Fact that she can stay in the background. One of the surprises that she was a maintainer of on relationships. She had a brief marriage that may have laughed at possibly not any longer than the honeymoon. There were cables were shoe wrote very friendly ones to the exhusband. She was a very generous person to children and grandchildren and family employees and friends. When you say requisite big of a person who wasnt interested in people. But she was on the phone with people all the time and she was great comfortable and elegant in her conversations. So if you just talk to your attorney through the door never meet him, then you have issues with people. But shes quite comfortable in letter and on the phone and a steadfast friend as well. Bill and paul, we thank you very much. Absolutely fascinating discussion. We have some bucks and there were some books that were available right outside to be autographed. And that is number one, they will be signing books there in purchasing as well. And
And half a Million People entering the country psychologically wounded. A word about my background created last yeathreeof last yen veterans for the la times called invisible war and i followed the veterans and their families as they coped with a strong interest in the subject and we are eager to hear what the panel has to say today. We will ask specific questions and open it up to the audience. David finkel has been documented the effects of the war on the human psyche. The most recent book the critically acclaimed thank you for your service, calls the issues on the aftermath. It has received numerous awards to get his previous book the good soldier is a bestselling account of the u. S. Infantry battalion during the iraq war surge won multiple awards and was named a top ten book by the new york times. Hes an editor and writer for the Washington Post. He has reported from africa, asia, europe and across the United States he covered wars in kosovo and iraq and among his honors are the P
Department basically predicted it would not happen as general shinseki had a more robust presence and pushed aside aggressively and the consequences of that with the early policy decisions played out over the years. So certainly there is details with that at the policy level we want people to think about what it meant to be one of those marines or Us State Department guy to build the society up and what that was like and how that was affected by the past but on a daytoday basis. For use thinking of trading when you were deployed or were you taking notes when you were deployed . I took a lot of notes a was right thing but not about war mostly very, very bad short stories and ive learned Anthony Powell had quit writing during world war ii i felt like that excuse me for all the things i had written them were awful. But i did come back with notes and a lot of memories but the source material that i had with the nature of my job by which travel lot and its been time with units so that certa
The interviewer looked stricken. Her supervisor quickly looks down at her notes. Shame wild and my throat and eyes. My humiliation was absolute. Even the doctors were laughing at me. Welcome to the office of Veterans Affairs psycho boy. [applause] thank you thank you very much. Again, thank you so much for coming. I really honestly very, very much appreciated. We have some time for questions. Michael and james are going to circulate with the microphone. Any questions . I am happy to take them. About any part of the story, past, present, future. Boy, that first one is always the hardest, isnt it . Someone is going to ask that first question. Thank you. I say that before i hear the question. Been to your story is a very personal one, something that is much larger and yourself. So stepping back from your disempowered act of witnessing, at least you were witnessing, do you have a broader conclusion about how International Organizations can operate more effectively . I have a couple of thin
Lyceum on a checkpoint. A group of insurgents and then went to the child of a launch. I got fish and lima beans. I try to a healthy. All nine of us are smiling and laughing. Still jittery. A big plate of ravioli and pop types. Before digging in, the persian gulf, the they have pumped cuts everywhere . Another better, too. Weird. He looks up and down the table. I cannot believe we finally had a mission. Its about time we kill someone. Even i chuckle little. We had been in iraq two months when the artillery units actually doing artillery, except so far we have only shot elimination missions. They usually dont want to risk collateral damage. Not us, not until today. Today the old and battery fires and we know we hit our target. Religion until the so. Pretty quiet. How many insurgents to you think we killed . Platoon size elements. What . Platoon size . Hq i dont have platoons. Why do you think we need the old and battery. We didnt . Each gun only fired two rounds. They just wanted us all