Transcripts For CSPAN2 Author 20240703

Where he is also the founding director of the dale center forr the study of war. And society. Hey has several major publications including vietnams forgotten her with them and betrayal for which he won the society for military history, distinguished book award. So dr. Weiss i know i mispronounce part of that would take it away. [applause] good afternoon. I have the honor today of hosting the america war panel here at the book vessel would to thank the organizers especially ellen Rogers Daniels we talked earlier butterflies on it. What to think the audience membersin here and a person andn cspan for joining us today. You are all in for a treat. We get to talk about for a book that cover the entire span of history all the way from how the creeks were set up as a nation all the way up to Operation Iraqi freedom. Arent be onke in 2003 but first like to introduce our panelists. In the order that they appear in your program which will also be the order in which i throw questions their way. My first of the far right is emily who worked as a family physician on the Navajo Nation for many years and taught in rural colorado. Poetry of mathematics i dont understand poetry or mathematics teacher i would be impressed read that at some point. I was here to discuss her book o1000 pages left behind one childrens account of jungle war for and burma. Next is a colleague of mine at the university of southern mississippi a senior fellow in the center for word society. Shes the author of many books. I will mention to hear saigon at war South Vietnam in the global 60s should be on combat women and gender in the era today is here to discuss her new book titled 21 days to baghdad theral buford and blunt Third Infantry Division in the iraq war. Up to my far left is Peter Cozzens the author or editor of 18 acclaimed books on the American Civil War member of the advisory country for the lincoln prize the Foreign Service association that william r rifkin award given annually one Service Officer for their moral courage, integrity and creative dissents. A brutal reckoning the ethic or for the American South for ath final panelist today is chris is the creator and lead writer legendsm of the old west a longform narrative podcast that tells two stories of the American West. Arizona State University and has won numerous local, state, National Awards for his writing for today chris is here to discuss his first book until december of 1876 now it was to begin a discussion the books in order the authors were just introduced which means i will throw a couple questions to emily first. For those who have not had chance to read her book on millies 1000 paces left behind is detachment 101 of the u. S. Army that operated behind japanese lines in the burma theater of world war ii. A unit which her father served. The japanese had rolled victories against both us and the british in Southeast Asia ever since pearl harbor leaving us in the military. One prefers local counterattacks most of use of special operators put the daunting task of penetrating behind japanese lines and selling sales and jungles of burma for the story of 1000 paces left behind is one of Great Success operating against all odds in fearful terrain alongside a local Indigenous Group called the kachin people. There is one get that wrong. My first question for emily today is why do you think your fathers unit was so successful against such long odds . What did they do right . As you mention it is sort of a memoir that was a long time coming. As dictated into a tape recorder six years after the fact. He was for the majority of time but for the purposesof of the bk we say burma that is what all that t literature at the time. Were in the northern part of burma and the oss and other intelligence Gathering Services oss stands for office of Strategic Services for anyone who doesnt hubei not know. It was sort of the military intelligence group. You have the mandate to cause trouble in addition to just getting information for their very successful in that. The underlying thread through his book was learned the language of the local people, ask for their advice and others in oss 101 were respectful of the culture of the people. And he, as a 21yearold figured out the way to survive is any village or town that he went to he wouldul ask elders that they would consider going with advisors. In all of his adventures there. Its very key to the had irdinary success they think the oss as a whole had probably less than thousand casualties. Part of that is because for most of that was because of the people and the help they gave us for a lot of us do not know about that. Thats a part of the reason we wanted to get the book out there. The best question i want to ask is the china burma india theater isbl probably the least research especially in the theater of world war ii. I teach a class on world war ii and the people are even more underresearched. I had never even heard of them and i hate to admit as somebody who gives a final exams on world war ii. Who were they and why are they so understudied as well . There a lot of ethnic groups as people probably know. There are many different people even in northern burma. This group is the Largest Group in the area where the americans were which was very north of burma the british were a little south. They were a good group to affiliate with because theydi dd not want anyone invading their countrymen the japanese had already started to do this. They were already fighting at that point when we arrived. They were a natural ally. They did a lot for us. Doctor wrote under song heroes of that war. Now your dad actually have this wonderful chance to go back to burma to reconnect with some of these people. How long ago after the war was that . What was it like for your dad to go back . Did he meet anybody hed actually served with . Yes. Oss veterans wanted to do something for a long time. There were able to for lots of Different Reasons political reasons and things going on. But when they all reach retirement age most other family obligations were out of the way, they started and there is a little window and burma also. They started some projects to help. Three different projects owns brickandmortar schools, they translated the book where there is no doctor period which is a david warner book thats been around for a while. They distributed those. The main thing they did was project old soldier which is a farm promoting thing. They got seeds and expertise for agricultural people in the United States. And they went over. This was in the mid 90s from 96 until the last veteran who was involved died in 2017 they kept the program work and they met a lot of people who were in his battalion but most of the ones that had been in position had already died. Hethere a lot of people had serd with him and its very wonderful experience. If youve had a chance to read the book you will understand the genesis of it dates back to your father telling you stories when you are young. What is it like to write a book about your father . What processes you have to go through to collect those stories . No doubt your memory us on this campfire stories had to be perishable. How did you go back and get them all . Soon it became apparent i dad was not going to write his book my youngest brother sat hima dn the tape recorder and a map of burma. It was very detailed. We just went through where he went and he told all of the stories. And we had that 17 tapes transcribed their 800 pages of stories mom youre still alive started working on editing. Even after he died some of the stories did not include any secondhand stories really. Anything he told happened to somebody else it was what had happened to him. Then we tried as best we could to fact check. Most of the people by that time had gone so it was hard to do that. Theres some books referred to was his Commanding Officer called behind the burma road there were some otherom books. There is a history he wrote a book. Wewe use those to touch base. But it wasnt difficultlt we trd to do the best we could. If you read it you will know what it is it is an oral history told by an old guy who had a lot of great war stories. The really good insights into war on foreign soil at what we canen do when we do that. Each of these books a i have0 minutes worth of questions before through onto the next one. It could last for this if you read the book has so many Great Stories to myvo favorites where your dad getting shot in the butt by a bullet ricochet and a tiger attacking people of all things. Do you have a favorite little story that stuck with you the most . My story is a story in the book called guide for general merrill. My dad sent a message that he needed to provide a guide across this thick tract of flat jungle. Real briefly he went to his elders and asked can you get me a guide . They said no we cant treat no ones been across there. They said there was one guy who hunted in their he had a son, that maybe he could guide you. He bring his son up and his son is maybe 12. Its every went over the average height used to be five four hes also very tiny. We estate here the story when we were kids. There is thisye little boy who said yes i can do this. Until my dad takes him to general merrill any kind of looks at him but he says okay. Leads into 40 miles of jungle and it is a great interesting story. It tells you a little bit about the people there. How responsible they are such an earlyth age and how they know so much about the jungle so significantly. And who she refers to is the famous merrill of merrills marauders. It is now time for heather to get in the hot seat. I was going to say nobody heres had a chance to read the book because it is not out yet. It is that one of the new first get the holter book in your hand and i got to see her hold her book for her first time in her hand today. That is 21 days to baghdad focuses on Operation Iraqi freedom through the career in the eyes of general buford blunt who led the u. S. Forces the Third Infantry Division went too baghdad in 2003. At the book thats part biography impart battle history. As a character hold that together . Because as a republican history. Versant drew me too this project was general blunt himself present fastening Family History. One of his sisters did genealogy of the family and she was able to trace their ancestry back to a couple of brothers who fought the battle of hastings. They have a long military tradition in their family. They have had ancestors who fought at almost every u. S. War since the american revolution. And so that Family History made in fastening to me as i got to know him and learn about that. Hes also an mississippi. They marked relatives in mississippi as early as the beginning of the 19th century. Eventually settled in the area. General did not grow from up inmississippi because his far was a career military. Should pesek life herself after world war ii and the cold war. And so i was interested in general blunt himself. As we talked him especially about the invasion of iraq and the drive to baghdad invasion from crossing from kuwait all into getting into baghdad. One is said to make the decision early on to split the division to take two routes from baghdad. The highway on the other is the vehicles from the western desert. His thought was of got 10,000 more than 300 kilometers. We could do that all on one paved road thats what it takes a long time. Or, we can split off in the track vehicles can handle he sant going on the desert sand. Baghde the invasion. The reason why he came up with that is because he spent several years serving with the u. S. Army in saudi arabia. He was, the advisor to the modernization of the Saudi National guard, and he talked about being in his office in riyadh and imagining desert and particularly imagining tanks as warfare. It was from that experience that he realized, we can actually do this and get all of your vehicles to baghdad more quickly. He sold it to his superiors and the division did that. Another example of something that he did that was significant to how the invasion played out is that he pushed for speed. Speed in terms of getting to baghdad. Any waiting allow it is enemy to regroup, what forces are doing and to make a plan and he always pushed speed even when others might caution we are not sure about going through this area, i dont knowhi if we can go throuh it quickly. He always pushed speed and therefore the division made it ito baghdad in 21 days, a drive that initially thought it would take six months. They did it in three weeks. The third i was not to go into baghdad, just outside the city and the 101st airborne was going to go into baghdad but one of the areas where the iraqis had success against u. S. Forces was with their antiaircraft forces. That they werera shooting down helicopters and really getting at american air power in a way that americans hadnt expected so general blunt went to his superiors and said an air assault into baghdad, iraqis are going to have a chance to get at us and get in the way of us become successful in air assault. Let the thirdul id make land assault into baghdad where we have trained for this, we are prepared for this and i know that my division can make this happen and, again, his superiors gavesi him the green light. So he it became very clear to me as i was getting to know him and talking to him that as Division Commander he actually was very significant to how the invasion of iraq and the drive to baghdad and the entry into baghdado played out. Of course, the conquest of baghdad so quickly and really y unexpectedly was an incredibly military fleet to pull off. What did blunt thinkd of the conversation . Secure the city and that is the mission. That was the mission that the division trained for and the division executed and once the division was in baghdad it became clear that there wasnt a plan for what happened next and part of the reason was for how quickly the division arrived in baghdad, planners in the pentagon were trying to figure out what the next phase was going to be because they didnt expect for baghdad to fall as quickly as they did so there wasnt a plan in place for what happened next. There really wasnt a sense of who would take over in baghdad once the Third Infantry Division and otherer elements, the 101st airborne, 82nd airborne, who was going to come in and take over. So meanwhile as conversations are being had, what is going to happen next, general blunt decided, well, the third id is here and we know that iraqi citizens have needs, so what we are going to do now is try to figure out how to meet those needs tosi the best we can since we are here and he would begin to go out and went out on his own with a couple of members of his staff andal walkthrough neighborhoods and see if there were people out that he could talk to do find out what do people need. So people needed electricity turned back on. Saddam hussein electrified parts of baghdad where he did have Political Support and did not electrify where he he had political opposition. He would send units of engineers to make that happen. Sometimes that involved having to find the person who had the key to the power plant in that neighborhood to let them in do to the do the work that needed to be done and he was on the ground doing this with his staff. Th another thing that he went around to do to see what was needed in hospitals, if hospitals were equipped and if there was anything that the division could provide to hospitals, making sure that people had propane for their cooking stoves. That was the way that most iraqi kitchens operated, they needed propane. His mindset was he want the people of baghdad to believe that what we did was good for them and so if weve here, we are still here, lets try to make their basic needs met. Now, one of the issues that there are a lot of complicating factors here one of them being that the soldiers to have Third Infantry Division understood capture baghdad, secure baghdad and once that is done someone else will come in and take care of the postcar activities. Well, the third idea achieved that mission. But they werent coming home and so soldiers began to morale of soldiers began to decline, families back home in fort stewart, georgia which is where the Third Infantry Division is headquartered began to get restless. There were some spouses who wrote newspapers to the post, wrote letters to the post newspaper expressing this, why arent our familyy members comig home. We were told that they were to get to baghdad. They did that, they should be home by now. And because of that, those discussions, those conversations concerns about soldiers morale, the division began to be withdrawn and sent back to the u. S. Now general blunt asked to stay. He said, okay, send my soldiers home, keep me here with the team. Actually elements of the second tbrigade, Infantry Division wet tolt fallujah and general blunt felt what happened in fallujah will continue. There was unrest in fallujah, antiamerican sentiment and the commander of the second brigade and some of his staff met with the mayor of fallujah and city leaders and figured out what they could do to help in fallujah and from general blunts perspective subdued the underlyingla antiamericanism and unrest that was beginning to boil up there. So he holds up fallujah in the summer of 2003 as an example of the success that could have been if that kind of local engagement had continued. Another issue that posed a problem was that the administration of george w. Bush didnt want to have a large heavy Division Like the third viinfantry, Armored Division remain in iraq. That they had done the job that they were given, they needed to come home and it would be diplomats and others that would handle what was going to happen in iraq and regime change and nation building andkn those sors of things. And so the Third Infantry Division was eventually recalled fully by the beginning to have fall of 2002. In addition to talking to general blunt about, this i talked to some of the commanders that were under him and one conversation i had with his Public Affairs officer, guy by the name of Mike Birmingham as hes leaving, theres no sense among anyone in the i third id oithat anything good is going to come once they are gone. Theyre already aware that unrest is happening and as we know, there was a long and drawn out war in iraq that continued in 2011. Nd and so for general blunt, i think he would be honest and say hes very proud of what the division accomplished in terms of the quickness with which they made it to back dad and the way they achieved the mission for which they trained but its disappointing to see what came after and i think he might say that it was unnecessary, so well, sadly our ten minutes are up because i want to hopefully leave somee time for audience questions at the end. So ill move all the way to my last peterco cozzens and his bok s rude awakening and monumental one too, kind of hard to encapsulate this one, a couple of questions. But creek wars that ran alongside the u. S. War of 1812 and it looks at the creek wars through the eyes of both native fighters and their society and through the eyes of the fledging and often bubbling early u. S. Militias, the events of the book are one of the most momentous in u. S. History central to opening lands east of mississippi to white settlement, coming infamous trail of tears and is also to the rise of andrew jackson. It became a a pivotal and somewt controversial figure u. S. History. The first question to peter then is with such great importance, why does why did the wars of the American West against the native americans have so much more play and this one gets so ignored . Thats a very good question and im guilty of that myself because this book is the final volume in a trilogy that i wrote on the west ward expansion of the United States beginning with the end of their revolutionary war through indian war. Like everyone else, i because popular fiction and all, i associated the indian wars with the American West and some of my first line in the trilogy, weeping the epic wars and epic story of the indian whatever. Epic story of the indian wars in the American West and then i realized when i finished it. Wait a minute, the actual decisive conflicts that made victory over the native americans inn the west possible, conflicts were fought east of Mississippi River specifically in what was called the old northwest or modern midwest and in the deep south. And that it was the victories in these two areas that, again, made the outcome in the west, you know, foregone conclusion but neither the war that was fought against chief in the midwest or the creek were, were at all inevitable in their outcomes. If you read either of both books youll see that the war could have gone against the United States and in very nearly did. You know, i think that part of the reason is that, you know, i guess it was hollywood and a silent movie. The American West made for sinema than indians fighting militia in cambridge and alabama and what not, something about the part of the buff three bill and wild west show that is so, you know, imprinted the American West and the quickly egbecame legendary fights againt indians in the american consciousness and also in the european consciousness whereas the things that happened east of mississippi were overtaken by the American Civil War and other developments and never received the the attention that they deserved or technician of how really were h to the creation of the United States. Now this is such a complex story that when you read the book and its a fascinating book. Andrew jackson doesnt really show upw for the first third of the book. Hes more of a character for the last twothirds of the book. So much of the beginning of the book centers on the creek indians themselves investigating their culture all the way back to their first brush with hernando de soto. How did you get at the creek indians . What kind ofes sources and hw were you able to the capture their story because their story does come through vividly. Its difficultly the harder it is to obtain any sort of primary accounts of indians themselves or of whites who interacted with them but just real r quickly on the south, at the time of the outbreak of the war of 1812, the heart of the action of the book occurs, it was divided up between tribes, cherokee, the creek, the chickasaw and the choctaw, occupied most of modern mississippi. The creeks to giveek you an idea how significant they were to people, they controlled all of modern alabamall and all of western georgia. They were a huge power and they also made possible their existence made possible to continue spanish presence in florida. In a way i got to creek sources. Therees were 26,000 people in te creek nation andre theyve been over the course of time from the time the first english colonists, there had been a lot of intermarriage among the creeks and english colonists and later americans. In fact, the majority of leaders in the creek wore who opposed the United States had names like william weatherford, josiah francis. They were mixed breeds, mixed cast or how you want to put it, mestizo. Were literate and left letter and reelections that i was able to draw for creek culture but to develop a picture of the creeks i had to rely on europeans who lived, traveled among them later on their indian agent. I also delved into spanish sources from spainin that had nt been usedad before. But it was difficult. It was very easy to get at indian sideth of the story becae so many of the participants in those conflicts were alive in the 20th century and were interviewed by by anthropologists and others, told their stories, the farther back you went the harder it was. A lot i had to piece together from the perspective of white observers. Fortunate there were enough mixed mixed race creeks that i was able to draw that also. As a person of more researches modern battles when i am reading about some of the battles between largely the red sticks on one side, the faction of the creeks and the various u. S. Militias on the other, what im what i was constantly stunned by was the ineptitude. Were these functions of the weaknesses of society or a little bit of both . The creek war started initially as civil war between one faction of the creeks mostly who lived in the upper portion of the creek north against those on the southern portion. They essentially wanted to revitalize traditional culture and they and oppose american pressure on their country whereas the the lower creeks had begun to become somewhat advanced slowly integrated into the american economy. It started as a civil war and then became a larger war against the United States where creeks actually fought with the United States but one of the things that made it difficult for the red sticks, the hostile creeks was a a the nature of creek society, the creek, it was not a nation like the cherokee, the creeks were a confederacy, a groups of largely independent villages throughout alabama and western georgia that were essentially autonomous and seldom came together for any single purpose and so that made it difficult for either the red states or the lower creeks who opposed them to act in a unified fashion n a coherent fashion to plan a longterm strategy that might succeed. That that was the principal difficulty on the side of the red sticks. And they also unfortunately for them they initiated the war a year but about a year too early. If they had waited until the british had gotten rid of napoleon and sent troops to the gulf coast, i think the british the british race, combination would have won for the creeks and the british controlled the coast gulf coast for some time to come but that wasntfo e case. Ineptitude on the american side and that wasl due to logistical problems. The Administration James madison was so busy fighting the british that as important though it was to defeat the red sticks and maintain control of the south they pretty much let the states of tennessee, gouge and the mississippi territory do things on their own. So you had the three of them, tennessee, georgia, mississippi territories were all separated by modern day alabama, western rngeorgia. They couldnt coordinate among themselves, they had very little assistance from the federal government and had really just really bad logistical systems. So it was it was a mess. Sadly i have time for one more question here but might be the hardestes one. Americans turned out really good military commanders. I would love to put eisenhower up there and turned out controversial and badst ones and maybe westmoreland comes to find. Where does jackson come to mind . Im still not sure what to make of im. I really tried to get into him as much as into his soul as persona as i could in the book, not only him but also his relationship with his wife, with his subordinates and jackson was volcanic temperament. Two things you can say for andrew jackson, one that he was not wanting in personal courage. The guy had guts and he and that started when he was a kid, young teen and wounded in the revolutionary war by a british officer, in the head, he had personal courage and he had a real sense of purpose and perseverance that other american militia, commanders, volunteer commanders, stateor and territoriallacked. Everyone else had given up. Mississippi territory, volunteers had gone home, well, we are not going to be invaded. Let the red sticks have bloodstream and western georgia, georgia, they called their troops home. They kind of threw in the towel and even theel governor of tennessee said that jackson, hey, i want you to come home. Jackson and most of his troops almost all of his troops, people in the room remained with him at some point and the rest went home. He sat there in creek territory, i came here for a purpose, im going to see this war to conclusion not because he hated the red sticks but he hated the british with passion. His mother had died taking care of american prisoners. He hated the british. He believed that if he did not pursue the war to a conclusion that theha british would, indee, comeme in, make common cause wih the red stick portion of the creeks and take over the deep south. And belatedly the u. S. Government gave him a regiment of regular troops, he got some capable volunteers from tennessee and he also got a huge contingent of cherokee indians who actually if you readu the book youll be surprised as i was, they actually won the decisive battle of the creek war for him, Horseshoe Bend was won by the creeks, im sorry, by the cherokees and not by jackson. Jackson conveniently ignored that but thats what really happened. So i think jackson i give him credit for personal courage, perseverance, he was a terrible loggistition and he didnt realize that napoleon maxim that soldiers fight on full stomach or theyy dont fight at all. He did not understand that and he wasnt the the best tactical leader because he tended to be sort of he had a hard time adapting to to changes in the course of combat. Well, the panel is rounded out today by chris wimmer and his book of the summer of 1876 and i was scanning the audience and there were a couple of people who are my age and i grew up onn the famous stories cowboys,d robbers, battles and the law men of the old west and little did i know until i read this book that merely all of those stories were condensed together and happened in the transformative summer of 1876. The james gang got shot up in northfield, the battle of little bighorn, custer, masterson, everything seemed to be crammed together into this the summary and covered in book, the summer of 1876. To chris, what got you interested in this year, how did you figure out all this stuff happened in this year and what made you want to write a book about it . I figured out through the podcast i produced. I had researched each one of the different stories. Theress probably 5 main storylines in the book andrea searched individually to produce forms of podcast about them. It suddenly hit me that each book that i had road, of course, focused solely on jesse james or wild billcock and there was a 90day period that so many of the huge pivotal events that featured prominent people of the American West allal happened in thispe 90day period. That would actually be an interesting book. I would love to write a book that focuses on the overlap of the story and not so much a deep dive into any one of those because you can read wonderful biographies and endless books about custer and crazy horse and city bull and the campaign on the Northern Plains one which i would highly recommend from the gentleman tohi my left and the earth is weeping which you mentioned earlier but i wanted to focus on the overlap. You mentioned the host of a very popular long forum podcast. Im a writer, have never done podcast. Youre a podcaster and broke into writing. How was that transition . What was the difference between the crafter of the written word and the crafter of the spoken word . , oh, myy gosh. The difference well, luckily, huge difference, you dont have to think about music when youre writing a book. We do them they are essentially like relatively short audio books but they have music andey sometimes sound effects under them so the podcast series that we produced end up being hybrids in oldstyle radio drams and modern addio book and so i constantly have to think about how to write the podcast scripts to the new and envision what music will play in the section and i had to go choose the music and whole different level of production and it was a a little bit freeig to just simply write the book and not have to worry about how i am going to have to myself read it and hate my own voice while doing that and then choose all the music and figure out how to get the whole thing edited. Theres people that can handle that stuff. The dreaded editor. One of the things that would have beenn daunting to me as a writer of this book when you read it, i hope you get a chance to read, youve got nine plates spinning all the time in each chapter theres going to be a little bit on masterson and then youll jump to the background of little bighorn and suddenly we are in the east forming National League baseball. How do you keep all that together because its to its the it sounds daunting to me. It is, inct fact. Itit actually was very daunting and mind melting. It was just dumb. I dont know what am i doing. This is absurd, choosing five full story lines and whole list of contractors that go with each one of them and try to sprinkle in subsets and sub storylines beneathh those. I thought, well, this is a great concept and theres a pretty huge difference between concept and practicality and doing it in theory or the theory of it or doing it in practice. I turned out to be there was soul searching in the early part that i ended up plowing through and getting it done. It became very much a balancing act of both time management and how much time i spent researching each one of those threads and what becomes vitally important to put in the book, which things are absolutely most important so really became a balance of priorities. Now, one of the things that fascinated me about the book being a delittante in this area is that there seemed to be two or three bar owners that seemed to own a bar every time one of these western guys got in a fight, they gotot in the fight with the barba owners in a different town. Did that surprise you that the bar owners seemed to be the crux by which everything spun . To some degree. To some degree thats how i realized there was so much overlap. You start seeingou the same nams in both of those types of books, so, for instance, there was a saloon owner named ben thompson who you are probably thinking of when youre revising the question, who owned a saloon in dodge city. Ben were born in england and raised in texas, billy spent part of hisn life on the run fr killing folks he shouldnt have killed, weapon ben was like a forest gump style character. He probably had a runin with wyatt and absolutely had runins with hickok in abilene, kansas and, of course, Little Village in texas called sweetwater where he owned a saloon and so he had ilwider masterson and hickok whh he rolled around. Thatss what it started to reay provide the true line that the one that igu wanted to write tht these guys kept on popping up in the hot west. I think of these characters all be partial to Wild Bill Hickok. For people do not know the story of not drone on about his entire biographer he end up dying when hes 39 years old. Typically you see a portrayal of him and the movie is oh is played by an act he was significantly older than 39 years old. I do not know how much our conscious choice goes into that. Usually find a really good named actor to play that role and hopefully get people to watch the d movie. But he did it seemed like he lived the lives of 10 men by the time is 39 he had done so much you also cannot believe a Single Person was all those places and did all of those things. That is why i keep getting drawn to him. For a quick note i think peter was talkingng about white people are drawn to certain elements of the west in the American West. Work talk about Hollywood Sinema fixating on certain things in the American West. Seek gunfights and a Bank Robberies i certainly have very much learned that im a lover of the old west i want to see those things in here about those things. One of the cool moments i learned people might not know is Wild Bill Hickok participated in what is assumed to be generally accepted to be the first recorded quickdraw gunfight in fthe america west for you remember or any of those movies youve ever seen were two guys walked out into the street on square off with each other pull out their guns the faster guy lives in the slower guide is not they almost never happen in the American West very few instances where that actually happened Wild Bill Hickok was and was gunfights. That was in Springfield Missouri baptist civil war but since he youlive beyond that is clearly f winner of the gunfight and the other guy was not. One of the early distinctions of hickoks life. Asked one less question to bring us back to the theme of the panel america. Was he a good commander or not . Correct was he a good commander . In a strict military i still have to qualify this as i am not a militaryy expert. In a military sense heat seemed like he could devise a strategy but i dont know if out call him a good commander. And the research i have done and peter has done far more research on that i have. All of the stereotypes you probably heard about they seem to be true he had arrogance to them he was a freelancer who would go and do what he wanted to do regardless of what kind of military circumstance he was in it was very much a glory seeker that absolutely helped lead to his end and informed his decisionmaking when he brought roughly 600 soldiers toward a native American Village about 8000 people 1000 or 2000 of which were warriors. When he realized what he is potentially up against and had chances to do things differently he choset not to and he chose o go for it and help he could make it work like he always had in the pastas. And this time of course it didnt. Correct technically we are over time we got started about 15 minutes late with every time for audience questions or not . That is your call. Wonderfulco books when some important commanders across American History. You have any questions from the audience for any of our panelists. That means get up anda ask the question. Hi there. Initially i was thinking for all of them. What role does the terrain people in history have Business Impact their campaigns or in these battles. It is an excellent question. All of americans war against the indians. The native american wires clearly had an advantage of knowing the terrain and knowing how to make best use of it beginning with the defeat of almost the entire United States army in 1791 when Arthur Sinclair stumbled against a confederacy that predated tecumseh all the way to fighting the apaches in the west that knowledge the indians had of terrain and many cases could compensate for numbers they had. I could spend a whole hour talking about easily. Thats was relevant in the creek war two. The creek country by and large it was incognito to the american militia forces that invaded it. They were going along blindly part of the time. It was a huge part of the battle of the little big horn for if youve ever been there for those who have it i will turn this into a quickck pitched go into thea battlefield. Rolling hills stand were some of places happen look and see all the hills around you and picture all of them swarming with lawyers who are firing arrows and bolts of nonstop imagine how terrifying it must have been and where these few warriors. When your day can trace that all movements in custers various units by the tombstones of where they died. You can see how they move through the hills theyve done a pretty good job of marking the graves roughly where the bodies were found after the battle. I dont exactly when the monument has outfitted one of positions so you could you canwalk around the perimetef reno hill for hundreds of soldiers were trapped of the course of the day and nights. You could look on the gulch is where the oars wouldve swarmed up you can look at the hills were snipers were firing. You can imagine it wouldve been right to be trapped on the hill with dead bodies piling up and digging out little pits, rifle pits with your tin cup. How terrible it would have been. Two things to add with little big horn i was standing up on the last sandhill and the men who formed around him. And if you look off on the horizon, but not too far on the horizon using one of the prettier sites of the American West and thats the mountains. You can see the blue lion of the mountains you think this guy has died and a scrub grass i found one he thus poignant lines in the Indian Perspective said years later telling a story there are so many of us we did not even need weapons but we couldve ridden over these guys with our horses and trampled them all to death. That is how one decided it was we did not need weapons we fight over them. Thats a great question terrain was something that affected the invasion of iraq and the drive to baghdad. Both in terms of the desert and also the urban terrain of baghdad. What of the few things that slowed down was a major sandstorm that hit in late march and ground the division to a halt and visibility it was just a few feet. They had to stop their invasion and wait until the sandstorm ended with us completely out of control of the army. The urban terrain was also a major concern especially when thinking about sending an armoredd division into a dense city. What of the issues that came up for planners at the Division Level on the fifth court level was somalia. This idea we dont want baghdad to be u. S. Troops gets trapped inside of a city and insurgents come they are killed bodies are in the streets theres a lot of concern about sending tanks into a city. Tanks are great on a desert road they are impenetrable. They are a liability when youre trying to turn corners in a major metropolis. I would say its a jungle is completely different and very important consideration people in theme jungle and the description of some of the engagements he talks about people at work is close for you to me they did not know they werehe there. Because everything is sort of hidden this was a great advantage to the guerrilla thwarfare tactics that have been used at the time. You could beat very close to someone else they would not even know it. That is why intelligence was very important to find out where people were. It is completely different. We were talking about this but my father was opposed to agent orange he said in his war the jungle was his friend. It is what protected him and they use it to their advantage. Were waiting for the next question or next question comes up i would say theres no way to understand a battle withouttt going to the battlefield we love taking our students to battlefields and investigating geography, yes, sir . My question is related to exactly that. I really enjoyed this panel. All of you are writing stories about things you have not seen. If you have imagined it and neither putting it on paper. How much a creative license and when i read your book am i seeing versus actual . You are describing something that is happened in the past hasbeen brought down for you. [inaudible] so how much effects is real history . Restarted this table this time for great question because all the stories in the book were told by my father. Not me. I just edited it. That was by a guy who was in the middle of it. And you can read it with that in mind it is written a long time after the fact. Produced by somebody who was there. I have not been to iraq but in the course of doing the research i spent bills that wouldve parts to be part of a tank division. I spent time with tank crews. Talk to various levels of command within the division about running an armored brigade being part of an armored otdivision. I got inside of a tank. I got to observe battle simulation and those sorts of things. That helped me understand what the soldiers were doing as far as the technical skill they had had to do the job. If i had had the opportunity to feel what the desert felt like that would haveve helped. I read about the vietnam war i lived in vietnam for a year. Under South Vietnam feels like, smells like, looks like, sounds like really help me write this book. And away i denied the benefit of that as far as what iraq feels like, sounds like and those sorts of things. I did find it spending a week with the division at their headquarters help me understand the job they had to do the training that they had. I consider myself mike im not a historian by trade him a former deputy app. First and foremost a storyteller. The Creative Process is very important in writing history. To tell a story that is not only as close to what occurred as is possible to decipher at this distance. But also one that is engaging to read and carries the reader along. Theres a few licenses one can takece an arthritic biography. I could not know exactly how the council was raised as an individual. But i knew were raised and as part of their culture. You can draw conclusions on that and build on that. One of my personal is if ever i find myself getting ready to say perhaps or he may have been thinking or i stop myself and i idont go there. I tried to remain within the confines of the primary sources to the best i can do. Ive been moving even further various primary sources thatt exist covering a particular event appear the most incredible. In that sense historians and military are more so are kind of like lawyers looking for the best evidence to put together the most likely chain of events. I may have gotten it wrong in some places. But again try to find an engaging way for my creative talent such as they are but never going beyond what i can support with a primary source that writing of someone, incredible it was there. Peter gave a great answer and thats a great question for thank you for asking. It is interesting peter just touched on the facts as we know them should stay the facts hope for the further back you go in his humor difficult it is to determine exactly whated happen. Especially in event are very few survivors on one side or the other. You do your best to write the event as you think they p happe. The next part of it becomes a persons individual style project emotions and thoughts on things like that onto the people who live them. And i know for myself i try not to really any of that. I learned during the podcast process people listen to my podcast stories seem to like is a fun, fast, lean story. They do not want to get too bogged down into much detail. Doesbo i wrote the book i was going since i write books about a boy wrote one book theres one example power done this. Rely on the amount of action to build this distance and entertainment dusan but this five different storylines was never a dull moment i do not have to about flowery language lots of descriptive whatever. You can rely on the event as it happens to drive the whole thing. Quick ship hit on one of the essential questions of being a historian response beat neutrall arbiters of the past. Merely by picking a subject youve biased yourself. It is a constant balancing act one must question thank you. I am interested in the cultural context so structured by the fact all the things that happen in the wild west were 10 years post civil war. There is a lot of cultural unspent angst finding a different expression. The same wouldar be the same and baghdad and all these other bplaces. I realized im asking a big question of the short amount of time for a response may be startingon with you, chris, im wondering what connection you think there is from that broader cultural or however you might characterize that. Oh lord you go a lot of Different Directions i suppose i could go a lot of Different Directions with the answer. Probably the easy one to go with was the story limits military oriented in my book. The u. S. Army versus nativetr american tribes thats easy cultural aspect to latch onto for the sake of providing us a quick answer here without sitting back and trying to think about itan for anybody whos evr read any history of American History sort of the history of the west knows about the decimation of that native american tribes in the west. This is that cultural aspect really trying to remove those people from the native american tribes from where they lived in for some onto reservations tried to systematically remove their culture from them and assimilate them into essentially white european civilization and extended across the American Continent was a huge part of it thats the entire campaign of 1876 was designed of the complaints onto the reservation the westward expansion would continue to happen. Theld americans the white amerin civilization could open the door to the rich lands in the west. Thats the really difficult aspect to have to live with coming up to come to terms with the fact most are times when youre done with native american societies any time White Society did something to the native American Society there is never a good reason for it. There was never a broader benevolent reason it was almost always destructive. And its really difficult have to live with that and have to write it and know this when he part of the story no matter what. I have annoyed at that answer your question but may be close enough . I would just add to that as far as one of the primary cultural attitudes that i really picked up on the idea that the United States can nation build after ate war. Despite so muchev evidence lotsf failure to do that one of which vietnam we write about and teach about it the push to nation build and iraq after a war without any discussion of the policy level meeting there continues to be a notion for americans Political Institutions after fighting a war. We just dont have many instances of success with that. Cap that still remains our cultural policy making the culture of our policymaking should say. Part of the problem is policymakers are looking at iraq and afghanistan they were ignoring lessons of vietnam and cap look at the success of japan and germany. And the difference is not realizing how fundamentally i differences were between japan and germany were homogenous societies and the japanese the emperor was allowed to remain it was again homogenous culture for a rock was far from that its a patchwork of cultures. One thing reflective of the American Indians especially when speaking of the indian wars of the west the complicate and factor is that despite it was clear we wanted indian land and we were going to get it and ents were broken routinely. It was never among the American Indians themselves there is never a sense of what i call in my book a sense of common purpose ofde defeating the white incursions. There is not a single tribe in the west that was ever unified in terms of resisting american incursions as opposed to trying to coexist. We were always dueling factions in every tribe are the only tribe that displayed any cohesiveness for the tribes that were alongside the dates is in the west like the poni and the shoshone and the crow. Its very complicated. You cannot simply say native americans against the whites in the government and the west it was much more complicated than that. In fact almost up to the date of the great sioux war broke out in early 1876 the u. S. Government against dakota they were fighting indians and consider them a greater threat. It is not a blackandwhite issue. You are right it is a story of tribes fighting tribes for a long time some of those fighting against the u. S. Army when they came to close proximity. Worked against all of their interest. Out to thank all of you guys to bring a wonderful audience with some Great Questions asked of the panelist around of applause and go by their books. [applause] correct thank you. Thank you very much. This year in book tv marks 25 years of shining a spotlight on leading nonfiction authors and their books. Within talks for more than 22000 authors nearly 900 cities and festivals visited and 16000 events. Book tv provided viewers with a 92000 hours of programming on the latest literary discussions on history. Holidays and biographies but you can watch book tv every sunday on cspan2 or online at booktv. Org. Book tv, 25 years of television for serious readers. Nonfiction book lovers cspan has a number podcast for you. Listen to bestselling nonfiction authors and influential influencers on the after words podcast. On q a here wide ranging conversations with nonfiction authors and others who are making things happen. 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Tell your Smart Speaker plate cspan radio listen to washington journal daily 7 00 a. M. Eastern important congressional hearings and other Public Affairs events throughout the day weekdays at 5 00 p. M. And 9 00 p. M. Eastern catch washington today in a fastpaced report on the stories of the day but listen to cspan any time just tell your Smart Speaker plate cspan radio. Cspan powered by cable. To introduce our panel i will now turn it over to a former