Coming home four times and i think that story was not lost in the film and thats not the story that is selling ticket, right but what we were able to do, what jason was able to do is weave those two together and really spark a dialogue that has caught fire in this country about what it means to go to war but what it means to come home. I thought it raised for the American Public what military veterans go through. The obvious injuries and wounds are seen by everything but it is those conspicuous wounds that often e the ones we deal with in the va and i thought it was great to be able to raise that to the American Public. Rose nick burns and the film american sniper when we return. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following. Additional funding provided by. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin with president obama and german chancellor angela merkel, the meeting took place amid renewed fighting between ukrainian rebels and ukrainian troops. They said they would continue to exert economic pressure but did not agree on how, despite merkels objection obama would not rule out the use of lethal weapons. It is true that if, in fact, diplomacy fails what i have asked my team to do . Looat all options. What other means can we put in place to cnge mr. Putins calculus, and the possibility of lethal defense stiff weapons is one those options that is being examined. Joining me now from boston is nick bernls, in in, burns, he is profsor at hear extraordinarys Kennedy School of goverentnd i am pleased to have him back on this program. Welcome. Thanks charle. Rose so the president says that he is not yet prepared to send lethal weapons, are, or open the door to that but wanted to try further diplomatic efforts and also sanions to isolate russia. Do you believe that can be successful . I am very skeptical of that, just the sanctions and the political process will stop president putin, it was disinteresting charlie did mention at the White House Press conference he is considering sending defensive arms to ukraine, it is the first time he has been that forthcoming and i think in a way what you are seeing here charlie is president obama is trying to help chancellor merkel stiffen up the european position on these talks with president putin, the penalties led by chancellor merkel very invested in peace negotiations think there is a possibility of putting together a ceasefire and an agreement that would separate the forces that would potentially give the ethnic russian population of Eastern Ukraine a greater measure ofutonomy and the fact that the United States over the past week has been talking about sending arms to ukraine i think is actually produc some terest from the ruians in having these discussion requests the europeans. So i think they are working together but they dont see eye to eye because the United States i think hasome to the conclusion the sanctions havent worked and havent stopped president putin he p thousands of men and lots of terial across the border into the ukraine to turn the tide of that war between the to russn relation and Ukrainian Military. Rose wh is his objective . I think his objective has been clear from the start way back in february march of 2014, when he, annexed crimea is destabilize ukraine and not a unified uh huhuh cranian state drifting westward to an economic relationship with the european union, a closer relationship with the United States, ukraine and russia as you well know they go back 1,000 years together millions of the ethnic russians in ukraine and vice versa, they go all the way back to the founding of the Orthodox Church in kiev. So president putineels ukraine cannot be allowed to drift out of the on or about of russia and a 20th think never a lot of ways, he sees if ukraine becomes truly independent in the next several years heees th as aoss los to russian russia. Rose how is he using russian soldiers. He is a former k colonel and puttinghousand of russian soldiers beginning in the early summ across the border to man some of the sophisticated weapon systems, actually to engage in the fighting against the Ukrainian Army and he has been denying i never been an affirmation of, this confirmation by any russian official he tells the press that russia is not doing anything in ukraine and the whole world sees it to be the lie it is, so it is direct military support to undermine president poroshenko, this new president as of this past spring, in the ukraine. What would be a diplomatic solution to the conflit . I think what the west could live with would be the Ukrainian Government retaining of course sovereignty in all of its territory, including in Eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Government agreeing to if some measure of political autonomy local Decision Making in the big russian ethnic situations lie donetsk and Eastern Ukraine but that the Ukrainian Army and the Ukrainian Police would be in charge of law and order and be a vestige of sovereignty anything less than that is a real defeat for the ukrainians and so from a very start of this conflict, i think that merkel and obama made a very important decision they were not going to instigate a military 0 conflict, they werent going to fight russia for ukraine whic obviously was a wise decision that left them however with very limited leverage, they have tried sanctions, there have been three or four big sanction efforts by the United States and canada, as well as the eu but they clearly havent stopped putin, he keeps going. He keeps arming and funding this rebellion, so now the u. S. Has said, can we try Something Like the u. S. Tried back with president carter and president reagan in arming the mujahedin in afghanistan can we provide defensive arms that will do two things, raise the cost to putin in a substantial way and it will also level the Playing Field for the Ukrainian Military so that there is a fair fight and i think the administration believes they might be rit to believe this that if you level the Playing Field like that and the ukrainians are more capable of fighting that might actually be the best way to convince putin to go to negotiations for some kind of diplomatic arrangement on autonomy. But you think pin would ever accept some western influence . The obama and Bush Administration before it made it very clear ukraine was not about to be a member of nato we understand russian sensitivities as you know ukraine has had a corrupt government in the past, almost a failed state no rean to the bring them into nato. We made that clear in russian d president obama has done the same thing. What the ukrainians are trying to do a year ago year and a half ago a this is wh the protests were all about, they were trying for arade agreement with the european union, that was the trip wire that caused president obama putin to decide he could not step even tha this is really not nato, it is about a more westward orientation of the ukrainian goverent and ukrainian economy away from the embrace of frank he an imperialist expansionist russian government under president putin. And the president said today he discouraged or interpreted he was discouraging speculation, discouraging speculation about a further extension of the iran nuclear talks. What are tim my indications of that . Actually i think it is smart diplomacy for the president to say that you want to increase the pressure on the iranian government to really come to a bottom line, to show their cards and see what they are willing to the commit to and interim date of march 24 where the conceptual part of the deal has to be put tother, interestingly enough the Supreme Court leader said over the weekend in a speech in iran he didnt want to see these talks go on forever, in fact he wanted a short deadline to them o i think it makes sense and of course you know there is political Pressure Congress is willing to wait until the end of march to see if the president can put forward aeal so what happens if there is no deal and renewed sanctions. This is a very difficult negotiation and if the, it is the iranians who need to face the packet that turks, is is not going to allow them to achieve a nuke war weapon capability so they have to make some pretty big decision business the end of march as to whether or not they will curtail that Civil Nuclear fort, th Enrichment Program in such a way that we can be assured in, and the europeans can too they are nowhere close to a nuke war weapono i think the president has a chance for this deal and frankly, charlie i think he has done a very skillful job of bo sanctioning the iranians to date, threateni military force and yet being willing to have this historic period of the last 15 month where for the first time in 35 years u. S. And iran have been talking and i think there is a chance for a deal. If it doesnt happen if the negotiations fall apart you will see much tougher economic sanctions,. Rose what is the relationship between germany and the United States, between merkel and obama . I think actually the personal relation ship between the two is pretty good. Chancellor merkel she speaks russian, and putin speaks german, she is the major interlocutory with president putin so they may get together later this week and i think president obama and secretary kerry have a lot of respect for her and we need germany, we need germany especially if putin doesnt agree to a deal on these ukraine talks, we will need germany to sanction rusia further. Rose if you went to the state Department Today wha would you most worry about with respect to the ukraine a the conflict between russia and the west. West . I would worry, charlie president but putin would feel embolden and didnt face resistance in ukrai so despite destabilizing ukraine and take over part of moldova and the real nightmare for our leader hip is russia attempt to disrupt nato allies that border russian like estonia and latvia and you have seen nato try to reinforce with troops and with aircraft in nato position up there not because we want to fight but because we know that putin understands one thing power. And he understands if he faces a brick wall, ten he understands he has got to negotiate, if he can go right through someone he will keep going. So i think a tough minded respond 0 response to putin, not mitt tarries stick but tough minded is important. Rose great to see you nick. Nick burns from the Kennedy School. Back in a moment. Stay with us. American sniper has been both a critical and a commercial success and also generated some controversy, it tells the story of chris kyle, who was an iraq war veteran and sniper who killed 160 people, considered the most kills of a u. S. Sniper in history. Supporters of the film praise kyle as an american hero, critics art it misrepresents the man and paint a simplistic picture of a complicated war, lost in t rgts is a conversation about the sacrifices of veterans and the challenges they face when they come home. Joining me now is jane hau he wrote the screen play for american sniper, jake book a form anywhere the marine sounder and o team rucon, nonprofit that trains and debelow. Jaco schick he is a retired marine who suffered severe wounds in iraq and also has a role in the film. And joining us from wash queab washington bob mcdonald head of the va, the i am pleaded to have all of them here at this table and in washington. Bob, it is good to have you back on the program, tell me about the film as you saw it. Charlie, i was thrilled to see the film because i thought it raised the american, to the American Public what military veterans go through. The obviously injuries and wounds are seen by everyone but it is those inconspicuous wounds are the the ones we often deal with in the va and i thought it was grat to raise that to the American Public. It also seems to me to reflect the idea that when a man a woman go to war they take their family with them in a sense, correct . Well certainly you take your family, your loved ones with you and then when you return those connections becomencredibly important. We, at the va we did a program called make the connection, which is all about that when people return from the battlefield, we want to reconnect them with their families and one of the things we do which you saw in the movie is we appear counselors who have been through these kinds of situations and can provide support for that individual who has been on the battlefield. Rose jake, what doyou, what did you think of the film . I thought the film was really well done as bob alluded to it, it really weaves together both tales the easy female to tell is what happened in iraq,. Rose the legend of chris kyle. The 160 kyle some of the toughest battles in iraq but the complicated is him coming home four times i think that story was not lost in the film and thats not the story that is selling tickets, right but what we were able to do, what jason was able to do is weave those two together and really spark a dialogue that has caught fire in this country about what it means to go to war but what it means to come home. When i said take your family with you, i think the phrase some people use is when a man goes to war his wife and family go with him to war. Absolutely. Rose and thats the idea. Absolutely. Rose what did you think . I was very pleed with it. It was obviousl rose pleased with your performance . I was about to say [laughter. ] i may be a little biased you know, youere okay. Ah you know. No. It was amazing. I mean he definitely captured the struggle that is coming home and, being a wounded guy i know that for a fact that physical pain lets you know you are alive but mental pain will stay that way, and. Rose the mental pain is harder no doubt just because i have a lost leg if i am wearing shorts in the future you know i had a bad day in the office somewhere along the way but it is those wounds that are inbetween your ears that are the most painful by far. You say that script you ended up with was dramatically influenced by conversations with chriss widow. Thats right. Yes, the movie i wrote alongside chris was more of a war story where i feel this is much more of a story about war. And his sacrifice. She enabled me to understand who he was before the war, without knowing that i didnt know what the sacrifice was, and, you know, it is hard for a man to eveal that stuff, it is hard for a man to explain where it hurts and like yaib is saying what he came home with, and, you know, i got some of that from chris but she really guild in the blanks. She said i think at one point if yowant to know a man talk to his wife. Yeah, i said that, i said that, that is true. If you want to know me ask my wife, you ask me how i hurt i will say hey lets go get a sandwich, come 0 come on. What did she tell you about chris kyle . She expressed how tender this guy was that she met,and when they met she was in a really dark place, she was had a bad relationship, you know, was suffering and he was really patient with her, and he with one of their first dates he talk her to a theatre, you see this big hulking dangeros, most dangerous sniper and may i will take you to a play. You know, and rented a cottage and gave her the back room and slept on the couch and he was just very big hearted and he lost that, you know, he lost some of that through the course of these tours and she was able to describe the hardening and the callous of this man and eventually how he found his way back which is beautiful. Bob the question of purpose we have mentioned that earlier before we started, taking the idea that in war you have purpose. You have urgency and purpose and mission and sometimes when you come back home perhaps including your own family purpose has to be regained. Thats right, charlie, i think of, you know, in a sense you have to redirect that purpose, the purpose when you are in the military is obviously, you are on the battlefield, you are trying to save lives, you are trying to get the mission done. I think what jake does with his team rube son rubicon i wonderful because for those veterans leaving the military they redirect that purpose to a Natural Disaster or some other event going on, and in the va we try to do the same thing and deal with the Spiritual Health of the veteran and we try to redirect their purpose into something that is as meaningful and creates as much selfesteem for them as they have in the military. Rose thats what you are doing with relief as in haiti and other places. Yes absolutely. You know, i always talk about this proto till c 18yearold kid who joins the army, right . Gets shipped off to boot camp and handed a rival gets a uniform and eventually gets sent to a unit and a year later that individual is sent to iraq or afghanistan and every sing dale for a year he walked outde the wire with 12 member who he knew had his back no matter the circumstance and they were fighting for a mission that he believed in. And he comes home and he takes the uniform off, he might go back to his hometown in omaha, nebraska but things aent the same, he might reconnect with High School Friends but nothing like the 12 men who had his back outside of the wire every single day in iraq, he might get a job but nowhere near the same purpose driven job he had while he was in the military and he may get some so of new identity and they be a father, a student, anything but it is not going to replace th identity he he had when he wasearing the ifo of his countr so how do you replace that void is. What did you learn about that when you were writing this . Those relationships become their pry maryland relationship in a way and the struggle for a family and a wife to understand that and to understand that s feels like she is fighting for her husband but with this other, you know, like it is an affair almost with this other family that he has. So chris was on four tours of duty, tell me what you learned about him in terms of the pressure, i dont want to say toll, but the impact of war on him and the connection to family and when he returned . You know, i think for sme men, maybe this comes easier for when when i met him, and i shook his hand and looked in his eyes and i knew what he had done i could see it and i could feel it. Rose feel what . I could see the toll it had taken. I could see the moral injury, i could see that this man had his beliefs challenged in a way that had that have thrown sphweeferg the wood chipper and he is trying to gher up the pieces again. Rose what beliefs . You know, what they describe moral injury as, is taking taking your beliefs and core values into war and put in a situation that we put in the film where he is asked to take the live of young boy, and all those believes and all these values that you hold dear suddenly, they are gone, they are out the window. How do you train for that . Well you the military has become very good about descends tieing you to violence and thats a very necessary but unfortunate reality. You know throughout boot camp and the marine corps, every order you are given, you shout kill to affirm receipt of the order they move from shooting at circular targets on the rifle range to man shaped silhouettes and a substitute change but a change that has driven up the increased increase in the ratio of combatants who are actually firing at the enemy i combat this is a very thoroughly studies, studied science, the science of killing by military psychologists. It is not easy. And listen at the end of the day nothing, nothing prepares you for that moment when you are staring at a man a woman or a child through a 12 power scope on top of a highowered rifle, and you have to make that choice and . Nierp school in the marine corps,hey aret screening people out for whether or not you can shoot or whether or not you know the art of concealment and camouflage, of coue you will pail for those things what they are screening for is maturity, what they are screening for is good judgment. Are you going toake the right decision at that critical moment when the battlefield is iter chaos, you have someones life in your hands, are you going to make the right choice. Rose you dont know whether you are shooting someone who has a bomb and might do, might kill your colleagues or whether this is an innocent . That has been put there . War soso rarely ever black and white. And that i think is what contributes to this moral injury that jason speaks of. It is not about losing something, it is not about losing part of yourself overseas, so mu as this burden that you bring home, you have got to carry with you that burden for the rest of our, rest of your life and sometimes you are strong must have to carry it and sometimes you need the help and support of other to carry it i think of it more as a burden, i am carrying this burden on my conscience and carrying it upon my soul and upon my religious beliefs, upon my family. It didnt challenge your beliefs but did it change your beliefs. Oh it certainly challenged them, i grew up in a lutheran household, great parents all of those things, i believed in evil, right, but the first time ou see evil true evil in the world and you look at it and see it happenin we experienced moments like opened in the movie in american sniper where he has to shoot the child, we were in a battle once and the senior taliban commander was using Young Children to run intelligence reports across the battlefield, not armed not carrying weapons, but nonetheless moving from the front line back to the rear and at one point in time a young girl picked up and rpg that had been dropped by a taliban fighter and we had to make the decision about whether to shoot, now, the man on the gun opted not to, it was hisdecision his decision alone, nobody was going to order him to do that. Nonetheless, not pulling the trigger is a burden that he was maybe going to have to the bear for the rest of his life because if that rpg was used to kill a marine that is something he would have to the secondguess until he died. Fortunately it didnt turn out that way and didnt have to kill an they werent young girl and no children were no marines were hurt but knows are situations happening in the battlefield and it is impossible. Rose Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood capture the life of a sniper . I thought they did it brilliantly. Rose what is it we see that is constructed beyond what you just described in terms of the moment of the kill in terms of the danger in terms of what it means to be a sniper because you said it is no such communicate, it is not so much the skill, it is the judgment that in the end makes the difference. Skill is undoubtedly important and there is no doubt chris kyle was a very skilled man. Whyas it he was so good . I think because i didnt know chs kyle, if i had to imagine, i think it is because chris kyle was willing to bear that burden. He put himself into the worst situations imaginable. He put himself in a position to face those decisions. On a daily basis. Rose what would you say . I would say that. I think it was a hard we for chris to answer. Rose you asked him that. I asked him that repeatedly. And. You know, he felt, it seems to me that the people around him felt that he somehow drew the violence to him, that it was almost like, you know, someone else get off the gun and chris gets on the gun and suddenly. Rose somebody appeared. And it all unfolds, and it was almost like this sort of faith, if you will that they called him right time right place for a minute, because it always seemed like he was in the right time, in the right place on a mission to make the shot that saves guys lives and called him midas and dipped in gold, and. Rose legend. And ultimately the legend, but it was those are hard questions for chris to answer and i think he was a little troubled by it. He didnt feel that he w the most skilled guy out there, he just felt like, you know, he always somehow ended up in the right place to do the post rose he was givenhe opportuni. He was, he was also in situations that were target rich environments. So in the nasties of the nasties, he was in the second battle offal iidnt and in ramadi when it was a tipping point. And what was it that made him want to always go back for another tour . I felt that it was his the guys. It is these relationships with his family. Rose the purpose . Talk about it. Because when you come home, you know, in my case i spent 18 months in recovery, having an operation and blood transfusions and military trying to put me back together but the worst part about me being bedridden in a hospital bed was knowing that my guys are getting ready to go into fallujah. Rose they would be there and you wouldnt. That was tormenting that to me was i mean i would rather get blown up ten times over than suffer that pain over and over again because i knew there was nothing i could do to make sure that they were oka rose do you believe there was something you cod have done when you were there and i think that is what chris struggl with, he was more worried about saving lives that taking lives and he was a master of his craft. He was more worried about savin lives than taking lives. Absotely. Thats what he wanted to be known for. I wish i could be known for the number of lives i saved rather than the lives i took. His. Rose his wife said it was like seeing him again, seeing this movie. Yeah. She said that. She, you brought my husband back to life for two hours. Rose how does that feel chris . You know, i think the bo and the voice was one part of it but it was the last 20 it was some kind of con yiewrg some kind of magic bradley found, and you cant explain how he did it but he captured the essence and goodness and humility as well asthe stoicism and theay that was just chipped away, chipped away over the course of the four tours. Ro bob, you know the Veterans Affairs, you came to this position because there was a crisis there and because the president felt like he needed someone new to run Veterans Affairs. Tell me what your mission is. My mission is to care for those 22 million veterans we have in this country and to mak sure we care for them in such a way they get the benefits they desrve. We are in the midst of the largest transition in history we want every sine veteran to think of the va as their own, customized, personalized for them and we are busy trying to become the very best Customer Service organization in the world. We are not a government bureaucracy we want to be a business and we want to be the very best ornted business in the world and really take care of our veterans. What do you need to do that . Well it involves a number of things charlie. First of all we have got to eliminate some of the complexity. We have nine lines of business that include everything from the gi bill to Home Mortgage insurance to healthcare which most people know us for. Each one of those nine lines of business has had its own geographic map, its own geographic map of Organization Structure in our country. A couple of weeks ago we announced we are eliminating those nine geographi maps and movg to one geographic map, five regions around the country, they will follow state boundaries, so adding simplicity so veterans know how to reach us, another thing is we counted up we have 14 different website all that require different user names and different passwords, so it is very difficult for the veteran to figure out how to connect with the va and how to get what they need. So we are going to go to one website one user name, one password, again simplification to allow the veterans to connect and my First National press confence, i gave out my cellphone number publicly, i get calls every day from vetera texts every day from vetans, i did that purposefully to show th kind of Customer Service we all need to provide to our veterans. Why are so many veterans committi suicide . Ell, i thin you know, of all those veterans who have been in combat we estimate anywhere from eight to 20 percent have something that we call posttraumatic stress, it is a real illness, a real disease, it is one that is treatable and we know how to treat it. Of those 22 on average veterans that commit suicide a day, we estimate that 17 of them are not connected to the va, the five that are connected at five are connected to the va so what we are trying to do is get out and connect as many of our veterans as we can, because we know the disease, we know the treatment a that works and we want to get them into our program so we can do tha we have a crisis line that is 1800273 talk, 1800273talk. We are busy educating the American People as to how to recognize when someone may b at risk and we want to get connected with them so we can work with them and treat tm. Have you thought about suicide . Yeah, i would be lying to your face if i told you i didnt. Rose sohow did you approach it. I mean, whatade you have whatever it took to say no, i am notoing to take that route . For me personally, it was that was the hardest fight i have ever had to fight. Because at the end of the day i didnt want to put my family through that or my friends through that. And. But i also knowseveral guys who have done it. I know guys that are that have been double multiple amputees th did it a i assure you they didnt do it because they were missing multiple limbs, i as you sure of that, it is because of the demons they have in their head. I tell you right now, once i got out of the hospital, and i went over to try to transition back into civilian sector as best as i could, i mean it was essentially square peg, round hole, but i didnt realize how real posttraumatic stress and traumatic brain injury was until i got drug free, becae that s my escape in the beginning was i just abused the hell out of my pegs becau i had 46 operations, i was on a lotof pain medication. And i abused it when i transferred over. Because that was my outlet, that was my escape. The hard thing to do is to keenly approach this and approach the wound you ha and thats what i didable luckily i had huge support behind me of my family, my fellow rines, my friend. The i can assure you this. You cant do it alone. I tried. And i failed. Repeatedly. Because as a warrior you dont want to admit you need help one. Two, you dont want to admit that there is anything going on above your neck. Because as war warwickshire yours we dont do that and what we have to do is do away with that stigma that it is a weakness if you say there is an issue up here, i am hurting. Because there is a stigma that follows it and not just with warriors hey look the fact we can lead this charge 0 on having issues above the neck i am all for it. Someone is going to have to change it and i think it is going to buts who does it, but it is a global issue. No one wants to issue, want to add pit they have an issue above the neck. Rose is that part of what this movie is about. Rose . 02 if you look at chris d se a mighty warror and he is a guy that went and asked for help and if chris kyle asked for help who cant, you know if grunt says that, that is chris kyle thats the legend and he asked for help, why cant i . Go ahead. This is very important issue that jacob and jason are raising and i am thralled we are getting to it. This is why i think this movie is so important. In many ways the Veterans Affairs department is a canary in the coal mine we see issues with American Healthcare or Global Healthcare before the rest of the country we are now seeing the lack of Mental Health professionals. I go out and i recruit myself to try to recruit Mental Health professionals and we are not producing enough Mental Health professionals. We dont have enough residencies for Mental Health professionals. We have a stigma in this country, and i think globally, it is even worse in many other countries i have lived in, for Mental Health. Fortunately, we are taking action. We have got the ability to repay loans for people who want to study Mental Health and work for the va. We have residencies in increased number of residencies from the recent clay hunt act as well as from the recent choice act that was passed. These are very big isss. And i thi that we are on to something, from what i have rea 20 percent of americans suffer from depression. This is a huge issue for our country. It is something we nee to get ahead of and i am hoping that we in the va can play a leading role and i think we are. And you believe this movie helps to understand that because chris kyle, you know, was able to seek help and was able to obviously take advantage of the help he received or to use it to a positive way . Well i think in many ways in the movie you see chriss purpose, which was very strong on the battlefield and very strong at home redirected as he became a pier specialist pier counselor to help others and i am sure he felt as strongly about that purpose, he was saving peoples lives. Take a look at this clip. This is where he runs ito a wounded soldier whose life he had saved. Here it is. Cef chris kyle. Yes, sir. My name is matt. We met in fallujah. You saved my life. I did . Yes, sir. We were stuck in a house until you came in with the first marines. You are the one that carried me out. Well the marines saved our lives plenty of times. How are you holding up . I am just grateful to be alive. It hnt been, it hasnt been easy, you kn. A lot of guys lost more than just a arm or leg. Did you lose some legs. I am talking about the guys who made it back but just not back, they cant seem to get right. Yep. Uhhuh. W dont you come down to the va some time the guys would love it. Everybody thank you for your service. Okay. Thank you. All right. Rose you said as we were watching that the book, enabled him to walk into any v. A. Hospital or facility and everybody knew he was chris kyle. Everybody knew who it was. Thats the favorite part about the book i tnk that. Rose it gave m recognition with his fellow veterans . It did. , you know, and like the legend gave him recognition from the rooftops and made thos guys feel safe, the book gave him recognition at home and was able to walk in and walk out with guys and took them hunting or fishing or whatever and talked to them which is where i tink this is where his healing began working with other warriors to help them. Rose and they probably taught him just as much. Yes mutually beneficial without question, i will speak for myself if i work for the center for brain health. I work with warriors fo warriors andf he is my, it means my soul every day, i get to heal every day and i think that is where chris started it hodo you think this has become a little controversl is it because tell me. Your real opinion jake. I think there is a variety of reasons that it has become controversial, i this one is that i think many people in this country dont like thinking that men like chris kyle are necessary in this world. That is the first thing. They dont want to believe that we live in a world that has real evil that needs to be confronted with real violence. And i think that it is a tragedy people dont understand just that there is true evil in this world. The second reason, i dont think people want to believe that a man capable of as much violence as chris kyle was capable of because thats what he did. He imparted violence upon these men and over stays also capable of such compassion. Rose he they lived side by side in him. And people dont want to believe it is possible and he di rose and in terms of the scriptou wrote and clint directed and the performance of bradley was to show go both sides. Yes, there was so much compassion. Shared so much compassion from chriss side that it made me feel like a hard guy, it made me feel like goll i cant even put all of that in there because it wouldnt be believable and people take the bo and say well this is chris kyle, he is on this rant, this soldier soliloquy and that was a snapshot of a guy who just spent nearly a decade in war. And came back and somebody put a taperorder on the bar and said tell me that story again. And so to think that that is the entirety of this man his story, yo know, from when he got back from eight, nine years of war is, it is shortsighted, because he was somebody before and he became somebody after. Ros and some people even suggest it is an antiwar film. I mean if we understand the war here, if we understand what this man goes through the reason, the controversy is people want to hear the iraq war was bad and da, da. We 0 told the story and sat down and this is a Character Story this is the study of the archetype of a warrior and this is from his pov the whole thing and if we understand it personal then we can understand the uniform, we are not going to go back and change iraq, we are not going back and. Rose it is not a movie of why we went into iraq or why we thought. It could serve the purpose if it reveals to people who dont know the horrors of war if it educates people on just how terrible war is,. Rose it is not pretty. It it is not pretty maybe we will ask tougher questions the next time. The point you made on the dual at this between duality of doing compassion and being in combat ask an insightful point, i met lots veterans in my job of bei a veteran myself and i have to tell you the veterans are the most compassionate people you will ever see, and i think part of the reason for that is all of us feel inadequate, yes i served in the army yes, i was an Airborne Ranger but i feel inadequate in the presence of jacob and jake who have actually been in combat, they made me feel inadequate versus someone else all of us feel inadequate because the person who is the one who should feel adequate is in the cemetery somewhere and all of us feel inadequate to that individual and as a veteran that drives all of us and i think it drives our compassion and i look for the veterans who are doing great things, you talk about what jake and team rubicon are doing and other veteran Service Organizations that i was with ce Psident Biden recently at the student veterans of america you are the future leaders of this country, the kind of leadership experience you get as a veteran is the kind of leadership experience we need in this country and i dont want the American Public to take away that every veteran is somehow damaged. They arent. We have got great veterans who are making substantial contributions to this country. Rose two of them right here. Absolutely. Rose only. Tell me about your own personal experience comg back. Mine was interesting. I did my first tour with the surge in iraq with the marine corps and in el Anbar Province a tough tour and lost a handful of guys in my platoon. Had went to afghanistan in 08 as a sniper, and worked in a city called sangin for seven months and it was a nasty place. Came back and that was, you know what bob mtioned was i didnt feel like i sacrificed enough, you know, we lost 30, 40 guys over the course of two tours, a butch of my friends lost limbs and i felt like i was abandoning things by getting out of the marine corps, that i hadnt sacrificed i never received a wound my best friend got shot a bunch of my friends were shot, i ended up getting out. Rose why did you get out . For my mother, i think like you stayed your family goes to war with you, and my mom had gone to war with me twice and i dit feel like i could do it to her again. And amount three months after i ft the marine corps the Haiti Earthquake happened and i went down there and i refound purpose, i found my new mission in life in team rubicon but my transition real started when my best friend clay hunt killed himself that bill that just got signed and will be signed into theaw by president obama shortly and was passedy the congress was namefor my sniper partner he came home in 2011 and he took his own life. And that is when i understood the magnitude issues that they are facing add thats when i understood what my role, my response was to the men i served with. Could he talk to you about the pain he was sufg . Clayton knew he was suffering clay what is remarkable what is remarkable about clay was how self aware he was. He knew he was struggling with posttraumatic stress and a public streak for getting help appeared in ps as, and he succumbed and, you know, what i tell people and i believe this and maybe, you know some people would disagree with me but i dont think clay killed killed himself of what we saw in iraq and afghanistan i truly believe and thats why it is fundamental to evy thing we do he killed himself because he lacked purpose and communityin his life just lacked it. Take a look at this, this is another the navy seal in another film called the Lone Survivor Navy seal was on isprogram and this iwhat he said to he. People get out there, and when the bullets are flying and the people are dyingnd blood is flowing and you see people, i mean, trng to crawl in their helmet, have aually heard pple scream for their mother i thought that was fake. I thought that wasomething somebody put in tv. Rose y dont believe it it is fake now. It is veryeal and i think the vets thats the result form of fear when you are when you see sombody in the fetal position crying and screaming for their mother. Because it the ultimate safety blanket isnt it, in your mothers arms. Sure. And they cant get there, and either die or, you know, when it is over, they are never the same. You cant put somebody like that back on the line. Rose i mean thats why i think you know, all the way back t william tecum se sherman saying war is hell and the people who are the most opposed war, in fact are the warriors. Yes. War is alsoddicting. I think, i mean, that is a fact that many people wont acknowledge, war is hell but at the same time it is addicting. You never felt more alive than the moment the rpg shoots by your head, oh man it is exhilarating and i s it is weird saying it very publicly but it is the truth. And so you have people that reenlist to go back and getit again because they know they willwill never get it in their civilian life some willtry with drugs, some will try with driving amotorcycle 150 miles down the freeway but never have that same sense of that same rush, that same sense of aliveness ever again. I mean, i second everything. Jake just said you are not going to find it. And then i think as a fall back to that like bob alluded to, depression is a huge part of that, because i think at some point you finally reaize, i am not going to get there again. I am not going to be able to find that high again. And then what do you do . What do you do from there . You have to be able to channel that energy you have harnessed up in inside of you to do something and i think to get back to the compassion part of it i am not going to speak for everyone here but i can speak for myself every day is a gift. I have a true appreciation for this thing we call life. In is a biological response they are talking about too. You know, you get over there and having biological response to stress. You know, it shoots this that way and this the other way and then you come back and that dro through the floor. Rose and it happened to chris kyle. That happened to chris. There is the other quote it is good war is so terrible lest we grow fond of it i dont want anybody to walk away with the notion that i am pro war or anything like that. War is terrible. Tere is the famous speech about you never feel as alive as when you are so close to death. Yes. Absolutely. And it is just i guess the take awa rose then i have the fifth. It is so complicate. S it is just so complicated. But at the end of the day i am not floor filing warither, it is horrible, there is nothing cool about it, it is not these kids that sit behind these tvs with the video games and they think it is not like that. There rose the people, what do you think of the people you go to war with you the family they go with you they miss you and care about you, but also it is the people who are there with you fighting alongside of you, i have had one hero after another say to me, i didnt do it for my country, although i am patriotic, i did it for the purpose next to me. Thats why i did what i did. Iemember like yesterday laying on the deck in a sunni triangle of iraq after i got t because i never lost consciousness when i was shot. I remember everything, and to hear people say i got hit by a triple pressure plate ignited 335 millimeters. Blew me through the top of two door soft top humvee, thats all we had. I remember hitting the deck and taking my first breath after a couple of minutes and the first thing i did was ask god not to take me in front of my guys. To just please wait until the bird got there. Thats all i cared about at that point. Because i knew i was hurt and i knew i was hurt bad. But myumber one goal was not to die in front of them. Thats all i cared about at that moment in time right then. Imagin trying to ever find anything in like that important. And imagine trying to explain that to your wife, have your wife understand that the as she feels you sliphe through her fingers again and again this war s more connected to these families than ever before because of technology and it is like the trauma they went through, understand we are not just 7ing these soldiers to war but these families to war and we leave a big wake when we come 0 home. The i will be the first to admit i was not a good patient. I still think they ned to change the word patient and i dont think it is fair to guys to me, actually tts what we ve to be referred to as. Rose you got the man here in washington bob i will admit it, i was not a good patit, i was not a good patient. But at the end of the day when i got out of the hospital and got off the drugs too, my new battle began, right because i didnt have that outlet and escape. Rose and you wanted to keep your finger, right . Right you have done some research. I actually met my wife in the first hospital i went to state side, which is bethesda, and she was an intern at the time. And young, lp in the navy and it was before i had a long operate and, operation one of the head physicians, arm and hand specialist, said, hey, marine we need to amputate that fourth digit we dont think it is going to be any good to you because my met at that carpal was blown out he said what do you think i said if wake up from this operation and you are on the right side of my bedly choke you out there is nothing wrong with my right arm, dont cut anything else off my body so after the fact, before i left bethesda and was transferred to san antonio, she came in actually i had made my rounds around the hospital to go apologize for all the people that treated me because i was that tough to deaith and my dadushe me in my rolling bed so i could apologize to people it was literally that bad, i saw her walking down the hall and i ask hey dock if you get a chance i wouldlove to talk to you after your rotation. And they got up early, those interprets they work them hard and she did. She came by and looked up from my dad what do you think the odds of me seeing her again. He said not a chance in hell. And but to her professionallyism she, professionalism she did and came back doc i would like to talk to to you forever thats the first time i told my story how i got hit, what it led up to and it was three hours and i asked her, i said you can ask me one question, one question only right now any question you nt to ask me, and i will answer it truthfully and honestly to the best of my ability. To show how great of a physician she is, she asked out out of everything she could have asked she went with why didnt they let you amputate the fourth digit and at first i was almost insulted like really, after that story thats what you are going to go with . But i answered i said because one day i am going to find a woman who loves me just the way i am and i am going to wear a ring on that finger, and that finger will have a use so, hook, line, and sinker. Rose so you married the doctor. I did. I tell you what, she is one of the main reasons i am still here and i am doing this interview, i guarantee you she is every bit as a warrior as i if not more so. Back, i can readily and with conviction admit he is ten times stronger than i will ever be. Rose thank you for coming. Than you. Rose thank you, bob mcdonald. Thank you charlie. Good to be with you again. For more about this program and early episodesisit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org funding for charlie rose has been provided by t Cocacola Company supporting this Program Since 2002. American express. Additional funding provided by and by bloomberg a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. You are watching pbs. Report. With tyler mathihisen and sue herera. Lip on worries about greece. Equities drop as the new Prime Minister calls to roll back austerity, setting his government on a collision course with creditors. Rough seas work resumes at the west coast ports after the weekend shutdown. Dont look now, but oil prices are up 9 in three sessions. Has crude found a floor or will the commodity make another dramatic move lower . Good evening, everyone. Welcome. Defiant, that is how many are describing the new greek Prime Minister who is taking now a hard line with