In addition he is also the winner of the award for editing and congratulations on that which is a prestigious award for editing in challenging circumstances so congratulations on that and we appreciate you being here. Is also one of the few journalists that have had a large amount of first hand experience going to see on ships and watching naval courses operate and practice their work. Most recently he was up in norway with the marines as part of the expansion of the state wide range of practical and as a reporter so were happy to have mike here his new book heavy metal the hard daysand nights of the Shipyard Workers who build americas supercarriers. Well talk a little bit about that but thank you mike for being here. Thanks for having me. To start with i wanted to ask you kind of a big overarching action. Why did you want to write a book about newport news . Youve got a large history there, i assume thats part of the decision. Way back when when we first got married in the late 80s i had a Job Interview at the daily press at a local paper in newport mews and that was lay of the land kind of thing and i came across a cityscape where you can see the carriers and i stopped the car. I was used. Cityscapes but this was different. This is, what is going on here and it fascinated me. I had to find out who worked in there, how they did this work and just kind of from there. An i came back into the city and cover the yard. So you covered the yard for a long time as a reporter locally but you worked in national media. Your National Last book focused on the south china se sea which is a terrific read for all you guys. Now, why did it take so long for you to come back to the carriers . You had written a lot about things outside of the yard. You wrote about t the South China Sea extensively and events internationally and for janes fighting ships. A couple things, one is 4 janes i was covering the yard again. Ea not as extensively as i would at the local paper, but at the same time everything seemed to be what was going on with the whole country deciding to work on carriers and we were thinking aloud to ourselves and to each other what should your next book be about and honestly i had started a project down there. It was going to be a long series about how the union got started and never got published. And i went to find a home for that so i shared some of the writing with that and the characters from that looked out at him and as i did it meanwhile imet them and from there we said we got to tell the story. So the reason why its the shipyard is in the news a lot today is because of the challenges with being able to build super carriers now and in challengingtechnological threats and financial environment. Ford famously had a lot of problems due to a pretty aggressive effort to introduce new technologies into the carrier. That was set apart from its predecessor, the minutes class character carriers but you chose to write about that kennedy, second in his class h. Most people would have gravitated to the floor and treated it ededas this interesting case of the military run amok so why did you choose the candy . Initially we were going to use reagans cvs 76. Because i was at the yard at that time so i knew all the characters. Honestly a lot of things were going on thwith the reagan. There were giving up at concessions to get a contract and everything like that and thats what we initially wanted to do and then when we were going out shopping the book , the editor at harpercollins that i want something a little more current than so it was like, their building right now as we speak and he says lets do that, lets focus on something as their building it. As opposed to something thats already out and it just took off from there. So to talk about the kennedy, you highlight in the book some of the challenges that they had in building the ship. Because it seems like second in class ships should have easier sailing than the first in class. Less new stuff, that technology should have been ironed out and but Kennedy Still had its share of problems in terms of just getting the ship built. It doesnt help to have a pandemic in the middle of it. Theres a lot of other issues so what were the challenges you found that the Shipyard Workers had to contend with as they were building the second class ship . First of all with some of the things in four they had ironed it out and now they were testing this onthe kennedy. And in some cases those fixes didnt quite work out. You have a lot of cases where the master shipbuilders would look at something on the diagram and say its not going to work. Ge and all know, it would come together and of course it did but the other part of it was there was this aggressive desire by the navy to get that ship cut with a decrease in manpower. 18 percent so they wanted to build this next new carrier. Fix all the problems you had with the first carrier with fewer people. That put an awful lot of pressure on them and by the way, if you do that will give toyou possibly this to track deal for carriers. If you dont, were going to go from here and at that point if you have another board type of situation that could fit in theprogram. So to the workers down there how does this impact the workers . Youve got the navy its up this situation where theyre trying to drive a lotof new Talk Technology into the program. A lot of things on the ship relative to class carriers. Theyre trying to cut costs at the same time so it kind of all falls to the workers, they where the rubber meets the road trying to translate aggressive schedules and technology assert insertion with financial constraints . They have as they said, this kind of cando spirit h. Its a realistic one quite honestly. They will be the first to tell you. We can do that but its going to take this much extra or whatever. But there was this sense in the book, they have a sense of this is newport news. We built carriers and we build them right. There were more upset by some of the things that had happened with the ford in terms of the idea that they didnt build such a good ship because there were a lot of things that went into that that thats kind of a debatable point so they were more focused on that, more focused on were going to do this ship right and the lowest level especially at mid nashville level you got to come up through the ranks focused on that. So that pressure that they were feeling that they were about to try to meet that challenge, how did that shape the experience with the ford . Did the Shipyard Workers feel like when they were building for that then they were building something that was going to have trouble down the line when it came to testing . I dont thinkthey thought that at all totell you the truth. An awful lot of the systems that went on their , there were systems and if you look at for example the newway they were launching and recovering the aircraft for example , they installed it and there was never a question about installation which is what they do. Now the one thing i think they really didnt feel was there weapons elevators because is something they do. And that was holding up the ship and you had secretary spencer one time saying fire me if you dont get it right, they felt that pressure. That was something they took to heart. Thats what they tell me. I have to step back and say im not a shipbuilder. I can only tell their stories but thats what theywere telling me. Thats not right, were going to get this right and they felt were going to get this right. So they didnt feel ovlike the navy and set them up etto fail a little bit because of the pressure that they were being put under, the cost constraints. They look at the navy as more like a partner at that level. Basically you have the navy supervisors and theres a pretty good iprelationship now. There didnt used to be but hi there is now so they lookedat it more as a partnership. There was a sense of who really has to Work Together to get this right. It was more of that sense and thisll were being setup. Now later on when secretary spencer pulled them out and really put a hold on them especially with the elevators that was a different story because quite honestly the navy there wouldbe no problem. The shipbuilders thought there would be no problem and it was a problem. They both shared a lot of responsibility for that and spencer the whole onus on the shipyards. How does the experience of the Shipyard Workers have with the forward class which is this new ship. Theres a lot of challenges involved in building it, obviously weve thheard before compared to the nimitz class whereby the end e of it i guess i have to assume it was getting pretty broke because they were getting their prices down but i dont know if thats the case. Was there a market, did they feel like this is night and day comparing their experience between ford and kennedy to what they did on nimitz . I want to talk more about kennedy with this because thats where you saw the difference is that for a nimitz class which were felt an awful lot during the cold war the focus is onbuilding a good carrier. The cost really wasnt as much of a factor. When it got to the ford, costs start to be a factor and weve got rthe kennedy and they start to look at things they never done before which is almost creates like a ford style production line. You cant do it for carriers but you can do it for different parts of the carriers and start doing in different sections of the ship. They would line up for work in such a way it was creating this type of production line feel and they were starting to look into the process. That was what was different about the kennedy especially, looking at the actual processes of what they were doing to a whole different way of shipbuilding and well talk about that, incorporating this a digital part of it. Before it was the shipbuilder came and he learned his craft and he taught it to the experts and now you have all this digital stuff and they were learning like you to. They were more sophisticated but essentially the same thing and they were incorporating data into it. There was a lot of push and pull paul about that andthere still is. In some ways they challenged the younger shipbuilders. Its interesting you mention that because i was going to ask about the idea that shipbuilding is really an art in a lot of ways. Theres a lot of vopartisanship involved as opposed to just Manufacturing Type of business but smaller ships can be increasingly look Like Assembly lines where the ship can go through our combat ship. For example you can build those a little bit more in a serial production way like you build airplanes or cars carrier is just a large house, it seems whenever you start one from scratch as opposed to move it through a production line. But within that you have parts of different ships are like plates, sections of the ship. Piping. The way of typing fits together. You may basically a lot of empty spaces with these compartments and thats where you get into that field where you have production for t different parts of the ship. Did you find the Shipyard Workers started to get comfortable with particular parts of the production line, they felt like they got a handle on this is my thing or did they feel like they got pulled off to do different jobs that maybe are not in their wheelhouse or they get pull off to do different paths that may be something they dont do every day . For the most part they be doing a thing at a certain time in the carrier. What i found is that especially in parks, theres a few hundred thousand studs and they would have to climb up the letters to do that but its backbreaking work but now because of the way the computers were coming in they anwere doing that with a plasma burner when their first coming off the line so now they put the lines in as opposed to doing all the hard workbefore and they found that to be very cool. Wow, this is right here and theyd have parts on the very side of the parts of the ship. They have them all waiting there for them and they have to go out and get it because of certain things being done, may not be done in time. So that kind of thing did taper off. Those kind of advancements to get to the labor question, those advancements in how shipbuilding has become easier for the shipbuilder and maybe a more attractive working environments, how has that changed the requirement for retaining people in the shipyard because everybodys having a problem being able to get workers today and shipbuilding is not like working at starbucks. It pays a little better probably but its a much different environment, its a much more challenging environment how are these workers . There trying to bring them in by saying we are on the cutting edge. Were offering different kinds of manufacturing and even within that if you want to get into all that kind of thing, you can come here and learn that. That is what theyre selling. But like you said, a lot of people are selling back. And to be perfectly honest they can make a lot more money going off the road to get out of the bush. So it is not this very lucrative job. It was more lucrative than generational shipbuilders when it came to farms and stuff like that in the carolinas. But its still not very lucrative. So they can make more money elsewhere but they are starting to bring in some of these younger workers with this whole idea where in the digital age now. Were getting into this and that is attracting some but they just now started hiring at 5000. They the contract they just put out, they signed it a quarter ago. It was all kinds of different types of benefits in their so you can advance very quickly in order to keep workers and especially ones that have been in for a year or two so its tough for them. You mentioned that anheuser breweries, are there otheremployers in the area . They say down there is goingto be walmart and the military are. Thats kind of like, but the ai i just opened this brandnew Unmanned Center and im sure theres going to be some backandforth between the two is going to be very enticing. Thats one of the very areas cutting edge. But i mean, there are a few places down there but its still kind of, everyone knows the yard. Everyone has someone in their family who works for the yard. Talking about that, you bring out some stories of some of the characters that you met with down there. Theres multi generational people down there working with the third or fourth generation at the shipyard. Do they see the shipyard as being a generational responsibility almost, like this is how we can ensure National Security or did they see this as the bestoption pothey had other options . To your first point most of the Shipyard Workers are very patriotic, they really are. Its amazing for them for a lot of this because its not a place your head is on a swivel. You go there and your main idea first of all is to build a great ship. Why . This represents our incountry and its going to save thousands of lives but also you want to leave that yard alive and in one piece and more importantly have your friends leave in one piece but that patrioticfeel is always them for them. The other, the generational people theres a mix. 30,000 workers there are all cookiecutter and theres some who are like my dad worked at the yard, my grandfather worked at the yard and there are others who their father worked at the yard and they were determined not to work at the yard and p then they would wind up working at the yard. It is that kind of thing. But even then, really everyone i met had this yes, im going to punch the clock and do my stuff and get out. I didnt meet anyone like that at all. And i think iktheyd be weaned out if they were. I really do becauseits that kind of place. If you have that attitude someone is looking over your did you find the other Shipyard Workers are going to holdeach other accountable so if you are a slacker , its your teammates that are going to call you out on it. Absolutely. If you dont do a good job, youll find that out before someone else and a supervisor gets to you. Its that kind of place. But its not a place where theyre fighting with each other. Theres some work rules that really kind of, if youre a painter and can paint within a certain distance of a hot spark, if youre a fhot mill worker you have tobe further away but that was the way it was three years. So the guy was doing some hot welding, the doesnt put his torch in for a shift, to ghost dosomething else. Halfway through its likeill do this job next, you get a work order and have that job to. You have to go back to your supervisor so theres some of that but theres not like inviting and stuff like that. I mean, they had different beliefs. Go down there during the cultural chaos and the partisan politics of last year, in the yard where you have 30,000 workers its a small city so youre going to have that kind of broad range of politics, religion and everything like that. All looking at it differently and when it comesto the gatehouse believe that, they have to. You talk in the book about he in the history of the yard its experienced every phase of american disorder and upset that weve thexperienced on the outside. Back in the 60s hethere was a lot of friction in the yard. Absolutely. So the yard essentially basically was like a plantation system as were most Large Industrial plants in the south. So we had that and to get a union in their, talking union you might as well say lets bringcommunism in, thats the way they felt. You basically had one episode nd called blood he monday where you had one of the workers taken away in anambulance and heads were wgetting busted. It was up to the Supreme Court some decisions to get the union in their. It was not a good mood at all. Jumping forward a little bit labor is having a bit of a resurgence. Were seeing immunization efforts at companies that previously thought they were immune to that kind of pressure and were seeing unions and industrial concerns become stronger. How is that affecting the shipyard . It seems to me first of all, they were able to really get up the membership of the steelworkers there at the highest level. Thats the way they were able to recruit and they always recruit large when theyre going in for a this especially during covid and everything like that but they got provisions in there that hisweetened the pot. Then they got something that was near and dear to our hearts was that they wanted a bonus for workers to recruit, they wanted that acknowledgment and they got it and that wassomething that was so important. The yard stayed open as i was told and they were determined to be a s social workers so the crime became during the Union Negotiations and the breakdown of negotiations es essential pay for a social workers and basically we are are essential workers and they had to acknowledge that they were able to get. I think that the union itself is feeling its votes in terms of whats going on today. We will see how far that goes. But i think theyre stronger now than they have been in recent memory. And how long is that contract going to be in place . So newport news builds submarines as well. And i think theres been some backandforth. People go back and forth between summary and construction to agree a degree ,so did workers like that idea of being able to go back and forth . With some work some of it is like deep down and everything like that and its really just not the most fulfilling work so they dont like that part of it. But the work itself, doing the work itselfthey have these contracts, really thats what its all about. Thats how they keep the workforce going and everything like that. Also newport news is taking on ship repair work and our Public Shipyards are so backed up that some of our Los Angeles Class attack to go ines are having into the private shipyards. How is that ever going in terms of peppering those into the workload that these workers are having. Theyre trying to hire 5000 workers. Right now theres no doubt that they have capacity issues. Theyre really trying to hire. And it makes a different kind of work to. O. Its not as easy to take somebody from a construction job and put them in a repair job. So as you look through the book youll see a lot of the top managers, manager sites that go to the kevin kennedys on overhaul. So there is a backandforth there. When youre working these little compartments it almost doesnt matter necessarily. It matters sometimes imcutting into the ship, thats where your getting that stuff but put it all together and now you into a ship and pull things out. So its going to be a learning curve for that but i think once theyre in their its a lot of the same kindof work. J just for the audience and ill turn to you. Well dosome audience questions here in a minute. But yes, we will come to you for questions so if you have questions start thinkingabout those and signal it in the chat i know to turn to you. So one area theres been wide concern across the entire military is suicide. We had a space of suicides on George Washington which is in the shipyards near the end of its rc 08. Part of that i assume some of the contributing factors are the conditions for crews that are undergoing our coh are not terrific. Did you get any opportunity to kind of interact with the cruise onour coh ships and see what their lives are like . Ive been wondering about that myself. Because while thats true i can tell you when they were building before they had something called a plywood palace that they had to go and live on the fourth and basically it was an l as we described it. It was fungus growing in there,walls were full of moisture. People got sick. So theres a lot of that. Its in doing these overhauls for years, decades. And this is the first time weve had anything like this. Its also the first time were in the middle of a so first time were in the pandemic, we have all this agricultural stuff going on. It seems to me that theres nothing necessarily per se had to do with the ship overhaul that creates the situation, not that ive seen anyway but i will say im not a shipbuilder, i can e only tell their stories and in dealing with the sailors doing this kind of work or involved with this kind of work at the same time, theres nothing id seen to suggest that this y is why we should do it this way out but life in the shipyard as a proof its a relatively short time period but if youre talking about rcoh, youre talking about multiple years being there and if youre living off base or whatever your good. But it seems like one of the challenges in her do is its not a base so youre not having all the base amenities. I think it seems like thats en a challenging environment to be a sailor. It is. From the sailors, you know better than i would. They joined the cv to see the navy to see the world and youre seeing newport news. Ne so you dont have any of that. Its certainly thats not a great place some people are around there like it because theyre not see and they can be close totheir families. I know people with family who are like this is good, i can pl go home at night and see my family but a lot of people i talked to who are your attached to the kennedy was di as i full of Free Commission unit ship or these big overhauls, there like i just want to be at sea. Ive been stuck here in newport news now. Im not from here. Thats my thing. The shipbuilders for the most part are from around the area. Thats their home. I understand that. So stepping back a little bit here talking about carriers theres been a lot of discussion about the future of aircraft carriers and whether the navy meets them and whether they start nstill are relevant in an environment that can hold them at risk of thousand miles away from the coast. Does that affect the people that work at the yard, do they see that and start to wonder whats my longterm liability . Because youve got multiple generations of people building ships and there may be a time on the horizon where the navy says maybe we dont need that many carriers. Theyre kind of like ive seen this movie to. You go back to clinton years talking about if its time to cut the air force. I think you just came up to the paper recently can use carriers differently. I think it seems to me in talking to them that they dont think this gcountry is ready to get up on carriers. As far as they can tell its still a, where on thecarriers. One of the first things, they y always wecarrier and we publicize we already even still say your laptop what they say in action is carriers like are doing all this stuff. And putting your james on now and your offer or. [laughter] on, what was your experience from your working on crash back talking to chinese officials and people who actually are out in the region . What was their perception of us carriers, their value . The value of them is the very presence of them. Nothing says we are here like that silhouette on the horizon where it whether its an ally for someone like china. The very existence of them said we are here, we care. This is our skin in the game. Weve got 5000 americans on this ship. Thats a tripwire, thats a game changer. And thats the way we looked at it. And china especially was just like thats one of the reasons they kept on trying to force us presence back. And they keep on talking and carrying their missiles i keep saying we cant see tested this. Not for go out and tested and proven workflow youre just talking. Thats a day in talking to their elallies and their the feeling from china is when you have Something Like the carrier is two things one is the carrier to is the range the range on same thing, carriers are like okay. Now is the year. Bwas all in junior serious what our study we argued is it not a lot of what goes on in the carrier will rather than what underlies it. And thats the one that i had when you get these different studies is your always were at war with china and the counterargument and the one i agree with is you have a carrier out there e that before you get to it, thats what prevents this situation from escalating. I almost call it information rf warfare, not information but message work there. This is a message were sending out thats the way a lot of people look at. We in the western democracy war, the chinese are like number the at war with us since clinton sent to carrier groups mia missile test against taiwan in the late 90s. They have been at work, its not missiles playing. In their life is war. So this confrontations been going on for a while. I wantto turn to the audience if theres questions. Ill start with past, if you want to bring and please state your name and affiliation even though ijust said. Im a spokesman for an institute, i use to work with mike. Brian stole my question on the future of carriers my followup question is what are we looking at here in the photo . I have no idea what is going on but id like to know. This is one of the first the super lips. Its basically when they take a bunch of ship parts sections, not really sections but the big blue crane as they call it thats used comes over, picks this up and fix it right in the middle that one would have carried some Nuclear Power plant stuff. Thats going into dry docks. Great question, i wish i had asked that . Right there. That was my question, how many more pieces of thatwould be involved . For a giant super lift . They pared it down for this one. I think its around 200 now. Several hundred before. I think thats about right. They have much bigger lists. Second question, i know barnacles build up on the whole has always been a problem in the past. Had they been able to resolve that with some kind of . When theyre out there, i really dont. I know theyre working on things with shipsin the water but this is a drydock. But when they do have barnacles build up do they do something during the construction to try to preclude the buildup of particles . It takes so long to build this that theres not much in they can do. The paint scheme they used is supposed to make it so its harder for the life to reenter the whole so when you bring it into drydock and walk it off e,theres still stuff but it definitely cuts it down u. How often with a have to clean the barnacles off the whole . Every years or so when they drydock. Other questions. My question is about i guess the theoretical increase demand for polar class ships and how you think if that were to happen in the near future how would that impact theshipbuilding industry . Polar class cutter. I mean , yes. For carriers, carriers they had a carrier built up two years ago or one year ago now . Its really hard to operate carrier operations north. So the poor security ones were the ones they were counting on for the coast guard. There sent to basically be able to do icebreaking and do some lowlevel military operations too. And i think theyre a great idea so hopefully they get the eybill they want. From the shipbuilding industry perspective those are being built by e vg halls halter down in pascagoula and those kind of ships are those that are kind of a lot of capacity to build so the shipyards build things atlike a polar security cutter are the ones that are actually having trouble today because theres not very many shipyards in the us built and these very work they k so any can get from the coast guard will be welcome to keep them. And they kind of need those shipyards to stay in business the cause when we need a new government ship built thats maybe dont do commercial standards they wont be there if we dont get them in between times. Otherquestions. Did you have a question tom . Tom calendar. If you were duthere during the pandemic, i was interested in hearing your perspective of how the ship yard workers reacted to the pandemic. They were still going to work every day and any insights that you saw or attitudes, things like that that they went through. Their attitude was all right, we have to go. That was it. We are clear essential workers. We have to go. Some could not and there was a liberal leave policy. So they basically i think danny pryde would know the numbers more than i do of how many stay at home. Do you have any idea how much this was . Im putting you on the spot. Theres a couple of changes from what i would ask him. [inaudible] 321st enterprise. For the number of folks it was dramatic. Hes the guru for all things newport news right now. The thing is that the yard created different ship system. Created instead of everyone coming in the initial ship they put workers out through different ships so those working in the yard were at certain places certain times some of the supervisors had indian system problems so they would come in when the workers were there to checkon the work. The worldwanted different things. Jennifer boykin who was the president got together these teams of all the different parcels to build a ship to come up with a plan of how they can still build a ship and keep the workers as safe as possible. They sat down with the union. Were able to put nsomething together reallyaddressed. On top of that jeff boykin would open up to questions they email questions to her and she could reach out digitally and everything like that so to create this kind of transparency some people thought she went too far being transparent but the workers on level they actually care about us. Which brings up an interesting point. As we move into they need to hire a lot more workers, to be able to accommodate the sustained demand for carriers and also the demand for repair on the submarine side. Are they pursuing initiatives to try to get these faults on board or how aggressively are theygoing out trying to coordinate these workers because theyre not necessarily going to be gone from this area. They recruiting now through schools, colleges. They did tie in with the top gun movie. So there reaching out there. E their pedestal is one of the top in the country. I hear people get orscholarships and they play at collegiate levels. So they are pursuing it as aggressively as they can imagine. The Hampton Roads area has been growing and becomingmore expensive. Did the Overall Economic development down there in those areas dep, an issue for t shipyard which used to be able to tap into a relatively low cost area obut thats changing because of the overall character of the region. I would say its a rate change a lot. The workers come from pretty far afield and you had some come over from the middle peninsula. Those areas havent changed as drastically for example. But i mean, i havent heard from any of the workers down there. Thats something i hadnt heard. If they were they would talk about it. A lot of people are leaving the area for other reasons. Again, the cultural chaos of things and stuff like that. So it seems like kind of a sleepy backwater a t little bit compared to whathappened in washington. They had some marches going on during the summer and stuff like that so there was still plenty of stuff going on in newportnews. Its not like we had in dc. What i mean especially for newport news it it this tv sets and got everyones attention. Anytime you can basically say you can guarantee for a while is, i mean thats one of the things, ill tell you where i take it helps people been there for six, seven, eight, nine years with a looking at if i stay long enough to keep going till you get a wire pensions were pretty important in the last Union Negotiations. S. Thats becoming a big thing for the midlevel type s of thing. Im not sure the people coming in. People coming in, a lot of them talking to the ones who just come in its like come in see what its like, maybe i will stay maybe i wont. They could haveme work going out for a long time, doesnt matter much. Who did youou talk to the shipyard that he been working there the longest . Old man or old woman of the line. I would say there were a couple. One was lee murphy was big elliott and actually passed away wanting the books about a shame. Those with the two would been there like multigenerational. They saw the art is not just a place to grow and develop as a family as it was their family. Theres definitely that since down there of, if you get a couple of yard workers meet each other out like soup Mercatus Center like that, forget it. Even if they saw each other the day before. Youve been reported for a long time so you seen a lot come you talked a lot of people looked a lot different labor environments. How do you compare what you saw, what youve seen at newport news, with what you see in other industrial settings . You see the car industry seems have changed a lot, become much more, less like a family sort environment more just like a job where youre going. Thats why sayingg in the beginning. This seems like a lot of places, just incoming places and talking to people. A lot of punching the clock kind of thing. Some of been around forever and stuff and a lot more cynical about things. Theres plenty of cynics on the waterfront then newport news but there is just a sense of like very few people, if youre working on a car plant you see a new bronco on the tv commercial, who cares . But various people they will, show a picture, i built that, i did that. That is the sense that everyone whose ships go out there is like on the workforce are going out with it. Its like throwingke the ship combat ship is almost their child. It carries the whole yard with them and all that workforce. Thats the way they feel, a lot of them anyway. Its impressive. Other questions from the audience . I just wanted to ask if you could share with us a story of maybe one of your favorite characters in the book and tell us about some of the people involved in building the ships. My favorite was someone who basically kind of like really got the balll rolling on this kind of book and theres a guy named bill bowser. Bill basically probably the most instrument ofth work and bring n steelworkers into the yard. Bill had grown up down in the newport news hampton area back in the 50s and 60s, and he was essentially a disciple of malcolm x and his idea was going to the yard and bring in black power to the yard. Thats what he wanted to do. Thats what he was all about. Once he actually got in there and started working there, he realized that all these are workers, theres a lot of inequalities there but still they were all facing a lot of the same things, a lot of the same challenges on the waterfront, tough work and everything like that. The more he went in there he said the more he realized it wasnt black against white. It was the blue, as a bluecollar, against the white shirts. That yard could no longer be a plantation system, that in his mind, his view it had the basically start really recognizing the worker for whate they did. He just kind of like shot hit the side, almost stuff that he had thought hed been about, got together with another white worker and the two of them would go out to these areas around in the newport news area come up in the middle peninsula in places like gloucester where he was sold on more than one occasion when the sun goes down you better be gone kind of thing. He just kept the drive up, kept the drive up and get the steelworkers in there. Hes the one who was on the front line at that bloody monday. He was a worker who was actually led away in an ambulance after being knocked to the ground and really kind of put her on. And was thesi one that basicall, you know, just changed his whole way of viewing life from working at that yard to creating a better workforce and not working environment and everything like that, and seeing that and talking to that was one thing that really gotot me was that it was all about, after that everyone was a brother, brother worker, as we called everyone. They went from, they used to calling little castrol and then there he wasmo almost like this moses like figure. He was probably the one i really kind of like. Respect of the most. History was a most inspirationa inspirational. I mean, some of the generational folks were just a riot. Yet some off the folks who go down there, one of them called pcats a seagull, climbed up on top of the periscope on top of the subject had to siegel to keep them as a pet and had to be told to let go. They scared the crap out of one guide by putting him into submarine sank doing test and spray them with water, came out screaming, things like that. A bunch of jokesters, a bunch of big kids if they really were. They are a lot of fun to hang around. Thats t t terrific. Any more questions . Is or anything that didnt make the book whether it was inappropriate or something you really wish you could have added . I had this great description of how Nuclear Power plant works. [laughing] i really did. I just thought i i reallyy narrd it down, this was the coolest thing andro we end up, that wasn the cutting room floor. So when we start the book we were going to in the book with the christening of the ship, launching of the christening. Had this nice little kind of rapid all up and then covert it and we were like wow, not for anything. How do you build a carrier duringre covid . We said were going to expand this book and everything like that. Yet, write more. I getet workers almost died from covid in the book. Amazing stories about thatnd kid of stuff. It came out with basically it was supposed to be about 70, 80,000 words and i said write more. I came up with 120,000 words and then the editor said cant be more than 90. So it spent the last month acyclic every night cutting down. That was one o there were a t i thought some really cool descriptions. There were a couple characters here and there who i thought shine a light into different things. Basically in the end i said what keeps narrative going, thats why i i focus on what kept the narrative going. The narrative was you got to get this bill, ship built. Weve got to do with all the manpower, hanging overhead and with this pandemic comean down d Everything Else we got to get the ship built. Whatever kept the narrative going stayed in. Whatever didnt i tried to get it out. Writers life, fortune. Kill the baby. I want to thank you all for being here tonight and i appreciate your attendance. Thank you, mike, very much for being here and thank you for the book. The book is heavy metal the hard days and nights of the Shipyard Workers who build america. Thank you very much for being here, mike. We appreciate it. [applause] we appreciate all of you viewing tonight, and thank you for coming to the hudson institute. Ill add one thing because my family says i sent to get the last word. You copy from me that flat for me but really you should be clapping for the folks in this book. All i did was tell their stories. At the honest to god truth. I just told their stories. Their stories are amazing with the dew is amazing and thats how i really just want to get out what they do and how to do it because its important. Thanks, mike. Thanks a lot, brian. This was great. Be up to date in the latest in publishing with booktvs podcast about books with current Nonfiction Book releases plus bestseller lists as well as Industry News and trends through insider interview. You can find about books on cspan now, our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. Cspan now is a free mobile app featuring their unfiltered view of whats happening in washington live and ondemand. Keep up with todays biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings and hearing some u. S. Congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more from the world of politics all at your fingertips. 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