Ron personally but with your nonsense familiar with him, he reads like one of the more interesting novels. Serving has senior military Intelligence Officer and the combat veteran of afghanistan for 25 years three and retired as the private and the senate colonel and a service of the Foreign Service serving in rwanda because of the zero have a and iraq and twice awarded the of bronze medal for his service in it afghanistan his policy writing has appeared almost everywhere there is to mention and the founder and director of the writing project a Nonprofit Program that has no cost writing workshops for veterans and family members. A amazing fellow and the wonderful writer were thrilled to welcome him here. Ron capps. [applause] spanish faq i cannot tell you a house thrilled by m. This is the hard lines of the book a big defense. I did press today and some of you heard that a and thank you for coming it means a lot to me. Some of you i have known too long to mention. We have cspan2 booktv heres sell so i will talk for a while and michael and james will move with the microphone. There is two stories in this book if you have the chance if you have read it at the very beginning i tell the story of driving off into the desert with a couple of beers in my truck and a pistol when i was getting ready to kill myself. Obviously something happened and i did not get to do that. That is the essential point of the story were everything changes. So the first half of the story is how i got there in the second half is what happened after words. The second half for most of us is the most interesting and the more hopeful story but it does not make sense without telling the first half so what i will do is read and of little bit from a couple of sections and we will talk after words. I served as a soldier for 25 years have of that time i was in the regular army half of that time in the army reserve. During the time i was in the reserve my civilian job was as a Foreign Service officer and i was sent to a lot of interesting places. The first half of my career i tell people i was very dull i never got shots at just a Peacetime Army job than the door to Foreign Service then they go to places where they shoot at people vegas of the and the things got interesting this began 1996 running through 2006. The ted years of my deployed this takes place is close of 2008. As part of the tea loved diplomatic observers have for Foreign Service officers have word military and we had to drive around the province to stop the fighting to get the rebels to stop killing each other and civilians. We arrived in the village one day too late the infantry had come through the day before it can this is the story of what we had found. It is part of the nsa that i rode to called yellow now it is the chapter in the book. Yellow. The skin was yellow they had during under their fingernails and their feet were dirty there were six of them all women and some had lived long enough to have wound bandaged before they died this of were killed instantly as shrapnel had entered their bodies. They were dead about 24 hours. We knew this because we had come to witness their funeral of the type of card eppley were present they would not shoot at them members as they buried their dead. The first of might have seen ward said there was surprise the skin was yellow. The experience was to funerals, and older brother of a friend, a grandmother but none of them were yellow. I was surprised this is the first time i had seen what dead people looked like with no embalming or make up for close they were just dead. Flying in the tangle of close on the trailer that had only carried peppers and corn only parts of the body were visible i could not see all of their faces one headed are resting across the forehead one had a bandage and 18 month old child resawed dogs on the way up the trail. The refugee field officer who led us to the scene said the dogs probably got the body. She was right but nobody wanted to say it we sawdust mother resting in a house and she had a bullet in her upper arm passed through her baby them through her breast lodging in her arm the father said the baby was killed instantly and tore the child in half. He tried to the mother away to safety but a doctor from the red cross was treating her wounds there were 10 women and a 72 yearold man in one room of the house all were wounded in the attack they sat silently on the floor lost in their pain and thoughts waiting. Way did this pretty much every day for two years driving around kosovo trying to stop the fighting almost always one day late. To date to stop the fighting but just in time to conduct investigation of the war crime against humanity. Murder. And i would write reports in the afternoon incident the computer to write crisp reports of cruelty. But i knew this was not enough but i needed touche document more i would go to my tent to sit down and write what would happen. Those sessions grew into this book so what i wrote about that event i sat down one night and tied dash out the skin typed out the words yellow. That day up bin us small valley in the serbian infantry had swept through firing mortars directly in front of themselves what they were shooting at was women and children and old men who were driven out of the town a couple of kilometers away just the day prior moving into this Little Valley to be safe then the serbian infantry came through. We drove back into the town and this is what happened. The villagers wanted to bury their dead in plain sight of the ridge line where we could see the snipers the land was taken from them in the forties and reclaim the seven days a belong to twostep people there would be sure that they understood that the women they were bored burying were boarded the valley and raise crops giving birth to their children in this small houses we parked vehicles and in plain view as a deterrent to certainly they would not shoot at the u. S. Observers or the vehicle. Nonetheless i was shaky standing around at the base. The crowd was targeted took time to bury the dead a of the men worked with shovels for about an hour. Afterwards we stopped on the way out and use satellite telephone to call washington to tell the state department what we had seen it seemed far away from that hillside but the officer on the other and was the friend and colleague had it been someone else i may have been more animated but it doesnt understood what was happening. E. Levin said unman seven dead and six women and one child. Yes i counted them myself. Yes. Were sure they were dead i verified it personally. Ive left out the part about the dogs. Wave made one more stop off the hill as the man fled best down in told our interpreter he wanted to show was something i glanced to his house said women were sitting on the floor comfort each other surrounding the body of another woman that was laid out on her back wrapped in a blanket parts of her head and face were missing. Of the men said the mortar round exploded near her head though women wailed in unison he was the father intended decrying and the smells and the fly as we listen to. Having safe in your house to stay there rather than moving up with the other she decided to take food to her neighbors. And she was at the base when the attack started the mortar shells probably came in groups of three. As they left the tubes than the 5,462nd wait while they flew then landing and at the wing off bubbles above the canyon as they exploded there were probably set to go off 1 meter off the ground i cannot wait to get out away from the small and the crying and the death i felt horrified they would fire at women and children and i had to look the way i concentrated on her scarf and watched the other women slowly and i looked at the womens father and my partner photographed her body when we left eight dead down the hill at the intersection of a crowd of women and men have gathered some boys were sitting at the edge of rhode they sad to expressionless as the crowd stormed the vehicle was pinned against the truck and my a translator echoed staccato pleas for help one held her baby at arms length and was facetoface with the child the mother spoke deliberately. Take her son now appear so the serbs will not kill him. Ive looked at the woman and said the sure she knows we cannot do this we are observers we cannot relocate if we do the government will order all of us out of the country. For the first time we understood the folly to be in the war only to observe it was hot with the sun beating down i felt cowardly and yellow hiding behind why sunglasses is. I waved my notebook get the truck to say that is a vehicle to take them to safety i could not muster the courage there was little hope she would get out that day i found out later was wrong. Several officers arrived late in the day and some evacuated the children to a safer village. Runback to the village and had to tell the mother we did not find her baby. It would have served no purpose what we thought happened but i could not find those words anyway. That evening i drafted my report that was three pages long what was reported to us i said it appears the infantry came to the valet preceded by a barrage of mortar fire seven win in one incident were killed vehicles and clothes and supplies were burn to receive no evidence of insurgent activity i did not mention a funeral or a dog or a woman begging me to take action. Or the look on the mans face i carefully said what was told like reported the intelligent the. I carefully made the people the center of the report never started your own report. Ill let my teammates read the report so we all agreed then turned it to our editor in in doing so i documented a war crime. So the war went on a number of months. We stayed until the Obama Campaign began then we went out to macedonia to spend the three months interviewing refugees or people that were driven out of kosovo voted onto trains and shipped across the border. In europe at the end of the 20th century, when the Obama Campaign ended up was one of the first aircraft to fly back to close a volume said we are back. Then went back out to macedonia. What was now an independent nation in what we did but as the special place in hell for people like ken. And then to spend another year there with a couple of years prior during the end of the war as an extension of genocide we documented war crimes in kong golf to go through fighting with of rwanda of military. And then back to military duty. I arrived in afghanistan not quite one year and to augment the regular army unit to show the reservist not knowing what to expect and i was in charge of the a couple of hundred people and i was tasked to send her off but for a period of time i came to understand i was suffering from katy sdi had images of the dead coming to visit the night i would break up and see dead people standing around my cot then i understood i was troubled when it happened during the day and this is what that was like. In the cold predawn i hear generators moving on the other side of the base but it is quiet none of the soldiers assure retention rather even snoring. I stay in my sleeping bag fighting the urge to run away. The taliban launched rockets so we were on edge that is not what was keeping me up i was in my sleeping bag controlling my racing harder than trembling because the dead have come to talk to me. Every night for a couple of weeks beckoning to me to pull the from a warm and comforting sleep to u. S. Series of tormenting dreams tonight is the dead from afar burned and twisted into contorted shapes that pools along the dirty floor. Word to you remember us . Most assuredly. The 94 the dead from the village 45 shot in the back of the head and left to die on a frozen january morning 1989. Why did it you do more to save us . Indeed. Night after night they appear on the big screen of my mind rising and each time i ascared and ashamed theyre not real and only images but they terrify me for what they remind me of the allies side did not say if. They terrifyingly for what i represent i cannot stop them for taking control of my mind with the eyes wide open to see the dead in front of me. Trouble begins slowly by the time i am fully aware i have graphic tree mr. Penny and i awake with heart racing and crying always ready to go back to sleep. I am losing control of my brain. In time i see the images and i am awake i cannot concentrate i said my desk to plan meetings and shake until i have to leave. And i fear i had lost my mind but ive afraid to ask for help end a if that are of a culture asking for help and as the sign of weakness. Nothing will matter but when i can no longer control the images in my head when i am forced to head a hide shaking and crying again some noise in damages and realize to continue to deny would endanger the soldiers i was sent to afghanistan i ask for help. That day i stopped the divisions surgeon and said i am having some problems. He listened intently and put his hand on my arm and said are you a danger to yourself or others . Which is a question youre asking a lot when people thank you are crazy they look at you in think will he start shooting . I was not a danger to anyone else and i said that. Not to myself at that time. That came later. But i knew i needed help so well when it to save the psychiatrist. I walked in and i sat down they have the big tv to keep the new ways from the back as people crying so there is a big tv on the shelf and larry king is on of course, cnn. He is interviewing someone i have no idea who she was but i looked down under the television were straitjackets so i am convinced i have gone around the bend they will take me away. Slicer to cry and i am rocking back and forth in that is when the psychiatrist walks out so i am sure i made his day with that. Great. Field grade officers broke in and crying and shaking on the floor. I got the treatment i needed to get me home and abroad my soldiers home i was home for about four months been deployed to iraq. I spent time there and came home then i got a phone call from a friend that said you are about to be mobilized again and sent to iraq which i thought was irony being a rack with the state department when the army called. I began arguing so they said you will volunteer to come back so we dont have to mobilize you can have your choice of assignments. That means Different Things to different people that did it in the democratic republic of congo or sudan. I was a foreign officer for subsaharan of officer i chose a day and i volunteered and was sent there just after colin powell announced what was happening in darfur was genocide. There were 300,000 dead, 2. 5 million displaced and dissent in as the representative tuesday after kidd union Ceasefire Commission to stop the fighting. We had a 1700 people in the area larger than iraq to stop fighting among those who dont want to stop fighting. I spent nine months there and got a phone call from mumbai fan the doctor says come home i spent one month is sitting by my mom while she died. That was a tuesday was eric drove home and thursday i had lunch at the white house and friday reburied my mom monday i went back to the stateoftheart and ordered back to door for. Door for a and i was working on a mission. And the capital it is the capital of darfur where we are at. I was there in support of the mission to organize and run a trade the exercise for the peacekeeping staff and a scenario writer the humanitarian emergency develops into a security crisis. Deal with it. That develops into a humanitarian catastrophe. Deal with it. The kitchen sink problems arise dealing with all of them. Things get harder. In intend to help with the scenario and it gave them to colleagues they were utterly unprepared for the mission. I was feeling i was falling apart in some ways worse than afghanistan bad in to the ptsd episode drinking myself into a stupor every night in where alcohol was banned and carrying on a clandestine line affair with a u. N. Official but what i saw around me was 300,000 dead 2. 5 million displaced. I had no safety net touche catch the or nothing to hold the together in a few responsibilities i was mostly along for the ride but despite this i was managing well and tell one bad day. The woman that i was having an affair ask me what happened after work had ended the racket at a few weeks having fun is a nice hotels and in guesthouses and drinking and playing but when she started to make noises about next steps that set off alarm bells that i had a life outside that bubble and i would have to go back to that life and reckoning. I was not rational. But i was functioning at the high level to write interactive scenarios is in the midst of a complex emergency collecting information of rebel forces the government of sudans response to write reports for the of the sea of what i have learned to at the same time carrying on the illicit affair but i was convinced that my life was fucked up her to people i stopped hurting people and take darfur my riding stopped when mom had died and was a failure of my marriage was a failure everything brought pain and i was getting worse. Said dark stuff in my head try not to so i decided to kill myself. I did so quite rationally i thought about it scripted missteps and timing to locate the tools i would need to sort out the acquisition and the aftermath. Of lunchtime i have a plan and acquired all the tools in that afternoon i began work i grabbed a couple of beers wraps them in a tshirt to put them on the seats of the three yoda earlier i had borrowed up pistol from the teams argentine loan. To be no questions asked because we had worked together six months and he had no reason to suspect other than i was a competent career officer. I drove out of town and dramatically in to the setting sun. I pulled off the main road to small villages and stopped the truck on the low prices and i opened one of the beers provide started to cry but i dont know why and filled with a sense of failure. Nothing i touched ever succeeded or was never could i have been through five wars in 10 years with rwanda, a close above darfur i felt as if i had reached a logical place i opened the second year i picked up the pistol and a felt good in my hand and i pointed it out the of windshield in curls my finger around the trigger i imagined pulling the trigger in the sound it would make nothing to shoot out swell would just blow the windshield but if there was i was holding in my right hand and i was lefthanded. I remember a momentary flash of clarity. Who else would i hurt . My wife, mr. I thought when i was getting ready to do even someone have been in to nucleate up the truck after words and leave less of the mess but it passed and i was overwhelmed with a sense of sadness in because of my failures and the jews were brushing at me the mayor and with the red eyes and the mutilated family. Picked up the pistol and charged loading a bullet into the chamber my hands were shaking it took the pistol offer of safe. Was sobbing and talking to myself. The pistol was ready to i put it in my left hand pointed down i took a deep breath to call myself and i was ready then the phone rang. It scared the hell out of me and i jumped startled and almost pulled the trigger which would be ironic preparing myself to shoot myself in their head and it was my wife calling. Was this serendipity or karma or walk or uncanny timing . I put the pistol back on save to laded on the sea was talk to her for a few minutes i stared out the windshield the ringing phone had broken the spell after theyre crying and shaking the justifying and the calling of payments and of nerves and a focus of charging fell weapon in to check off the safety to put the barrel in my mouth the phone had pulled me back from the brink. I took the pistol back to the sergeant i borrowed it from. I called my boss and said i need to come home. Two weeks later was flown home to washington. I landed it was not to of mandatory medical screening nobody asked me how revealing . In to in the Sage Department but i got medical care. I started it took a long time. I am still on the road home and write to does that for me. And debt dash for help and i was actually disabled and that is how that went. The old guy in front of me which use a the katy as he went to the hospital door the last week of july the temperature at least 90 degrees i was wearing a tan cloth jacket that was it up to a the neck and then is said rolled were to veteran that should keep the sun off his head. With Service Documentation notes from combat deployments the first visit to the v. A. Hospital the Medical Center is a chart lists building as you can imagine with the parking lots constantly in overflow a rented midways it is like idiots Hospital Health care in on the administrative staff and bad coffee. But with one very important way it is different wear combat veterans and tear the system and walking in from the parking lot the stress rising in my gut the memories of five wars in images of the debt offstage there was iteration in desk who looked me up and down to made a judgment about the i cannot imagine what it had been saying i caper refers appointment my hands were shaking so i held them down he told the with the office was. Walking through the lobby i imagine everyone was looking at me. Look at that psycho boy home from the war and broken. Life felt like my first day of highschool and i was dressed in a tutu a and i waited. Though waiting room was part of the lobby so it was noisy i kept my head down inside the office a woman looked over it shows trading san the words then she started to enter my data into the system she did a very garett job to ignore my symptoms and tall shea asked if i wanted to go to the emergency room. Maybe i should have. At my psychological screening i was interviewed by someone new to the system but the more qualified supervisor in attempting i had to detail all problems in fall and i started at the beginning with rwanda rwanda, echoes the bow, afghanistan and treatment for ptsd, iraq, ed darfur failed Suicide Attempt and on and on. Staring up the floor by quietly describes the every loss, my fear and anxiety my inability to control images of dead in my head. In those wholly irrational saying this. And starting with that of the new ticking and the lexus what is it about them anyway . [laughter] why doesnt anyone use turn signals anymore . Why dont they return the shopping carts into the store instead of leaving them in the goddamn parking lot . The supervisor snickered. The only sounds were the air condition falling and i looked up the interviewer looked stricken in shame was in my throat will come into the of v. A. Cycle borate. [applause] thank you very much. I very much appreciated. Started to circulate with the microphone the first question is always saw hardest. [laughter] it says say personal lines for something much larger than yourself the distant town were back to of witnessing the you have a broader conclusion how International Organizations can operate more effectively . I have the couple of things with the International Community work but not to complete the answer i will take a stab. There was the International Board accepted among the Community Called the responsibility to protect and there are some experts in the room on that but the leadership of then gave nation has a responsibility to protect citizens and if they fail to do so then the community has a responsibility to step bin. I am paraphrasing but almost every nation is signed off but north korea is not signed on. Surprise. Were faced this question every day so why arent we doing more . Every individual among us we cannot fix every problem we do the best we can ever cable backrub darfur explaining why policy would fail and you did not need to be prussian to but i was willing to use a so. With the hindsight of 68 years it was a hard month with millions of dollars of aid on the ground to keep people alive was of big step to solve the problem other than a military intervention will already engaged in iraq and afghanistan to ring gauge militarily in a muslim nation in the middle of africa in a place that made the logisticians go crazy. And i was not thinking clearly but i felt strongly that is what we should do it is hard to look at syria or ukraine we cannot do everything but we can support the United Nations foley or nongovernmental organizations to give them support what we want or cannot take on. That i was speeding by a head on for years and a lot smarter people and wish we had a better answer and i dont. Sari. To. Is your wife here . To make yes. My wife carol is here. The woman who called me in darfur is more reagan. When i went home the affair that i was having was the last straw between a somebody told me you were not husband of the year. We were very 20 years. Presplit up just before i went back to darfur. Ive met carol a few years later and we have been married six years now. She is recognized for it and we still talk record of they. Here is the microphone. With the instance of v. A. Have you seen what kind of progress on behalf of the v. A. With the veterans writing project . I know there are signs of change across the country with new funding for nonprofits that there is a sense of hope. Could you hear that . Is the ft 20 Getting Better at what they do when the supervisor was laughing at me . Yes. Is not one organization and takes care of widows the Health Administration which is the hospital and then the Veterans Organization is messed up and have been for a long time but they are Getting Better. They had a huge backlog of 300,000 cases . Over 125 that is the target with 350,000 cases that were well beyond that my case took 400 days from the time i filed and they called me, 365 days until they called me to come in then a couple months later they made adjudication it has spent cut in half but some hospitals are better than others the joke is if you have seen one v. A. You have a seed one. This stuff going on is limited to that hospital i have received Excellent Health care i used education benefits to go back to your graduate school so that part worked for me. And where the supervisor is laughing at me. Not health care but to adjudication that is Getting Better but v. A. Has opened an office or complementary alternative care looking at right teeing as theyre paid. I hope they call. Were looking at the department of defense at walter reed teaching writing that were not therapist we are writers but theyre using trading as a tool the itea day get said. Hopefully they will. First think you for telling your story as a recently retired marine who is going through a lot of things you have gone through when i hear i am not alone it is reassuring for me. Also i did not know you were part of with the right team program definitely have received a lot from that personally. As a retired marine rehab the saying that is all about getting some. From the day you hit a boot camp from the day you go to the beach with the combat action in the eyes of the cohort it makes you go warrior that you claim to be but i go there was a point going from getting some to have enough and a point between joining with a few seconds lets go to the site ward. All i know maybe it is different. [laughter] that moment where years switch from the glorification and the nobility of the military . Then i matt combat they see people dying and it is partially my fault. Absolutely. Thank you for raising that question. And this is why i do care very late in my career. I was an american in diplomat. And my father was in the military. Of my cousins were in the of military. And the day my sergeant said get a commission and i thought i cannot do this. I was proud of its but that moment after let home from darfur a couple days after i was flown back to khartoum to close out might accounts physically taking live from west end very much felt the cameras passing the baton to the next generation as the smart qualified officer who did better choices than i did and after his time in darfur took a more traditional assignment to give himself time to recover and rest. So not just to pass on what i have burned in the field but also passed on to him that you have to take care of yourself as well. And then be have to stay together. It almost follows the question and you were in a small group but it almost seems to leave if there is anything king humanitarian person in that situation would have the response. A venin if not the military whey do you really think, i do not think that all of your colleagues were responding in much the same way even if they didnt have the wherewithal or the presence of mind to go home to than talk about yellow skin or think about yellow skin . One of the things the doctor said i work with it is a recurring theme that ptsd, at the disorder is not the term that the lots of people like. One day and they have said is what happened to you was a perfectly normal reaction to a long chain of abnormal life defense. I had a number of my colleagues come to me privately to say i am so glad youre taking care of yourself you have inspired me to go get help but i have also said i tried to reach out to send a emails for a couple of reasons. Did you know, i was struggling . And also as of way to close the loop on research i looked at the new books to check the dates and that is our do research but to say you remember ben and number of colleagues refuse to be in contact with me. I dont know why but i worry because they feel it will ruboff. Or i was weak and they are embarrassed. I dont know why. But the people who are the most the danger to themselves are the ones who will not get help. Or tap into the fact they break up in the middle of the night. Absolutely. I just want to address a comment when you say you dont know why i think a lot of people own a deal with it by never talking about it because my father was the evergreen in the Pacific Theater in world war ii and did not talk about it to anyone for 50 years. He wrote about it maybe two years before he died that is the first time we knew anything. That is typical of the of world war ii generation that were mostly men a very small percentage of women at that time but they came home and immediately told now get back to work thank you for your service now we have to fight the soviets by being the best in the biggest cars so get to work so the Research Shows that was 30 years after the war when they started to retire that they started to ask for help. One last thing there is the book written by a veteran the arak veteran. He was infantry it is called killing time. A terrific book but there is a part they come off a major firefight in the platoon sergeants says are you okay . He says i dont know. The sergeant says my dad told me when he came home the way you get through this is putting in a box and deal with it later. If theres one lesson from my book you will have to deal with this stuff is better to do it on your own terms when you can i have a sign in my office. You control the memory or it will control you. Would you consider this a misjudgment or more offer weaknesses of the system. I think i maybe try and stay away from characterizing the senior leaders. I came to kosovo very early in the diplomatic career as a political officer. My job for a couple of days was to drive hole brooke around. I was the driver, and to be around holbrooke to be around chris, to be around the guys who were fighting every day to try to stop the war, i learned a lot. What they said among themselves, if they had the selfdoubts, i dont know. I wasnt party to that. I would say it would be very, very hard not to have that kind of doubt. But i think that among people like dick holbrooke, he may not have head those doubts. He was so much more senior than i will ever be. That i ever reached, and it was his job to stop the war. My job to drive the truck. But i still feel like i failed because i didnt stop the fighting. I dont know what he felt. I asked him once and we had a chance to talk, and i never really got a straight answer out of him. It is humbling to fail. To go somewhere look likekosovo, eastern congo, darfur, and be told your job is to stop the fighting, and to fail over and over again. And to see the lives of the civilian population disrupted the way we have. Its very humbling. And it does change the way you view the world. I am a much different person than i was 15 years ago. In kosovo. I dont know if im here hopeful but im certainly more emfa the tick. Empathetic. As far as how the kosovo people view the americans that were there at the time and the brits that were there at the time, a good friend teaches at the American University there. Some of these stories in here have been translated into albanian and published in kosovo. Were working to get this book published in kosovo right now. The guy that was my translator there, and his sister, maybe you know yeta, she is a working to get the book translated and we hope to be able to get it into the hands of a lot of kosovo citizens so theyll know what happened to some of us still there. Thats it. Thank you so much for coming. [applause] thank you, and thank you for your thoughtful questions and insight and your commentary. We are thrilled to have had you hear tonight and we have some copies of the book on sale. There is so much more to the experience in the book, and i hope you will grab a copy. Otherwise, please come see is again. We have readings here every monday night, and anyway, thanks again. Have a good night. Applause youre watching booktv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on cspan2. Religion is a powerful identityforming mechanism. It is part of Human Society is figuring out who is us and who is them. Right . Who is my group and who is the out group. Religion answers that question easily. If you pray like me, if you eat like me, if you go to the same church as i do, then youre us. And if you dont, then youre them. And you can see very easily how that kind o