Them written by veterans of the vietnam war. National book award winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, classic works of nonfiction including probably a dozen or 15 or 20 war memoirs that stand with the best of the genre. As well as history analysis and so on. I just have a small list. Ive left off many but the ones that i thought of immediately that should be on anybodys book shelf who reads whos interested in the vietnam war as far as nonfiction Neil Sheehans book, a bright shining light. Philip caputo, david halverstans the best and the brightest, wallace terrys book blood, robert masons book chicken hawk, one of the first and best helicopter pilots memoirs. Lou puller, he was from virginia. That book won the Pulitzer Prize for autobiography. You know, he was chesty pullers son, he graduated from college in 1967 and what did he do . Yeah. He went to the marines. Can you imagine . And theres a great probably the best memoir by a woman is linda van zanters home before morning. She was a nurse in the vietnam war. Then theres tim obriens if i die in a combat zone, its nonfiction. Albert frenchs patches of fire is also another great memoir africanamerican vietnam veteran, and David Maraniss they. Marched into sunlight. And thats only the nonfiction top of the list. As far as fiction, you know weve had Pulitzer Prize winners like Robert Butler connected series of short stories each one told in the voice of a vietnamese expatriot living if louisiana. A brilliant book. Larry heinemans close quarters, an autobiographical novel, and larry also wrote tacos story in 1987. Robert stone, who just died this year, his book, dog soldiers, right up there on vietnam hut church richard currys fatal light. Like danny, he was a Navy Corpsman with the marines, and its brilliant. Jim webb, our former senator, you know he wrote several novels one of which was fields of fire one of the first and best incountry vietnam war novels. And then tim obrien who i guess, is sort of the gold standard. The National Book award but the things they carried, which is just which has just turned into a phenomenon, you know high school my son read it in high school, College Students read it in those Community Read things. That should be on the top of your list, the things they carried. Gus hasford wrote two really good novels that you may have heard of, the phantom blooper was one, the other was the shorttimers which became the movie full metal jacket. He was also a marine. And article marine, carl marlantes wrote matterhorn that came out in 2010 and it is a brilliant novel. And going all the way back to Graham Greenes the quiet american from 1955. So we have a long, a long history, and that brings us to todays panel made up of all of us here served in the vietnam war, all of these men have written exceptional books about the vietnam war. Id like to introduce them to you, and then well get started. Well, beyond what you have you have in your introduction. Danny lliteras like i said served as a Navy Corpsman with the marines. I think you probably know that the army had medics, right . You all know what medics were. Well marines didnt have their own medics, they called them corpsmen, and they served in the u. S. Navy. Did i get that right . Ive got two marines and a navy guy who served with the marines surrounding me here. And Bob Tecklenburg on my left wrote a terrific pell worry about memoir about his time as a marine in the vietnam war and going back in two trips in 02 and 03 as well as talking about the civilian program that he was a part of. Maybe the well, i cant editorialize, but maybe it was the one thing that worked in the vietnam war. And bob tim bearing who went to nap tim bearing and then he opted to go into the marine corps, we wont hold that against him. [laughter] all three of these guys were wounded in the war. Bob was severely wounded. He made a career in journalism. He was a big journalist in washington, started out in annapolis, baltimore and then washington and has written several great books including his memoir which stands up there with the best of them. Its one of its a terrific book. So, you know one last thing id like to say is as Vietnam Veterans were very pleased to be here, and were very pleased that the book festival has a panel devoted to literature of our war. And i would just like to say that i think you all know this, that Vietnam Veterans did not have the greatest time when we came home from the war. We sort of had to shrink back home. And its slink back home. Its changed for the better, but i dont think its ever too late. Id like to ask all the Vietnam Veterans in the audience to stand up, please, and be recognized. [applause] okay, sit down [laughter] so were going to get were going to start with putting each of our panelists in the vietnam war because you all know, im sure, that listen, there were about 28 million american men in the vietnam war generation. Only about 2. 8 million served in country during the war. So the way that that, the way that it happened that each one of us went over there, we each have our own story. So ill start with danny, and tell me how you got into the navy, and well move on from there. Okay. Im going to can you hear me . Okay great. Before i do that, though, im going to pull a fast one on mark here, and i just wanted to met you all know that, you know, mark is the veteran of the war page for the vietnam generations magazine goto book okay . And, you know, its a column hes been doing this review column, and hes really an authority of war, war literature, especially the vietnam war literature. And his contribution to the American Literary culture is inchannel, and i mean that incalculable, and i mean that. He is unquestionably the authority of vietnam war literature, and its really an honor to be here with him, and i just want you to know who this man really is, you know, in the vietnam war literature world. And finally, i want to say its an honor to be with bob timberg and Bob Tecklenburg. Its a real privilege with being here, theyre great men. Sorry about these, guys, i had to say this. Did you read it the way i wrote it . [laughter] shucks. Listen, i graduated from high school in 67 and, you know, the draft was in full bloom. I knew i was going in. I knew i was going to get tapped for the draft, so what did i do . As soon as i turned 18, i went to the Navy Recruiter joined up. I said, hey, i want to be a hospital corpsman. The enthusiasm was just unbelievable. I said, i didnt know that this was going to be a fast track from the navy into the marine corps and then vietnam. So thats, thats how i got in there. This kind of leads me to the very opening of my book where im actually getting out of an airplane in da nang, and i dont even know im going to be in first recon yet okay . Im going to read this little segment to you. I found myself in a place called da nang after stepping off a plane filled with faceless characters like myself. Yeah, i remember. I lit a cigarette feeling pretty froggy about myself. I was a doc i was a hospital corpsman the medical man load been attached to the last two years. I figured id end up running a sick call and cleaning out the earwax of halfdeaf marines who blew up the countryside. I had it all figured up, but my figures didnt add up when i heard we were all going to the grunts. A combat corpsmans Life Expectancy is two weeks in the bankrupts, one of us said. I was screwed. I knew there was no one to complain to who mattered or cared. We were all in it, whatever in it was. We were all scared. We were all thinking about this thing called combat. I concentrated on my cigarette, and i studied the approaching jeep that first zigged and then zagged recklessly in our direction. The brakes screeched when the vehicle stopped. Its passenger, a notable rate on his collar, stood up to address us as the driver cut off the engine. Im chief toadty, and i need five volunteers for first recon. Well several somebodies chuckled, and new smokes were lit. Then a ragged cynical laughter erupted and enveloped us like a fog wrapping around a new kind of collective creature shifting its way to one side with corresponding dismay. Go on, chief, a member of the collective creature taunted, those guys are crazy. Whats crazy, said the chief . Another member of the creature sneered, i aint joining no recon to get myself killed. Maybe youre already killed son. Although i didnt step forward i didnt speak the creatures language. First recons are they like the kind of outfit where, you know you find john wayne . Manager like that, said the Something Like that, said the chief. And he had a smirk i trusted. The kind that didnt give a damn if you believed him or not. And that, and that kind that didnt care how you thought. Ill go, i said. Nervous jives and harmless jeers assaulted me. The creature recoiled from my position as one of its members addressed me. Joining that outfit is a death sentence brother. Yeah . Well, if im going to go, im going to go like john wayne. I hope i hopped into the back of the jeep after throwing my sea bag onboard, felt as reckless as the jeep was when it lurched forward and swerved away from the bewildered huddled of men awaiting their fate as unknown as mine. The countryside left no impression on me. I took a hard final drag from my smoke and flicked the smoldering butt into the road and leaned against my seatback feeling pretty satisfied. Id done something that changed the course of my life, and it felt good. Until that moment i had responded to a set of orders and a stack of plane tickets. I had accumulated a pile of arrival and departures. I had flowed in one direction then another without introspection or perspective. I had been there and i had been here and until finally i was going somewhere i had volunteered to go to, each though i did not know where this somewhere was. But this somewhere was mine and i was going to it by choice, and that felt real good for a change. Thank you danny. Bob timbrg, do you want to get us to you to vietnam . Sure. Hello, over there. Can i stand up here . Theres all those people i cant even see. Does this work . Yeah. Hello folks. I mean, i feel like after keeping you waiting the least we can do is like, a rockettes number instead of parading [laughter] you know, four over the hill Vietnam Veterans in front of you. You know, one thing you should know about dannys troop, you know something not many people know the marine corps recon outfit is. If you think the marines are tough, recon is tougher. Much tougher. Theyre known as snake eaters which is the charming way that theyre viewed. And thats what danny was doing. I mean danny didnt i mean he just stumbled into it, right . This was not a act of great courage. [laughter] i mean, it would have been if you knew what it was right . I guess. [laughter] right. I mean, i sure as hell wouldnt have done it. At any rate, how did can i get here . How did i get here in didnt somebody say that, what am i doing that . Jim stockdale when he was running with ross perot. What am i doing here . What am i doing here . Where am i . Okay im i was i was an improbable marine. At least from the standpoint of you know going to the Naval Academy and going to war. My father and more were both show business people. My father was a musician, a composer. He wrote a lot of the background music for the Famous Studio cartoons like betty boop and popeye and olive oyl. And my mother was a zig fed girl. We did not have a military tradition in our family. And i, you know why i went to the Naval Academy were a couple of reasons. Number one was and i hesitate to mention this because it sounds really really clunky but i really did have a desire to serve my country. The orr thing, another thing the other thing another thing was my family was all screwed up. I mean, i made it to 12 different schools before i got to high school. And i sort of blamed my father for a lot of things which i since realize i was wrong about. But what i did think about was that he was very weak and corrupt to be weak. I didnt want to be weak. I dont want to be my father. My parents had already broken up by then, and so i i wanted to get out. I was going to college. I had done well, i got into a great high school. But i wanted to get out of my home, and i didnt but i couldnt because i had two younger sisters, and i worried about them because my mother was an alcoholic. So i was trapped. And then i thought about a Service Academy and thought, well, you know, you go into a theres not that many. Of theres only one or two service academies. If youre going to go to annapolis, theres a Naval Academy, youve got to go to annapolis. You cant go to your local college which i did for a year. So i applied then went to the Naval Academy and spent four years there, and at a certain point late in my time i decided i wanted to be a marine. Which was not a lot of thought went into it. I did like the idea that young marine officers would be leading troops as opposed to Young Navy Officers who would be trying to figure out currents and wind and stuff like that. And finally, you know, there was i sort of tell this is a story about my roommate. Those of us at the Naval Academy who decided we were going to go into the marine corps and there were probably like 10 , were viewed as fools, fools at best. And, you know, once we made, we were getting ready to make our decision and we had let it be known that we were going into the marine corps they just couldnt stop, our friends couldnt stop jeering us. And getting plebes to play tricks on us. And my roommate was one of the worst. He was absolutely one of the worst. But the day before, the night before we had service selection, we had to go down and say what are you going to do, and you say marine or you say navy my friend dave wilson said give me one good reason to go marine corps. Pleasure and i said, well, you get your weekend withs off. And he said, thats it, im going, and he did. [laughter] thats how much thought a lot of us gave to what we did, you know . And we can all give a lot of long and windy like this, explanation. But, you know, we were kids. We didnt know what the hell we were doing. I certainly didnt. At any rate, thats how i got in the marine corps, and all marines went t to vietnam. Tom . Well, when i was right out of high school in 1967 i i volunteered for the draft and joined the marine corps for two years. I think. Its still a little haze su, you know . I cant believe i did that. But i ended up in the marine corps as a marine corps infantryman. And this was in 1967. And on my way to vietnam, they pulled me out of the line and sent me to Language School in monterey, california, and they said well youre going to learn vietnamese. Youve got 12 weeks. So i learned vietnamese, and i thought, wow, you know maybe thatll help me when i get to vietnam. Well, it didnt. They still sent me to an infantry unit i served i started out in the 27th marine infantryman as a basic rifleman but the language figures prominently because everywhere i went i always said hey listen you know i can speak a little vietnamese. What kind of job can you find for me thats not as a rifleman . And so the first, my first shot at that was my platoon commander brought out the they were called kit carson scouts. They were vietnamese, usually former viet cong who served with an infantry outfit to help em figure out, speak the language and going down trails, that sort of thing. They used what they called kit carson scouts. Anyway, this kit carson scout said four or five words to me, you know just like he would and i have no idea what he said so i just smiled, turned around and walked away, you know . So i stayed in the infantry until i was wounded. As a casualty, i had heard about the combined Action Program when i was back in Language School. And so i volunteered for it. And so theyre always looking for somebody who will volunteer for anything, you know . So they said sure well send you. So they sent me to a combined action platoon, and thats a very uniquely marine outfit. Its only served in i corp. Between 65 and 71, and what the marine corps did is they took a squad of marines, Navy Corpsmen and a platoon of Popular Force soldiers, and they put us in a village. And it was our job to secure that village, provide security and defense, work with all friendly units in the area and provide civic Action Programs and try to and train the vietnamese soldiers and also to try to pacify that is, to try to win hearts and minds as they said in the village area. We worked close by with the 101st airborne and other units in my area which was my village was located between da nang and fubai right along the coastal plain in vietnam. So i spent the next eight months serving there first in one unit, one camp unit in a village and then i was transferred to another village when that cap team were wiped out in an ambush one night. So they had to pull people from different units to form a new cap. So i went to that unit. And so i served in the combined Action Program from december of 68 until august of 69. And before i finish, i just want to add that what became our most important civic Action Program was our med cap. We had a corpsman and he provided we actually worked him to death, because he provided medical care to Vietnamese Civilians in the village on a daily basis. So, and i think that the combined Action Program made serving in vietnam more worthwhile than i think it would have been if i had done, if i had survived full tour in an infantry unit. So this that sense in that sense i feel good about my service as a c. A. P. Marine, but it left me with, you know, a sense that things were unfinished, and i had no closure. So, which leads me to why i returned to vietnam which i talk about in my book. But maybe yeah. The next hinge i wanted to ask thing i wanted to ask everybody was when you were serving in the vietnam war number one, did you know or have any feeling or plan that you would write about it one day . And secondly can you talk about how your service in the vietnam war has influenced what your writing is, has been . Okay . Danny . No. I had no idea because i had no expectation to live through it period. My very first patrol i was literally hugging, holding onto two grenades, and we were being probed that night, and i had a whole year left to do, and i said, you know im not going to make it through this. So it was my surprise when im on that freedom bird going home and i said oh, my goodness, you know, im going home. And at that time is when i decided that, you know, im going to live a good life in honor of those guys that dont get to get that good life because they didnt make it back. So no, i didnt expect to be a writer. Didnt expect to be anything really. And like bob says, bob timberg says, you know, i didnt know what i was doing. I didnt know how i got there. I mean, you know, and my book reflects that. And i dont as a quick aside these two guys over here bob and bob, timberg and tecklenburg, they were the real marines, you know . I lived in a privileged place as a corpsman, and it was a very special place with the marine corps. But these guys, you know they earned their eagle globe and anchor in boot camp and all the rest of it and, you know, as a corpsman, i was issued my eagle globe and anchor. I was just pushed in there, i ended up there, and i ended up in the recons in this happenstance way, and i just went with it. Another thing about these two guys that makes them incredibly special, too is that they were both wounded pretty badly, you know . And when you get wounded in a war, that puts you on another level. Im a veteran, and im a combat veteran but man, these guys are are combat veterans who were wounded. Both guys really are, they go someplace i have never been before, you know . Bob timberg 35 facial operations pretty tough stuff. And i dont know what tecklenburg went through but im sure he went through his share of stuff. So anyway had to say that. So the war changed my life, and i spent a lifetime as an author. I am an author i have a lott of books in print, im very proud of them, and i pushed away this present book my combat book for a very long time because i just didnt know i how to figure out i didnt know how to write it. I wanted it to be a literary work of merit and a story but more than a story. And, you know, it took me a long time to figure it out. One day i was at a reunion the only reunion ive ever been to, and i came across these things called patrol reports. And these patrol reports were like what we did out in the field in the recons. And i read them, and i went, oh my goodness, thats the concrete element of what we did. And somehow i used that as a convention in my book, and i had these patrol reports and i started giving the dramatization and the experience. And you see the contrast between two, you know . What factually happened and what the person experiencing, how they saw that. So, but the thing is patrol reports dont capture everything, and they dont capture the relationships you develop with other people. And i was again a corpsman, lucky to have relationships with a lot of different kind of guys. And one of these relationships i had was with a vietnamese guy. And i was serving up in an op for months one of those times, and i got to know this guy named trang. And he was a south vietnamese soldier. And if i may, im going to read a short little segment of my relationship with him. Trang was his name, and he was a south vietnamese soldier a member of the republic of vietnam army of the republic of vietnam. Like me, he was sent to this observation post for duty however, i was serving time, and he was serving his country. I was trying to survive a war, he was fighting a civil war. There were five other men who shared two large bunkers on the opposite end of the op. We rarely mixed. The barrier of language, culture and distrust encouraged segregation on both sides. A heavy rain splattered on my buckers threshold bunkers threshold. I glanced at trang who was sitting on the ground with me before we were peering through the doorway into the night. We are prisoners of the weather. Trang didnt quite understand what i meant. His blank smile was accompanied by an uncertain nod. I stared at the flickering candle between us and felt the humble shadows dance upon our spartan background; a wooden ceiling, a green sandbag of walls and a dirt floor. My 782 gear and my hammock hung from hooks attached to the overhead. My m16 leaned against the bulkhead opposite the open entrance, and several cans of sea rats sat on the dirt floor near the flamement now, trang stared at the flickering candle between us and saw god knows what through his inscrutable eyes. His hair was straight and black, his asian face was youthful. He was lean and bony and hard. I talked to my pack of cigarettes. He withdrew a smoke planted a filter in the right corner of his mouth and tossed the back back to me. I lit a smoke. I exhaled. I studied the melting wax. Rain lightning thunder, vietnam. Trang lit his cigarette. He had been a College Student in saigon. He had dreams and a family and hope of a future. I glanced at a torn sandbag. It revealed a stratum of hardpacked dirt block. Geologically trangs future seemed bleak. We smoked and we talked into the moonlit night and nursed the candle between us to prevent losing our bunker light. I looked through the open doorway up the bunker and pointed at the lunar sky. Hey, how do you say moon in vietnamese . Tan. I studied the bright lunar face above. Tan. Then i peered at trangs dark countenance. Tan. I repeated the tiny word several more times as i kept glancing at both faces, naming the one above and acknowledging the one in front of me. Trang nodded to convey his approval. Moon. Yes, i said with authority. Tan. The tiny word brought us closer. We talked and we laughed, we smoked and we dreamed. We continued nursing the flame until it went out. Then we sat quietly in we sat quietly in our bunker without light. Our law boar was friendship labor was friendship to keep the candle awake, but the flame went out with the wax. There was nothing left to do but go to sleep. Bob timberg so when you were in vietnam, were you planning more your future as a writer or planning for your future period, and tell us how the war has influenced your professional career. Well, first of all, the way it influenced me is stop, stop. Im hiding behind in the berm but im not going to hide behind it. This is what i did as a marine. Now im a civilian so i can just stand up, right . Okay. Well did i want to be a writer . No, i didnt. I had kind of unfocused ambition. And one part of me as i neared the end of my tour was i might want to be a career marine which is what i had been trained to be. But i wasnt sure that was, you know, that was necessarily what i wanted to do. And then i thought, well, what do i i want to do and what can i do . And the fact is that the only thing that i ever recall thinking about as a possibility and it was certainly, its hard to believe, but its true i always whenever i thought whatll i do, i always add this vision of myself had this vision of myself standing in front of a big status board say, with a pointer in my hand and my audience were all uniformed truck drivers. But they werent military uniforms, they were texaco uniforms. And what i was doing was telling all these guys i was deploying the texaco fuel tanks that were taking the gas to gas stations. Why . Its true though thats what i thought. And i knew it wasnt what i was going to do, but why did i think it . This is why, i think. Texaco sent me my first credit card when i was at the Naval Academy, and i just, it just stayed with me. Which is, you know nothing wrong with, you know, texacos not an evil in this thing. I just had i was blank. I had, if i was going to get out, i had no idea what i was going to do. And writing was not something that i gave any serious thought to. I sort of gave it thought to maybe being a college professor. Basically, i had no idea because fortunately, fortunately when i was very close to the end of my 13 month tour i dont know if youre aware of this but marines had 13 month tours in vietnam as opposed to the army which had 12 month tours. How do you figure that . And the fact of the matter is that you know this, david, lots of marines got killed or wounded in that last month. And i was i was in my last month when i was wounded. But, you know, what was i going to do . I didnt know what i was going to do. I mean i just and the thing was, i didnt have to make a decision because fortunately, the marine corps in its wisdom had already given me orders which were to the a unit back in to a unit back in camp pendleton, california, that was getting ready to go where . Vietnam. So it wasnt an issue back then at that point. And then tell me how the service has influenced your writing. Me . Yes. How about him . [laughter] that was the second part of the question. Oh, okay. Youre next. The fact is, surprisingly. Because e did go through several years of reconstructive surgery, so most of what happened in vietnam and its aftermath was pretty much imprinted on my psyche. But what i wound up typing was becoming a journalist. I started as a local reporter, then i became, i went to work for the baltimore sun. I was a city hall reporter, a state political reporter. And eventually i went to washington as a washington correspondent and covered congress, covered the white house. But, you know, and i never had in the desire to write a book about vietnam. But i always had a sense that there was something going on that i didnt know and didnt understand, but it had something to do with vietnam. And, you know, ive never been able to quite its never quite computed for me how one kid can march off to war and the other kid can fake disabilities. Like egg allergies or cutting off a finger or i just never could, i never could understand how half my generation could go to war and other half could fake it. And it, it stayed with me not at a very high level in my psyche but it was always, it was always there. And at a certain point when i was covering the white house a scandal broke. I was covering the reagan white house, and the iran contra scandal broke. And it involved, at the heart of it three fellow Naval Academy guys; oliver north, bud mcfarland and john poindexter. And, you know i wasnt their buddy or anything like that, but i thought, you know and everyone was talking about, i mean these guys were, like, trying to take over the country and god knows what they were up to. And i thought, man, thats not i dont think so. I mean i knew them vaguely. I knew that they werent like, necessarily the sharpest guys, but they were pretty sharp, you know . But they sure in hell werent, you know, revolutionaries. And i said, well, so whats going on here . And it was at that point that i started to smell vietnam in the iran contra scandal. And i began to think why, how could north and point poindexter and mcfarland get involved in this way in what would drive them to do that . And my answer and im not going to belabor it right now, but you can find out be you read the nightingale song, was vietnam. So at any rate i also everything that ive ever written has had a little bit of a vietnam edge to it. And this book the blueeyed boy, has a relative has quite a large vietnam quotient in it. Thank you. Bob . Well, i guess, i was wounded i was wounded twice about seven weeks after i got to vietnam, so i didnt have any expectations of even coming home, let alone what i was going to do after i returned. So i guess writing was the furthest thing from my mind. However, on the other hand, you know, when you just figure youre not going to make it anyway, it makes life a little sweeter, you know, in terms of, i mean its like every day is, like walking whats the virginia in high cotton . We say high soybeans in iowa [laughter] but anyway in some ways it changes your perspective on life forever. But when i returned, i still hadnt really thought anything about being a writer or what i would even be doing with my life, but i read all the books that mark had just enumerated, and i was really taken by them, and i thought that especially the fiction and the memoirs had the memoirs and the fiction really in many ways validated what i had been through. And i think for a lot of Vietnam Veterans because of how we came back from the war, alone and very off we were kind of very often we were kind of alone and isolated and had to readjust from the war back in the world as we called back here. And even though i went to college, sometimes, you know, you would be dealing with all these issues, and youd think, well, what is wrong with me anyway . And i think that reading some of that literature helped me to understand that i wasnt the only one going through these types of things, issues that were directly related to my experience in vietnam. But i think that from the i eventually decided that i wanted to write and i wanted to write stuff that had nothing to do with vietnam. But as i and i write historical fiction. I have never novels out. But if i read back through i have several novels out. But if i read back through them i realize everything has something to do with vietnam, and i cant escape it. And i think thats just the imprint the experience has left, number one, and i think that has a lot to do with the sort of mentoring from reading the fiction back in the 70s and 80s from people like webb and others. So its time for questions. Wed be happy to intertape them from people. Entertain them from people. If you would stand up, and theres a boom mic, and yes. Sir. First id like to thank you all for your service. I think its not said enough, especially to you guys and all the veterans here as well. My question is why danny, why is this significant what is the significance of vietnam . Why did you title it that way . The question is for danny and why did he choose the title for his novel . Hey i i thought it let me recite old bob up here a little bit. Good question come on up. Im really going to need to rehabilitate this guy. Talking about corpsmen, guys that serve with the marines not all that big a deal, they were the toughest guys. They were as tough as any marines, and we loved them, you know . This selfdepracating bs is just [laughter] [applause] the bigger they are, the bigger they are, you know what i mean . [laughter] and, you know, really bob timberg really is. I had actually read his books years back never knowing i would ever meet this man, you know . We broke bread last night. It was really wonderful so ive gotten to know him. Weve, you know weve had discussions on the telephone and and all of that so its a really great honor and im really glad to meet the other bob here too, you know . Hes just a great guy. But, i had read his stuff, and i admired him through the years. So its really, this is a real treat for me. You are welcome. Really. Im always humbled by guys like this. They always say those kinds of things, and i tell you earlier the place corpsmen have thats the place they always have. Always. The question was, whats the significance of viet man. Well, we all went to the war. We all got transformed. We all came home. But what did we bring back . We all calm back with vietnam we all came back with vietnam inside of us, inside our souls and in our hearts. Therefore, we became i viet men and this book is about the one i knew, and thats the story of that one viet man. And i hope that i bring the reader to a journey thats honest and simple and direct. No bravado, no guilt, no angst, you know . Just what it was like and this character doesnt know anything more than what he knew when he was there. You know . Theres no hindsight knowledge about what happened about the vietnam war. This is a character that really had no past. He was a high school kid, you know . And he really didnt have that great of, that long of a past. And he certainly had no expectationing of a future. Expectation of a future. So it was basically a viet man with no past or no future who manages to survive and become, you know this guy among these guys who are really lucky enough to be able to go to school, you know, get their mfa, work at the craft they love to do, and thats viet man. Anyway, thank you again, bob. Yes maam. Sir, in the back. Hi. I just wanted to make a comment to danny. I did 6668 in first recon. I was in bravo company, and i was a platoon leader and platoon sergeant who took out patrols. And i was there for 22 months so i worked with a number of corpsmen and youre really understating your role tremendously, because we couldnt go out without a corpsman. We would be out five days, four nights and sometimes extended for as long as ten days. So the endurance in the corpsmen were right there. And whenever we would get hit the corpsmen had to help with someone wounded while theres fire or if we took a prisoner who was injured. So you earned your globe and anchor. The other thing i wanted to mention is in terms of the experience which is character. After vietnam, it took me a while to get straight. I went in and got educated ph. D. And faculty here, but what molded and shaped me was my experience in vietnam and being a marine. Talk a little louder. Im sorry [inaudible] talk a little louder. So i was wanting to say about the service and how that shapes character. Its an antiquated term you dont hear much and i wanted to analogize that by saying that here at uva we have very prestigious leadership programs. If you take a 21yearold whos graduated from one of our programs and you take a 21yearold sergeant whos been dee ployed to afghan and iraq and they come back, who is a true leader . Be who is the one whos been shaped by an experience of real responsibility and has to make decisions that affect peoples lives . That comes with a commitment to a series of values and ideals which is our democracy and their willingness to tie for them and make that to die for them and make that kind of commitment which is selfsacrifice. So those kinds of values which are inculcated in the service are really absent in our education, and we have these societies of millennials and people who are focused on rights and liberty. But in terms of their service, you focus on obligation and duty and responsibility to the greater good. And im really proud to be here with you and to hear your stories. I want to thank you for your service as well. Thank you. See what i was in a they were in a class all their own. Im going oh, my goodness, you know . These guys have been in country a long time, theyd extended two and three times. They didnt want to go back to the states, they wanted to stay in the war. These are the kind of guys i was with, professional down to the bone, you know . And its like it was such an honor to be with them. And you know what . I said to myself i was i lived in a kind of a fear not of the viet cong or the nva or anything else, i lived in the fear of failing these guys. Id rather die than fall out and not be able to do the job. So i was out there working and humping as hard as these guys, you know way beyond my capacity and, you know for my deep sense of honor i was going to keep up with these guys to the death of myself. You know . Thats, thats just a 20yearold guy, you know, no sophisticated ideas here, you know . Just wanted to be, stay honorable among these honorable men like these guys as well. Thats really what it was about for me on a personal level. So thank you. Yes. Yes, sir. I, too, served in i corps but not as a marine. But i ask you as folks who did serve there and in vietnam in general what almost recollection not recollection, but flashbacks have you had when you look at the 11, 12 years weve been in afghanistan and the way we fought that war and compare that to the way we fought the war in vietnam . Whether you have any thoughts on that. Anybody want to handle that one . I mean, its a little bit out of purview. The question is how do we feel about the current war in afghanistan visavis our service in the vietnam war. Yeah. I think you bring a special perspective on afghanistan. Id just like to say one thing. The only thing id like to say is i dont think we learned a whole lot since vietnam. Yeah. Bob . Well, i think bob may have nailed it. Yeah, i mean, this is another war in which were not totally committed to winning, but we have guys over there dying and being maimed. And, you know its you know, theres a whole issue as there was in vietnam of whether we belong there to begin with. And to my mind well, i dont want to even go back to vietnam, but, i mean, i think certainly theres a pretty persuasive case to be made for maybe we did not belong in iraq at all. But weve got guys over there fighting and dying and, you know its you know, im not sure i can Say Something anything particularly coherent. What i find most interesting is that people are coming back maimed, and what we really need to do is do something for them to give them something to hold on to to make them as close to whole as we can. And if we can do anything i mean, with my book what i would hope to do is say, hey, look what happened to this guy. It was really bad, right . But look what he did with his life. If that guy can do it, i can do it. And now from the 2015 virginia festival of the book a panel on organizing communities with authors Zephyr Teachout and linda tirado. [inaudible conversations] now its two 2 00 exactly. Well go ahead and get started. I have a little bit of housekeeping. First of all welcome, everyone, to our panel today organizing communities in the 21st century. Im amy woolard, i will be the moderator. Im a policy attorney who lives here in charlottesville, and i do statelevel work childrens issues, and so im very intrigued and excited to have our panelists here today. Heres the housekeeping part. Please, this is the part where you dont assume that youve already turn off your cell phones you actually take them out and look at them and make sure theyre off. If your phone does ring i know linda well enough that i feel like she may go out there and answer it for you. Mockery. So youve been warped. [laughter] i guess thats my point. Heres the part where you can take out your phones if you are on twitter and would like to tweet about our panel today while its happening. I think we use the hashtag vabook 2015. So feel free to share all of the wisdom that our panelists will offer today on the interweb. What else do we have . Supporting the festival this book festival is free of charge obviously, its not free of