Acknowledgments, you said my son a bully me into writing it. We are talking about this book blue eyed boy. That is true. Desireever really had a to write this book. People had asked me over the years, why dont you write it . I said, i do not need to get into it. I was concerned about after flash. Hard,eing, you know, too dredging up the motions would be too heavy. I did not think at that time years ago that i had anything to in anyt was a anyway way there were a lot of books written by veterans who were wounded. Craig kept pushing. Since you may know, he was a little kid, he started wanting to do something, he just trove you nuts onto you say, ok, do it. I said, craig, do not want to do it. About, if youking are ever going to do it, this is the time. ,e look at the country everything has come back around. We have these deep divisions over 2 wars. Troops coming back, terribly wounded. Maybe youit is have something to say about that that. I said, maybe i dont. He said, try. And so, i did. I thought about it and he was absolutely right. Book toping with this write something that would number one, show people what to the cost of combat really is. Two, and at aimed at men and women coming back in seriously bad shape. Limbs, all sorts of things. Will give them something to hang on to. Luck, somein little so people that care about you. You can really put you life back together. Not the way it was going to be, authentically your owner. Let me show you some video when we talked about your book the nightingales song, 19 years ago. Here you are on the program. [video clip] extent,i did to a large i felt anger and hostility that many of my [indiscernible] was, i do not think it is good for me. It is not mentally and psychologically good for me to be part of it. To a certain extent, i unplugged from a networks. And i went off. And up untilporter a few months ago, i became an editor. I was a reporter for a quarter century. That is how i view myself. And going and working on in this book was i plugged back into the old networks and their became a fascinating journey of rediscovery. As far as i do not up to work on this book, i did not talk about vietnam. We will get back to that. We do not talk much about the book. I want to continue with your acknowledgment. The other is central person was my wife, many of the events i described happened of five deaths five decades ago. She allowed me to interview her more than 10 times. Your exwife, jane. How did that happen and what was it like . I took her to lunch. [laughter] janie has always had we have always been friends. There was probably a period shortly after we separated that things were rough. We came back together. We have three kids together. Sincebeen friends ever and plus, she lives not far for me. She remarried. She is just a truly good person. Who is her husband, lee, a lawyer here, when they vote invite me over for dinner and holidays and stuff like that, they are not that far away. Sometimes you just run into good people. It was my great, good fortune to stumble into janie one day. She did it. , without her, i could not have made it through. What did you learn from the 10 interviews that made the biggest impact on you . There were certain things i did not know, probably the thing that was the hardest for me to deal with was the fact that people thought but cause of my disfigurement because of my disfigurement that janie had effectively threw me out and cannot take it anymore. That as a consequence of that, people thinking that, people started cutting her off. Know, you did you this to bob. Nothing could be further from the truth and for a long time, it was only a few years later, she just realized, she just notice old friends werent calling anymore or they seemed to be busy when she called them. Only 5, 6, maybe 10 years later that someone said what happen is we thought you had thrown a bob out. What were the years you were married . In1965 and we were divorced 1971. Lets me read one more from the knowledge of its. I second wife and my second exwife was another blessing. A fine editor, she read and critiqued much of the book. What happened to kelly . Are you still in touch with her . Im. [laughter] i am. I am and kelly, she worked in the federal government for 30 years or whatever and she was a senior official in the department of labor and department of transportation. Senators assistant. Kelly knew washington. We met at harvard. I knew nothing about it except every time i came here, i want up in some kind of circle and i was spun off in space. I was lost. Up in some kind of circle and i was spun off in space. She knew people. She knew how the city worked. Alsoas she was [indiscernible] people probably thought i had something on her. But, i didnt. When did you get married and how long and when did you get divorced . We got married around 1973 and we were divorced, i think, last year or the year before. It has been dragged out. We were separated and it finally got to the point that we decided to do it. You had how many children with her . Just one. How old is he . Sam is 29. He is my fourth head. I had three with jane. The kids with a jane were all brainy. , do not want to diminish sam because he is pretty brainy, but he was the jock in the family. A terrific baseball player, captain of the baseball team. Played hockey. And sam is to this day is the sunniest person i have ever known. Show a before and after. Heres a picture of you. Lots of action reports, too. What year did you graduate from the Naval Academy and when was this picture taken . I graduated from the Naval Academy in 1964. You may be surprised that very shortly i will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of my class graduation and we are having our reunion later this month. That picture was probably taken in 1966. Here is a picture of you after your accident. Can i say one thing . Into. Easy to fall it was not an accident. Those guys were trying to kill me. It was not like i wondered into something. How long did you think about putting this picture in . I did not think about it at all. The one of you after your disfigurement . I thought about it a while and my editor out about it for a while. I came to the conclusion and i think we mutually agreed that you cannot hold off. I have a million pictures like that and some worse. It just seemed to me if i was a reader, i would feel like the author was holding back on me by not showing something central to the story, which is what happened to him. Go back to the beginning. What was the date and where were you . The date i was wounded . January 18, 1967. Of a city andt south vietnam. Was service were you in . Marines. No such thing as an at marine. What was your job . An executive of a Company Since we an odd unit did not have any tanks. Duty, a lot of convoy combat support. Rate, that was my job. I try to get out of it. And you know, they get orders and i got orders to Camp Pendleton and i got out there. They said, you go into [indiscernible] and i said, no, no. I am and in virtually officer i am an individually officer and i do not know tanks. And they said, go. Sir, i am from new york city. Car learned how to drive a a year ago. I do know know anything about vehicles or tanks. I did not even are the checks the oil in my car. I did not even know where the dipstick is. He said, you are sent here for a reason, but i do not know what the hell it is. You are going to stay. School. St out a basic how many days did you have left before you were coming home . 13 days. To the you think back moment, explain what the situation was and what you remember. I remember, the reason i was ,ut there was the marine corps they want the troops to be paid every 2 weeks. That are in the barracks and you go and pay them and the barracks. If they are out in the boonies, you go into their own less they are under fire. You go into the boonies unless there are under fire. Which was me at three parts platoon leaders and we took turns, everybody except the captain, we took turns paying. Today, itofficer that was not my turn. I was so close to the end of my tour, i was going to go to our price or by r and stereont buy equipment and look for pearls for my wife. It turned out the lieutenant, who was supposed to be pay officer, there was something going on. I could argue. I cannot say, stop fighting. Ant to go and look at whether [indiscernible] he did what he had to do. I had the job of pay officer that day. That is what i was doing. I was riding on a vehicle with a little brown canvas bag filled with military certificates, which is what passed for money out there. And we werevehicle heading out me and a few other guys heading to this platoon position. We hit a landmine. Everything just blew. What do you remember after that . Aftermath, iate remember, i remember the blast and i remember feeling and seeing flames. I conked out. I do not think i was out that long. I was blown off the vehicle and i was lying on the ground and there was someone shaking me and saying, lieutenant, lieutenant, are you ok . I was or at least i thought i was. Mine. D, we hit a you have it pretty bad, but it will be ok. I said, fine. My sergeant came over and said, how are you doing . We need a perimeter defense out here. , when you have an obstacle like a landmine and someone hits it and everybody is running off, thats when you cut them all down. It is called cover and an obstacle. Permit and we do not want to be sitting here like sitting ducks. Like any good as sergeant, i have already done that. Underestimate the enlisted marines. What happened next . I was still lying here. He said, are you in pain . I said, some, not horrible. He said, i cannot give you any pain medication. You are such a head wound, we just cannot do it. Will be the chopper here very shortly. A helicopter came in, they put me on. I was the chopper took me hospital, notield nearfar away, it was monkey mountain. Had, wheneing they the chopper landed, people grabbed the stretcher i was on and started running with it are running into the hospital. And there was a doctor there, two or three doctors and they welieutenant, you know think you either swallowed some fields or you swallowed some flames. We have to open your throat. We have to make sure you can breathe. We are going to have to put in an airway, which means we have to cut into your throat and, cannot do itably with much anesthesia and we will drive. Started this cut, the next thing i knew, a knife was going across my throat. Like any good at marine, i passed out. For how long . Who knows . Tub i woke up i had hq a e in my throat. It was done. It was over with. For a month. E it was horrible but cause it kept getting filled with gunk. And they had to some suction out to be gunk. Where did you spend the month . G. You know in danan it was a city. We were out somewhere and they said, where are you . We always said near danang. That is where we were. We were out in the boonies. They had set up was pretty formidable. I was probably there three weeks. Where did you go next . I went briefly to Clark Air Force base. Basically from vietnam up to japan, where they did some more surgery. I was not really aware of this, potentiallyobably a going to die. They were not ready to send me home. I think they needed to stabilize my condition. And up in japan at an army hospital, it was a really good one, they did some skin grafting. They did some stuff to avoid infection. Weeks. As there three what is the story of your wife, jane, at the time, coming to japan . Notified. Ot she was teaching. Some officers came to her school and told her i had been wounded. And they did not have any details and only said there had been some burns. Us, weid do not call will keep you informed. They didnt keep her informed. Know, she tried to run me down. She called people. [indiscernible] she asked the doctor who was treating robert tempora timberg, and they said they did not know a robert hamberg. Timberg. I was lost for all intents and purposes. The people who needed to know where i was, the marine hierarchy, my wife, my ther. The way it got straightened out was my father. Passed on. He had lots of quartz. He was a jewish body billion. Llian and wonderful composer. He was also a christian scientist. But not exactly a great christian scientists, but he wanted to be one. The way he dealt with the idea hemedicine and doctors is would take doctors out to dinner or at christmas, give them gifts. Vietnam, heent to try something similar. He was living in scranton, pennsylvania. There was a marine there. There were like four or five marines. My father became friends with them and took them out to lunch and stuff like that. I am sure he was probably devastated when he found out i was wounded. No one could find me. He wanted their and said to those guys, please, find my son. And they found me the next day. A there was a pay issue in the middle of all of that. The pay issue was you are not getting paid. I was in san diego. I was not getting paid. I was not aware. It was something that was not on my radar. Lee, what impact did he have on your life . Chris other than janie, my first wife, he was probably the person most responsible for my return to the real world. Surgeon. A plastic a relatively young guy. When i first met him, he was a doctor and Lieutenant Commander at a naval hospital. Me several times. Years later, when he was out of the service, he operated on me again in kansas city. He was just remarkable. How many operations . Up with ad i came number of about 35. How many times were you under anesthesia . We did not count the stuff which was not that much. Mostly under general anesthesia. What to see join mostly . What was he doing mostly . A lot of it was skin grafts but a lot was loosening up my my mouth was swollen to the size of a straw. Pullingome cutting and and reshaped my mouth. Some of theto pull stuff inside of your mouth, the red stuff out and formed lips. That was one of the kinds of things he did. That was sort of amazing. Place hadng that took pulled my nostrils up really, really sharply. A kind of horsey look and he managed to release that. And bring them down. Ye would work on my eyes, m ears, my cheeks. Do not know what i would have done without him. , beinglong did it take in a position where you could go out and look for a job . Lynn took me out of the hospital. I was at a certain point after i been there over a year at the San Diego Naval hospital, he said, i am going to discharge you because we have done all we can do right now. Your skin has to go through several stages. Hard,going to get tight, but it has too soft and. A salford but it has to soften. The hospital for me had become a safe haven. I do now want to come out on the streets and how people see me. I was panicked. Going tothat i was have to leave the hospital. As so it became, what do i do . I did not want to not do nothing. Something i had to do to sort of give my life some meaning. But i had no idea what it was going to be. I mention it in the book whenever i thought about this, i had visited me standing before a board with a star on top. And in the pointer audience were all of these tank Truck Drivers and i was telling them where to go. Are the only reason it is ever made sense to me was texaco , when i was in a the Naval Academyh my first , they sent me my first credit card. Texaco is gone, but i still remember my number. [laughter] while, you ended up at stanford. What year and what did you do . Towhen a lynn told me i had leave the hospital, i had to come up with something to do. Decided i had to go to graduate school because what i knew i had to leave the marines, the platoon. Had to make sure that marines looked good. It seemed to me that the carry over into civilian life. Do . Came, what to do i history sounded good. Affairsy, international , all interesting. Nothing really hit. And one point, she said, what about journalism . Excuse me for saying this, that is like the dumbest idea you ever had. A youfraid to go outside are coming up with a job where i have to go out and confront people with my little notebook and pen and get them to talk to me. It would be an utter disaster. She dropped it for the time being, but then we got closer, and we still had not come up with anything that works. She said, why dont you consider journalism again . All of the things we looked at and did not want to do, you , as awrite about them journalist and reporter. You know, it would be what do you think . I thought i would try that. I had nothing else. It landed on journalism. I went to graduate school. How many jobs have you had in journalism . Well, i guess three. I had my first job after the annapolis evening capital. Then i want to the baltimore evening sun, where i was a local reporter. Then i went to the baltimore in, or the morning sun, washington. Wanted to go. I won it to be a Washington Court i wanted to be a washington correspondent anyway. I was a reporter for years and years and then i became an editor. My friend said i crossed over to the dark side. I agree with him. How many years with the baltimore papers . 30. Ow newspapers for 35 years. I want to ask you about a sentence in your book. That beginning to feel i did notmebody believe in it was quarreling with us. Who is this someone . Was it god . What is your relationship with god . Part, we havet given each other [indiscernible] do you believe at all . And what impact i do not think i think what i would say is i do not not believe which is different from saying i do believe. Like many people, who knows . Point when ever at a you did not believe in him . Probably not. I think i said something in here in of the early part of the book that it was never clear to me if there was a god, was he a good god or a different or indifferent . It would be just as easy for him to squash me or let me live through this. Before, i had been a pretty strong catholic. Your mama was catholic . Yes. My mom was catholic. At a certain point, i lost it. Many questions i could not resolve. How long did this book take you to write . Five years. , at what point in this book was the pain the most intense . The actual but did pain of going through 35 operations and how do you describe the pain . The worst pain was when when a doctor was operating trying to do something on my eyes. They would try they needed to but they need to meet a they needed me awake the localeason, anesthetic there were going to be using would not take. It kept washing out and the doctor said, we probably have to do this anyway. He operated on the lower part of my eye with no anesthesia. I just screamed and screamed for i do not know how long. Was, that was probably the most painful. And it was just sort of regular post up pain. You talk about scars intimidating people. When was the worst example of this and how has it been in recent years . Probably the worst example was when there are lots of examples. That comes mostly to mind was when i was working for was avening sun and i reporter and i was leaving a 2 guys onil and i saw the corner, who i recognize as officials of the administration of schaeffer. We said, hello. We were just talking, shooting the breeze. Obviously, a homeless woman, essentially in rags comes up to us and steps in the midst and starts looking around at us, like she was an officer inspe