delighted to welcome you to the 11th annual savannah book festival, presented by georgia power, david and nancy cintron, the family foundation, and mark and pat. many thanks to jack and mary romano, our sponsors for this glorious venue, the trinity united methodist church. we would like to extend special thanks to our literary members and individual donors who have made and continue to make saturday's free festival events possible. 90% of our venue, of our revenue comes from donors just like you. thank you. we are very excited to have a savannah book festival app for your phone available this year. it's very easy to get it from the app store and there are directions in your programs. please try to download it. it will help you today. before we get started i had a couple of housekeeping notes. immediately following this presentation, brian curtis will be signing festival purchase copies of his books right across the way. if you are planning to stay for the next author presentation, please move forward to seats in the front so that we can accurately count how many spaces are available for the next group. please take a moment to turn off your cell phone, and no flash photography is allowed. for the question and answer portion, please raise your hand. i will call and you and the ushers will come and bring a microphone to you. in the interest of time and to be fair to the other attendees, please limit yourself to just one question and please don't tell a story. brian curtis is with us today courtesy of bill sickles and chris aitken, and boat and chris anders who are here with us. brian curtis is a "new york times" best-selling author of several books and has contributed to sports illustrated. curtis has served as a national reporter for cbs college sports and was nominated for two local emmys for his work as the reporter for fox sports network. please give him a warm welcome. [applause] >> thank you, nancy. good morning. how are we? i love savannah. you have great restaurants. you, every day is beautiful weather like this. [laughing] can i i just see a show of han. how many of you live in the landings? good lord tickets only part about about how phenomenal it is there but i'm truly honored to beer be in savannah to talk about one of the most impactful books for me that i've done out of my --,o tell you a quick story about rings. i don't wear a class ring. went to the university of virginia irks some men wear jewelry, some don't. i was researching this book and heard about rings. rings that are given to participants who play in the rose bowl. in particular, the 1942 rose bowl that i wrote about, players and young men from duke and oregon state were all given a rose bowl ring, signifying that they had participated in the story again. i didn't think much of it in my research until i had a military researcher work to get me the military files of a lot of these men out of the use archives in st. louis. and as i reconstructed their lives, and, unfortunately, there deaths as well, there were four men that played in this game who died on the battlefields in world war ii. what was interesting is that three of the four men when they were killed in iwo jima, places in the south pacific, the only possession on the body was the rose bowl ring from 1942. and those rings were mailed home to mom and dad, often arriving months if not years before their bodies actually made it home to america. i was relating a story to a gentleman named bill halverson, and the halverson is live up in oregon and is working on a book project researching him. his father had participated in this game and has served his country. he happened to mention to me with his father had died years earlier, he was buried with his rose bowl ring on his finger from 1942. and again this ring kept coming up in my research as i was crafting this story. i got a call about two or three weeks after meeting with mr. halverson, and he said i've got to chile a story. sure. i'm all about stories. everyone has a story. he said he met with you a few weeks ago in the lobby of the marriott hotel in downtown portland and i was telling you how my father, blessed be his memory, was born, excuse me, was buried with his rose bowl ring on. and i said yeah, you told me that story. he said well, i've got to tell you something. you got me thinking about the 1942 rose bowl and wanted to go online and buy some memorabilia for my kids and my grandkids. my children and i went online and we started googling and went on ebay and it was a rose bowl ring for sale. and it just warmed my heart as he's telling me the story that it meant so much to him that he wanted to buy this ring. then he said, we look at the ring more closely and it was dads ring. and i said, i don't understand. he said, many years ago there'd been a robbery at my parents house and unbeknownst to me one of the items taken was his rose bowl ring. so while i believe this whole time he'd he been buried with e ring on him in actuality someone had stolen the rain and that was selling it for thousands of dollars on ebay. he and his family cobbled up enough money. gone to the authorities and the authorities had either set the statute of limitations are gone, et cetera if the halverson said gather together money and bought his fathers ring back and i was back in the family possession. so this theme of rings kept coming up in my research for this book. what started out as an article for sports illustrated in the summer of 2013 ended up being "fields of battle." i thought this was a sports book but it didn't turn out that way. then i thought it was a military and war book but it really didn't turn out that way either. it really is a story of the young group of men and what sacrifice means and what service means, and what happens when you come home from war. so i was struggling to find my next book topic about four or five years ago. i'd gone about a year since writing my last book. i was reading a newsletter at the rose bowl put out and it was a little did you know fact section. it said did you know the only rose bowl game never to be played in pasadena was played in the room north carolina in 1942. as a former sports reporter and sports author i was shocked i've never come across that little-known fact. so i did what historians and researchers have done for centuries and i went to google. [laughing] and i typed in 1942 rose bowl. there wasn't a tremendous amount of research done on it but what few articles i read i was fascinated i have this granddaddy of them all game had gotten transplanted from pasadena over to durham, north carolina, and that's what started to pique my interest in this story. what i didn't know at the time that about the sports illustrated story and certainly i didn't know even during all my research is that of the 80 men who coached and participated in the game, only one is still with us today. if i'd written this book 30 or 40 years ago it probably would've been a completely different book i literally had to reconstruct a story of men's lives without the men there. without much firsthand or secondhand source knowledge. so one of the gratifying things for me in this early research process was just trying to find a family member pics i would be online sleuthing and reading obituary trying to find the name of the son or daughter, and i would finally tracked him down after two or three months. i would introduce myself on the phone and say, you know, mrs. parker, my name is brian curtis, i'm writing this book. i'd love to talk to you about your dad and world war ii and the rose bowl. and most of them would get emotional immediately and said brian, we would love to tell you the story but we don't know it. i had never talked about war, and dad never talked about the rose bowl. what we knew he played but we don't know much. as excited as i would get to track down these family members it was equally disappointed understand they could not be helpful to me. so i would get on a plane and go to oregon in the small towns of jefferson and albany and hood river and salem in the outskirts of portland, and try to collect as much information that it could from long-lost cousins or from local libraries or the archives at oregon state and similar doing the same thing at duke university where i found personal letters that were written home form the war front that probably have not been touched since you're donated to the archives. so part of this project was piecing together a military files, academic transcripts, what little newspaper stories there were about this game in 42-44, and and in coming up wia narrative. one of the blessings for me in doing this project is that i have been able to educate the families about their debt and the grandparent. i can tell them when he went to high school. i can tell them what classes they took in college, a lot of them got d's and f's. [laughing] and i was not shy about passing that information on as well. just so all the stories about how they worked hard, listen, your dad was as smart as you thought. [laughing] but i was also able for many of them to get hold of the fold military file so we knew when he enlisted in what dates they serve and what ship they shipped out on, and again it was duty for me because even though 80 or 90% information to research, i was able to pass it on to the families and give them a little bit closer to mom and dad. so really this is about building a story about a group of men who played in this now remarkable game, and ended up coincidence in the battlefield. what really hooked me on is that as did research to discover the story of charles haynes and frank parker. charles haynes played for duke university, grew up a couple blocks from campus, was an all-american wrestler and a boy scout and everybody in durham new vigor to enroll at duke. he didn't play much on a football team but he suited up for coach wallace and played in the game. shortly after that game, haynes found himself in the army. yet tried to enlist a couple of times earlier in the air force but his eyesight had prevented him from becoming a pilot. so haynes in supply solar two years from the game in 1944 and deciding in the hills of italy against the germans. it just so happens that about a month before october 1944, a few a few months before, july, he is at an intent meant while they were off the front lines and is talking just been named frank parker. frank parker happen to play in that same rose bowl game for the other side, oregon state. so here they are two years later not really knowing each other but having a connection of playing in the granddaddy of them all, so to speak. they both are leaders in the platoons and one of their jobs was to be the first up the hill. so imagine charging up a hill knowing the enemy is on the other side, you are the first leading thousands if not hundreds of men charging up a randomly numbered hill in italy. charles haynes one day in october 4, 1944 charges of the hill and as he makes progress, there's no bullets coming his way. there's no bombs. he can't believe it. he keeps going further and further your hits the apex of the hill when the germans opened fire. they rip open holes in his legs. he gets shot in the chest and it wound about the size of a softball is in his chest. bullets are flying. his fellow soldiers can't get to them to pick them up off the battlefield. so haynes is a languor, leading out to death. he says prayers for his mom. he thinks about his parents back home in durham. he says his goodbyes, and closes his eyes. it starts to rain, then it starts to snow here and our goes by, two hours, five hours, seven hours, 17 hours he lay dying in the snow and mud on the ceiling italy. until someone grabs his arm. charles, charles, wake up. wake up. charles barely opened up his eyes. he still alive at this point and who does he see idcs frank parker. frank parker, the vendor played against them on the football field two years earlier with help from another soldier picked up charles haynes bloody body, terri sewell downhill under gunfire, gets into a medical tent come he's transferred to hospital a hospital and charles makes a full recovery. frank parker after taking to the medical tent counterbalanced immediately and went back up the hill and saved other lives over the next 24 hours. charles haynes gets released, imagine almost dying on the field, and a few months later he is back on the front lines because we needed bodies, as americans in our war. frank parker and charles haynes create a friendship. they say goodbye in may of 1945 in the austrian alps. they stay in touch a little bit when they get back in the states but never laid eyes on each other. until approximately 1991. it was celebrating the 50th 50th anniversary of that rose bowl game, and the folks at oregon state wanted to recognize their only rose bowl champion. so they hosted a a banquet for whoever was still remaining and able to attend. they also invited any of their opponents who would played against them at duke. and there were just a handful of duke players that game. but one of them was charles haynes. and charles haynes said, i know we took a a good host our own reunion in a month but i can't wait to see the man who saved my life. i need to see if you still alive. charles haynes traveled from durham out to oregon, and as i write about in the introduction of the book, sure enough, he starts weeping as he looks across the room and sees the man the saved his life. four weeks later, frank parker and his wife travel to durham and the same can reunion takes place. and until their death, and then stayed in touch. charles haynes went through a couple of marriages, and his last partner, girlfriend, mailed me last year many of his last possessions, including some of the gifts that frank parker had given to charles haynes. and i wrote about these two men in this book because he are two guys, one dirt poor from corvallis, oregon, one who'd lost his father at the the age1 or 12 and a car accident, his uncle married his mother. he had to work all through high school and college just to make ends meet. here is charles haynes in the room middle upper class family, father was an executive to an american tobacco company. they both go off to war. they both killed dozens of men. they both get awarded medals for their service in action, but they come home to america and their lives couldn't have been more different. charles haynes was a war hero, opened up a restaurant, gregarious, had fun, took spanish and cooking classes at duke university, was friends with coach k, was known for walking around durham in full troop, opened a construction company, was very successful. had a couple of wives as i mentioned. frank parker moves back to oregon but stayed in italy an extra year after the war. he couldn't go home to face his lifetime sweetheart and wife. he thought it fundamentally changed as a man because of the horrors that he saw and the crimes in his eyes that he had committed. so he delayed returning home. he suffered from alcoholism most of his life. he became a fishman, never went back to complete his college education. lived his life on the sea, almost died a few times. after his wife passed away from an aneurysm, considered suicide multiple times. finally one of his eldest daughters got into a va hospital in kodiak alaska and then in portland, oregon, where for the first time after 50, 60 years he started to open up and talk about some of the demons of war. some of the other players in the game came home, severed from drug abuse and alcoholism picks some committed suicide. we talk about the greatest generation, and in my eyes they all are, but we think about tickertape parades and homecomings and these men who were really boys sent to islands in places far away struggled with this the rest of their lives. and part of "fields of battle," the book and narrative, what started as this sports book about other rose bowl went from one city to another ended up being a story about these boys going to war. but my own curiosity kept it from ending a war because i said to myself, what happened to these guys when they got home? did they become teachers? did more impact than? did football remain a piece of their life? i'm a former sports broadcaster, and for those of you who follow sports, you often hear broadcasters use war metaphors were talking about sports tickets the battle of the century. they left it all out on the battlefield. these are soldiers, and my men need to hit hard. after doing this book i realized how silly that is. because war is nothing like football. and what i learn is that these boys, as eager as some of them were to sign up at 19, 20, 21 years old, thought that war was a game. they thought the war would be just like football because the coaches would say, men, go over there and fight hard and hit start and all it took was about an hour in battle for these young boys to realize that war is nothing in common with football. now, as a side note some of the lessons these boys learned on the football field did help them in war, overcome adversity, getting knocked out and get it right back on your feet. the tough get going when toughness faces of them. and there are countless stories not only with these players but other athletes who have fought in war talking about the lessons they learn on the sports field kept them alive. so it's a triumphant story in ways. we won the war for those of you who don't know. those of you in savannah i hate to say it but the north actually won the civil war as well. the parts of the story that were great often overshadowed the sadness of not just the death, the suicide, the alcoholism, but stories like jackie who was two years old when he came over to america from japan with his mom. they settled in portland. he was raised in a public school in portland living a life in a small japanese community in downtown portland going to public school, was a great athlete, picked up the game of football, was a great basketball player, matriculate to oregon state and made the football team. everybody loved jackie. the only thing that sent jack the part was a last name and where he was born. but for all intents and purposes jack was an american. so he played sparingly throughout the 1942 season for the oregon state team and everything was going well until december 7, 1941. pearl harbor gets bombed and immediately any one of japanese ancestry was looked upon with suspect, certainly on the west coast. sweat the time that were about 42, 44 japanese ancestry students enrolled in oregon state. some the landlord kicked them out of their apartments for dorms. they were spit on. they were called names. many of them immediately withdrew from school to go back home. remember that the federal government began to very quickly in turn many japanese japaneses so they went home to sell their possessions. but jack was a college student. jack was a football player at the pacific coast conference champions. he was headed to the rose bowl picks a couple days go by and people gave jack dirty looks but all was well. oregon state is practicing getting way to get on a train on december 19 to take it across the country to durham. a few days before on a rainy day, two men in trench coats show up the practice field at oregon state and they go over to the coach and they whisper to him, and the coach says jack, jack, come here. jack jogs over, good student, good player, listens to his coach and jack introduced him to these two men who probably told him they were with the fbi, escorted off the field, told him that he's not allowed to go with his team to play in the rose bowl game. flash forward a few days later, the train station in portland, and they had a great farewell of people from all over portland. you've got to understand the magnitude of oregon state in 1942 1942 playing in the rose bowl game. this legitimized the university. this made the entire state proud. and you was there on the train platform but jack, crying, waiting as his team went away on this train trip. jack would go back home in portland or to listen to the rose bowl game on a small radio in his baritone. within months his parents were forced to close down the restaurant. jack was forced to sell all his possessions including a car. they were sent to what was an animal livestock holding area in portland, him and his family, and if you much later sent to an internment camp in the desert really of idaho where jack would spend his time. you know, jack passed away not before oregon state recognize him and the other japanese americans that were basically expelled from school and never completed if they were awarded on a raid agrees. he was given his rose bowl rainy. i was able to track down his daughter, lynn, who lives in the northwest. and so much still resentment and anger in the family for how they had been treated. and it was fascinating to get to know the family. i did my research. i promise that i would treat her and her fathers legacy the right way because i really believe that. and so the family opened up a bit to me. but flash forward to september of 2016 comment oregon state recognize the 75th anniversary team got help the university contact all these families to come back. remember i told you anyone is deceased from the game or team except for one, a duke player in louisville. but the sons and daughters came back many for the first time to oregon state. jack's daughter, grandkids and great grandkids came back. and it was probably one of the more emotional memorable nights of my life to see the embrace between the descendents of these former players and the common bond that all of them had shared together. and the duke the honored that team about a week later. of course oregon state won the game so they were much more enthralled and anxious to honor the team. jim smith is 96. he lives in louisville, kentucky, about sim sims as yol ever meet. he is a widower. mind as sharp as a type i defended jim. i now now call him and his family good friends. jim went back to duke with me in september 2016. we had the chance to talk to the duke football team to go out to practice and the honored jim on the field before the game. excuse me, at halftime of the game. but every day that went on, not just in my research but after the publication of the book, the book took on new meaning for me. how many of you in this audience served your country in some capacity wax thank you. thank you. [applause] probably many of you have a relative who served, whether afghanistan or iraq or korea or vietnam or world war ii or world war i. thank you. because families sacrifice, to come as i i learned that one of the greatest appreciations i got from this book is the respect i have for the men and women who serve our country. because what they see and what they go through is dramatically changes their lives. and so this book has made a difference for me and my life in my appreciation and is speaking to groups, seeing the eyes and faces of men mainly but women as well. because as i'm talking about what these world war ii guys went through, that veterans from vietnam and korea start to tear up, or from iraq and afghanistan, because they can kind of understand where they came from. for gentleman lost their lives who had played in the game, and something else that hit me is their lives were stopped so young. one of the gentlemen was bob mani who was killed on iwo jima, and remember doing the research and went to go find if his wife was still alive. and it went to see if his kids were still living. but, of course, he was skilled when he was just 18 or 19. there was no wife. there are no legacy children. i found a third or fourth cousin somewhere in pennsylvania who may be hurt about a guy named bob manny, but for all intents and purposes it's almost like this gentleman didn't exist. that was to some of these other men. and i've made it a point now to make my contributions to places in their memory, if only the summit continues to recognize, and that's just for out of 80. imagine the tens of thousands of men who have sacrificed their lives in all of our wars, who did not leave behind a spouse or children or grandchildren. i think we always need to keep them in mind. the parallel stories that are right about in "fields of battle" is this climactic rose bowl game and war. but at the same time these teams are playing for a football game, fdr and churchill are in d.c. planning for war. and in these little nuggets that i would pull out of my research, the oregon state can get on a train and as i write about in the book, it's got air conditioning. it's got menus. it's got beautiful white linen and silverware, things that these young boys had never seen before. and they stopped at all the small towns and they got off in chicago to stagg field to practice and stretch their legs. well, it turns out as i was doing my research the origins of the manhattan project, those scientists that were working in the early stages of all the scientific things that produce the bomb, or working in an undisclosed lab about 200 yards from where the oregon state football team was practicing in chicago. and then when they suit up for the game, both teams, and again that oregon state won a genuine first, 1942, fdr and churchill are in the white house at one of the early conferences of the war deciding where should we send her allied troops first, where are we going to attack. so it was kind of these two parallels going on that i i was following this sports journey but also our journey to a war. another little-known fact that i discovered is that pearl harbor, when it was attacked, actually to college football teams in hawaii at the time of the attack. the players from a university outside of portland, oregon, were there as was the team from san jose state university. they were there to play a round robin of games against the university of hawaii. so they are there having breakfast, , these teams get hee to board buses to go toward the island. they start seeing these bombs drop in the water and they are seeing planes overhead. and these boys turned to the waiters and waitresses and the folks working at the hotel and say, what is going on macs don't worry about it. it's just u.s. navy exercises. so they go back to eating food coming pretty shortly thereafter the smell of oil after hotel six or seven miles away stores to waver in. the japanese bombers are now spotted. word comes over the radio pretty shortly, and those men were immediately and scripted into the hawaiian police forces. they were given guns. they were given rolls of barb wire, , told to poop patrol the streets, laid barb wire on the beach is it would be weeks before most of those boys have returned to the united states. in fact, a handful of those boys never left hawaii. they served in the army or the hawaii national guard in hawaii, got married, , had children and never came home. it's these little tidbits that are learned along the way that are at least fascinating for me. two quick last ironic stories. one is wallace, the head coach at duke university. previous had won national championships at alabama. and wade during this time decided that if my boys were are going into service, so was i. so this 49-year-old football coach shocked the college football world at duke went short after the rose bowl loss, enlisted into the army, rose in the ranks, would go overseas in 1944, would participate shortly after normandy, control the 242nd artillery, the begins in the war, with a spouse himself, and at one point in the battle of the bulge in the snowy forest on the edge of belgium, he is freezing and he jumps into a foxhole to try to get some coffee. and says to these young lieutenant, vision private, may i borrow a cup of coffee? and he is freezing. the german takes office go, gives wade the jacket. gives him a cup of coffee, get some food. wade wembley was a lieutenant colonel said to the junk, what your name? he said stan checked. where are you from? well, i'm from oregon. stan had played on the oregon state rose bowl team that had lost, or had one, excuse me come against "wolf boys: two american teenagers and mexico's most dangerous drug cartel." they're in a foxhole two years later in the middle of the war. one of these other coincidences of these two teams coming together. there are more of those stories that i write about throughout the book. the game actually ended, the winning score was an unbelievable catch by a tiny little guy named jean grey from oregon state pit at the time, longus rose bowl touchdown pass in history that won the game. four years later, those same hands and arms that had caught that winning touchdown were now gone turkey a thought as a pilot in the war and after the war decided to stay in the army air force and lost both his arms in an awful train accident after the war. so this book is meaningful to me. i hope for those who get the chance to read it you can take something away about service, about sacrifice, about a unique time in our history. some of the same things for those of you who are sports fans we hear about today paying players, academics, concussions, all the same issues by the way 75, 80 years ago pics i hope you enjoy this book is much as i enjoyed the journey data wrote about, and i'm happy to take some questions. thank you. [applause] >> if you have a question would you please raise your hand. i will call on you. the actual come over in the people from c-span would love it if you're feeling comfortable standing when you give us your question. raise your hand, please. >> being a sportscaster do you have a a favorite player or a favorite team that you follow? >> you know, i can't answer that question. [laughing] >> you've got to be a yankee fan. >> i am not. [laughing] >> i'm not buying your book. >> are you a yankee fan? [laughing] that i love the yankees. i don't know what to tell you. [laughing] no. actually i'm a fan of the philadelphia eagles. [applause] i grew up in wilmington, delaware, just outside philadelphia because of the work i do i kind of backed off my allegiances from pro or college teams. i'm generally a fan of whoever is winning. [laughing] >> other questions? >> could you talk a little bit about -- >> weight. >> could you talk about the decision to cancel the rose bowl? i think a lot of the other bowls were played near their actual sites, portugal, et cetera. >> great. thank you for the question. you know, when pearl harbor got bombed a lot of folks across america wondered if the game was going to go on but rose bowl organizers had a reset the game pick oregon state and duke wanted to play. some of the men of course immediately enlisted or went off to war but we are america. we're not going to stop just because we got bombed. but slowly day by day there started build the backlash by the military against playing the game. why? why? because 50, 60,000 people in a stadium in southern california is attempting target for the japanese bombers and are still so much insecurity about it. about a week after pearl harbor i believe december 13 general dewitt who was in charge of the west coast for the u.s. military telegrams, called the governor of california and said, i request that you not play this game and not had a parade. the governor of course at the time abided by their wishes and canceled again. there were editorials in the charlotte observer and "new york times" go back and forth about whether or not we should play this game. and when is the right time to restart sports? as soon as the game was canceled and word spread, chicago raised its hand. the cotton bowl in texas, nashville come all kinds of cities said wider to play the rose bowl game here works in the end wallace wade, head coach of duke, was a very powerful coach of the time and said well, , we are in the game. why don't we just post it here in durham? quickly after the cancellation of the game it was announced that the rose bowl game would be played in durham. the tournament of roses who oversees the game tbit and official sanction. so it still counts as an official rose bowl game. there were still people in north carolina i didn't want the game to be played now they thought they would be a target for german bombers coming over. in fact, as a write about in the book they wanted to get an aerial shot of the stadium filled but before they flew a plane over, they made multiple p.a. announcements to the crowd to say look, etc a plane, it's not the germans bombing pickets actually the good guys trying to take a picture. so it's a great question because it led me to my own thoughts about 9/11, which for someone like me is the best i can recollect. i was too young when vietnam was going on and i wasn't born in paris and obviously the world wars i thought about 9/11 and the first game and that's played in the yankees played and the nfl struggled of when should we play football again. the closest i can compare it to was what about about about 75 years ago. when is the right time to play sports? right? is it there to get a country back on its feet? are sports there to serve as an unnecessary distraction, or do they take away holies and manpower and we should be focused on other things other than sports? i don't know the right answer. it's a great question. >> thank you. brian, you've written a number of books, a lot about sports, but could you answer the question of what are your favorite books that you've written, and why? >> i think, so i'd written eight. i think for me the two most impactful books because of the difference it made on me, not the difference it made on people, not how many books would sell, not what was a vessel or not, was probably this book because of my learning about service and sacrifice. and then the book i wrote five or six is ago called the legacy letters. and i had written five or six sports books up to that point and i was looking for a book that had more meaning. when 9/11 happened i was living in los angeles as a sports reporter, and always felt guilty that i couldn't do more. i wanted to go to new york. i wanted to help. i wanted to search the rubble at ground zero. all i could do was give blood in los angeles which i did do. so flash forward years later when i was looking for a meaningful book i wrote about a camp that exist for the children who lost a mom and dad in 9/11. i'd read this article and i said, that's my next book. and so i partner with an organization called tuesday's children which is still in existence in new york that was created to serve the children and the families, the widows and widowers of 9/11. and what i did was i decided to see if families would be willing to write letters to their lost loved ones on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. and the response was overwhelming. i got to know many of the families intimately pick as you can imagine there's lot of emotion even ten years after. so would be a 14-year-old girl writing a letter to the dad that she lost at such a tender age, or the two-year-old who never or the 2-year-old who never knew mom or dad still taking over the loss of her husband never gone on the date or move on in life. so that book had a clear impact on me. so evolve my book is this one and the legacy letters. >> so mentioning a number of soldiers who went on to live afterwards y but to make a point before who were killed never had a chance to have families or children two thank you for sharing that. i can remember three off the top of my head bob, everett, al, and the fourth will come to me. one was killed on patrol, one got off his ship in the water and was shot before he ever reached the shore. al was a green and legend had it he died to save his comrades as i pieced together i think a grenade did kill him i don't think he intentionally jumped on the grenade in the fourth name i will think about because i ambo embarrassed i cannot remember. that's a great question. other questions? >> my sense is after world war iier there were services available where is that true? >> absolutely it is better with those issues going on today they may say yes but there was no such thing is ptsd it was called the scars of war or bomb trauma so it did exist but it wasn't therefore mental but if you lost a limb to teach you being have press loan -- prostatic lung --dash and not where the virginia services are swear they should be but we understand better the mental cost of war because imagine seeing head blown off next to you and never talking about it. not your wife, kidski or therapist or to immediately get a job and live happily. and this is why so many are the greatest generation because of what they did endure because playing our part of world war ii on the home front and though the little woman staying at home so a lot of women served on the port side of the americann federation. >> do you speak to a lot of the veterans groups or those from washington d.c.? >> it is called honor flights. one of the charities i contributed to in honor of these four gentlemen to pay for the flight and the family member to go back to washington to tour the world war ii memorial.or i will speak to any veterans group whether there is to or thousand. i have never turn down an finvitation i have never gone to d.c. if anybody wants one bite me i will do that i feel that's part of the payback and the least that i can do. any other questions? >> what is your next book? >> i have no idea. i did to coming out the fall of 2016 i took some time off and i am struggling that is not an invitation for any of you to give me an idea. [laughter] i was joking when i was asked one of the most common things they want to know the next book or they have a great story to tell me which happens to a lot of authors.e i will not do it for any other reason that i am attracted to the story, i am passionate to make a difference. and then we only do that for the right reasons. [applause] >> do you see those parallels?ea how many of you have read these? [laughter] do you see the problem we are having here? [laughter] i believe they are for sale in the tent. and with that historical n nonfiction and for publisher or commercial interest that is a sport story from 100 years ago and their books are phenomenal. it goes in cycles it works that everybody once you write the w book in that genre been it may die away. so it just depends. . . . . ryan, what is your one take away from writing this book? ryan, that's a great question. i think the take away is that everybody's life is amazing, and to me, whether you fought in war or didn't, whether you lived a very quiet life here in savannah, worked in the company, clocked in for 35 35 years, rad a good family, you are a hero, too. and i think too often in our society we put certain folks on pedestals as he rose because of something they missed they did for the sacrifices they did, but every day, i mean, i was walking over here just from the hotel looking at people curious about the sacrifices they have made for their own kids or for their marriage or for caring for an ill person. so for me while the veterans and war and everything else have become close to my heart, it reaffirmed my belief that everyone's got a great story. everyone should share that story even if you think your story is important, , make sure you share it with someone. make sure you share with your kids. unfortunately those folks that pass away, when you talk to them right before death, often they will say their biggest regret isn't i didn't write a a book r star in a movie will make more money. it's i wish i'd spent more time with my kids, or i wish i told my kids a little bit more about my life. so i know that my legacy is going to be carried on. so maybe tonight bow and chris anders who are so kind as my host and sponsors, i hope its okay they will pay for all your dinners tonight. [laughing] if you go to dinner and share with your loved one your story. so thank you very much. thank you, guys, very much. [applause] .. accept your donations to the savannah book festival. your generosity that we are able to keep the festival saturday free. please help us to continue. thank you for coming. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> that was for brian curtis on the 1942 rose bowl. in a few minutes we will be back with more live coverage of the savannah book festival. up next, arthur scott schapiro talking about the peace pact that outlawed war around the world. our live coverage will continue shortly. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> what i trace in here is what happened to this country in the 1960s. bobby kennedy was not the same person in 1968 that he was in 1961 and no one in the country was. there were segregationists in 1961 who were not segregationists in 1968. when you look at what happened to people's opinions and their view of the world, bobby kennedy changed an average amount for someone with their eyes open at that time. there were people who went through more dramatic changes, bigger pendulum swings in their lives. and we get into how the 60s changed every one. jean mccarthy and everyone else except for one senator voted for the gulf of tonkin resolution, that was the resolution them, president johnson used to wage full-fledged war. and jean mccarthy ran for president because nick katzen back who had been the hero, the university of alabama when a deputy attorney general, and steamrolling over governor george wallace. a couple years later and under secretary of state, and jean mccarthy is a member, nick katzen back believes declarations of war are outmoded. and to wage war in vietnam at any level he wants to, there is nothing congress can say about it and that was the moment, that was the hearing, that was the statement in the hearing that made jean mccarthy walk out of the room too angry to speak and ask a question. and have to run for president, i will. everyone knows it is more vivid than anyone's mind. conservative or moderate democrat to the liberal democrat and all sorts of questions about what kind of opportunism was that, it was the kind of experience and enlightenment people were going through in the 1960s was before the assassination, summer of 1963, bobby goes to north dakota which jfk lost and had no hope of winning, there was no conceivable political benefit for bobby kennedy to go to north dakota for any. to adjust the convention in north dakota. he delivers a speech to them in north dakota that is a breathtaking piece. if you stood up at standing rock at the reservation where i was last summer, if you read bobby's speech every word of it would be relevant to what they are doing that day. chief joseph who gave a speech in 1977 about his hope for a way the united states and everyone here would live together, with that. there is much in his evolution in here that i think clarifies that question which is the central biographical question. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here's a look at books being published this week. yale law school professor examines how parties impact our political system in political tribes. look for these titles in bookstores this weekend watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. >> bernie and his supporters, i wanted them to be a part of what was going to happen. hillary won the primary fair and square. she had 4 million more votes than bernie, did not set the primary in florida or alabama or louisiana. she had more pledged delegates and unpledged delegates. tim kane called for the elimination of unpledged delegates. we need to have this conversation if not now, when. what forms would you like to see at the dnc? the unity commission will pick on a lot of electoral firms, pledged versus unpledged delegates, looking at the window, what states in new hampshire, once upon a time they hit here because it is earlier. i am the same donna. internally party is doing a great job reforming the party, we had so many great victories across the country. let's be honest. paula jean was absolutely right. i love you, florida. i love your elect oral votes but no reason why from florida all the way across mexico there is no other state on this side of the line. north carolina gets a few dollars but look across this especially in the south, we missed opportunities for the last we 10 years, all these states and on two states, tom perez, the down ballot race enabling us to have victory after victory. we are now 450 votes short of winning three more streets in virginia. it is important we invest down ballots, put resources across the country, a prescription for all 50 states. the dnc got rid of superdelegates. >> somebody who has been a superdelegate for 20 years, no comment. we need a healthy debate. the reason we should have a healthy debate, i don't want voters to think my vote matters more than their vote. as long as you have the perception that i'm somehow special, i don't want that. i can understand, at the convention we need to run. i don't know, as a volunteer, i still may have something special. don't take away all my love. >> the point of the book where you say why wasn't obama talking about the intelligence, where were the intelligence agencies? this was a national emergency. >> that is a point i heard a lot of republicans make. if this was happening why wasn't resident obama talking about it? >> my understanding is president obama, the leadership in congress, mitch mcconnell said you should not make a big deal of this. and i know leader nancy pelosi went to paul ryan, and chairman lujan, the national congressional committee, and after our briefing with dhs i went to priebus on october 4th which was the republican place presidential debate. and on those photos here. you know this is happening. this is another revelation. i tried to reach out to sean spicer, not melissa mccarthy, sean spicer. i wanted him to know what was in the hacking and malware in case he opened it. what worried me as if the dnc went down we would corrupt the election system and i wanted to make sure the republican system was protected, two major political parties and databases, and i am a little upset the republicans ignored it. and the way angela merkel used it, to tip the scale, there is one other reason because the hillary clinton campaign, they would win. they were so convinced they would win that i don't think they polled in the last two weeks, she is going to win. meanwhile i am putting cold water. not so fast. who else would know about that? on the day of the election, they are sitting there, presidential inaugural, and the machines are not working and they looked at me like you know there is a line in philadelphia and it looks like it wasn't until 7:00 that night they started -- i was so angry at this point, a so-called victory party, the first person i ran to, stephen won because i work with them, to make it a national holiday. the victory party, people in that town on the radio like me, they were not panicking, they they were going to win. they kept saying to me have you seen the exit poll. i don't believe exit polls, remember florida. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. he national book critics circle comprised of literary critics, and members of the book publishing industry, recently announced its finalists for the outstanding books of 2017. some of the finalists include jack davis's look at the gulf of mexico, francis fitzgerald's history of evangelism in america. russian-american journalist's report on the generation of russians who came of age during the vladimir putin regime. and the art of death. kevin young gaps bunk and roxanne gaye's memo hunger. booktv has covered several of this year's finalists. >> most of us because it means losing people we love. one of the things i learned, especially the dying writers like christopher hitchens writing about their own dead, these incidents with my parents, one thing i realized, tariff is to live. live the best life you can and don't have many regrets. >> host: do we the living find that message? >> guest: living itself is so busy, in the back of our minds, we don't want to concentrate on our mortality but one of the things christopher hitchens writes in his book mortality is at the end or before, living and dining and the difference between living and dying and living is you are constantly aware of an expiration date. the possibility is something life ahead but for dying people, they know every single day, normally it would be great if we all lived like that. >> you can watch these programs in full online at booktv.org and for the complete list of the national book critics circle finalists all six categories, head to bookcritics.org. >> you are watching booktv on