Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Betrayal At Little Gibraltar 20160704

Started changing and they started becoming the first computer programmers. They had these incredibly long careers at nasa, 40, 50 years. One of them still works at nasa today. After words airs on book tv at sunday at nine pm eastern. You can watch all previous after words programsms booktv. Org. Good evening and welcome to the Rr Smith Center for history and art in stanton, virginia. I am the president of the augustine county Historical Society which is the sponsor ofh tonights event. The Historical Society has been preserving and promoting the history of Augusta County virginia for over 50 years. As many of you know, our our county was created in 1738 and at one time, it extended all the way to the mississippi river. Y we have a great deal of historical heritage to be proud of. We are also very proud of our20 20thcentury history. Tonight we are very pleased to welcome you and are cspan viewers to an event featuring residents and members of the society. A great evening on the great war features william, bill walker whose book on world war i we will explore tonight with the assistance of connie, a retired cspan journalist and board member of the society. Youll now if you will join me in silencing all of your electronil devices, lets welcome bill and connie. [applause] hello everyone, thank you so much for coming this evening. While i was preparing a little bit for tonight to introduce bill walker, i googled a little. The first thing i googled was the average number of people who come to a book signing event. I will tell you, it is in Single Digits so please give yourself an applause for being here this evening instead of being home watching megan kelly and donald trump on television. [applause] the second thing i googled is the average age of a firsttime author who gets published by a firsttime publisher. That average age is 37 years old. So i will tell you bill, you are skewing the numbers very much. Bill walker grew up in knoxville tennessee. He went to the university of virginia for both his undergraduate and his masterste work and then went off to teach at college but he taught at the university of new orleans and out Lamar University in texas and then he went into administration to be a Public Information officer. Er. He was at gettysburg college, he was at virginia tech, of course, how could i forget . And he finished his work at william and mary. I first met bill in a class on Woodrow Wilson world war i and i know there are some people in the audience who were in that class and other classes like its as he told the stories of world war i and specifically making those of us understand the understanding of that man and world war i. In those classes, bill often talked about his book and the research he was doing about his book. In later on, i would see bill periodically around town and i would would say bill, hows the book going. He would say its going well. One day, i walked into the bookstore and i said bill, excuse me i walked into a coffee shop and i said bill, hows the book going. He said, i have a publisher. I thought to myself, god i hope the book industry doesnt chew him up and spit him out because they can be very difficult. I said who is your publisher . He said simon and schuster. My jaw dropped to the floor. A firsttime author getting published by an imprint of Simon Schuster is an amazing event. You can take my word for it. Please join me in welcoming bill. He has agreed to begin his talk tonight. My earlier thoughts were that it was great that he got Simon Schuster and now that ive read the book i think simon and schuster should be glad to have bill walker. Please help me in welcoming him tonight. [applause] you so thank you so very much and thank you for so many of my students in all the classes showing up. I certainly appreciate it and look forward to this. The book is about a disastrouse battle in france. 122,000 americans were killed and wounded in this battle. It has a rather unusual genesis, if you will and i will read you how it came about. The prologue is called words tongued with fire. Winters are seldom kind in central pennsylvania. Around thanksgiving, snow surges out to cover the battlefields of gettysburg. The landscape assumes a power befitting the deaths that howled the fields surrounding the town and gettysburg college. On such a bleak winters day in 1993, i entered three, i entered the College Library and the first encountered the marginalia that would change my life. Searching for information about my great uncle who had been killed in world war i, i picked up an old book entitled the American Army in france by general james harvard. After blowing dust from the cover and leaping through the cover, i began to know this marginalia and thats the notes that people write in the marginh of the page. I began to notice the marginalia inscribed in sign by the books late owner, major harry parkin. The veteran was a member of the u. S. 79th division, the default to bring the war to an end. The major himself had led anan assault to capture the top secret german observatory protected by an underground fortress and thats little jabar Little Gibraltar which is noted in the book. They took issue with the books conclusion about the effect and he challenged readers to turn to the back of the volume to learn the truth. The volu on two empty pages in the rear, he wrote that robert l board, one of the senior generals, he was one of only two Lieutenant Generals in france during world war i, that robert l board had failed to support the attack, a deliberate act that caused the death of Many American soldiers. For an instant, i felt like the inner sent passerby accosted by the ancient, just like the racquet tour, he had grabbed my arm and revealed a harrowing fate. For the next few weeks, i tried to push the stories from my mind. As as a student of military history, i knew full well the miss leading law of old soldiers. Men whose lives had reached a zenith in battle and whose extra measures and i understood the fog of war, the profound confusion of combat and that often distorts judgments. For those reasons, i thought that parkin had to be mistaken. No American General would refuse to assist his fellow soldiers. I was very skeptical of his charge. I resisted delving into the matter but i was finally forced to acknowledge that the story prove that his charge so i could put the issue at side and i set a very demanding test. I would look into persians memoir to see if the incident was mentioned. The american commander was notoriously known to acknowledge problems and if he mentioned itw might warrant further investigation. I went to his memoirs and i found a very brief section that describes that incident. To my astonishment he wrote that a misinterpretation of orders had resulted in the failure to capture the mouth of the falcon on the first critical day of battle. The persian who had pledge not to cast blame, it was telling. I was hooked. Ive got to say, this really caught my attention. Just mentioning that the orders were misunderstood means theor orders had perhaps, that parkin was right about what the order said. Aid. In the 20 years since my discovery of his marginalia, imy pursued the tail with all the vigor i could master. I became acquainted with the dust of archives, pounded oldme bookstores in search of critical volumes, interviewed interviewed sons and grandsons of soldiers killed in france stood in the trenches of the hindenburg line and even descended into the dans bunkers in germany where the light never shines. I seldom encountered a blind ally. On the few occasions when my search seemed called, the timely discovery of new evidence propelled my investigation forward. Eventually, these discoveries enabled me to determine theor my truth about the 79th division division. To solve the mystery and to demonstrate that long forgotten marginalia can prove ts eliots proposition that the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. Thats the way the book starts. We will go from there. When you talk about world war i, and i know youre going to set this up for 1918 for when the battle actually happen, but before we get to the battle, give us a little bit of background. 1914 when the war actually started, 17 when the americans got in . 1914 the war started and it still in dispute who started it, most people think germany and germany fired the first shot, theres theres no doubt about that, but it dragged on for the next four years and when they reached 1918, they were no closer to having a solution then in 1914. So, this is the affidavit. You can see it here. Its handwritten and by the way, its written in very clear text and thats the book that started me on the quest. The attack was on a key hill in the middle of the battlefield. The battlefield stretched 20 miles broad and the general disobeyed orders. Harkin charges that his disobedience to orders killed hundreds of troops. Actually, i can extend that he probably is responsible for killing thousands of troops. Kig he charged and said that parkine said that he got all the metals for britain, france, belgium, the u. S. But what he really deserved was a long term and a military prison. Thats pretty hard words if you can think about it, a a man who was a major and thats what launched my quest. As you can see, as congress said, said, by 1918, the spring of 1918 there were millions of soldiers dead and more civilians of course. The front was static and hadnt moved much and i might drift a few miles one way and a few miles back but it was pretty static. The germans were depleted in the allies were exhausted. Neither side could throw another punch. The yanks were arriving. We declared war on april 6, 1917, and thereafter there was a great rush to get our troops together. By 1918 hundreds of thousands of troops were arriving every month and i think in final analysis, we had about 2 million troops. Everybody believed that the war would last until 1919. Thats what everybody was expecting but that it would go into the next year. The supreme allied commander it was furred nine, a a french man, came up with a new idea and he believed that the germans were so depleted that we could beat them in 1918. This is his plan, he was to launch a series of simultaneous offenses against the germans. You can see the british were in the north and then the americans ended up with what was the toughest but the most promising offensive. The u. S. Was supposed to drive 35 miles to cut a rail line that supplied 50 for the germans on the western front. The am if it cut this real line, the the germans would either have to surrender or stall. We knew they would not come out of the war. It was the most promising drive the americans were assigned but it was also the most difficult. One general said that compared with the wilderness, excuse me, the wilderness Wilderness Battlefield was like a park, manicured park. There were mountains and ridges and ravines and rivers to cross. In addition, the germans had used their time to build the hindenburg line, named for one of their major generals and i had four defensive positions across france. Each of those four positions had four Lines Associated with barbed wire and everything else. This was one of the most stout defenses but the world has ever seen. The main thing in the american sector was that there was a topsecret observatory on the highest hill in that observatory could slow progress of the americans forward. As you can see, the building in the upper left is a manor house. Inside, if you look just at theo top, you can see a substructureu in there. It was a huge concrete and steel tower surrounding a periscope and a telescope. On the top floor they had extended this to all three floors and it extended out the roof and the germans could use it to spot targets. Anywhere on the battlefield, the american sector of the battlefield. The bottom section shows the bottom part of the periscope. You can see this was a huge area. The germans were absolutely committed to protecting it. The crown princes germany built it for the battle of for don in 1960 but it remained in place in 1918 in the germans knew that an offensive was coming and they were going to use it to blast the americans. The plan called for the capture of the observatory by noon on the first day. If the butte was not captured the artillery could stall the offensive. The french had declared in 1916, they had they had tried to capture this hill and they said it was virtually a Little Gibraltar and thats what was known as across the western front. Here are some of the specifications. Upper left you can see a machine gun nest that is heavily camouflaged. If you came walking along that, you would have no knowledge of what you were looking at, it would be just a hump in the ground but of course the next thing you knew, the machine guns would start firing. The upper right you can see a twostory entrance, and i stress entrance to a bunker that held 1000 men and that was below the level that american artillery could hurt them. You can see that the german out to artillery was built in. They were awaiting word from the butte about where to target the next americans and not only that, but perhaps the most difficult thing, if not the most deadly thing that americans troops faced was the land. In the four years of fighting that had taken place, approximately 40 to 60 million shells had been launched by both sides and it made the groundnd look like the surface of a golf ball. In addition to that, the assault would be launched in the fall and these holes were muddy. The soldiers, to even get other germans had to go through these mehdi holes over barbed wire and trees and this really caused a great deal of trouble. Here was the attack plan, andd this is the plan that was written. N. Re you can see in the middle and the plan was for the third core to go forward with the Fourth Division in a very weak sector and then cut into the left and surround them from the rear. The 79th division which is a green division, most of the soldiers had been on the in the army for four months. They were supposed to attack from the front, but the real damage wouldve been done by the troops at the rear. Keep in mind the cork commander is a man named George Cameron and that will come into play in the end. Youll learn something rather amazing about him. There were some firstperson accounts of this by journalists and i found one in leslies illustrated which was published up until 1922. It was a weekly news magazine and the staff corresponded on the ground had said, just as we were starting they came out of headquarter barracks to enter his car. We talked for a few minutes about how everything was going. I thought of the rows and rows of military history in volumes in the libraries, the section of campaigns, the battle then reaching was not a battle of the continent but a world battle. With the minute decisions are to be analyzed and dissected bymi future historians, at least he remained a calm and imperturbable under the threat. Thats correct. He was quite, he had a great tragedy. Earlier, several several years earlier his wife and twowo daughters had been killed in a fire and after that fire he closed down emotionally. He was a very stern person, he always felt that he should be very optimistic but during this period, when the bad things started to happen, he did develop some severe depression and had some doubts of his own. What happened to the plan . The plan, its very interesting. You can see that the 79th was growing in the center but the fourth was supposed to surround them from the rear. They had changed the order. He wanted to capture them on the first day and he told his men, dont worry about anything to the side. We are going to go straight ahead. You can see they are the division that went the farthest on the first day. Thats a great achievement according to a lot of military people. During that day, there were two golden opportunities to attackio their target. The first one, as you can see where it says seventh brigade found an open trench leading right up to the target and there were no germans protecting it. They couldve marched right up the hill, taken it before the 70 79th came into combat. Recalling what they had said, the commander ordered that battalion to come back across the line into his his sector and continue toward the front. He was galloping for glory, as they might say. Later in the afternoon, a a general who commanded the eighth brigade, thats two regimens, general booth knew what had happened in the orders. He proposed in a very swift way that they march around behind and in effect do the envelopment what she had called for originally. He initially had to ask his commander permission. He asked for that permission, he got the permission and started to make the movement but it was interceded and they stopped the maneuver. They said go straight. Keep going straight. All of the americans, the observatory lasted for another 24 hours. Using that artillery, they slowed the americans and the germans were able to rush reinforcements to the front and halted the offensive in its tracks. They were furious and he blamed the 79th. Now you must know, general board was an old friend from west point days so he blamed the 79th. The 79th, he said, is holding up the entire army because of the observatory. The 79th had to go light up this ridge and you can see thats the target, the biggest rulings are the church in the observatory is on the far left. You can see the building on the horizon. It was a horrible fight. They lost about 1500 people going up that hill. This regimen was from baltimore and they lost a lot of troops. After the battle they relieved cameron and he was demoted to the rank of colonel from two star general and he moved in later retired to stanton, virginia which is amazing. I didnt know that until we retired here. Now, it was in on ominous delay. They said, he wrote in his diary that night and set already in the evening the danger was averted. He knew he had stopped the attack and he brought up the reserves. we were near that line, we have not had. Blame fell heavily on the 79. He was sent to the appliance sector shortly after the initial battle. There were rumors that it was going to be broken up because no one would want to serve in that unit again so theyre just going to disband 79. Generations of historians have lamed inside the soldiers were not prepared for what they had to do and they were blamed there are so books being published today for this debacle. They were later redeemed. They talked to the top of it in good order on the drug to german thoughts after a vicious threeday battle. But it came so close to the armistice that it was not recognized as redemption. As a result, in the dark on, still the biggest and bloodiest battle of u. S. Military history. 1. 2 million men were involved, 122,000 casualties. Look at the other, how that compares. Next is battle of the bulge in world war ii and you can see where dj falls there. To give you a more proximate example of how this measures up, the invasion of iraq when george w. Bush enacted it, there were about 300,000 american troops. So this was four times larger than the in nation of iraq. Which you go back now lets go back to the cover. How did when he left off in your prologue walk your way through so you are able to make this argument successfully . Its quite an intellectual puzzle. I look back on it these 20 years. It has taken me 20 years from the time i found this to unravel this. It is an amazing thing. The thing that put me on the path was parking at the david. I wanted to know first of all what kind of fellow was this parker. Here is the only picture i know to exist out there. I got this from his grandson. He is quite a noncommon man. Came from pittsburgh, earned a bachelors degree at harvard in the same class that franklin d. Roosevelt actuated, went for a year to law school and sally was bored out of his mind with contracts and he decided to go back and get into i conceived out with that. To get into business with his family that supplied the Steel Industry equipment. Is fascinated from his boyhood. The grand army of the republic had met in pittsburgh when he was a child, when he got to meet the soldiers in the civil war. He was fascinated. When the war appeared imminent, he underwent military training at what was called the plattsburgh plan, which gave leadership training to men who might be expected to serve as officers in the army. Harry and the second is called was leading his men and he was always out front with them and he was earned at four times by a german machine gun. It couldnt be moved and the germans captured in and let him off into captivity. He won the distinguished Service Cross and the legion of honor, which is very significant to the awards for valor. After the war, he became obsessed with bullard. He attended a reunion and 9236 or 1937 and his chaplain told him about bowlers refusing to obey orders and refusing to assist american soldiers on the battlefield and he became incensed with the and tried his best to determine whether it was true. The records were close to that point and he couldnt get to them. He was left without an option. The next thing i did and this is when i really knew that i was onto a story that was quite important. I found of course the memoirs, but i noticed that drafts of his memoirs were in the library of congress. Turns out pershing had given his officers assignments to this chat series and none other than Dwight Eisenhower got the assignment and liked the chapter about the attack on montfaucon. Ive been an honest person wrote her gratefully. They failed to turn montfaucon. Interestingly enough in the library of congress, the draft shows that pershing struck a forthright statement out and substituted language that obfuscated who is to blame. He substituted the language through some misinterpretation of the order for the first army, the opportunity to capture montfaucon that day was lost. When you see the boys appear anywhere, and you know that the author of that language is probably trying to dodge some reality that he does not want to face up to. We have heard this hundreds of times. Mistakes were made. You can see the hair. Also coming into play with the wpa. West point protective association. The Army Officers who are educated out west point protect each other and alert and pershing were friends and pershing decided he was not going to let that become public. Here are the two workers. You can see the original order says that they will turn montfaucon by becoming in the zone of action at the core, revised says that they will assist the 79th not by advancing into the area to 79, but by moving as rapidly as possible. This is just remarkable. No one had noticed this before. That does surrounding montfaucon, they just charged forward and that is where it stayed ever since. Heres the other general. I mentioned can i in his autobiography, after the war, he has a self impeaching of individual. He wrote after the war that he had disobeyed orders six times in his career and every time he disobeyed orders, he would do it again because he would write. He sneered at purging for his loyal appearance to orders. This was after purging how to protect it in. He is known to dislike complex attacks like the development and attacks from the planks and he had been his objective was to become commander of the second army and he and chairman were competing. He got the three stars and to do so he took cameron down. He made cameron failed by not obeying orders that pershings staff had written. The cost of disobedient ,com,com ma delay of three weeks never captured the objective. An average of 6000 deaths per day among all combatants and you can see the cost. 950 men are in the cemetery from 79. I want to put a little bit of a human face for you on some of these big statistics. This gentleman is ben hewitt. He was shot on the first day of battle in the race. He damaged his risk and kept on going ,com,com ma kept leading his men. Most of his men were wounded, killed. He volunteered to help the rest of the battle. Park and asked him and he had no right to command him to do this. He said, will you keep the charge into the mainline of resistant against the german. He did that, was shot in the chest. Perkin rushed to his side, he was voted on a stretcher. A german shell artillery shell landed squarely on the structure, killed all five men. The only thing that was left was one rubber heel. He won the distinguished service. Here was major secret manning, one of 6 cents at the South Carolina governor to volunteer for the army. He was a close friend of harry park. After perkin was captured, he made a desperate charge to rescue him from the german. He was shot in the head and killed immediately, killed instantly. He is buried at arlington with five others as as pallbearers. Pershing was there. He was the great nephew for a friend and colleague. Perhaps the cases henrik. Henry was a german in east baltimore. He was such a good soldier he made sergeant the peer they interviewed him to death said mr. Gunther, where was your motherboard . Hes such a case where mr. Father born . Germany. Thank you are coming in today. You can return to your duties. That was very common. He made the mistake when he wrote a letter to a kaizen and it was deemed a defeatist letter. He said dont come over. Its awful. Dont come over if you can avoid it. They accused in a defeatist and then he was busted for the rest of the battle he did every dangerous task that he could do, including being a runner out messages. With seconds to go, all the men have to do is lay down on the ground. He stood up. The second to go before the armistice. He stood up, walked tories the browning automatic rifle and was shot in the head and killed. He is officially the last man to die in world war i. There is a monument to him that was erected by a small village as you can see in the lower lefthand corner in france. Here you are driving up through the middle of nowhere. This is not in a terribly active area and you see this American Flag in this tiny Little Village took up a collection, put the stone in and maintains the American Flag. Now, what happened to the Lieutenant General board . Who is one of the top three generals in the marriage from world war i. A man named hunter as they get and general bullard were one of the top three. After he retired, this means that he was in the Company Comparable company of people like george patton, omar bradley, macarthur in world war ii. He became president of the think tank of the National Security leak. He warned of radical professors. The mexicans revolutionaries just across the border and he wanted to harm civilians as defense. That reminds me of a couple of president ial candidates. He got in trouble towards the end. He took a pavement for it. In his uniform and a lucky strike out and his colleagues turned on him. You can see the ads they are. An army man must be said. Reach for a lucky of editing suite. He died in 1944, a thoroughly dislikable person. His autobiography is remarkable. Now, pershing decided, and i wonder why he did this. He placed the main american memorial, monument. Have you ever seen that before . If i flash it up there without language, which have known what it was . Ifas classes about this. It was designed by the person who designed with Jefferson Memorial in the 79th assault. It is one of 20 divisions. Montfaucon is forgotten today. The ruins are still there. They havent been straightened up. My question is does this monument celebrates the jury or does it mask a debacle . I think the chances are good that it masks a debacle. You hide something in plain sight. Major parkin became a land developer in los angeles. He won the distinguished Service Cross. His grandson told me that my grandfather never had a good day after the war. He was just psychologically wounded. Obsessed with montfaucon. Unfortunately, he lived a mile from general boots who had the goods on what it happened, but those two never met. So harry park and, although he set it on a quest, never knew the truth. Toward the end of his life, he wrote this passage, which i think is very poignant. Are we that survive to become old men, are we the fortunate ones or are those who died in the flush of youth doing something wonderfully fine and he wrote, are they the fortunes . Sometimes i wonder were it not for those near and dear to us, i wonder if i would wonder. You can see the depth of his despair. These are the boys of the 79. If you look into the center man dies, you can see this was taken on the second day of battle. Ive got to tell you a wonderful story before i came here tonight and then we will conclude. I was not able to get this phone call, but jan, night table Editorial Assistant took it. A man whose father was in one of these regimens called and he had just read the book and he said my father told till the day he died that he had been in a regiment that had been treated very poorly. This is vindication. So it is stories like that they really bring things home. Thank you very much. [applause] go has agreed to take questions. Give me a sign when you want to question. Let me start by asking him to buck nuts question. Where did you write, how did you write . This may surprise people, although many of you have seen me in a local cafe. I like to write there. I enjoy white noise and i often go to the cafe and write. I also used extensively at the library and im grateful to those folks. Hill, i would like to know if youve heard anything or had any response from the army . Nothing at all to this point. I need to get the books around. There is a 79th division that exists on the west coast. It is a framework for a division that if there were an emergency would refill. I did have the opportunity to give a copy of this to robert k. And so, the former secretary of defense has a copy and i hope to hear from him. Daniel natural. My mothers roommate was mary tyler. Her much older brother was daniel keller. I was named after him. Your book solved the mystery of what happened to the namesake. He was quiet a great soldier. He was an aide to major parking and parking greatly mourned his death. During the initial assault. Dan keller was quite a brave person. While i get back, what was the heart of this after research ive written most of my life that day most of my life. Writing is hard work. And it involves, for me at least, endless rerating. Rewrite, rewrite and rewrite over and over again and that is the way it gets better. Mr. Walker, theres a connection to another division, the 29th in stanton to the 79th. I wonder if you could explain that a bit. The 29th, which was headquartered at least here in stanton, i told you that there is a second battle. This was on the east side of the loose river against a rich on which the germans had established a new observation. It is called corn lily. The 29th had made the initial run capture a net. They fought a bloody battle, which was almost always going uphill and they reached the top of the ridge, but couldnt push on another mile to capture the position. The 79th caveman and took over the fight and pushed the germans off the hill. In the book, the 29th Division Soldiers who are walking back to the front unfortunately began to tell the 79th soldiers how difficult this was and they said it was the toughest fighting they had ever seen and this was a horrendous place. If you ever go to france and you are in this region, find the molehill farm and you will find that the soldiers were fighting their way up the hill that was almost vertical. One of our wellknown to defend by the name of her agronomist opie was one of the officers. I was looking at the video the other day of general pershing and i saw where he is such an adored man in the aftermath of world war i. Are you ready to take on people who are going to step five and say how dare you . I would softpedal my brooch because he accomplished a great deal. I am absolutely willing to take on those who would like to defend general bullard. I think pershing, the reason he covered these matters and i think in that day and time, he would not have been accused of covering up. It wouldve been out of propriety and not going to talk about failure of the soldiers. And also, as congress does, congress is beginning to cut the army budget. He did not want any kind of controversy to come up about the army at this point. I didnt see any reference in your presentation to use of air warfare. They would seem to me that it would have been the bondman. Is there a reason that wasnt done . One of the most striking things i ran across in my research is the inanity death of the soldier had for the air force, they saw german planes over his positions all the time and they never saw an american plane coming to shoot those planes down. It is remarkable to me. I must say that most of the soldiers that i came across and i need a large percentage of them have nothing but contempt for the flyers. I was wondering during your research if you also read some of the german records and if they had some perspective on what was happening and by the americans hadnt attacked more quickly. I did read german records, does that have been translated and many of them have been translated. One of the most remarkable things when you read this is the germans were caught flatfooted. They did not expect pershing to attack at this place at this time. Had he been taken in an extra vicious way, the chances are that could rope in through and pushed on to capture that. That is the most important part that i have seen. The others stayed that you see the germans say, and this is uniform. The germans would say the americans are of grave. They fight bravely, but they dont fight wisely. There is a saying that is rather want. One of my favorite historians said the americans didnt win because of their tactics. They didnt win because of their weapons or their spirit. They won because they were willing to smother a german machine gun with their bodies. This is very accurate in the german writing. There was a machine gun nest that we found it had 200 bodies in benefit. This happened over and over. Americans were not well trained. They went directly towards the hardest rather than circling around them like most of the other combatants had learned to do. They went directly against trenches, machinegun mass and other adjustments like that. What was it like dealing with Simon Schuster from an editing standpoint. Whats your next book . Thank you. The Simon Schuster people are wonderful. I cannot tell you the kind of support that i got. Most people have a lot of interference. They did not interfere. The suggestions they made were very good. The most amazing is they hired someone, a copy editor to go through and check the facts. They checked the names of the american soldiers and it was remarkable that kind of work that these people did. I am a grammarian. I taught english, not history. As you might expect to have some discussions. They wanted me to explain what the unknown soldier was. I said look, if i explain to people who are going to buy a history book at the unknown soldier with a soldier from france, i will be laughed out of the lecture hall. Theyve amended on that. But that is the best story i have. Thank you for sharing what you know. We appreciate it. The general bullard ever feel defend them enough to give a justification for what he did . Did he say i was going for a glory or did pershing protect them enough that he didnt have to feel defensive. He never had to deal with it. The one thing he did and bullard was the master at this. This was not the first time he did Something Like this to another officer. It had happened before. He knew the best defense is a good offense. After he passed by montfaucon, he began to complain to pershing that they are shooting at us from the hill. So that takes a lot of gall to complain about when you have it done what you should have done, to complain about the troops who took the brunt of what had to happen. There was the second part of the question you didnt answer. What is your next book . Over the course i wrote a lot of press releases, speeches for president , college is. This was a daily sort of task for me. I collected three stories that i wanted to write. The world war i story is the first one. The second one is totally different. Its about a race car driver at indianapolis in the 1930s. A wonderful story. And then i have a great story that i would like to try at some point. I have a dear friend who lives in williamsburg who is a holocaust survivor and he has a remarkable story that i would like to tell. He is a wonderful man, a wonderful human who survived a horrible turmoil and came out just outstandingly. We are less than one year away from the 100th anniversary of the u. S. Going into world war i. What do you say to people who love history and looking ahead towards that centennial, how can we commemorate this war that a lot of people dont know much about. You know, ive been thinking a lot about that. I have to give a speech to Washington Chapel at valley forge to the 314th infantry regiment, which is a world war i. You know, the thing that i find irritating having written about world war i has defined a number of books nowadays and throughout the history that glorify this war. I think we need to have a realistic view of what happened. There were lots of mistakes. A lot of people died needlessly. I think when people began to talk about making the desert oil and radio activity and invading north korea, that we need to pay very close attention so that we dont get into unwise wars that can be so destructive. I want to wrap up by going back to leslies magazine. The first account report from this reporter, lucy and smith kirklin. He writes this. Thats enough critical historical value can be written about the battle today. The documents, the orders, the reports are not available. Even for an eye witness historic come in i did not know how there can be an attempt at bar than half tones. If i write if i write almost as a diary, it is because i saw what anyone could have seen the credentials to comment though. Sleep was indeed a luxury to be seized somewhere, somehow. , somehow appear luscious touch upon the generosity of rolling kitchens, the mud and the wet and the colbert democratically everybody. The monotony of devastation can never be described. It is a country of lasted as its koester beyond redemption. The stories are reaching out to you. Thank you very much. The thank you. [applause] thank you. Its great to see so many of you out thereve. The next room will be available for signing books. [inaudible conversations] religious people who question samesex marriages are called bigoted and worse. The boycotts, fines and imprisonment. Universities were progressivism Reigns Supreme are places that stifling intellectual conformity and all across america whether in our neighborhoods, schools or local government, there is a zero tolerance of anything that may offend or disturb whatever the orthodoxy happens to be in that particular institution at that particular time. It is plain to see that progressive liberals today have become the opposite of the liberal minded person as i describe here. They become intolerant in the name of tolerance did they become close minded and even liberal, which is the opposite of the liberal minded person. Try to control, stifle common descent. Too often these public shaming rituals of the university and co. Were shown increasingly through the law to stifle dissent and shut down debate. I wrote this book because i wanted to tell the story how it is happening. Its a long story. Its not just with happen in the last eight years. Been going on a very long time. Also a lot of misunderstandings i want to tackle. I must say at the outset it will not do if you are conservative to simply argue that progressives have always been this way. This is the response ive gotten on twitter. A lot of people come back with whats new under the sun. Theyve always been intolerant. I just dont think that even though theyve held long, strong held views. I think that their war against dissent desire to control have never been as intense as they are today. There is something fundamentally different and new. Booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. Im doing four things specifically. The first one in the middle is a bully pulpit, which is of course about Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard taft. As an old history teacher, i specifically wanted to go into that fascinating era. I shouldve taken from a title that theyre going to talk a lot about journalism. The author did go into the period of time and gave short shrift to some of the history of really wanted, but a weapon appetite. Last year but a book about speaker can, the relationship can have been Teddy Roosevelt, something that that would be fascinating. I need to go deeper into that. I am not the spirit not have to do that day. Lets see what happens. Roosevelt in africa. Life is good. That is the first one and we are going to go through. Since i love baseball, i will pick up a baseball gospels. Both had gospels. Which ive actually read before. I wanted to reread this thing about a kid who becomes a relief pitcher in the major leagues after a long way coming to the minors. It is written in such a funny style i have to admit the first three chapters i was laughing out loud. It is a wellwritten book and it has a lot of the insides taking place in that area. Last year my staffers gave me a book about joe cannon, speaker. This year he is going to continue giving me one about sam freberg rehberg. Not only was he the longest speaker of the House Committee was also bigger the house and the seniority system ran the place so he cannot reward or punish anyone with any kind of appointments. He was the one who said when i made the chairman of the committee, he got his way, but he had to do it through persuasion, with every day. Thats what i hope to find out. Find out. What is the secret of being a powerful source in the house, without having the overtones other speakers have had to force compliance because they had to do it by the force of his personality. The last one is another retread. When i was teaching history, i was trying to give people a concept of what it was like during the signing of the declaration. Realizing full hand but its close history, but not history. Since it was written basically at the end of the 60s before it was produced, this flood of of 1960 concepts thrown in there and also the characters are a compilation. John adams and the play is a compilation of sam adams and john adams did the opposite and a a good job capturing personalities of the people involved in that comes out so clearly in the play. The other thing i like about it, which is fascinating to me is to use actual language and writing of individuals. Weve done the play several times. Then you read other stuff written by these individuals like i remember that. That was in the play and its cool the way the authors have done a brilliant job and weve been in actual history. The language style isu