Here at the George University and is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce our third moderator for today, tom shanker. Tom is the director of our project for and National Security in the of media and public affairs, which is part of our Columbian College of arts and sciences. Tom was named to his position in june of 2021. After nearly a quarter century with the New York Times, including 13 years as a pentagon correspond and in covering the depart department of defense overseas combat operations and National Security, he most recently as the deputy washington editor, the times managing coverage of the military diplomacy and Veterans Affairs early in the war in afghanistan, tom was embedded with Army Special Forces at kandahar and subsequently conducted of reporting trips to afghanistan and in iraq. Toms new book is entitled age of danger keeping safe in an era of new superpowers, new and new threats. It will be published on may 9th. Tom we look forward to your panel. Beyond the war. And its my pleasure to you to the stage. Thank you so much for that very generous reaction. Thanks of you for returning after lunch. Thats always, you know, a moderators concern, just one point to be made. The authority of the chair of the provost was kind enough to speak about the project for media and national that i am honored to direct. We talked all morning about the of vietnam to today the project for media and National Security was founded just after the end of the war in vietnam by two reporters who were deeply concerned about the horrible state of military Media Relations, something that well talk about later. And since all those years, the project convenes small meetings, Large Group Meetings between senior military, National Committee officials and the Washington Press corps to try to reestablish at least some level of trust in an adversarial environment and to help educate the American Public about these very important things. So legacy that weve been talking about lives today here at gw, at the school of media and public affairs. So i am honored to be moderating just a really outstanding panel of, distinguished journalists and authors. Elizabeth becker is former correspondent for the Washington Post, npr and the New York Times, where we first met. Among her many books on and cambodia is you dont belong here how three women rewrote the story of the war. Next to her is david maraniss. He currently serves as associate editor the Washington Post. And even though im a former times man, theres no macys. Gimbel competition today will will be okay. Among his many books is, they marched into sunlight war and peace, vietnam and america. October 1967. And on the forehead is jim starbuck. He was a war correspondent for the New York Times in in 1969 and 1970. His include nature wars, the incredible of how wildlife comebacks turned backyards into battlegrounds. So thank all three of you for joining us today. And i am honored to be your moderator. Our Mission Today is to talk about the Cultural Impact of the and beyond. And i know all three of you have thought about vietnam and its Cultural Impact through those years to today in very different ways. And i just love to hear each of you speak about it. Jim, id like to start with you, please. One of the problems that has up in the 50 years is that the since all volunteer army, which is the result of the war was, is that the the the military the army has gotten very estranged. The civilian population. Theyre they cant recruit enough. Something like at last figure i believe was Something Like 85 of the people in the military have had had relatives that had fathers and grandfathers in the military and that a huge of all the recruits for the army come from a five or six states along the southern. And so a lot of the people in the other parts of the country have less and less do no less and less. The the military and that thats having an enormous on. I think the term viability, the military. I was at a conference at fort benning when the ken burns. Lynn novick vietnam documentary came out in the recruiting general was there talking what ought to be done about this and and there were about 600 current officers and retired military officers that conference. And he asked at the end, what should we do . And almost everybody said there ought to be a National Service input now we ought to have at least one or two years of everybody serving in either the military, the peace, the teacher corps, some kind of form of National Service, kind of coalesce the country around the notion of that kind of service. Thats one of the problems. But you also see a disconnect in our National Security policy. The case has been made that, you know, when we had a draft army, every family or most families or many families felt the impact of the war. Now, the military is drawn from this 1 . The nation can go to war without the nation really to war. Right. And do you see that as a danger for our our Society Today . I think that if the question is National Service, be a danger no no would in somehow getting more of the population involved in national National Security policy because few serve. Isnt that a danger because it separates the vast majority of our population from important National Security. Questions. Yes, i think thats true. And i think we ought to involve. More people, more americans in in this whole process. Mm hmm. David, youve looked at much more a domestic question. Can you talk about some of your reporting and in particular, the book i mentioned . Well the reason i wrote the book is because the Cultural Impact of the vietnam war. I am a baby boomer. I was born in 1949. I had already written books about Vince Lombardi and bill two completely opposite figures in american history. But both of whom the central years, the 1960s. And that was the defining decade for me as well. And so i in both of those books, one, i start when was writing them. When i got to the sixties, i sort of slowed down and became more obsessed and realized thats why i had write about that decade and chose the vietnam or as the vehicle for that. I was a freshman at the university of wisconsin and in 1967, when the first Violent Police action against students took place in the Commerce Building against when there was a sit down protest against dow chemical company, ironically, and so that was sort of a defining moment for. Me, i was wearing my first blue jean jacket. I was in the edge of the crowd watching that happened. But i decided should start there because 1967 is when everything was still up in the air. You know, it was before you didnt know what was going to happen. It seemed like the culture was every week, you know, like a week would be a year. And so i went to the the morgue at the Washington Post and said what was going on in vietnam that day and found this battle that happened where 60 men were killed, 60 wounded out of 140. And it was just a two paragraph story in the papers, you know, so different from the wars that would follow that. And the only reason it was even a story is because the son of a famous world war two, general terry, was killed in the battle as an allamerican player. Donald hollander, for whom the Holocaust Center at west is named. Anyway, so i, i thought, you know, theres there was terrific literature about the war in vietnam. You know, frankie fitzgerald, so many, you know, as great shining light. But i hadnt seen a and not as much about the Antiwar Movement was norman mailers armies of the night. But thats norman mailer. And it cant be repeated. But i wanted to try to put those two very different worlds together to explore the how, the culture changed because of of those moments. So i juxtaposed the with with the protested vietnam in wisconsin and saw from that changes that reverberate all way through the decades. You know the chancellor at the University William sewell, a great social who had studied the effects of of saturation bombing on tokyo world war two, who the first teach in it against the war in vietnam was the chancellor. When this protest he froze and didnt know how to control the police and he was haunted by that for the rest of his life. A tragic shakespearean figure. On the other side, youd have someone like a young soldier named tom coburn, who is a baby son, because he was so and in the where all everybody was being killed. He was hiding behind a tree and saw one of his comrades ten feet away in the sunlight. And tom knew that if he went to try to help him, he would get killed. And he didnt do it. He couldnt do it if he froze. And that haunted him for the rest his life. By the time i interviewed 35 years later at a reunion in las vegas, i started talking to him and he was holding a glass of water and was shaking. So much was spilling all over the floor. And, you know, its a moment that can never get past no other soldiers would get past it in various. But the ramifications of that, the point is that that wars really never end for who are involved in them in different ways. Thank you very much, elizabeth. Well, where to start . I went to cambodia to cover the war when finished my first year in graduate school. I wrote a book that included frank is one of the three women who paved the way for me. So just being here, im a cultural a culture oddity because thanks to frank and some other women during the vietnam war broke through the barrier and became and were able to cover wars from the battlefields for the first time and forever. Its a fabulous story that has a lot to do with coincidence, but mostly to do with the fact that president johnson refused to declare vietnam a war, which meant the war. The rules for media were suspended. So the medias a bunch, mostly white guys. They they felt like they had the equivalent of a year rail card show to get a commander to to come. And then they could go on the helicopter truck, whatever. Well, incidentally, there is space for women because theres not that barrier wasnt there. And lo and behold, general westmoreland was was inspecting some troops, saw a woman he knew who was the daughter, his wifes tennis partner back in honolulu. And he said, denby, what are you doing here . She said, im covering the war. How long have you been here . A few nights. He goes back to psychoanalysis, going on. Women do not cover the battlefield and the suits of the Defense Department called them down. They came up with a solution, a temporary solution to say, okay women can cover the battlefield just like the and thats history. And from then on, next war, desert storm women went as staff correspondents. And with medium. And so here i am. Im a grateful grateful cultural example. Thats fantastic. And when secretary rumsfeld was making his first trip into kabul early december 2001, he tried to call the Pentagon Press pool, and one of his categories was, women reporters who had children. And of course, they just revolted and everybody flew into kabul with them. But that mindset lasted until june 2000. Right. Thank you. One of the signature cultural elements of a war is the end of the war. When the veterans come home and i know weve talked about this a little bit today, jim, when you and i were chatting on the phone, you mentioned youve spoken to a lot of vets, tried to go back to vietnam and try to understand that that experience. Can you share . Its a great story. There are now several companies you google the most. Some of them run veterans who offer tours to vietnam for veterans specifically and, they go theyll make them as easy, as difficult as you want. But but this started quite early after. The end of the war that people, soldiers wanted to go back and and see vietnam, not see vietnam, but see where they fought. And the hanoi quite sort of suspicious about this sort of had had a Security Officials take the americans around because they thought there doing some spying or something. Later they realized that this was a source of hard currency and they should be encouraged to come back and on. And so various people got involved in giving these veterans. And one of them was a translator for, frankie and me, when we went back to vietnam and halberstam and others named control. And in in danang and mr. Cohn told us this wonderful story. He early in the early days, we would take these groups of veterans and they would say, okay, we just dont want to go to the sun valley. We want to go to hill for 52, which is where we during that battle, this or this month or and so these guys were getting a little bit older these veterans and they were getting little more out of shape and so contra and and the other guys would sometimes sort of cheat a little bit theyd take them to the coast sun valley. But theyd drive to where there was a sort of a slightly less arduous hill. Theyd say, okay, this is your hill, and you can go up this hill. This is where you fought. Well, several years later, when the veterans are even more out of shape and and this is a vietnam humidity heat issue and they to vietnam, except time they had gypsies. And so mr. Cong would these people up to his hill where they he said they fought and theyd say, no, not where we fought. We fought six kilometers that way. Lets go. And this set up a whole system of where strokes, heart attacks for these guys and. Vietnam didnt kill them the first time, but it might the second time, right . So anyway thats thats the best record story. Fantastic. What do you think they were looking for im not a pop psycho democracy closure but they go back on these journeys. What do you think theyre hoping to find . Hoping to see, hoping to learn . Well, i think its a nostalgia thing. I mean, you know know, most people who spent a year in vietnam and and or two and in combat, especially, i mean, those are the most the most impressionable days of their lives. I mean, i still remember where i was in august of 1969. I cant remember anything that happened in the 30 years between after that but i know exactly where i maybe he doesnt mean that they so these you know these are very important milestones in a persons especially if youve been in the war especially even youve seen combat right. David i know you specialize in these conversations. Tell us some of your thoughts. Yeah, well, i did go back to vietnam with clark welch, who was a Company Commander in the battle, survived. It had hit up in the hills of colorado for decades after the war ended because so many of his boys were killed in the battle. And he was afraid that a daughter or wife or mother of one of those would blame him for it, when in fact he had fought valiantly and tried to talk the brass out of walking into that ambush that day. So i went back him and also with Consuelo Allen, who was the daughter of terry allen, who was killed in the battle that the Battalion Commander and clark had had written letters to his wife, lacy, during the war that he gave me all of the letters and several of them. He talked about the beauty of flying over it on a helicopter and seeing the gorgeous and in valleys and that he hoped to go back someday after the war when everything was a piece. And so he thats why he went back with me and also to find the battlefield and we find it and we not only found the but we found the viet cong First Division commander who had fought against that day and had won in the battle. And that day going to the battlefield, which was 44 miles northwest of saigon toward the cambodian border, was the most unforgettable day of my life, because we we drove out there. Kyle horst was my interpreter hes in the audience today. Hes brilliant, vietnam and we we walked about a mile after we all the rutted roads which by the way by the way now are all paved according to kyle found a farmhouse near the battlefield. We were with the military the commander and clerk well, jenkins low. We got into this little farmhouse house. And when vietnam was the farmer and he had fought in that battle any environmental threat recognized him and and noticed that he that he had ten children. And for chet was in charge of population control saigon, and he chewed him out having ten kids. But anyway, then we walked toward the battlefield. Clark well, he had a g. P. S. I had all of the the i knew exactly where where we should be going. And walking toward the battlefield. Unbelievable. Because vietnam being and well, its these two old soldiers who tried to kill each all those decades ago were together, pointing out they were, you. Everything was. They were they just veterans together at that point. And clark welch finally said, if we go 50 yards towards that direction, thats where and he pointed to a trail. Thats where your was killed. Terry allen the commander who had been hiding an aerial when he was killed, you anthills of vietnam could be four or five feet high. We walk through there its a beautiful dappled day. And in early february with trees, with leaves and we get to that spot and theres another anthill and just standing there with clark welch and tread Consuelo Allen and thinking about how time compressed you know into that moment was just the most unforgettable moment of my life at that thats my experience going back with veteran very powerful elizabeth going back well well, i covered the war in cambodia and its memories of extraordinary pain and anguish that i dont think weve discussed quite quite enough to se