we're almost out of time. i see a young lady eager. i'm going to get this little girl here and then we'll have to move on. >> you talk too much. >> y >> first, mr. aldrin, i would like to say thank you for your service to the country, your continuing influence. i was reading a book and i'm wondering where are you going to scuba dive with crocodiles? where do you want to? >> well, he is not going to scuba dive with crocodiles anymore. why would you scuba dive with crocodiles? >> with a tank on my back and slippers on my feet, when i got out of the water at crocodile runs much faster. >> he was going to, but he changed his mind probably wisely. he said i didn't want to lose a hand. let's take this young lady here. >> what is the one thing he would have done differently in your career's >> yet, would you have done differently. i can think of all kinds of things you're going to say. >> i told nasa dog canceled out maneuvering that back. just because you don't want a little failure of success. i want to fly that that pack, just like george clooney did. [laughter] [applause] >> let's get to this young man and then we are going to end. i'm a for kids. i'm a mom. >> what advice would you give a 10-year-old who wants to go to. mars? [applause] >> did you hear that? what advice would you give a 10-year-old who once to go to mars? >> a doctorate degree at age 25, joined the astronaut corps and then they will send you to the moon, where you will assemble things on the moon that will make the moon base. you'll assembled vans. and then you will go land the moon for a while and then you'll come back. will training. that is where you go to deal put together a base that looks justo like the one. >> i know that sounds old, but he was so common as though appropriate. we have a spacecraft that will cycle, swing by the earth, and pick up two or three commanders and tran -- -- >> what does that look like? >> you will have one just like it in low earth orbit. you'll assembled things and then we will build the master one that takes people. that is why my program is called cycling pathways to mars. >> you can find out more at buzz aldrin.com.ys if you want to mars t-shirts, you can get to it through buzz aldrin.com. they are a fundraiser for the foundation. every single penny goes to they foundation. we had the space institutes of florida back. we've got to stop now. i know you think you are going to ask recyclers, but you're not. [applause] going to explain site colors now you are not. [laughter] [cheers and applause] >> we are very pleased to have with us this evening, transfixed. kael was a diplomat to join the state department shortly after september 11th attacks and initially he was in with u.s. efforts at the u.n. security council to freeze and block assets linked to al qaeda. after the invasion of iraq in 2003, he ended up in bad dad among the first american diplomat said to the iraqi capital. and then, he went on to spend seven years in either iraq or afghanistan so i think u.s. forces in working with them, local authorities and others, the service for which he received the secretary is a model for heroism was uncommon not only for the amount of time he was in iraq or afghanistan, but also the range of his contacts in the death of his involvement with the american troops and local civilians. his new book "the mirror test" recounts his personal journey and provide an emotional portrait of the wars america has been engaged in for well over a decade. kael is very critical and highlights the tremendous human cost of the conflict of the dad and wounded troops and the many civilian casualties. he's wanted in particular by one u.s. military mission over the amber desert in iraq in early 2005 that ended in the remains. this is india's largest casualty in either the iraq or afghanistan war. he reminds us to the last page is how import it is for all of us as citizens to reflect on what being involved in this extended wars has been. the work serves as its own kind of mirror test for american, compelling us to look and come to terms as much as a wounded soldier with a disfigured face fears the damage returning for more. babies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming transfixed. [applause] >> thank you, politics & prose and all of you who came out on a tuesday evening. it has been a while since i've been in washington and i think you put me to the humidity tests. the focus is on a more serious thought to it, which is outlined . a task that we talk about is a medical term and i sometimes entrench a great part of my book that goes in to more detail about what a marine named aaron menken came to terms with after he was badly wounded by an ied in iraq, but rather than leave his words, i would urge you in the private to spend a minute i hope you have bought the boat. he is as dallas won on what it means to look at how war has changed you personally and the point of the book is to expand it a bit to our nation and many nations that have been affected by decisions in tune. i want to thank the veterans can i recognize many faces here. you more than anyone in a more visceral way than i have and i could have addressed her mother were. they were all veterans but by service came in the form of the state department. i would like to do thank you all. this book is a citizenship type test as well. it's not an easy book, not a quick book. as many people tell me, it is a heavy boat and i don't think were books necessarily should be anything more than all of those hatchet days. i booked tonight is not good for lots of open by telling you more about myself. the buyer was appreciated. i worked also cleaning toilets at one point, so i say if you want to join the state department come you could be at dairy queen guy and represent the united dates of america. probably the best jobs i had were before working for a government. the book itself i will go into a brief overview, high book actually gets sold. i can talk to some of you after. but matters of time for people to continue to write about these wars. i don't think were fatigue is a notion that anyone other than iraqis and afghans and veterans fully vitiate. for all the naysayers and literary world, i still think the best were books have yet to be written. to the c-span not the c-span not in its comment if you're a veteran and ohio, utah, colorado, i tell my others there's a lot more good writing out there and i think they are prepared to all read it. the test is a medical term. we heard a good overview. i won't repeat that. cover to cover and presented to the reader. some are easier to read than others, but the whole journey through both wars raises questions that are veterans and the iraqi people deserve us to think hard about is we are not just any country. word overstretch superpower, but we are affecting millions and millions of lives. i am not antiwar, but i try not to preach along the way. i try to be an honest guy through the pages. whether i succeed or fail, i will lead up to you. the curtains that i pulled back. in a capital like ours, i believe it was an honest obligation for me to do. i was a meeting in rooms that a lot of our veterans were nodded and again i tried to be fair. i tried not to do any cheap shots. by the end of it, we did. finally one point before you get into the structure of the book, and overview, while you i hope are the book, i need to tip my hat to veterans that underwriters have produced a lot of good already. the carpenter, elliott ackerman. there will be more that follow. someone who doesn't get shot as a fiction book called flashes of war. i spent a lot of time with iraqis and afghans and she does a very good job for someone who hasn't actually been to war, writing about war. that's all that said, i make it into the structure of the book. [inaudible] not that my editor and i were counted. 100 customers to the credit of my publisher they let me go wrong. the first section was the wrong war. the second section is the right war, afghanistan and the third section is home. my favorite favorite question is the additional part, which is after war. i was interviewed this week on radio and terry gross was an incredible interviewer asked me why i meant the book with not my words basically, the walt whitman quote. i will come back to that at the end of the 20 or so minutes that i've got. the last 40 minutes i would rather have a q&a and i laughed and veterans to come and share their stories with me. quick question. when i say united states of america today, what words you associate with our nation? our mother taught me the value of other pop quiz. i hope you think about some words that come to mind. nouns, ajit case, not theirs to use adverbs. and then i would ask a second part of the question, which is what words do you think iraq is, afghans are non-americans associate with us today? how does for its changed are they the same? no right or wrong answer, but i will ask some of you to tell me about birds to associate with us. and then i would be negligent if i did math the third question given where a day out for memorial day. .. >> i think it's time for our literature and for our nation, more importantly, to think about how these wars got started, how they were fought, the fact that they're still ongoing and what issues we have succeeded at. this is not a book that's just an indictment on the wars. i actually write about some things, particularly in afghanistan, that we can feel good about. but it's also a very frank look into the mirror and where the mere or record is cracked -- mirror is racked, i try and show that we need to recognize that. u.s. power is not the same thing as u.s. influence. i think the state department, if anything, taught me you can be powerful but not influential, and that's another question, i think, for our veterans, alex and baylin and dave probably in uniform saw as well, that just because you carry a rifle does not mean you're going to always get your way. a big theme of my book is accountability. i think that these wars have not led to enough personal or, more importantly, national accountability. i'll leave that up to you about your politics or who you choose to vote for. but at a time of ongoing warfare, i would put that out there as the role of all of us as citizens, to think about are we doing our job holding people accountable for the decisions that we empower them to make. it's about reflection and reckoning, personal as well. you know, of course, it's my story, my journey t a be, but of other stories in there. and then the big e for education. i think sometimes the value of nonfiction is you let other voices speak, and you do your best to sort of step to the side. so if i'm fortunate enough to have you end the book, by the end -- have you read the book, i hope by the end you've actually learned something. a big part of the audience i wrote for was for students. not because i think it should be assigned to every student across america, but i really did try and write a book for the student who on 9/11 was a teenager or younger or who had a cousin who was in the military or in the state department for that matter. because that's probably all they've known, is that in the background there's iraq and afghanistan and another explosion and baghdad even becoming more red. final theme i'll point out among all the others is this is not an us versus them book. our inherent instinct is to tell our story as americans, and there have been some very good books that have predominantly focused on the american story at war. my book is trying to widen the lens. so you will meet iraqis, afghans, and you will meet marines and soldiers. and together i think that's the most accurate mirror that we're going to have on these or wars. it's also not an us versus them book in terms of the political side of the th the issue and the military side of the issue. the fact that i've got some military friends here hopefully attest to the fact that we did our best in places like fallujah and helmand. and i think the tribal warfare that sometimes goes on in washington in conference rooms really undercut us over there on the ground. and some of these stories probably highlight that. and it definitely was not an us versus them frame with regard to the iraqi and afghan people. these are the people whose home front continue to be our war front. and i think as we read books and engage in discussions about these wars, we should keep a that in mind. keep that in mind. and i want to switch to the photos in the book. it's not a picture book, but the pictures are, i think, a very important part of the reading experience. why do i say that in my editor, tim o'connell and andrew rate ger and the great team up in new york helped me go through about 500 of my photos, and we boiled that down to 95. 90 of mine got in, and we used three or four department of defense photos. because like all of you i always looked at the photos first, hopefully some of those photos will stay with you. a few. there's a photo of fallujah, and today fallujah is being declared -- as you probably have heard again, this time by the iraqi government with our air power. if you look at the photos of fallujah, they're pretty devastating as far as destruction and a city that we didn't level all of it, but i think during the battle we probably leveled about half of it. dave, you may want to speak to that as a marine. there's a photo of iraqis named walid, again, these are real people with real stories and real pain that has gone on since, you know, 2003. the potato factory. terry gross, to her credit, asked me some hard questions about what went on there. let's just say that's kind of the hardest part of war which is what happens when you have a humanitarian situation and a health situation all at once with bodies on the street and how do our marine corps and we deal with that. the photo that is a department of defense photo, i wanted to put a face to the the issue of whether you call it enhanced interrogation or photo. in fact, that probably mote slated the whole -- motivated the whole five-year project. he was tortured to death before abu ghraib. lots of marine photos. i'm biased, my dad and uncles were all in the army, but the tribe i spent most of my time with was the united states marine corps, so you'll get to know, i think, the marine stories. there's a lot of photos of the afghan people. at a time when the longest war in american history is going on and on and on, we lose sight, i think, that these were people that we have partnered with and that we're still partnering with. the last photos i'll quickly mention before wrapping up and having a q and a is i went to the george w. bush presidential museum and library. i did not know what i would see there, and i again -- hopefully as an honest, trustworthy guy -- walk you through how a president memorializes or remembers his own role as commander in chief. topaz, i went there after i left fallujah. why? i needed a big, long road trip, but i also think, unfortunately, the subject of how fear in a time of war sometimes brings out the worst aspect of the american character, and i think today that's particularly relevant. and then finally, ground zero in new york city. i once lived in new york city for four years, and as a former new yorker, i felt like i owned a little bit of that story. and i always believed this book needed to end in new york. start in america and end in america, and the wars were in between. jason was a friend in both wars, and he and i i think were looking for closure that no one ever get in these wars, but we went to the 9/11 memorials together. if there's one part of my book that allowed me to put things in perspective, i think it's that part i've opted not to read part of my book because you did a great job talking about the mirror test, and besides, there's 22 hours of unabridged me. if you want more of me, the team in l.a. were incredible working me through i the audio. i was in very good hands. but i'll finally end with those questions i had. what words do you associate with the united states? be you can just raise your hand -- if you can just raise your hand, i'll repeat what those words are, just a few. and then we'll go to the second one. >> [inaudible] >> well meaning. good contracted word with, i guess. yes? >> freedom. >> freedom. good one. i heard that in the wars. >> powerful. >> powerful. any other words that you associate with the united states? >> naive. >> naive. >> self-serving. >> guilty. i was naive for sure. self-serving. yep? >> unsuccessful. >> unsuccessful. these are all good words. now i'm going to shift quickly to what words do you think the iraqi and afghan people associate with us? or for that matter, the japanese people, the daness, you know, the brazilians. >> [inaudible] >> okay, dangerous. ma'am? >> crusader. >> ah, crusader. that's a loaded word, but i'm glad you said it. anyone else want to offer some words that nonamericans you think associate with us? >> arrogant. >> arrogant, and it's a good friend who grew up in norway. good word. anyone else? >> [inaudible] >> disappointing and -- >> leader. >> sorry? >> leader. >> wrong. >> wrong. [laughter] tim in new york has been, it's been a really good back and forth. no right or wrong answer. i heard great words, and i heard not-so-great words. i heard a lot about drones, about freedom, i heard election, i heard abu ghraib. so the book talks about what that balance was in terms of how we view oust in that mirror -- ourself in that mirror. i like to avoid mirrors because i'm getting older, but when it comes to war, we shouldn't. i think if the book succeeds, you'll see i try and do a pretty good balance between, yes, what failed, but also some of the things that worked. iraq, obviously, the worst battle of the war, so my lens is very red. but in afghanistan there are still some stores and some -- some stories and some to experiences that resulted in some positive things. so the indictment book, i think, would have been an easier book to write. i tried to, again, be pretty balanced on that. memorial day x then i'm going to open it up to q&a as i think i've got about 35, 40 minutes. what does memorial day mean to you? >> i was impressed with the citizens underneath it all. that it somehow doesn't seem right, what we do on memorial day. we're not fair with people who were there. >> okay. the e gentleman to my right talked about the cynicism of memorial day, that we're not fair to the veterans, to the people who were in the wars. yep. >> millions of people who have served over hundreds of years. >> good. millions of people who served over hundreds of years, right? it's not just these wars, it's wars all the way back to the first club. good. what else? >> my father was in the battle of the bulge. he was in combat as a private. >> so for you, it's a very personal family member. my great uncle i wrote about the other day survived the battle of the bulge but did not survive the after-war. anyone else want to take a shot at what memorial day means? >> the cemetery if more manty -- in normandy. >> very good. yeah, i'm glad you raised that. i've got a chapter in my book that i end by signaling there are very few nations in the world who still bury your military overseas. and normandy is probably one of the most moving examples of that. and that also gets to the power-influence equation. we still have a lot of influence, we're still powerful, but our story speaks to our strengths as well. i talk about that, you know, the kid in afghanistan who e-mailed me when neil armstrong passed away. i'm still moved by that. why? because i didn't hear about neil armstrong's death from any american, and identify got a lot of -- i've got a lot of great friends and family. but my dad was in vietnam when neil armstrong, you know, put his first accept on the -- step on the moon. now he looks up and sees or hears drones, and we need to think about what we're telling the world. what does memorial day mean to me in and then i'll ask three people come up and help me, maybe four. it means accountability, it means responsibility, it means fundamentally, i think, who is our commander in chief, not just our military's commander in chief, but our commander in chief. and i don't say that just because we're six months out from a presidential election. but when you go to a cemetery and you are visiting kia, killed in action, from iraq or afghanistan, i encouraged people out colorado and utah where i was on the tour before now to just wander around a bit. and it's amazing, the number of other kia or other veterans you'll see from korea, from world world war ii, from world war i, even from the civil war which is another war that we don't have a memorial for, actually, on the mall. you know the only other one we don't? world war i. we have a local memorial, but there is no national memorial for world war i. there's also not one for the civil war on the national mall. so i have a chapter where i walk you through the national mall. but i think, again, this is just me, kael weston, talking about memorial day. it's not just about the death in past wars and remembering the sacrifice today, it's about how many more tombstones are going to be there, because those decisions -- who becomes our commander in chief -- will affect, i think, whether those tombstones are more for the right wars or more maybe for the wrong wars. so when i walk through the graveyards, and i've been to more than i ever wanted to, but in wyoming and utah and california most recently, i think, okay, here's the sacrifice so far. and there will inevitably be future sacrifice. is the policy and are the policymakers going to be deserving of that future sacrifice? so i will leave it at that, and then i will ask dave, please, come up briefly. baylin, who was actually, was kind enough to let me use part of his journal in the book. it's one of, i think, the most important parts of the book. also here, and then, alex, if you would come um -- come up as well. i would like to open it up to the veterans. i found in colorado especially people enjoyed hearing from the veterans. why? because the people who truly are in the hard parts of the war were not me and my colleagues, it was the veterans. so if you'll come up. i'm kind of ordering you. [laughter] alex, if you'll come up. and then i'll hand it off to the whole panel. bay cell phone lin was -- baylin was a soldier in the army. we're pretty blunt. dave is a southerner, i'll let them tell their own stories. alex is also a southerner, but i try not to hold that against him. so if you have questions for two marines and a soldier, please direct it toward them. if you have a question toward me. carter probably won't come up, but he's a civilian. carter, come up -- >> i'm going to yield my time so that you will tell us a story from the book. my preferred story is the story of hamza. but if you prefer something else, i think that's fine. >> okay, i will follow carter's order. i will tell you one story from the book, and then we've got, i think, 30 minutes or so to have a good back or forth. it's one of the hardest stories, so i know why you picked it. shake hamza was the last grand mufti of fallujah. it's the chapter of the book called collaboration. it's not called partnership, it's not called teamwork, it's called collaboration for a reason. and i'm a student of history. what i try and be do in that chapter is show the brave iraqi, but as was the case where carter was in afghanistan, the people who stood with us, the people who for whatever reason decided that when the americans showed up, they were going to collaborate with us. and what the costs of collaboration are as well as what some of the successes were of collaboration. he opted to not only collaborate with us, but to take a very tough decision, many tough decisions at a time when zarqawi was directly intimidating him. and just picture that. here you've got john kael weston, an underage, underdressed state department guy meeting with you saying, please, help us. and then you've gottal zarqawi and his henchmen trying to strangle you and intimidate you behind closed doors. that was his world. untouchable for a while but, unfortunately, not untouchable forever be. and the reasons that i think his story are especially tragic is that what we did -- and i include myself in that category, but also a delta force team. i love our special operations forces. they have a narrow, important mission, but sometimes they screw up too, and my book gets into that, i hope in a fair and honest way. we made life a heck of a lot dangerous for the grand mufti of fallujah to the point when the ambassador and the mc asked me who killed sheikh hamza, i said we did. there are faces and stories that motivated the whole book. and i have to say while i love our military and i love general nicholson who's a partner with me through many of the pages, the stories that really demanded, i think, a 608-page book from an incredible publisher is the iraq and the afghan stories. so thank you, carter, for giving me five more minutes on that. but i'll now open it up to all of us, and any question. if you'll come up to the microphone, i know that helps with the recording. and if you would rather yell at me, i'll repeat it in the microphone. ma'am? >> so my question is actually for you. i'm old enough to be your mother. my war was vietnam. i was married to an anti-war activist, and i ultimately became a physician at bethesda naval hospital. i retired only recently, so i've met lots of marines coming from the war zone. my question is it appeared as soon as we got into iraq that no one in the government had any idea what was in iraq or who was in iraq or what their history was. similarly with afghanistan. now, you were in the state department. there's -- i once intern at the state department a long, long time ago. your whole function supposed to be people who know what's going on. and the lesson from vietnam is it's not a good idea to support an unpopular government. you can't at the end of the day. i mean, that's why we're taking fallujah for the third time? >> at least. >> p and ramadi, the third time? when you were in those meetings, you said you heard things that the people carrying the weight didn't hear. so what did you hear, and did they really -- do they just know what they were doing but not communicate it to the people who made the decisions? >> read my next book, because i'm going to tackle some of this. i'll tell you, it's a very important question. my dad and upgs were in -- uncles were in vietnam. my uncle almost died there, my dad was there, again, when neil armstrong landed on the moon. i do make connections with that in my book. i think when richard holbrooke was criticized for bringing up his iraq -- or his vietnam experience in this debate, i think that was unfortunate and unfair. to the question of what we didn't know, we didn't know a lot. and i didn't know a lot. so i'm not here to just point fingers at my government that i worked for and that overall supported me in my role and could have fired me a number of times for legitimate reasons. i think we were naive, and i think i have to go back to 9/11. we were a fearful nation. and when you're afraid, watch out. and my fear is, my real fear is that we continue to be a fearful nation. what was it that fdr said? it's the most beautiful way of talking about fear. instead, i think fear can become that virus that makes us sort of do things that we ordinarily wouldn't. i go back to what happened on 9/11. we were at the height of our power. economically, there was no such thing as an overstretched military empire. and our government at the time -- with american buy-in, you know? i love richard hold book, but -- richard holbrooke, but he was on iraq band wagon. where were we? when it comes to accountable, i include myself in the naive. i think you mentioned that originally in the question, and then what followed. once we were on the ground, i think we all learned pretty quickly and maybe, you know, some of the mama -- marrones can tell you the story -- marines can tell you the story. the problem is if you're deployed in conference rooms, i think your learning curve is not very quick. we didn't, i think, communicate well internally. and there have been some very good books written, good at pulling that big curtain back and showing while our war cabinets were making decisions about tens of thousands of troop surges that maybe we also, like you say, didn't understand that the government we were supporting was the bigger problem and that the in-fighting in the government was a big problem. i'll end with this: the chapter that probably was the hardest one for me to do is when the senators and generals talk. and it gets to your question about, i think, the political and the military together. i also felt for our veterans and our families they're owed an insight into when members of our congress particularly come to the war zone, some of whom voted for the war, a few voted against, what they actually do, what they actually say. >> [inaudible] >> it is a windshield tour. but you know what? i have to be honest, they at least showed up, because a lot of their colleagues didn't show up. so that part of book required multiple, multiple edits because i didn't want it to be -- but i easily could have written which is the most ridiculous things we heard in those conference rooms. but i focus on a congressman raising dental readiness at the beginning, and i name him. indiana congressman. and then i weave it through to john warner who led the iraq war, helped lead the iraq war authorization, the aumf. and i show that, you know, whether you're republican or democrat, older generation, younger generation, veteran or not, that these wars did start to sink in, and i think john warner comes across as really -- there's a saying when the eagles are silent, the the parrots begin to jabber. we heard too many parrots, but there were a few eagles that walked through including john warner. in that chapter we try and show that disconnect but also a learning curve. because i think john warner represented in my mind someone who understood when the iraq war was not going well. he didn't just shut his mouth. and i know the bush white house was very worried when john warner started to say, timeout here. afterward, you've asked some fundamentally important questions. did we learn anything from vietnam? well, in vietnam we had the draft, and we've never had the draft for these war, and i think that also makes war easier, and it makes it easier to continue from the politicians. thank you. other questions. yep? >> i don't have any question, but -- [inaudible] about yourselves and your experiences. how did you get into this? >> the question is with -- >> [inaudible] >> i want to make sure people can hear it on tv. she asked for an introduction for each of our veterans, and i think it's a good idea. come up. >> this is exactly how he operates you. kael will just ambush you. you're sitting in the back about to ask a question and kael says, oh, come on up. none of you want to hear from us. >> yeah, we do. >> i was -- >> [inaudible] >> oh, sorry. so we're doing this solely out of affection for this man. i served with him as a marine. i was with another marine in the back. >> todd, come up here. [laughter] >> no, you can stay there. so we served together, and there was this unusual fellow that i saw on the military base. he kept getting excluded from the chow hall because they thought he was a contractor. occasionally, he would threaten to remind people that state department was a lead agency, and then he would just shy. he wasn't fit to eat in those chow halls, but kael was always trying to include the perspectives from the lowest level, the very lois level, exactly as he's doing now. and then i later worked with him in afghanistan as well. >> and you were a marine? >> a marine, yes. >> thank you. >> my name is baylin orr. it's a good thing for kael that i have no problem speaking in front of people impromptu. i met kael when i was going to school at utah state. one of his former associates was my professor. he came out to speak, and he was talking about these shenanigans that we had in the middle east for lack of a were the term, and he kind of made -- better term. and he made some connection. we kind of talked afterwards, and he was asking for some things. and i just happened to have kept a journal when i was many iraq. i don't know why to this day, but i kept it as often as i could, almost daily. there were, obviously, days depending on the mission that i wouldn't keep it for various reasons. but i was involved in a mission that he was writing about that took place in sadr city, is so he was asking me about it. i said, hey, here's like some journal entries, just whatever. take it. i had no idea at the time they would actually end up in the book. if you flip to the end of the book, it's what's called a soldier's journal. that's an e-mail that i basically sent to him a couple years ago at point. i'm honored it's in there, and -- >> tell them about the journal. just what you were writing about. >> i mean, really i just wrote about whatever was happening. there is no, when i wrote with it it wasn't for a plan, it was just -- i was young, i was 18 when i enlisted. i got out when i was 22, and i'd never been to war before, so i thought, okay, i'll write about it. it was for my own sake. i've actually never gone through and reread it. it's sitting on my computer on hard drive and on my google drive. the only parts i've actually ever revisited is when i was picking out some pieces to send to him. and when i read through it again after he had sent me a copy of the book just a few weeks ago. so there was no plan. it's just -- and you can see that if you go through and you read it. there's no, there is no attempt to keep the grammar clean, to keep the language clean or anything like that. so it's really rough to read k and you'll probably have to read through it a couple times. >> but that's what makes it so good. because i think -- i'll save you a little bit. the writing is what i consider to be pure writing. i mean, i, i'm looking back on the wars, and i'm kind of filtering, wanting to make it word perfect and craft and all that crap we all do when we write. but what baylin's journal really highlights and i think why terry gross zeroed in on it when walt whitman says the real war will never get in the books, his journal is the real war. all my editors are you sure you don't want to change that, correct that? i'm like, no, this is a guy living in sadr city explaining what life is like, and it precedes the family and friends' comments about the 31, my reckoning about, you know, the decision that i would take back if i could, you know? in an instant and i can't. but there are family and friends who are getting online and just humanizing, you know, the troops and their friends and sons and brothers who were killed in that helicopter crash. and i think baylin, it's also him looking back at what was going on at the time. so there's a reflection going on. it is like a mirror test he's having. he was kind enough to let me use it, and hopefully, if we sell a few books, you'll get your due. dave, do you want to come up and introduce yourself as well? >> just an introduction, right? nothing else. [laughter] >> how much more time? i'm dave. i've over in kael since december of 2004. even though he doesn't remember our first meeting. we met in fallujah at the cmoc when we had the very first be, i guess, informal city council meeting. so we tried to bring back together those tribal leaders, city officials that remained, wanted to come back to the city after we finished doing what needed to be done at the time, where we needed to begin rebuilding and bringing everybody back into the city. >> tell them a bit more about your expertise. back to the question of -- >> well, even though you speak the language doesn't mean you know anything about the place. no matter how much you study it, no matter how much you think you understand it, i think kael one time said in 2006 you don't know fallujah unless you've been -- well, for every year you're in fallujah, you know 1% of what's going on. and i think that's pretty damn accurate. oh, can i say that on c-span? >> yes. [laughter] >> we're good. i'm still active duty. but it's entirely accurate. it didn't matter how fluent you are in the language, how many books you've read, if you understood the history of iraq going back to the 1920s and even before that, before the partition or the british mandate, rather, post-world war i, it didn't matter. yes, it helped you understand what was going on at the time, it helps you understand it today, but at the same time, we're american, they're iraqis, they know what's going on in the backallies, in the meetings -- back alleys, in the meetings and the other individuals there that were our collaborate ors. thank you. >> i'll administer about his bio. if there was one marine or even american who the flew januaries came to love the most, it's not me. it's dave meadows. and it shows you the value of an american who is wearing the uniform, and, you know, a trained killer, but in an environment where the people knew him as the american who spoke their language. i didn't. my first impression was not very good. i've made up for it in other way maybe, but my first impression was not what the state department guy should be doing. dave, working with colonels and generals, was able to make the city safer for all of us. so i tell people another story to carter, there was a captain in eastern afghanistan, captain barr. and when i got there, the afghans in one of our most difficult districts -- and i write about this -- kept on basically saying barr, barr, barr. finally to my linguist i said, who's this barr guy, you know? it was hurting my ego. this marine captain was legendary in eastern afghanistan, and what the afghans said is bring him back. you know, bring, bring marines back like him. and at that point general dunford was -- [inaudible] i said wherever he is, promote him and bring him back, because i had seen how one american could have such a positive effect in a place where osama bin laden had spent time. alex did some things in fallujah that he also won't talk about because he's half humble. you know, there was -- before the potato factory, alex with the civil affairs team had to deal with the bodies. and that was even more difficult than what happened later. so, you know, he's fairly humble, mostly humble, but he would never tell you that the role he had was extremely critical at that time. and i would add on the civil affairs side, you know, most marines are being perceived as trigger pullers, and there are a lot of great marines who are trigger pullers, and there's also marines who are civil affairs officer or a civil affairs nco. a lot of my work involved both sides, the the trigger pull beers, the company commanders, infantry company commanders as well as the civil affairs officers. and then baylin, you know, please read his journal. i think it's the cleanest accounting of war that i've come as cross, and he's definitely too humble to give himself credit. but i think as the writing progresses in these wars and, again, for all the people watching, you know, if you're a veteran living in iowa or illinois and you're not close to the publishing world, pull out your journals, pull out your original diary, because i think all of our wars have translated into tremendous, tremendously powerful stories that come out over time. and i think the american readership is still willing to hear your stories. other questions. todd, you should come up here. no? okay. >> kael, i have a question for you. may i? >> of course. >> if i may. spoken too much. kael is not what people expect of a state department political adviser. not now and not then. he was a peculiar political animal who by his own admission he was adopted by this tribe, the marine corps. and he's finish. >> [inaudible] >> unashamed of that. but he was never be, i never thought he was co-opted. i never thought he wanted to be a marine, i never thought he wanted to be in the military. he was very proudly a diplomat. so, kael, my question to you is how did you do that? this is not a how-to book, but for someone who was so effective, he would walk into a room and three-star generals would ask him what to do, would listen to his counsel. that's very rare. so give us some pointers and some insight into that, please. >> well, you stick around the wars long enough, you sort of get to know your neighborhood. i i think that the value of spending as much time as some of us did -- and, believe me, i'm not the only one who did this. there are a lot of people in the state department, foreign service, usaid tribes who also have done incredible work. war is too important, i think, on the front end to play games, and i think that, alex, you were there at one of the worst times in fallujah. and i know that the marine corps is spoiled by the quality of the generals you have. i also know the generals were not behind closed doors plotting to tell everyone they had all the answers. and in a place like anbar, fallujah, helmand with general nicholson, general dunford, general miller, i could go on, we were all trying to reach the best implementation we could. and i won't name this general, but i'll always remember all these general, and everyone's, like, very high right now which is all good. i'm in the wilderness and in the desert, and that's all good too. but this general said, you know, we don't do this, do we? we just don't invade countries because we can. and that comment really stayed with me because, of course, i feel part of these wars evolved into go win the or war, fight the war, escalate the war, surge the war and then come back and tell us how it's going. and so to your question about my role, well, i come from stock that's military, and i feel that policy should match the sacrifice. and i think the advantage of being on ground is that you're all being shot at together. and where the marines go tend to be the most difficult areas. so whether you were a commanding general or a corporal, we all had the same objective which is to try and make these wars less red, to try and make these wars less awful, to try and make these wars not as long as they've become. i think that people in washington had their own challenges, and i shouldn't minimize that. but i would rather have been in the chow hall occasionally being kicked out because the marines didn't know what the state department was. but there were a lot of good team members who fought these wars far, far away. >> so one of the questions of the lessons of iraq and afghanistan that should be applied to the conflict now -- [inaudible] >> okay. that question is what lessons could we apply to the current challenge with the islamic state. that is a topic for another book. but i think it's a good question, and these lessons were hard, hard-won. the cost and lives and limbs especially for the iraqi and the afghan people goes on still s and we open the paper and hear on the news that the car bombs have not ended. i think someone mentioned we're on round whatever it is in fallujah. i think that the biggest lessons to start out with are how we as a government operate. i think that the tribalism in washington really undercut us for a long time. the people just did not play well together in our capital. and there have been other books that have explored those themes. from my perspective in places like helmand and anbar, i would go back to what carter did really well in his book which is who are people on the ground that we're partnering with. and i think that the arrogance, the naivete of the american way of doing business is there's no challenge too great for us, right? or there used to not be. whereas i think the biggest lesson is we need to invest in those relationships. we need to show them that the american power is not this, let's surge up and drop down quickly, but it's more of an enduring role, an enduring partnership, an enduring presence. and i think we've reached that point in afghanistan, and i think to president obama's credit e, he's basically, i think, acknowledging that he's not going to end the longest war in american history in his we could term. -- in his second term. is and i think that is a very important lesson, because i think the instinct in washington is to say the wars kind of are over when they're really not. i also think it goes to what dave represented in fallujah. if you listen with your two ears and speak half as often, your iraqi and afghan partners will tell you what you need to know. and i think carter more than anyone demonstrated that in helmand. we were bad at that for a very long time, and i was bad because i couldn't even speak their language. so i was always being facilitiered. and that -- fillerred. and that -- filtered. and that came at a price too. and the final point i would say with the islamic state is the sunnis, and i'll narrow it down to a part of the map, i believe were willing to partner with the terrorists if they felt they had no future in their country. that said, the iraqi government had some legitimate concerns about sunni population. so so my argument to ambassador ford and i think to ambassador negroponte at the time but especially to ambassador robert ford was we need anchors in the region just as we have anchors around the world. and i think we maybe are starting to put anchors a bit more deeply into the wars that we haven't ended and that are not over. yep. >> i'm, like you, military family back to my grandfather in the spanish-american war and i'll skip the rest. there were a lot of them. one thing i've remarked upon over a long life is the inability to notice what's happened in the past when we start into vietnam be, korea, you name it, and here we are today. it seems to be -- it's not a question of people not being smart enough. some of these people were summa cum laude at princeton, harvard law school. but they don't seem to know that something went on before. and is there any, any way many which you could from your experience suggest that we kind of look over our shoulders at some point? >> well, i'm a -- the question is, you know, the long -- coming from a military background that you mentioned, you know, why have we forgotten so much. >> right. >> why is the amnesia, like, automatic? i majored in history. it was one of my double majors, so, you know, i'm a big believer in reading the raw material and reading the stories that don't need to be sort of made current. i'll give you my sense of that. i'll go back to what happened on 9/11. i think that what happened on 9/11 enabled quick decisions and quick thinking to happen. at a time when our checks and balances were all out of whack. and i know you were formerly in the media with the washington post and whatever the major media papers or were. so i think that when we were struck, certain agendas had an ability to get traction more quickly than they normally would. vietnam, my dad's war, my uncles' war, had huge lessons, the draft, top-wing governments, you know, trying to the work with local forces. my uncle, who was almost killed in vietnam, was doing exactly what our special forces are doing now, which is embedding, you know, in some remote places. that learning curve is still there, but it took a long time to get there. i think that washington is always a short-term place. the cycle of elections, money. i don't want to shift this conversation, but wars are a long-term endeavor and are a long-term challenge. building partnerships like carter did take time. i mean, he spent two years in a little district that was very hot and very viability. we were never, i think, prepared to think long term because the incentives were short term. and i think the incentives in war are surge, spend a ton of money, say we're getting out and handing off. because the shorthand is clear, hold, build. but the last part, and i should are put it in that chapter, was clear, hold, build, transfer. we were or -- we were very, very focused on u here, it's all yours. not remembering we were the ones who invaded not because we were asked, but we did. i think the instinct is to use our twitch p muscles -- i'm a marathoner, or was -- and not to use our marathon muscles which are a lot different than marine twitch muscles. what other questions? yeah. >> having represented the state department, i'm curious, you know, part of the intervention was military, but there was also sort of the development -- [inaudible] national development, and you hear some good things about that. you also hear about tremendous waste in terms of the money that was put towards that. so i was wondering if that's something you could speak to the benefit or -- >> yeah. good question. we had the kind of political, diplomatic resources and tools, we had military which these gentlemen represent and then what about development in usaid and geo type work. i'll tell you, the most poppe tool we have in our tool box is, what? state department? usmc or baylin, like an army soldier? no, it's that. what the iraqi and afghan people told me always is we want to see the development arm. we want to see the projects that usaid and that your money is particularly well suited for. the problem was is that it was in environments often where we were, that were still active combat zones. so i know there's a lot of work in the development field as well. i think we were always hoping that it did not require, you know, infantry battalions and divisions at one point i mean, people forget we had a division headquarters, marine expeditionary headquarters in anbar at once. we had two-star and three-star commanding levels because the force level was so here. how many usaid reps? >> zero. >> one to one and a half. they had me, baseically whether i sucked or not. when ambassador negroponte sent me off, he said, kael, remember, you know, when you meet the generals, tell them you work for me. and i now know why he said that, because i love our generals, but generals are used to saying your take on ad-con even if you're a neocon. and they wanted to direct me in places, but ambassador negroponte was saying your line is through robert ford, the political counselor, to me. and the other thing he said was be careful because in vietnam they were able to get out and about contrary to western iraq. so to the final point, these wars were getting worse over time. generally speaking, not getting better. and for usaid and the development arm who don't want to be bear hugging dave or baylin, you know, our military, that was always going to undercut us. one final thing. in host province we spent $53 million in the prt, give or take. commander dave adams did an incredible job prioritizing u.s. money. $53 million in host went quite far. of all the schools we built, i want to estimate -- and i get e-mails from of afghans and put it in the book can be about half probably are still functioning which is not bad in the eastern most edge of afghanistan. that means half have not, but it's bang for the buck. the best money i think we spent in eastern afghanistan was $5,000. and how much does a drone cost, how much does a tank cost, how much does dave's salary cost. it was $5,000 to do what? we basically prorided taxi fare -- provided taxi fare for all of the best students across the province to get in an suv and come down from the mountains and go to host university. the only role the americans had was to the make sure that the drivers dropped them off at the university and took them back. that was $5,000. it's just trying to be wise more than smart. i think wisdom, last quote in my book is wisdom comes at the end. as i get more gray hair, i can really relate to that. what other questions? >> we have time for one more. >> sounds like you guys dead the best you could over there. you were directing us to the photographs in this book -- >> yeah, please spend time on the photos. >> i was taken by this one here that shows a barney's cereal bowl at the white house arrayed on a display at the bush library with a munch of ki -- bunch of ki a&m ia bracelets. it's a damning picture -- >> the hardest question comes at the end. you're the first person to can me about the bush museum photos. can talk a long time about how we managed which photos got in. >> [inaudible] >> i went to the museum, and i saw what i saw. so, you know, barney had a role in the runup to the war, how? he was the presidential dog when the city had the annual white house television corps responsibilities' dinner, and they had a spoof in the oval office about where's the wmd. i was in iraq at the time. it made me sick. it would have made me sick anywhere, but i was in iraqing watching the powers that be joking about weapons of mass destruction. and on that video the dog has a role. when i went to texas, i did not know what i was going to see, and, again, if i succeed in this book, it will be if you vote toed for bush, you still respect that i'm trying to be very measured in what i'm doing as a guide. but when i got to the main hall there in the museum, there are many different cabinets, some gifts from the asian people, gifts from the south american people, and then there's one cabinet that was titled gifts from the american people. and these were items that the president, president bush, george w. bush and perhaps first lady laura bush decided to put in that cabinet. and it did strike me also as a hard thing to see, kia, mia bracelets and barney's dog bowl. that's for him to answer. i also, though, want to say that president george w. bush at a time when fear was rampant right after 9/11, what did he say about muslim-americans? >> [inaudible] >> he went to a mosque, but he also said they're not the enemy. it's who we are. so to be fair and to be accountable, when we look into the mirror, this book is not an anti-bush book. it is to say he put that in his cabinet for his own reasons while at the same time as president after 9/11, to his credit, he did not do the easy thing which is to instigate fear. so i hope that answers the question. but photos were very hard to -- you put your finger on one that my editors and i talked a long time about because, you know, photos also show focus. photos show what stories are you highlighting. i personally did not want as many potato factory photos in that my editor wanted. and he's a great editor, and he probably was right to say the ugly, horrific side of war needs to be in here, not just two photos. on the bush museum, i wanted fewer and, in fact, the photo of the airplane on 1 world trade center is one of most important for me as a former new yorker, because it shows new york being rebuilt while iraq and afghanistan are kind of not being rebuilt. >> [inaudible] just one question, one second and define potato factory? because -- >> [inaudible] >> i'm sorry. the potato factory became the morgue in fallujah. so there's a chapter called the potato factory, and it literally was where -- and todd and alex, you'll remember better than anyone -- where the iraqis had potatoes that they would turn into potato chips. and then when the battle started and the bodies were falling and we had real issues about how to dispose in as respectful a way as we could, reefers where it was cooler became an easier place to store the bodies while our mortuary affairs team tried to determine were these syrian fighters, were they local. and so the chapter the potato factory is describing how the marine corps came to terms with this new mission that was very challenging after todd and alex dealt with it in the immediate hours. i mean, they were there even before bodies were moved to the potato factory. the potato factory i'm getting asked a lot about because terry gross in her interview really focused on those images. and i think rightly so. the heroism of war is there, but the horror of war is probably more there. at least, you know, where i served. so i think we've, we've finished, be -- and i appreciate the panel members sharing part of your stories. and i also want to appreciate all of you for taking time tonight. i will say if you ordered a book from amazon, the penalty is you need to buy at least two. i bought two of my own books here, and i know that politics & prose is able to do these events because we all believe in the power of writing, the power of books and also the power of where we buy our books. and i'm not anti-amazon, but i believe that while we support goliath, we can also support davids out there. so so thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause] now you see why kael was such a great diplomat. [laughter] his books are available at the checkout counter, and he'll be up here signing. [inaudible conversations] >> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they're reading this summer. >> i'm reading fearless: the undaunted courage and ultimate sacrifice of seal team six special operator adam brown, by eric blem. this is a book that chronicles a flawed american who became an american hero. who channeled some of his characteristics which led to risky behavior into what made him a great warrior in defense of freedom for our country. >> and who recommended this book to you? >> actually, a colleague of mine, david value -- valadeo, congressman from the central valley of california. he's a good personal friend of mine. we were eating dinner one night, and he was very emotional talking about a book that he was reading. and i was intrigued because i don't know my friend david as a super emotional guy, but he clearly was impacted personally by this story. so i asked him more about the book, and he described it to me, and i had to get a copy. and just like david, i devoured the book. i mean, it was absolutely a page-turner from the very first photograph. which begins, the story begins by saying that, you know, on march 17, 2010, navy seal team six operator adam brown woke up not knowing that he was going to be killed later that evening in the hindu kush mountains of eastern afghanistan. and 7,000 miles away, his little boy woke up in virginia beach, virginia, worried about his daddy. and from that compelling introduction until the very last words of the book, you can't put it down because this is a story about overcoming personal challenges, it's about american, an american hero and about the courageous service and the sacrifice of so many american heroes who are fighting in the global war on terror. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading this summer. tweet us your answer @booktv, or you can post it on our facebook page,