Have you with this, congratulations and welcome to the washington history seminar. Youre also very fortunate to have Chris Mcdermitt from the department to be with us as a commentator, welcome to chris. I am christian i developed the Public Policy program. I am delighted to be cochairing the seminar as always with eric arnesen from George Washington university who directs the National History center. Today, eric will introduce our speaker and moderate our discussion. As many of you regular viewers know, the washington history seminar is a collaborative decadelong effort of our two organizations the Wilson Centers history and Public Policy program hurt interNational History center of the american historical association. Prior to the pandemic we met on a weekly basis at the wilson center. But now we are very pleased to come to you via zoom and facebook. Behind this seems there are two individuals that help produce this events, peter of the policy program rachel weekly with the National History center. Even in this zoom only era, staging these events is way more intensive and tuesday to mark coming up let me ask for your support. We thank our institutional supporters from the center for history and Public Interest and to George Washington history departments. Both of them supports the event series financially. We are also grateful to a number of individual donors who make these meetings possible. And whose rank we invites, encourage, urge you to join. Details about how to do so are now available in the chat room. Or simply go to our institutional websites. Today session is being recorded and we will send it to you on our respective organizations websites. For the q a part of the webinar, eric will remind you again please use the raised hand function in the zoom room functionality if youd like to ask a question. Once you press the button you will be entered into the queue. And when the moderator calls on you, please unmute your screen. You can also submit questions to Rachel Wheatley by the email at our w hta tle why at historians. Org. And with that, thanks to our speakers, let me turn the zoom room over to eric. Eric. Strict thank you christian. Its my privilege to introduce our speaker this afternoon, and discuss her Chris Mcdermott professor of anthropology at the George Washington university but she received a ba from dartmouth from the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy and phd from harvard. Her research focuses on post conflict societies. i am getting used to zoom but i miss the opportunity to be together, to be in a room, have that response. Very grateful, look forward to this discussion. I would like to begin with basic remarks. It might be helpful to share my screen in the presentation, this will set the scene. I hope we can all see one another. On a cool damp day in november of 2018, i went to the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National cemetery. In washington see, i knew the trip would be difficult, a journey across the memorial bridge, a structure built to connect the monument to the National Mall to the cemetery. Rain pelted down on the steps, pacing before the sturdy block of the original world war i precipice. Attendyearold boy who watched in rapt attention as they shifted the rifle from one to the next. My young companion looked skeptical when i told him it would take 21 steps in 21 seconds. Naturally shiny black shoes, to the major conflict of the past century, the korean war, now empty the vietnam war. In the past several years, aside to consider the pentagon disciplining and civilian visitors for an interesting like, with military rituals and our place for the widening Civil Military performed each hour on the hour. Overshadowed by the pageantry of the great war, the monuments original objects have succeeded. There seems to be a message that invites what it means to die and to die fighting on behalf of the nation. Wilfred owens with wilfred owen, gargling from the froth, bitter is the time of violent innocent tongues, my friends, you would not argue for this. Against the backdrop, representing the kind of touchstone, culminating for over a decade the archival study of efforts to account servicemembers missing in action from the wars of the last century including the vietnam war. If they open in contemporary military parlance, must not be recognized to individually repair, the us has developed the past several decades, confidence that worst distraction may decimate but can no longer steal the identity. On the two disruptions in 1998 when the remains of the vietnam war, identified, the secretary of defense made a remarkable pronouncement saying, quote, it may be they reached the point there will be no other unknowns. These remarks speak to the claim with use that but for the United States military in the us as a nation thanks to dna testing and other forensic scientific advancements, related to the missing in action model. The archival work, to understand the context relationship the United States has with the conflict in Southeast Asia and what it means when 5 decades, missing in action comes home and what is it means when they dont come home, the absence may never be resolved. Opening the discussion, the first thread pertains to the accounting process writ large. And argue the vietnam war solidified and expanded a National Tradition of individual recovery and identification. This is a tradition that stretches back to the civil war, bringing them home trump them. In this republic from the individual burial practices for the comprehensive system, to be identified, the conflict between north and south transformed the nations sentiment. She writes, quote, we live in the world of the dead, the obligations of state to account for the lives explained to the surface. More recently the tradition of caring has benefited from the transformative property. Science is strong and a form of ritual. And a forensic enterprise with older facts spent decades, hundreds of millions and returned thousands to their surviving enterprise fostered an idea. I am not championing this effort, where it comes from, how it operates and what it produces. Mia accounting at its core is recovering and identifying an individual name or a handful of them. A scant number of homes. The individual has become the expected payment for a proper care assessment and the body recovered and this too i argue with particular emphasis, in its simplest terms it carries the story the state told with military past and present, at its own unprecedented effort spares no expense and no research to bring it home. To occlude the wars cemetery was long. 3 Million People from 19541975, 58,620 counted to the action. The United States, 2646 americans roughly equal parts of those missing in action, of those, 585 servicemembers still missing and the number estimated at 300,000, they fall distinctly outside the scope of this enterprise and this was one described as exclusionary practice. To be sure what was forged from that as historians argue the war in Southeast Asia dislodged the central tenets of the notion of american exceptionalism, with the historical record. Political windss began to shift, to rehabilitate the memories by recovering. 3 decades long the us military, 140 million a year on an accounting effort not taking into account millions of dollars, approximately 17 military personnel, hundreds over fiscal year 2 Southeast Asia to remain and it is not possible. The largest in the world, two labs and the dna Identification Laboratory, to repatriate and individual, the additional cost and resources, and every possible case, provides the state to push past devices in this, for that harm. The corollary allows the state to shift the focus. It may before rinsing science reached a point there are no other unknowns, capable of transmogrify in, gives rise to that and a new language of remembrance with certitude to the tools of genetic graphic techniques. At another level, Exceptional Care fragment of the unstable memory of nature itself. For service members, it runs counter to the folks. The nationstate and forms of bureaucratic research moved across the ark, and repatriation, with families and communities of the state. Highly localized events, the capacity to communicate dangers, and and missing in action, and sometimes they return to thought. Ripping off what for decades, for sorrow. The homecoming rarely if ever brings closure for protracted grief. In this light, it is bound up with the nation defined by it. The collection of names for power, and act of that. A demonstration of this dent, the story of Lance Corporal may hand, one of two young men in wisconsin, to be killed in vietnam, part of the survey mission. And with his official recovery and identification. Followed the trajectory to the eyes of his surviving family. The homecoming is publicly a and a reminder of the time he was declared mia, they vowed to keep their property from being seized by the us government. The land was supposed to become part of a national park, and the property and home with a few short years. Skip allen struck back, beating a small portion of the island they owned, this tiny little strip of it to a local function and he and his wife wanted to be buried there and wanted merle to join him there if he should be recovered. They both described this. The treaties with faces and george perez writes i would rather exist in places that are stable, unmoving, intangible, untouched and untouchable, faces that might be a point of departure, the trail of my family and the house where i was born. Buddy tells us such places dont exist, and fingers, bears and waves. Theres only one recourse, to leave sorrow somewhere, only a few signs of these fragile places but she overlooks other possibilities for keeping faith alive in our memory for reference of departure, faces of communion and commemoration. The allen family practiced the day they brought home to your kind. Once the military rights were offended, the other attendees on the outer islands, a World War Navy landing tank, helped ferry troops to the beaches of europe in 1944. It was the ideal boat for the occasion for historical significance and logistical reasons. It is about 2 and a half middles miles to the southern york island where shallow waters midst sammy sholes sandy sholes, Amphibious Assault craft, to drop directly to the island beach, allowing more senior attendees to disembark. A special escort, junior, someone who fought with merle and survived the Helicopter Crash that killed merle, entrusted with caring, a little box around which activity focused to the burial site. The group made its way to the island to arrive at a small clearing several yards from the waters edge two years after the funeral to get a sense where Lance Corporal merle allen rested. It is a story by a mix of aspen and pine with a carpeted island and wildflowers. At first the island was not the recipient as planned, scheduled water overnight, it rained heavily, leaving the ground saturated and had to press their way, settled into place in the attendees to the small handful of fans, on the grains, finally at rest. From the mountainside in Central Vietnam to a clearing on york island, merle and ray allen traveled a long way. When i asked the allen siblings whether it matter to him, so many physical remains recovered and repatriated, as explained, thrilled with even one bone came out and knew it was my brother, finally needed space. At this point, welcome the opportunity, questions from the audience. Let chris share his thoughts, if you responded to them and we will open it up to our larger viewing audience. Christopher mcdermott received a ma from st. Johns college of medicine and Trinity College dublin, fda to be in the program at virginia tech. Served as the chief data officer, missing in action account for the agency. Prior to the establishment of the agency in january of 2015, the joint pow mia accounting command, the offices of the defense pow personnel officer, in 2001. The transformation of k for research and analysis for field and Laboratory Analysis in addition to his case research, across europe and the senate. The screen is yours. Very much enjoy having the opportunity to go into your volume and think about the perspective you are able to bring within the mission in the laboratory for science, in the field. One thing that struck me as a great contribution is movement from among the different places that matters to the story and individuals involved. It highlights the geography of the conflict, much meaningful the place is, how much more meaningful to the people who lived with these people to the connection to their homes, one thing that resonates to me, what i am talking about his individual contributions, that is shared collectively. One of the things that always struck me is that ability to recognize the individual who was subsumed by the state and suspended by the state, but the state owes something, do they owe it to the service, that nation or do they know something to the people who knew this person in a special way. What do they owe people who knew that person and his family were that person who shared walking along the lakeshore to gather. It has become much more meaningful. Looking at the contributions that go in, i like the way you sum that up, with Exceptional Care and what we are trying to show that if those can be much larger than any individual but can recognize the contribution of that and at the same time, one of the things that i think about, the mission continues, making identifications, we are able to examine the unidentified and try to make them go from unidentified to identified. The us has something i would like to hear about in terms of contribution, what the global meaning is of the unknown soldier. The one that represents them all but as we unpack that, there will no longer be anymore. What do we risk losing when we move in that direction. From vietnam to korea to world war ii, we have memorials, we make an identification, small homecoming connecting time and places in a direct way but the most recent conflicts we had small volunteer force, much more mechanical operation of identification process, a hidden aspect of it and servicemembers, thank you for the contribution where names are memorialized. Or is continue to echo generations further on. A fantastic comment, it is a question i repeatedly get. Not sure i have a satisfactory answer but working through the thoughts and findings, the entire research projects, the identification so startled that what seems to be eternal, unknown soldiers have that eternal flame, what is abiding and enduring, 1998 a total rupture of that and the remains are resumed and in fact that passage, kicks it off, with national belonging, with material cultural artifacts, we imagine our connections, we belong to this nation and michael allen, written very beautifully. The sacrilege, pulling out the remains and name them. The question is what happened then. The secretary we wont have more on that. Entering into uncharted territory. The hypothesis, what i assumed, changing when you cant have the aggregate or symbolic unknown. It comes down to the personalized narrative and some of that is true, the narrative, it is only about local family, it is this strange mix of it and it makes it contentious. Some pretty terrible memories of a war. It is harder for the nation to get us to imagine because there is a particular history. One thing that is extraordinary, just to witness the convoy of vehicles as a left from the same call to lake superior. That speaks volumes with the personalized narrative to do the work back in, whether it is airbrushed, what obligations we as contemporary members of society have to those who fight on our behalf. I dont have an easy quick answer but that is the crux of what is going on here. The tension between, the history, biography prior to military service, to retell the story of the veterans to this day grappling with their own experience. I promise i will keep them going from here on. Does this tie into the trans formation by the tomb of the unknowns. It is so much more common, bringing that message, one of the themes, the named individuals we are trying not to forget, something specific about that individual, but those get washed into the symbology. It is interesting to think about why america has this much more openly fraught relationship for the commonwealth, the tune that can represent them where they fell, why bring the remains home . That is understanding the tradition writ large between the state, the military and Current Service members families, to secure traffic from contemporary to learn, heightened of force from world war i to world war ii to the korean war with concurrent returns during the battle and expectation of the return to the vietnam war. It is necessary for me to dabble but i am an ethnographer, i can try my research but standing on the shoulders of historians and michael allen, to help understand the political context that gave rise to increased cultural demand advancing in terms of science for forensic enterprise, a mythical notion that science can triumph stretching back to the previous war and the promise there will be no other unknowns. That is helping to unpack what i tried to do, to unpack a little bit. It is not magic but the work of transformation and the new rituals that come out of them, to bridge chasms for ambiguity and uncertainty about them. To transition quickly to the science parts, one of the things i find rewarding is the conversation about how the certainty and expertise around identification science even old and changed but at the same time there is the hallmark, the Family Member who will say i recognize you must show me the remains, that is how i will recognize them. As that moves back and you have visual recognition, dog tag recognition, you start thinking about you get to a level of expertise where only certain people can recognize the fragmentary remains we are talking about. When you bring dna into the picture you get a levels as well as there is a transition of expertise, moving up in that chain but want to return to i know this name goes with this. Reporter so much of what i tried to write about in those early chapters on the scientific process is extraordinarily powerful tools are at our fingertips. Genetics can do extraordinary things. It hinges upon that rudimentary element of trust. If families do not believe it has been a scientifically sound process, that experts have done their job well and there hasnt been a margin a, receive this information and they can say yes, i believe this. I believe this tiny fragment of my brother is my brother or is my father. That is something i found to be common with my earlier research. That sense of trust and efficacy of science go hand in glove and without trust you are not going to have family bias, remains decimated by genocide, it was necessary for families not just to trust but also to participate, partake in the process because they had to give their dna sample. In early years as they were trying to build up a system that could fall apart if you didnt have families providing dna samples and leaving the results for them. I sold i was hearing a different version because of different context, but that sensibility of can we trust and without trust, recognizing this enterprise might fail in every positive identification might look problematic if identification was faulty or someone cast aspersions on about it so it is more than the social world. It is interesting when we look at the language around accounting which has financial history and other parts where commerce comes into it. What does it cost to identify someone, it means everything for the family but you spend everything to achieve it and theres an interesting balance of terminology but also problematic, the dollar value. It is dc, there is a helicopter overhead. That, i got to my research on the Identification Laboratory in 20112012 but the moment the mission as a whole was undergoing a fair amount of scrutiny about its efficiency and oversight that congress had and pursuing about how many identifications per year were possible, what were they doing at the time and understandably, what makes the system better and more efficient, i was struck by this language of efficiency as even to the point there was a consultant brought in but in this oversight, trying to ascertain whether the opportunity to speak with one and i remember her describing using the language of customer, customer is for family and that is such a mistake because this entire enterprise operates on necessary notion of sanctity and the family, the closest thing we have, the guardians of the memory and the ones that are missing and have been waiting and waiting and waiting, all of a certain to hear them described as customers in this effort to make the mission more efficient and responsive to that, dont go down that path. They felt the same frustration with that language, overwhelming majority of people working for the Defense Department on this mission. At the same time there is another side where there was scrutiny and oversight, not a certainty but something was wrong in that there wasnt a sense that the sacred mattered in the broader sense. The language is problematic, there are problems when we go to other countries, Accounting Agency and with ledgers and we want to talk to villagers, and go to the crash site. Thats not accounting anywhere else. When you talk about the language, things i always found interesting was you look at the situated knowledge or laboratories and at the same time, more cases accomplished, bureaucracy deals with that and make the change happen. And we open up to broader questions, what it means to be responsive to the customer. Or the participant in the sacred and the individual that sacrificed, what is the appropriate level of participation. If i could bring one more juxtaposed, i went back and i go back fairly frequently for these cases and he was surprised to hear, the channel to appeal, that appeal was not successful the military would still take care of its own. It all depended on Family Members willingness to accept the validity of identification. How is this the case that the families would not be overridden, but ultimately know and identified set of remains would languish if the identification was found, the exposition always struck me. In what way does it close anything administrative or meaningful . Do you have some questions . I will invite our audience to use the rate and functions or to use the q and a function and we will do our best to call on everyone. I would like to start off with a limited amount of time to share the content of the book with us and many things about the book are fascinating. It may or may not be familiar to historians or average americans. As an anthropologist and ethnographer, if you could talk a little bit about how you do your research because you not only interview people but you travel to hawaii, look at the lab and this is absolutely fascinating section, you traveled to vietnam on one of these accounting teams and spent many weeks firsthand participating in one of these reclamation projects. If you could talk about how you went about doing this and how you told this story. My bread and butter is ethnic research, Ethnographic Research is essentially the hope you can spend sustained amounts of time with communities you want to understand well. In this case this project was complicated because there were so many different sites, people involved in this process. It could never only the about the science or members of the military, veterans or the families. Somehow i needed to get a feel for perspective and i thought about the perspective where i was tracing this arc of recovery and identification and one could argue that i started at the flip end around this point of curiosity. Trace these science first and follow the expertise in a factor of scientists or geneticists who had come, and both of these individuals had a hand in it. And the Identification Laboratory, that opened the door and it meant the Ethnographic Research, the black lab, we spent weeks, to figure out what is for rent sick for the set of remains. Gradually, the head of the scientific laboratory, the process of identification to see what a Recovery Mission is, this can be so different. Central vietnam, archaeological dig, base camps for the campus set up, hiking up the mountain scope defined remains for the Helicopter Crash. Working with military, incredibly fortunate, teammates on the end of it and those remains led to the story of michael rayfound. To follow the remains for the little town, the locus of loss. Scope widens, that little town suffered, one man was killed, returned 46 years later and another person is killed in action, body not recovered. Later without resolution early on and the person who will never come home. My task across these spaces to move to different ways of thinking through to the most scientific and local lines version. On the ethnography side and multiple in depth conversations, the sense of local meanings of the war, i do get a clear sense that it matters it was the vietnam war a than its position in time. Who fought nazis. This was a contentious one. The United States government, lied to the american people, lied to politicians lied to men and women who served in vietnam and i wonder if discussions with people you talk to, if there was any reflection, critical or not critical, about this particular war, what it meant to them, their historical memory or their thoughts about the government in relationship to the war or subsumed in the intensely personal that we talk about. You see the anger and bitterness, a celebration of a soldier returned home. The third person from this town in northern are wisconsin, the remembrance of 50 days. Standing at the back of the room talking about the us government, with every person who serves, and a strong tone and cashed those checks for these three men, very distinctive. In a more subtle way the person who i quote in introducing she did not move someone, she lost her husband in 2015, not just lung cancer but likely ptsd. A fair amount, what we took from him and he did not want at the end of the book, one of the things i stress, the person in the figure who encapsulates the frustration, that anger, that since betrayal, from milwaukee, wisconsin, the famous motorcycle on this collection at the wall. And bikers had come to the bottle, got separated from the other place roaming around dc, and disorienting place, he was thinking about the nations capital, the sense of not knowing where he was in the feeling of having returned after the war and that became a project. It is a message to the state. Accounts for the missing but also recognized who we are, recognize what we gave and i will also say that particularly my wisconsin crew, they dont wear their politics on their sleeve. When they came home, many of them told me we were told to take off our uniforms, take a bus back home you should be in civilian clothing and how people treat you when you get back, they are happy to have me back. Those sins in that community that how should i say, their only community, my point about the particularity of the locals, their Community Welcomes them home. The nation writ large welcomes them home, that might be a sticking point. That is the advantage of spending time outside the beltway to get a feel for how people live their lives and what forms are in their side and which ones have they come to accept. I think it is there but subtle because that is the subtlety that was displayed regularly. Before we open to a question, a question. Thanks, a wonderful book and a fascinating presentation. I realize you are and ethnographer but we are at a historical seminar so for the audience, put your book about vietnam Recovery Efforts into a broader historical context, quickly the Historical Archive from the recent war experiences, the effort to recover, connected with that, where do you see your most important intention with this book . The graphical context as well, appreciate that. It took me a while to understand i needed to do better and contextualize and conversations with historians. Early on, allowed me to see the notion of repatriation doesnt begin with world war i. That sense that all whole system was built up around northern body of needing to return, could be the south. That bloom my mind. I havent been thinking about it in those terms and then moving on, i will say the best work for me in early stages of this project was to read j winter and thomas liquor and i was lucky to have him come to help me shore up the historical account of the book. I finished teaching my graduate students, the seminal book for anybody who works from commemoration and the politics and i do think if i could jump a little bit ahead and say he touches on something that resonated and i knew that was where my work would come back to in a moment. World war i has the decimation of bodies unseen so that 10 Million People died, 5 million of them do not come back. That rupture is where they belong. And a Family Member wanted when given the opportunity to decide do they want the remains, their response, 74 , that is a tradition that continues in force so world war ii is 65 . There is fantastic work that works on the unknown buried in military cemeteries doing soft diplomacy of rendering visible to europe what were the sacrifices the usmade. By the korean war, i learned this is something that is concurrent, the fact during the war, the military is involved, not waiting for us or trees to be signed but rather during the war as they are waiting. The vietnam war, this is already in the fact, i think is helpful from my colleagues, not just about the forensic changes but also tactical changes iconic helicopters, the helicopters were about insertion. He was out of service but its also about the to take them from the war. These are things appreciate. It wasnt one off, emotional aspects, the u. S. Fighting the wars inside advancements so that story was immediate for me. I can work for one so much in terms of lighting, helped me understand recovery on the battlefield. The lowest on the military hierarchy. They needed to be covered, marked. , thinking about the memorials, spaces of these men and warning, a community began to back together and appeal to one another. The monument is in thriving the names of those who have died but in those names pointing to the families i knew what i needed to study that and those 50, 60 years later, thats what i would tell him together and they truly need them. Thank you. We have some hands and questions mcewen day. First of, james, your hand is up. You could unmute yourself, you can ask the question. I ask this question as a veteran who served in the u. S. Army many years ago at a place where there are bound sensitized to this problem. Ive been fascinated as a historian since then. As you speaking, i thought of an extraordinary documentary i saw five, six years ago. Maybe you have seen it, taking chance. Its the documentary of the body of a soldier from i guess the air force base in delaware to his hometown and the care and dignity which military, i think marines own part of that ceremony and making that journey possible. I have a cousin who lost his life also in the second world war, his death certificate is buried in arlington but that certificate reads had found which means it remains in italy. Weve spoken already about the sacredness in much of this, how do you set these men and women in action into this larger context in the way in which we honor those lost in war as a privilege of not only greatly developing society but also a nation fighting a war in vietnam was much less costly in American Life than other great wars. You imagine treating all the dead that were lost in the First World War the way we treat vigils now afghanistan over air force base care in which we search for the missing action and become . Thank you so much for your comments. You touch on a number of very important themes. Ill do my best, im not sure i can respond to them. Let me start with kevin bacon. Be wrong remember speaking with the son of an air force pilot who lost his daughter when he was one of the is the extraordinary when the remains were uncovered and respond never they do that. It is not time that he could do that. It was totally blue. So we set on a couple of different occasions. He asked me if i had ever seen this film why he felt like the films captured so much of that ritual to perform the way the performance of, especially the military and bringing the remains back to a family. I want to acknowledge the fact that it resonated at least one Family Member and is very sensitive that it is costly and is family feels extremely fortunate for getting remains. There is a side of the ritual care, i think there is the Exceptional Care that i explore in the book. We have come to think that happens like dna. Twentyfour hours you have your results in this is what i means when its a response but the problem is that families now assume what can and will happen, if no remains are covered or if they are and yet, there are countless examples where remains were not yield a dna sample, maybe the remains are still degraded because of the conditions in which they were buried and located but there will be a definitive dna profile to match up. There is a sense that science can do it all and when it doesnt deliver, that is yesterday. The reference world war ii, one thing i am always a little bit surprised by, i find this fascinating, i am surprised by world war ii families have gone to court to insist the Defense Department to a better job. They know the remains are buried at the national cemetery. Its usually a couple of generations and there is a sense that the piece should be resolved immediately. I sometimes about what i have learned, i am not a historian so if you want to correct me, feel free. So this is not something that people they brought it home and put it away. They have that same sensibility so it is a different era. We live in one in this process can achieve. Some of this has to do with the understanding. I can see you may have something to add. Definite get through the actual work messiness of war in and of itself. On the one hand, i think there is a common narrative about that and that we will put it away and indoor but then theres also the constant worry of that puzzle hasnt been solved, the piece thats never been found, its still missing. Can i use that to help me worry or solve something . He certainly see that from the perspective any individual case, thats what matters. It is impossible to understand. How can one mean more than another . How can you judge what to work on today . They are not all of equal weight and when they are, how do you make progress and show you care and that broadway . For helping so many. When you talk about the families who want to push their own case where they think there is a clue or something that needs them there, theres a world war ii, is that your loved one . We dont know for sure and there are no mistakes made, our most recent mistakes. There is also that challenge. He recovered and identified 80000 people after world war ii using the Technology Available in the 1960s they make 1 of errors and a quarter of all unknowns are mistakes we have to work through. We have to have one that acknowledges that problem and still tries to push ahead we can do and have standards that do withhold and withstand. We have a hand up. John, you can unmake the shelf unmute your self. I see that you are still muted. Area. Thank you. Thank you. On one hand, i dont know if its common or rare. In the vietnam war, my brother served as a Company Clerk in the marines squadron and was ambushed one night to control this and similar star. It was about ten years before him and decided by pure chance, we managed again in washington in the 1990s. We went to the vietnam war. Its like oh my gosh, still alive when put on the topic. I wonder about that experience. The other question is, ten years later, he wrote his memoir in the vietnam war and serving as a journalist by the time i got. When i started teaching in columbia, i was overwhelmed. I sent a copy to my brother in california. His wife erupted in anger. They said i had no business doing that. We still dont talk about this all these years later. Is this common . Thats a lot. Let me start with you will and as i look at the attendees, as you described that encounter, that tragic realization that the person found to be saved, i referenced a woman from northern wisconsin and her husband had a similar experience, the experience of knowing his best friend is presuming, his best friend has been killed in an air strike and he would have to call and the extraordinary guilt he lived with. It took a while to understand this but i think it was more a case that he assumed he died when his friend actually survived. That realization these two men after the war had never learned. This was really what i find confusing but also confounding and perhaps its naive on my part that when people came home, i often hear veterans were not coming back in groups, they were on their own. There is a sense of putting the war behind them and not knowing how having that feeling, the course of action would be reaching out, finding out if my buddy lived. As you described, you learn the name, they are abstract, a beautiful powerful memorial is so jarring, the number of names in which you yourself are reflected in the sheen of that. Your story doesnt surprise me because i think it was true, i dont know how many people but its not one that people came home and reached out to one another. I hear from the veterans and work with them years later when they find their way through. Even now, they have more emotional ways digging through the memories and connect with people. I wouldnt say that i do not without the experience the first time. I wonder if you might either now or in a few minutes, talk about your experience about what the law has meant to you in the face of encountering and honoring other. If you wish, the race and function will appear and i can call on you. We have a question from larry berman who asked, can you discuss the efforts on the vietnam vietnamese side. Ive had the good fortune in the last two years to begin to pair up with the vietnamese person at the university of amsterdam. She has embarked on multi reader decided that he research into the vietnam experience. Particularly the effort ramped up recent years to recover and identify. 300,000 in action. We talk regularly and the hope is we will be able to Work Together a little bit shedding light on the American Experience but its been fascinating for her, she began her research looking at the vietnamese government. Its slow to embrace but low to say we will build up capacity to seek to identify all 300,000. A combination of local resources but also partnership with multinational. Its ongoing and the scholar has been fantastic. She weighed in on my research to help me understand whats necessary, my understanding, the vietnamese understanding but it is a process thats just recently underweight. Certainly there have been recoveries and rituals for the vietnamese. Theres now this new era of dna and they partnered with another that was central to the work. It should be a fascinating story to watch. Right now i have the advantage of those. We have a question from historian Carnegie Mellon working on korean war pow and ill ask one question in particular. I read your article about zero eight, im not quite sure about vietnam, my personal think about korea, they want to make the identification difficult to demonstrate americans. He knew described the pow diplomacy . That is a fascinating question other than the case to conceptualize that, this is a set of remains returned in the early 1990s, i think it was 91 and 94, there were 208 boxes, essentially the presumption are there are 208 individuals inside coping going so one set of one remains coming from one spot from multiple individuals so its been an enormous puzzle for the forensic and they have had to rely very heavily on geneti genetics. Its been slow going but a significant amount has been for that. Ive gradually yielded, about 150, the last time i checked it was around 100 and i dont know how much has come out of it. Its about 200 now. But they are approximately 600 individuals presumed to be part of this. Recently, those of you who may remember the singapore summit, 65 boxes return, those two are significantly coping with as identifications have come with those two will be slow going. The other question is, is this enough for these communications . I would not venture i know there are cases where recovery is done in the late 1990s, 2000, recovery may have been not the most genuine place, the remains may have been placed inside and then they have the direct sites and they could tell the elements were recovered again there. All of this to say it is not straightforward but i think we would be premature to describe the various intent. At the end of the day, its about the u. S. And u. S. Military dropping its military personnel in these countries that are still going with extraordinary bombing and so on and so forth. I imagine not straightforward, the remains of them but its the larger geopolitical associatio associations. I dont know enough to describe male intent. Certainly we have examples from different collections to know that we have appeared to have been prepared. We have found remains in the early 1990s turn over also at sites they have taken us to and remains turnover after the falling in singapore summit. Those remains have been combinations from recovering sites in the early 2000s and some remains there. Whether there is male intent, the u. S. Patient does not seem very straightforward to these other cultures and societies. It seems like they are concerned about the drop in the bucket compared to the large number of people they know were filled in the country and so concerned you hold up all of the political progress until you satisfy this one element, its very hard to translate and understand. Thats also where humanitarian missions are embedded into these challenges and it is something weve had to work very hard, normalizing relationships with vietnam was held contingent upon them providing all this information. How do i get all of these things done, solve these mysteries for people i cant every possibly solve . I dont know what happened in low. Is been a negotiator on the vietnam size. I dont know how to answer that question adequately but i can try to work with you and come up with some solutions. When you make everything contingent upon their the geopolitical interest. Thank you. Past 5 30 p. M. But i think i need to draw this to a close. I will turn it over to christian. Let me remind you, we will see you again this wednesday, december 2 discuss will be university. The story of love, power. Thanks to sarah, chris and eric are really terrific conversations. Thanks to all of you, our audience watching participating. We are adjourned. Be well. Take care. You are watching book to be on cspan2. Latest nonfiction books and authors. Tv on cspan2. By americas to the Cable Television company. You watching book to be on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Here are programs to look out for tonight, investigative journalist, cheryl offensives offers her thoughts on censorship and journalism. Whole foods market ceo, john mackey talks about his approach to leadership in our Author Interview problem afterwards, kathryn founder of the center for rural enterprise and Environmental Justice reflects on her efforts to improve sanitation and water conditions across america in rural areas. Good evening. Im the director of programming and marketing at the library. Before we get started, i should mention if you have questions, them in the comments or chat