And fellow. I and the associate director here. For those of you who have been here before this introduction will see more personal than usual because i am lucky enough to call rebecca and a close friend and to be and others in the audience she is becky. Seven years ago i was approaching twoyear 71st job here in washington d. C. With the job that i really did not like and i would call my mom crying during my lunch hour al least once a week distraught all lead the entitled millenials to be about lacking a purpose and at the point where i was feeling it could not get any worse, there were only two other people on staff at the director and she wanted to grow the team and she asked if they knew anyone who would be a good fit and one of the people she called was becky and in the biggest drug of life like she recommended meet our just a kid sister of one of her friends and here i am seven years later. There is no way to ever pay her back to usher in one of the most interesting and for selling phases of my life so when she broached the subject if we could host an event for the release of war dogs and remember thinking you gave me my job. We can have two events. The late show or the early show. [laughter] as a friend i can say the love care compassion and respect that she shows her friends is the same approach she took to researching and writing war dogs. Reviews have been phenomenal the post called war dogs an exceptionally interesting is surprisingly moving book. General petraeus said it is truly wonderful inspirational and moving. She has been writing about war dogs in her weekly column with the war dogs of the week and it has been a labor of love that she has steamers yourself fully burkett to occur around the country, a training site in arizona by phone and in person into the homes of soldiers that have experienced the incredible impact dogs and handlers can have on each other purpose night she is in conversation with teeeighteen and National Correspondent for the al atlantic and has written for the magazine over 30 years. Founding chairman of the new American Foundation and once worked and is said chief search plan does Research Writer it has written several books and he was sexually back here in april for the american futures project that he and his wife debra have been exploring americas heartland by small plane. There will be tied to ask questions. Please lineup at the microphone because we are still making the program. Please join me to welcome Rebecca Frankel and James Fallows 85. I could not be more delighted with Rebecca Frankel before a shift to becky i have known her eight or nine years and have watched her develop as a writer. I am predisposed to like this book be coz we love her so much but the fact that Jonathan Yardley to is no pushover gave such high compliments is welldeserved. A human story of a science story the culture of work between the species i am glad i have a teiids to ask her questions and have her tell her story. I thought i returned the idiom thing off. It is actually my boss. Hi james. I am here with Rebecca Frankel. [laughter] so let me start just by asking becky coveted is not what i expected when they were raising you as the studious person how did you end up right to exist kind of book . It was dogs first. I work with tom that you probably know him from his wonderful book he has been writing about Foreign Policy edessa got to know him i got to know how much he liked the author of dash dogs he has two dogs in love them very much so we started to bond and i did a lot of total research and i found photographs of marines is in afghanistan and it struck me as different and surprising not because a looked happy but they were hitting me out with dogs not wearing the kevlar and looked very happy. He asked if there were more and i went digging into the topic. This is not just the photo feature but worth the kind of attention you have given it the last two years . Tomlin did tell you he told me first but not until the real summit in London Mission we heard a there was the dog there with the navy s. E. A. Ls and supposedly his name is cairo and we put it up on line and did it very very well so the opportunity to write the book found me. Ive got the copy of a couple months ago i have a couple hundred but to introduce in one part of your story how the dogs do what they do this is how she introduces the idea. Imagine a leaf floated down the creek shiny and wet on the moving water. And then to move faster than we thought possible. This is a prerogative. You want to say a splayed my you give us this story. I guess it is something you dont think about but and this is a trading they were doing so they would kick the dirt when they tried to see which way the wind is blowing. It is those little particles of sand. And with Popular Science in detail like dogs are so good but dont most people though the machines are human beings can do . It is much more complicated. The example that i use sova we recognize to does cancel all the ingredients they can sniff for the idb because that composition is not the exact state every single time. But when they smell in an odor a candied duct tape is something that they recognize as part of the soup they assert it does not to be the complete item it could be the individual ingredient. A mixture of nature and nurture are all able to do it . To they have to find a good is sent . To make it is helpful to understand the species that are uniquely talented its outside is situations that weve in our environment to impede them so that means. I predict you will enjoy it when you give it your friends but the history that you tell the way dogs and human beings. How dogs over the long run and what is different now . Humans have been on the battlefield as long with dogs. There is evidence to suggest the romans used them to guard the citadel in thin the United States had the foresight as much as the germans are the russians did but they were on the battlefield as messenger dogs. And then to navigate this very difficult terrain but with the command but they were able to out to navigate to the trenches say of the of wire so there were very loyal in that respect. So the ability to alert to give warnings to use things to sense danger if you have a dog sitting at home. With the wars with it did say regular combat looking for the iud and snipers, the tagus river of how dodd frank trained for that kind of duty. And how they do their work on the battlefield. There trade differently depend on the branch of service. So any event they do start Dog Training School that is this a but then they go off to the different homes stations but then they deploy as steve and come home as a team. They go through predeployment trading ended sarah glad to have this time to activate because the dog that his station in did new jersey they would data period of adjustment it is very intensive trading but only a very short period of time. Three weeks goes by very fast. I was a big concern to force some of them that was not as it gets as others that they learned to trade for explosives and they do tactical trading and learn to navigate to can scale walls so handlers also have to be prepared to carry their dogs