we want to bring in barbara star who is a friend of the ambassador. she joins us now. you know ambassador lippert well. what can you tell us about him? i read he was a former navy seal. he is a reservist in the navy right now working intelligence issues. he had been assigned to a navy seal unit at this point. like most of the pentagon press corps, professional friends with mark lippert because was a fim familiar figure until a few months ago here in the pentagon hallways. he served as chief of staff to former defense secretary chuck hagel. he served in a number of positions working asian policy. this was his expertise. he had been so excited about going off and becoming the ambassador 20 to south korea, and on his facebook page over the last several weeks after he arrived, some of the pictures really heartwarming. he and his wife just had a baby. they have a newborn baby just several weeks old. he posted a lot of pictures of himself walking around seoul relatively alone with his rath
ambassador. treated for non-life-threatening injuries. back to paula hancocks in seoul. what have you learned? reporter: well, anderson we know straight off of this attack the ambassador was taken to a local hospital just about half an hour ago. we understand he was transferred to a larger hospital here in seoul. we re being told by that hospital he is currently in surgery. they don t have details of his condition at this point. they said they re waiting for the end of the surgery to give us any kind of information. and we also know from police that the attacker himself was likely injured. we understand he had a fracture. they re not saying exactly where that fracture was but at this point it s not clear if he s being treated. we know he s being questioned anderson. paula, thank you very much. i want to bring in barbara starr, a friend of the ambassador. she joins us now. you know ambassador lippert well. what can you tell us about him? you say he s a former navy seal?