he was already in france. You can join us as we go around the wine drinking country if you want to live like hemingway. This is what verdun looked like. There is something amazing about walking in those same spacious spaces. For what these do and what millions of others did. My next question is potentially the most the question of the evening to both of you. Was Ernest Hemingway really the bass that he said he was . He was a bragger. He kind of was. D likehing he did seeme throughout his life, before he got to kansas city, has been invention. Partly incurs by his own writing. There is this blur between was this his life or his imagination at work . For a long time, he liked people to think he was a soldier in the war. He didnt this abuse people of the notion. When people identified him in the italian army, yes and no. He had an italian uniform by being a noncombatant with the red cross, but he was not a combatant in the war, or the spanish civil war, not a combatant in world war ii, though he did get in trouble for trying to be one. I have heard you talk about this before. Was he a member len strieber was he an ambulance driver . There is nothing that tells me he drove an ambulance. He may have been in one. There is a picture in the museum , i think it is a posed picture of him sitting in an ambulance. There is nothing that indicates he never writes a firstperson account. There was nothing going on for those two weeks, it is very unlikely he drove an ambulance. I dont know whether he knew how to drive. Of the ambulances were like an organ, where you have a series of petals you had to press. You had a device that increased the amount of flow of fuel, you could easily flood it, cheated of air cheat it of air. It is an enormous amount of training, i dont know if he ever had the chance to. The other two problems, which always amuses people, they name, fix orme big repair daily. Fiats fixed it all the time, were endlessly breaking all the time. That is what led to them, because dos passos was driving a fiat that broke down. And he was in the same mess hall where Ernest Hemingway was. It was not an easy vehicle to drive. He had been in ambulances, he more likely would have been the co rider. Hashere is an episode that long been viewed and discussed and sort of dismissed that hemingway, this is partly based on his own account, he was unconscious after being wounded near the trench. The story developed that hemingway picked up a wounded italian soldier and dragged him to safety in a hail of machine gun fire which ended up adding to his wounds. Happened theve it way that has long been described, i am not alone in believing it didnt quite happen that way. There was more evidence that hemingway was sighted and got a medal for determining when he is back, and ambulance arrives to take him away and he says i am not that hurt, go get those guys closer to the action. Citation an actual that refers to that in a way aat the story of his carrying soldier to safety made it pretty quickly after that happened. Heading toward the end of the war, you mentioned that , and thatis wounded is really going to take him through the end, although there is a short stint where he tries to go out and do a bit more battling. He is wounded july 8, 19 18. He spends the next several months in the hospital. The hospital in milan. The end ofoward october, he thinks he is well enough, and he goes up into the mountains to aid a campaign. We dont know exactly what he did or exactly how long. He stayed up there, but he came down pretty quickly with thedice and went back to hospital. For whatever he did at that time , he received another metal from the italians eventually. For the next couple of months, physical therapy, running around italy a little bit, hanging out with friends, and of course, the big love story, which i dont get into too much, because hemingway turns me team two weeks after 19 two weeks after his wounding. I did talk about the evolution of farewell to arms. You cut out the sex scene. [laughter] i had to ask permission to say some of the quotes i am seeing this evening just to make sure i would be kosher. But if you want to read things that i could not say, i really think you should pick up this book. It is absolutely fantastic. So many phrases i cant say from the stage, but utterly delightful, way to go. [laughter] about literary prowess, there was a literary professor who said the way we write about war or think about war was affected fundamentally by hemingway. Person said if there is a special hell for writers, it would be placed within their own works with all of the failures that any finished work of art implies. Arms, important works devoured by a nation, jamie, you expand a great deal on that. Can you dig in . Parachutes into something. I am not a literary scholar. One thing i discovered brought these two men together was not the drinking well, the drinking certainly enhanced it. [laughter] it was something you could not do openly in the states. And its not the version in midnight in paris, woody allens movie. Paris was destitute. Starving writers could live grandly in paris, and struggling painters good. They came together at that they were plotting literary revolution. Their experience of the war was vastly different. They both felt the war had fractured society in such a way, that the old way of expressing themselves wouldnt work anymore. The vocabulary we used wouldnt work anymore. They purposely set out to write in a different fashion. Hemingway was like a jeweler crafting short stories and sentences that were tighter than been written before. The spots was engaged in a sort of, you cant call it anosyllabic, but it was different thing, but they were both involved in this literary revolution to try to express a ,ew way of what they had seen and it affected their writing. News clips, jump cutting from films, all of these things people were experiencing, trying to put them into the writing. What is fun about talking about these two people together, and steve and i talk about them endlessly, is that they took two different lessons from the war. My version of hemingway is that an inevitability. John thensors sponsors john disagreed with that. Despasos was much more influenced by his leftwing thinking. Karl marx said that philosophers interpret the world, the point is to change it. He had no intention of wanting to use this writing to change sos feltd, whereas despa the purpose of writing was to change the world. His extraordinary antiwar novels were intended to try to prevent another war. Discovered,ng i again, dropping in and viewing things from the outside, that i thought made the story so interesting, was that these books would eventually be read by the very group of people who would go on to fight the next war. In a sense, the greatest generation was raised on andrature about first war, literature affects you in a great fashion. Reflecting on what steve said, and may be you can speak about this. Hemingway comes from the newsroom to the war. Dos passos comes from a sheltered, liberal, left Wing Community in cambridge. Perhaps hemingways first about the warte is the sense of writing a wasrt, whereas dos passos already infected with a sense of i want to change the world. We tend to think of the war ended in 1918, when, in fact, it went on and on for several years. Some would argue still today. And we stillronts, live with the consequences of that war. Hemingway covered the war as a continued for the newspaper. He covered peace conferences. He wrote about mussolini. He met mussolini. He covered the grecoturkish war. He was there watching these tragedies continuing to unfold after his own personal experience in the war. And yes, as he began to write in paris, he was getting away from the kind of oh henry like short whenes he could not sell he came back to the states, his first attempts at writing fiction, and started writing these incredibly chiseled, gems of stories that were works there imagination, was still satire, there was an angry look at the world and a break with the kind of Henry Jameses and other writers who defined literature up until that point. Gentlemen have not yet convinced you to go back to google and find a piece by or ernestassos hemingway, i strongly suggested. Stunning and beautiful writing. Such a like me, are not fan of hemingways stories that involve any female characters, there is a hemingway story out there for you. I suggest you start with big two hearted river. It is stunning and a pleasure today back in because of the work you all have done. Ask, if theye , i sendread hemingway them to his first book of short stories, in our time. Big hearted river was the capstone of that book. Jamie and i have done a program once before. In my early experience, i was a big fan of dos passos, more so than hemingway. I loved the invention of the usa trilogy, for example, and the experiments with writing, just really creative. I think the last time i looked at the usa trilogy, it was a little creepy. Im not sure it holds up over time. Things i one of the was so taken by jamies book, my entry into literature partly was through dos passos more than hemingway. Othershould include writers. If you havent read one of ours by will a cather, start. What you see as claude, part of an immigrant Family Living in the midwest, nebraska, the horror of european conflict coming and grabbing this kids life and taking it back to the old world via these battles. Willa cather an not intending it as antiwar novel, but it shows the cost of war. Horton was watching writing the age of innocence. The male writers who got to the war front by virtue of being annual and strivers, their writing was forever changed in a way that cather ambulance their writing was forever changed in a way that cather and others could not be. Is a question on trivial pursuit today because people dont remember him, but he and hemingway were hand in hand in writing. Hemingway would wait to hear what dos passos had to say is his most important critic. They would Exchange Works and shape them together. The analogy i use and art historians in the room, please dont throw any tomatoes at me, but if you ask people about ists, they say, picasso, but the reality is it was a group. Hemingway was part of a larger ande of which dos passos others were members. These social influences are not just one person. This is the time of the armory show, of futurism in , and incredibly modernist exposure throughout culture. Absolutely. And it doesnt just hit writing. It hits art. There was a beautiful exhibition at the Nelson Atkins art museum. We will be talking about that. It also affects dance as well. It impacts all aspects of the arts. Now, gentlemen, in three minutes or less you might have to share i am going to ask you a very hard question i did not preppy for. Hemingway prep you for. Hemingway famously wrote a farewell to arms. It features a battle that hemingway was not actually at. This is a quote that many associate with hemingway. The world breaks everyone, and strong as aany are broken placement, but those that do not break are killed. It kills the good, the gentle, the braves, impartially. If you are none of these, you can be sure it will kill you, too, but there will be no special hurry. Hurry. So. This is off the question. One of his great things always is death and the inevitability of death, which is every writers theme at some point. Certainly, one of the novel. The question is, hemingway and dos passos, were they broken, and if so, by what . Hemingway was emotionally fragile, especially when his love affair broke off. There is also some question that resonates today that the wounding in italy may very well have been the first hand head injury that hemingway encountered. One of a long series of head injuries that ended up contributing to his massive decline in the 1950s. The brokenness resonates. The reason irt of think we read him. , people who are artistic often turn to their art because they cannot express themselves by other means. In that sentence of hemingways, you can feel the war. Its the same with dos passos. Exceptot articulate it by sitting on a ship and madly pouring his guts into little notebooks and telling you what was going on. Ladies and gentleman, we invite you to come down and asked some of your own questions. There are microphones on either side. While you are doing that, i will ask a potentially easier question. Hemingway, would he be good at twitter . [laughter] the inevitable question. I think he would not have much patience with it, but who knows . I do a lot of teaching of writing, and i think what people forget is that it is an endless process of revision. You dont just write something and put it out to the world. Much like pottery, its one thing to throw the pot down, but its endless hours of finishing, putting in the dome, fixing a bad crack, etc. Theou read hemingway, reason we still read him is that there is never an her word. It obtains attains a is verys of prose that hard. Because he changed writing so , there are now, of course, to write like hemingway. It has become a cliche to write like hemingway. It diminishes his accomplishments. Intoe same way that you go museums and see paintings that caused riots years ago that now we think nothing of, to read hemingway properly, you should read edith wharton, anderson, and then read hemingway again for the first time to understand how different his writing was. I recommend audible books. Because you hear the difference. My leanings were toward dos passos. His works have become creaky, harder to access than hemingway is, to this day. I love it. Most of the time, i am the person working the q a as. Pposed to being on the stage im going to ask you to more we are goingd then to quickly end. May be recovered everything. I think we did. We are fantastic. Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to look at what happened to the friendship of. Os passos and hemingway you can read it in the book. Assuming we have examples of hemingways writing while he was in high school. Yes. And immediately after he went to europe. Can we tell how much his experience actually impacted his writing . Certainly a big part of my book. He learned how to write in a certain way with a certain kind of freedom. He wrote some very accomplished. Arrative feature stories he learned how to use dialogue in narrative features. He learnedgest that how to write at kansas city, but he certainly felt his writing, and he got some ideas about writing. Generationed with a of literary writers. They had a desk called the exchange desk that published all , bookof literary news news. He was surrounded by guys who were writers, and he learned from these older gentleman. One big example i have written about in the past is, following a harangued us crime, that horrendous following a crime, one of the literary guys wrote a profile of an ax murderer comparing him to something out of dusty ascii dostoyevsky. It was wonderfully done. It was part of hemingways college education, if you will, in kansas city, learning how fiction can be fashioned out of real life. I think there are reasons to look at that. He develops obviously much more in paris five years later. Would encourage you, if you pick up the book, there are some articles in the back. A couple of pieces. To take our last question from this gentleman. Coming out. For both of you profile to individuals who had experience on the outside of things. Do you see any Common Ground spiritually with writers that came out of the german side . Was there a connection between these two writers and european writers . On the action side. I dont want to underestimate the cost to the United States of the great war. We lost a lot of people. The devastation in europe was on a scale unimaginable bios and unexperienced by us. Unexperienced by us. Dos passos was much more like them. He had european roots, portuguese descent. Dos passos was in spain long before hemingway could find it on the map. So great. Ence is there is a psychic connection, but in many ways, europeans were more wordless. The scale of death we opened up a century of war with the mechanization of death. Dos passos, it may have been easier for him to handle. I love that this is the question we are going to end on. I would suggest if you havent junger, he was a German Military author who said our Ernest Hemingway was ernst junger. It was a global war. And here at the museum, our collection began in 1920. End onto and on the the postscript of your book, the ambulance drivers. I thought it was stunningly beautiful. Ofmight not have ever heard Ernest Hemingway had it not teen for an italian soldier who was killed taking the brunt of the foroding had it not been an italian soldier who was killed taking the brunt of the exploding mortar. But little if no effort has been made to determine the identity of the man his death made possible the life of the man who would become one of the Major Writers of the 20th century. We never identify, we never learn the name of this fall in italian soldier. As best as i can tell, hemingway never tried to find out either. Hemingway the reporter, who ended up writing about his own reasonnce, but for some forgot to ask. [laughter] by the river, they mark the spot where hemingway was wounded. Hemingway, not the italian. Of thee is no mention soldier. As an historian, i have often found it frustrating. If you look at 19th century papers, they will talk about a the fire andcaped say three irish maids parish ds maids perished, without naming who they are. I think naming people is important. Gathering together in community, and real life, not just on couches or on our cell phones, to remember individuals, and ultimately, sometimes, to say their names, with thesefinish words. According to Italian Military records, these are the names of the 18 men who died or went in julyin combat of 1918. If the records are correct, one of the names below is that of the soldier who lost his life and in doing so preserves that of Ernest Hemingway. [reading italian names] ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us at the National World war i museum. [laughter] [applause] [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer monday, president s day on the cspan networks. At 6 30 p. M. , the launch of a landmark cases, live from the National Constitution center in philadelphia, with a review of 12 historic cases to be featured in the series. Then, the portrait unveiling ceremony for former president barack obama and first Lady Michelle obama. Then, a slate Magazine Panel comparing watergate to today. The 2018 savannah book festival on cspan2. At 9 00 p. M. , indepth fiction addition edition. American history tv on cspan3, at 2 30 p. M. Eastern, historians on world war i and the legacy of president Woodrow Wilson. At 630 p. M. , scholars explore the relationships between president s ronald reagan, george h w bush, and mikael gorbachev. Then, Richard Burr Kaiser on George Washington and the fight for philadelphia. Watch monday on the cspan networks. Announcer cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1970 nine, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas cable companies. Today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events in washington, d c, and around the country. Cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. American history tv is on cspan every weekend. Here is a clip from a recent program. Announcer hello, everybody. Greeting you from squaw valley ,n the Tahoe National forest where the eighth winter Olympic Games are in progress. This, as you know, is the greatest spectacle in all winter sports. Worlds bestt skiers and skaters have come to squaw valley. They have come to win if they come to lose if they must can, to lose if they must. Above all, to take part and do their best. Behind the excitement of the is another, there story, a story of building, of safety inof safety, the snow. This site for the eighth Winter Olympics was selected by the lipid committee well in advance of the games. Olympic committee well in advance of the games. This area was selected because it contains some of the best ski terrain in america, perhaps in the world, most of it in Tahoe National park. A rather tight little valley, indianamed squaw because women once rested here while their men foraged in the mountains. The city year is different from any other anywhere. Is different from any other anywhere. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website at cspan. Org history. Gunston hall, a National Historic landmark in virginia, was home to one of the lesserknown founding fathers, george mason. Up next on american artifacts, we visit the property along the Potomac River to learn about his political life and his time as a slave owner. He drafted the 1776