The question is, will we learn from them . Time. Okay. Thank you all for coming. Ill be over here signing books if you would like one. [applause] on behalf of the library, thank you again for coming. And thank you to all of you for coming and your great questions. For more information on events like this, visit the web site. Have a great night. [applause] [inaudible conversations] weed like to hear from you. Tweet us your feedback, twitter. Com booktv. Cspans newest book, sundays at eight. A collection of interviews with some of the nations top story tellers. In the beginning of the war when you were afraid of holding the gun. Then when we went to the first battle and we fought and i shot somebody, kill somebody, it does something to you that you start to its very difficult in the beginning but after time went on it became easy, became normalized, and actually in the context of war this is what happens. You normalize the situation so you can live through it because if you dont, you die. One of 41 unique voices from 25 years of book notes and q a conversations. Now available at your Favorite Book seller. Coming up next on booktv, well show you a couple of panels from the 2014 virginia festival of the book. Up next, well s history. Then finally, frank jones, the author of blow torch. An american cold war strategy, will conclude todays program. He is a professor at the u. S. Army war college up at carlisle, pennsylvania, and holds the eisenhower chair of National Security. I think that is all of the groundwork we need to cover, and with that, i would like please for jan to begin our program. Thank you. At first glance the story of uss kirk, the lucky few, book that im speaking about, seems a little storied. It seems almost insignificant. The 35 years, this story remained unknown and untold. And that may be for a very simple reason. Its a vietnam story. When our most traumatic and divisive conflict since the civil war ended in chaos, and some say shame, americans wanted nothing more to do with vietnam. It was a nightmare best forgotten. A little story and insignificant one . On the contrary. This is the vietnam story i think is very much worth telling. In the next few minutes allow me to let you sample just a little piece of it. Lieutenant bob lenke wandered into the uss kirk communication center. There was a large radar repeater that consolidated information from other displays. One look at the repeater screen put everything into perspective. Each green blip was a ship of some sort, making it easy to quickly see the location of every craft on a master grid. But the screen image appeared odd. The shoreline was out of focus. Going topside to the flying bridge, he grabbed the large binoculars and scanned the brightening horizon. The mystery of the blurry radar screen instantly cleared up. Hundreds of boats were heading out to sea in kirks direction. As the distance closed, he noted every type of watercraft from small fishing vessel to rubber raft. The lieutenant was shocked to see a small wooden dugout with a man, woman, and two children, clinging for dear life. As he recalled, on that dugout were all the family possessions, including a small motor bike. These people were simply paddling out to sea, hoping to get to the rescue ships. The magnitude of the nations final collapse suddenly became real and very personal for this young navy lieutenant. For days prior to the fall of saigon, the byproduct of that real lentless conquest of the north Vietnamese Army where towns of panicked refugees trying to leave the country in anything that would float. On that same tuesday, 438foot dry escort uss kirk was operating off the South Vietnamese coast. Overhead large ch53 and ch46 helicopters began shuttling american and vietnamese evacuees from saigon. These vietnamese were the people who helped us during the war and whose lives would not be worth much once the north vietnamese took saigon. Just as suddenly, hoards of up known contacts began fogging the radar screen. South vietnamese arm asky ask air for hughies were following the large men helicopters back out to sea. And they were packed with fleeing refugees. Airman donald cox and the ships chief engineer, lieutenant hugh doyle, recognized what was happening. He knew an evacuation was going on and with each helicopter that would pass us we had an open deck, doyle and many crew members were caught up in the excitement and saw the possibilities. We never anticipated a helicopter landing on us, but we started talking about it. Wouldnt it be great to grab a helicopter . Wouldnt it be great to take part in this . Be careful what you wish for. An attempt to advertise kirks hospitality, the ships first class store keeper, who spoke rudimentary vietnamese, ban broadcasting on the air distress frequency. Ship 1087, the hull number of kirk. Land here. 20 minutes later, air min Gerald Mcclellan waved his first huey on the flight deck with a lot of refugees. The following night, which would have been the 30th of april, of 1975, commander paul jacobs, co of the ship, received a cryptic message from at the task force commander. He was ordered to dispatch the whale beach to pull along side a ship and take aboard a mysterious passenger. That passenger was a man named richmond armitage, a 30yearold civilian. When he came aboard, he dressed for the South China Sea at that time of year, dressed in a sports coat, tie, and he had 45 automatic in a shoulder holster. And Captain Jacobs said to him, im not used to having armed civilians come aboard my ship in the dead of night, upon which armitage anged in a very gruff voice, im not used to coming aboard armed in the dead of night but i have a job to do. I work for the secretary of defense. Armitage then outleonides what would be a secret mission for the kirk. The remnants of the South Vietnamese navy, 32 ships in all, would gather just off the South Vietnamese coast. Their job would be to rendevous with the ships at dawn the following day and escort them across the South China Sea, to safety in the philippines. The following more than as the kirk pulled into view of the island, the sun was just coming up, and what was evident all around them, the 32 ships they expected but what they hadnt expected was what appeared to be a humanitarian disaster in the making. Lieutenant hugh doyle likened what he saw to a bun of hershey bars dropped on a hot summer sidewalk and all of them crawling with ants. Kirks co recalled the scene. Some of them were anchored, some were not, some were adrift, just loaded with people all the way up to the bridge. I estimated 2,000 to 3 on the people on one ship. I said this is going to be an insurmountable problem. How can we pull this off . Just how uss kirk pulled off the rescue of an estimated 30,000 refugees aboard the 32 ships is the real story. The subject of my book, the lucky few. In 2009, i was completing a book entitled Navy Medicine in vietnam vietnam toy which told the story of my generations war. The last chapter focused on the humanitarian task, Navy Medical Personnel played in caring for the thousands of refugees who fled South Vietnam when that nation ceased to exist. To complete the last chapter i first had to get the stories of the medical personnel who took care of those folks. After determining the names of the ships that comprised the seventh Fleet Task Force i went to the internet, as we all do now. I dont know what we did before the internet. Wanted to determine what vessels might have reunion organizations. The next step was emailing each organization to request information from those ships. Win an hour of hitting the send on my mouse, captain paul jacobs, former skipper of the uss kirk, called and told me what special roll his ship had played in this drama. Before long i was phoning or emailing other members of the crew. Jacobs then invited me and my boss, at the time the Surgeon General of the navy, vice admiral adam robinson, and invited us to a reunion of the ship which took place in suburban washington. Captain jacobs was invited to lunch, and during lunch, during the salad course, the admiral turned to to me and said, you make documentaries. You must make a film about the uss kirk. People have to know about this incredible and intold story. More than two years of Challenging Research followed. I spent countless hours pour over the kirks logs and other ships that took part in the rescue. My crew and i, my film crew and i went around the United States, interviewing members of the kirks crew, and also former vietnam yes refugees who were now settled in the United States. We then assembled all the components and assembled the documentary. At the next kirk reunion in july of 2010, the lucky few, the story of uss kirk, showed for the first time. That was the premiere. Shortly thereafter, National Public radio aired several stories about kirks rescue mission. That threepart npr series won national acclaim. And on veterans day, november 11, 2010, we showed the lucky few at the something i sewnan institution in Smithsonian Institution in washington. It became clear to me that a onehour film could scarcely do justice to this story. Writing a book based on the lucky few documentary offered new opportunities, to tell more of the story and to incorporate what had unfortunately ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. In most hollywood films the book comes first. Followed by the movie. I would reverse the order, with the advantage of adding flesh to the bones of an already larger than life event. I had the opportunity to tell a wonderful story of an extraordinary ship and its crew. One of the players in the lucky few drama, a man named eric von mar, who in 1975 was a highranking official for the department of defense, pointed out to me the storys true significance. After the war, president fords task force for the resettlement of indochina refugees resettled more than 130,000 evacuees from laos, cambodia, vietnam, and communities, around the United States. It wasnt long before almost all of them became american citizens. Since uss kirk and her sister, u. S. Navy vessels, saved more than 30,000 South Vietnamese refugees that means one in four vietnamese resettled in the United States by that task force can trace their new beginning in this nation to the Mission Accomplished by the uss kirk. Decades later the true significance of the rescue comes into perspective in very eye lon ironic ways. Let me tell you a story story. Hugh doyle, the kirks chief engineer, now lives new newport, rhode island e. R. A. Tired commander in the u. S. Navy and get is his medical care at the naval stations clip i can, which is run by the navy, of course. Two years ago he went to clinic for his routine checkup and learned his regular physician had been reassigned to the Naval Hospital down in pensacola, florida, and he had a new physician. Lieutenant commander kon van nguyen. At his first appoint; doyle asked his new physician, i notice you have a vietnam yes name. How did your family get to this country . And the doctor responded that he really didnt know about the familys exodus since he was a baby at the time. Moreover, his father died and they ever said anything about it. His mother only spoke vietnam yes and she never talked about it. Doyle just happened to have a copy of the lucky few documentary on a dvd in his car. He went out to his car and brought it in and gave it to the doctor. He watch it and the next doyle bent walk for an appointment he said did you see the system he said i saw it but it didnt tell me much about my own story. Seems the doctors family settled in the San Francisco bay area in flourishes. He recalled his family never discussed their flight from vietnam. After he watched the documentary, he had probing questions to ask the rest of the other members of his family, including his elder older sister who had been 15 at the time of the exodus in 1975. The doctors sister and brother visited with him. They were taking their daughter to Boston College and they stayed with the doctor and his family, and he put the dvd on and put the film up on the tv set, and the daughter went crazy. Excuse menot the daughter. His sister. Saw the ship in the film. She saw he the hull number, hq1. Hq was a vietnamese designation. She saw the number and suddenly she began she got very agitated, started crying, and said, thats the ship we came over on. They escaped on that ship. She said she remembered a small navy ship coming alongside and delivering rice and water and medical care, and that ship, of course, is the uss kirk. But doyle says today, in utter amazement, what are the odds that this family would have escaped from vietnam . What are the odds they would have gotten aboard a ship and gotten to the island, what are the odds they would have made it from the island across the South China Sea to the philippines. And then from the philippines to a refugee camp in guam. What are the odds one i got in country i visited the joint chiefs of staff in saigon. The chairman was a friend of mine, 68 and 69 when i was there. And i was getting briefed and i asked him, general, who is creating all of the violations of the peace treaty . And interestingly he didnt answer me but he said, i have a record of every violation, and i said whats in that record . And he said, well, we have the size of the enemy, enemy killed, friendly killed, attacks by fire, the number of rounds, the size. That intrigued me because thats exactly the data we had used in my division in 68 and 69 in order to improve combat effectiveness. I said i have a whole Building Full of commuters and if you give us that data on a daily basis would would analyze it every week and give you the parameters i know would help improve effectiveness and save lives. They agreed to that. We set up the protocols and went back and analyzed the nine months of data he had. On 2 december 1973, i reported back to him, i said, from your data, the north vietnamese are doing 90 of the attacks. That pleased them because they were beaten about the ears by washington, why are you fighting the war . I said more important, whenever you attack youre much more efficient, and youre much more effective. I said besides that, in analyzing your data, youre so spread out that the north vietnamese at any time they want can get a preponderance of force and theyre taking your land and your people and if you dont get on the offensive youre going to lose your country. So they went on the offensive. And we analyzed how to hey were doing. They were doing fantastic. Much better than the north vietnamese. Inside of several months they gained back owl of their territory, all of their people. They had now under control 93 of the people in vowing vietnam. South vietnam. But then in july of that Year Congress reduced tremendously the amount of funding they had. They gave them 700 million. But there was a tie. They said we want setasides. We want you, South Vietnam to pay for the dao. 40 million. We want you to pay nor admiral we sent you, which you have not yet received. 55 million. Pay nor packing, 30 million. So they took off 117 million, leaving them 583 million. Now, when you compare that to what they had the year before, 1. 1 billion, and consider that petroleum increased 100 , ammunition increased 69 , the vietnamese had only 37 of the funding the year before. They were doomed. They could not win the war with that. They couldnt buy the bullets, they couldnt they tighten their belt and said im going to conserve ammunition. The Vietnamese Air force said we planned 708,000 air hours, cut it back to 332,000. They said if we have to pay for dao why do we want your American Contractors . We cant buy the parts to put them in so well cannibalize our own aircraft. Headquarterses were concerned about the rusk in funding and asked us, please determine what force structure they need. Our staff did a great job, picked out four Different Force structures. But we focused on the funding. We said if they get less than 1 billion, theyll lose the war. When they got to washington, washington said, well, Congress Gave them 700 million. Well good out and ask for supplemental from congress for 300 million. The president went and begged congress for 300 minimum set aside 300 million supplemental. Kiss sin kissinger begged. And South Vietnamese said theyll well be able to win but they were still spread out and still had no reserve. So in november be became very concerned about what was going on. Every week we analyzed and every week they get weaker and weaker. Why . They didnt have the fire power, didnt have the air cover. Still much stronger than the north vietnamese. And so in march, excuse me, in that study that we made, we called it the vietnam assessment, we decided. What will happen in march of 75 when the winter spring offensive comes . We said the north vietnamese will probably good for limited objectives as they had in the past, we also said if they brought down two to five devices in the north, they would overwhelm the South Vietnamese. So in march of that year, when they did attack, they attacked a small provincial capital and cape with multiple divisions, come binned arms, lots of fire power, and the South Vietnamese had no reserve. Took it down. No big deal. Only 5,000 troops. Most of them were territorial. But it spooked president tiu, on his own, without talking to his open people or the u. S. , decided he would withdraw forces from the north. Bring them back and have a cordon around saigon and protect saigon and the delta. Withdrawing under pressure is a very difficult thing and he was ill conceived in what he said and it was totally unnecessary, but his core commanders did not plan well. It was a debacle. When