governments but that state governments were better providers of services. so they enacted in, believe it or not, 1969 or '70, i forget, something called general revenue sharing. in which this was an appropriation in the federal budget and where the money was allocated to states in accordance with population. and in accordance with certain demographic statistics that clearly were a reflection of need. that program evanesced in subsequent years, frankly, because there was no constituency that was for it. people at every local level liked it, but the education lobby, the construction lobby, the union lobbies, everybody had their own shtick. and maybe it can't work in the kind of political system we have in this country. what do i believe should be an answer? i think above all the federal government's got to put more money into infrastructure. you know, rich was just in boston recently with the head of the u.s. chamber of commerce, and there are not very many, if any, issues that they would agree upon other than the fact -- and this goes back years. i mean, years ago we had a conference here in washington this which tom donohue, then the u.s. chamber, and rich's predecessor, josh sweeney, came and said the same thing they said recently in boston. i mean, that is the most essential way, because it creates jobs, and it's an investment in the future. and everything else we're doing is we're kicking the can down the road and creating liabilities for the future be instead of -- future instead of assets for the future. and that's the key thing. >> dick, i want to thank you for, one, an extraordinary book and, two, an extraordinary life. and knowing his passion for solving problems and hard work, i can tell you that there are chapters yet to be written in this book, and he will be adding to everything he's done. dick, i can only say that thanks for being such a good friend to me -- [applause] buy lots of books. dick will be outside, and he will sign some of them for you. appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thank you all for coming. i appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> next from the 2014 conservative political action conference, booktv talked to richard miniter about his new book, "eyes on target." in the book he chronicles the history of the navy seals and discusses seal operations going back to the vietnam war. he also reports on the actions of two seals who perished during the attack on the american diplomatic mission in libya on september 11th, 2012. >> host: now joining us on booktv is author richard richard miniter. what do you write about? >> guest: i write about things that interest me, and i hope they interest other people. this latest book is about the navy seals, but it's a little bit different. it's about the culture of the navy seals, what makes them different, unique people. i mean, the united states navy has spent millions of dollars trying to discover what, how a navy seal is made, you know? what makes some people go through basic training, and what makes 70% of people fail. and they look for demographics, ethnicity, family backgrounds, they looked at religion, and they found that none of that mattered. some of the most successful navy seals grew up in wealthy suburban homes, and some of the real standout navy seals grew up on food stamps in public housing. some were white, some were black, jeh johnson for many years was a navy seal, some are hispanic, some are asian. many are foreign born, and in this book i have the first-ever story of drago who grew up in communist poland. all economic backgrounds, all faiths. can't find the common denominator except for one thing, they never quit. what makes a seal get through all of these levels of training and makes them a real standout in combat is they're able to do three things at the same time which no one else can really do. they dominate their bodies. they control their bodies and fight physical exhaustion. and hell week is one of those things they do and underwater demolition school that really forces them to be able to do that, they go almost a week without sleep. secondly, it dominates your mind. you must fight confusion. you must fight fear. and this was when there's great physical fatigue and when there's great mental fatigue, your mind gets worn out too. the ability to persevere through that mental fog. and thirdly, to dominate your spirit, to drive your will, to constantly go forward. to be able to do those three things at the same time, there are individuals who can do one or the other or the third one. but to really do all three is really extraordinary. and this culture that creates these unique people is under threat as our politically-correct defense department begins to change what's culturally allowed among this unique set of commandos is changing as well. and that was interesting to me, so that's why i wrote this week. >> host: are there women in the seals? >> guest: not yet, although the defense department is certainly looking at this. there are former seals who have had sex change operations, so some would say that there are women now. but seals are unusual outliers. i mean, not everyone can be a seal. in fact, very few people can. it's an extraordinary thing. whether there's a lot of debate within the community, within the seal community about whether women can physically do it. i talked to a u.s. army ranger instructor, someone who trains rangers. and rangers are very demanding physical rams as well. and he -- programs as well. and he pointed out the case of a woman olympic athlete who couldn't get through ranger training. and, you know, there are male olympic athletes who female to get through seal training. so the question is whether or not you can maintain the same standards and have women. and that sounds like a political question, but for the navy seals involved it's really a practical and physical one. can you, you know, do the push-ups, can you carry the heavy load, can you physically endure for, you know, 140 hours? can you carry those heavy logs, you know? can you physically do the job? because seals are operating in some of the most demanding environments on earth. there are seal operations where they're dropped from 40,000 feet at, you know, 8 miles high into a cold ocean 10 miles offshore where they're swimming underwater. one of the missions we talked about in this book, they're literally swimming with sharks in the philippines, swimming in the cold waters of the pacific to set up surveillance wee cons. they're operating -- beacons. they're operating at high altitudes, 11, 12,000 feet in the mountains of afghanistan and other places. so that takes a great deal of physical endurance. >> host: how many navy seals are there, and how many try out? >> guest: the exact number is classified, but it is roughly about 2,000 navy seals worldwide, and then there's an alumni organization of a few thousand more. at some point i think every boy -- and girls, i'm sure, do too -- think about being a navy seal. but those who actually get to try out for b.u.d.s. is about 10,000 over the last ten years. so to even get to the point where you're able to go to basic underwater demolition school which is basic training for seals is a demanding process by itself. used to be you had to join the navy and go through navy basic training. now you can join the navy ask get selected for seal training directly. but each after you get through b.u.d.s., there's sqt which is another demanding training program. it takes about a year to year and a half of grueling selection process to get through that program, and very true do. -- few do. less than 20% in most classes make it through the program. and these are highly selected, highly fit, young people who have demonstrated capability. annapolis grads, former marines, olympic athletes, all these people fail. >> host: how long does one stay in the seals? >> guest: that's a great question. you think it's a young man's game, but i've had a great number of seals who are still in active duty who are in their mid to late 30s. often they want to do about 20 years to get the pension. i discovered in writing "eyes on target" it's a record number of early retirement, people leaving after 16 years or 12 years, and that's because they sense it's becoming more politically correct. there are, outside of prisoners who press charges which turned out to be false and seals were later exonerated at trial, but the trials went on for a year and a half before they were exonerated, and once they were found not guilty -- this was the case with seal team ten who captured the al-qaeda leader at fallujah who was responsible for that infamous atrocity that was seen around the world, five years later seal team ten captured the guy behind it. it was a flawless operation. they turned him in without firing a shot. it reads like a thriller, the chapter on how they caught him. but the guy behind it was woken up about four hours after the capture and said you're in big trouble, and he said, why? the prisoner has a bloody lip. seals were later exonerated. many of them then decided after they'd been subjected to this degree of legal scrutiny, they just didn't want to sign up for another tour, and the taxpayers lost millions of dollars in training and investment in each of these men. this is something we really need to think about. yes, we need to protect the rights of human rights of prisoners. we also have to realize that al-qaeda in manuals that we have captured in the somali plains of afghanistan, other places, trains people to make false reports in order to tie up our military in red tape and keep our war fighters off the field. we have to be aware that sometimes the enemy will make always reports on purpose, not in good faith, and we have to protect the seals and other special operators from that, or they'll spend all their time in court and not enough time protecting our fellow americans from some of the deadliest people on earth, al-qaeda and the taliban. >> host: what kind of access were you granted officially to write -- >> guest: i got a fair amount of very good access to current and retired seals, some of whom are not named in the book. but both my co-author, scott mckind, who co-wrote american sniper, we both had a fair amount of access to interesting people. >> host: why do we hear so much about seal team six? >> guest: well, should we be hearing so much about seal team six. one of the things the seals complain about is that they're becoming famous, and they thought it was a mistake for vice president biden to name them as the executioners of osama bin laden. and when there was an attack on seal team six about 90 days of after bin laden's death, shooting down a helicopter which led to the single greatest loss of life for navy seals in their history since d the day, they thought that was retaliation by al-qaeda for them killing osama bin laden. so naming them, they think, put their lives at risk and the lives of their families at risk. now, we know from intelligence documents -- and this is in the book -- that al-qaeda has an online unit that looks through social media, especially facebook, to find the identities of seals and their families. >> host: seal is an acronym for? >> guest: sea, air and land, basically. it was a term developed in the kennedy years. before that they were frogmen and underwater demolition teams. they snuck into enemy harbors and put bombs on the bottom of the boats and cleared obstacles for submarines during world war ii. that was the udt. seals came about in the early 1960s through kennedy. kennedy, of course, jfk, had been on the -- a skipper of the pc-109, and he understood the ability of a small boat and a small crew of navy personnel, what a big difference they could make in combat, especially in the pacific. so he pushed for a naval commando force that could go in the sea, the air and the land, aller terrains, all environment. not just operating from ships, but operating very far from land. and now, you know, so in vietnam they went out of the blue waters of the navy into the brown waters of south insurgency -- counterinsurgency and deep into the jungle, laos, cam pose ya and vietnam. -- cambodia and vietnam. ..