An hour with David Petraeus

for mccain auditorium at kansas state university at our present an hour with general david petraeus i'm kate mcintyre general petraeus as the commander of the us central command a position it seemed in october two thousand eight after serving as the commanding general of the multinational force in a raw responsible for the surge petraeus is no stranger to kansas he's served as a commander of fort leavenworth and the combined arms center from late two thousand five to early two thousand seven betray us about april twenty seven two thousand nine giving the one hundred and fifty third landon lecture at kansas state university and now here is general david h petraeus well good afternoon to all of you and thanks for a much present we fall for the invitation to speak here today and for those very kind words you know that's one of those introductions when you're with your parents could have been here you know my father would have enjoyed your kind words my mother would've believed everyone of them

but it is it's great to be back here k statement or a wildcat nation once again and it's wonderful to see all these folks in uniform out here i don't think i'm still say go out here see that we did a nurse at the minnows awesome not bad thanks again on mr president please allow me if i could turn the spotlight back on you for a moment and congratulate you guys you all her on twenty three years of awesome services like a state and on the numerous impressive accomplishments or during your time by all accounts you have been a central element in significant academic athletic and financial growth for the university during your time at the helm and i considered an honor to be the speaker at this your last of eighty one landed lectures well done mr president thank you the pope is breaking through kansas

leaders here today as well the secretary of state as you heard the president the kansas senate and many members of the legislature a number of military leaders here today as leader retired general dick myers former chairman of the joint chiefs and of course an alumnus of this great university i was there the day that they are dedicated dr otc building to him and it was a great moment for this great university and certainly for a great military leader but the ag of the great sunflower state medical taught bonding great to see you again revere joe chris king dean of the mighty command and general staff college at fort leavenworth or please give my best to all the folks in the army's former center of intellectual critical mass i just hope people are still have fresh tape on them and it still conduct the ire major competition twice a year i want to give a special shout out to those thousand or more troopers who have joined us from fort riley as well as to the two hundred or so are otc

cadets in the audience in fact i would actually like to ask all who are serving or have served our country in uniform as you'd stand up so that we can recognize you as well go ahead please stand up and i do one had special recognition that the better present we fall for one of our country's true national assets for many years and that is lieutenant general excites a true legend in armies are one community one of the big red one's greatest champions an absolute american hero his accomplishments could undo that phil history books a graduate of leavenworth high school in nineteen thirty seven and then attended this great institution worry did two years and then decided it was time to get indian form

he rose from lieutenant to lieutenant colonel from nineteen thirty nine to the mid nineteen forties those are some pretty fast for motions original sites perhaps you can give us a few pointers and then he commanded one of the lead the kinds of parachuted into southern france during the operation called dragon world war two later commanded the airborne school served as the chief of staff for our military headquarters in vietnam for two years after which he commanded the great eighty second airborne division an equally great eighteenth airborne corps thanks for all you have done for our country over the years again it's so it's really good to be back a stake to be a man happening i think you call a little apple like really we had a police

escort to get through traffic on the way over here he's been at this time of day it has been a while since my visit here for secretary rumsfeld landon lecture for the dedication of the our otc building and all the rest i am it's great to see that they can for free sunshine that was falling outside couldn't keep your way the sunflowers i guess i must say you do a wonderful job of transforming this great basketball stadium and a superb lecture hall it looks like everybody's your lawyer while he may be easier to use i won't promise of my remarks will be nearly as entertaining as a wildcat basketball game but i do hope to provide a few insights this afternoon in some of the operations were overseeing at central command i'm very aware that the landon lecture as the president mentioned is a platform typically reserved for us and foreign leaders and diplomats so i feel very honored to have the opportunity to speak here

this afternoon before i begin the laughter noted seen so many young leaders in uniform in the audience takes me back to my own de his early days in the army right after finishing my own undergraduate experience at west point i was a brand new lieutenant out a my first field exercise of my platoon would have a long day that we can crawl under our sleeping bags until shortly before midnight i'd only been asleep for an hour or so in my platoon sergeant a wise old dearborn veteran probably serve a gentle sites elbowed me and woke me up serious said look up and tell me what to say so i looked up in a beautiful night sky in replied i see a million stars platoon sergeant and what does that tell you serve my wise old platoon sergeant asked well not exactly sure what he was getting out i thought for a few moments and wanting to impress him i gave an answer that i thought he would conclude to be truly profound and indicative of a keen intellect well platoon sergeant i said

astronomically it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets theologically tells me that god is great and that we are but small and insignificant meteorological it tells me that we're going to enjoy a beautiful day for training tomorrow there is a long pauses my platoon sergeant considered this weighty answer thinking that he might be speechless after such an impressive response i waited a moment to finally ask him well what does it tell you put in sergeant well sir you're applied it tells me that somebody stole art the pope well it was a few years ago and thankfully i've had a little seasoning since then so please rest assured i will try to be profound today and what i will do is discuss to the biggest challenges in the central command area of responsibility to rock in afghanistan

after first providing a brief update on the situation in iraq i'd like to discuss the so called surge and the accompanying concepts to help create such significant progress their operations in which many in this audience performed so magnificently and it is very good to see individuals like oh it gives hope that france sort major jim champagne sergeant isaac kamen of the great black lions of the first of the tornado that youre by any chance say that by golly and they were magnificent and will see that in this survey year right see that of a standup were essentially for your sports teams by the way mr president they were want to give a truly great workout go do pt with the black alliance on the joke and

it was great and memorable but it is wonderful again to have such individuals in the audience today end up to be able to think back on what they accomplished but after that i'm going to get an update on the situation afghanistan highlighting the ways we're seeking to apply lessons learned in iraq the effort there and then i'll be happy to take your questions first as i said the situation in iraq quite simply it has improved substantially know as we see periodically and as we saw last week significant challenges do remain nonetheless levels of violence have been reduced very significantly to those not seen since mid two thousand three before the insurgent and militia problems through the produce the horrific sectarian violence of two thousand sex and the first half of two thousand seven some in the audience will remember and that june two thousand seven when there was an average of one hundred and sixty attacks in iraq per day by contrast in the past four to five months the

average has been between ten and fifteen attacks per day and that is again in no small measure due to the efforts of some of those in this audience those they represent throughout our military and iraqi partners beyond improvements in the security situation in iraq is in january conducted provincial elections which are certified by the un to have been free and fair which resulted in more representative council's than was previously the case in which generally reflected a rejection of the political parties mostly under the influence overall more recently the council of representatives elect a new speech or so speaker and provincial councils have been seated and although i'll cut in iraq does remain a force capable of periodic sensational attacks a rocking coalition forces have dealt a significant blows in the course of the past two years reducing its capabilities considerably moreover increasingly capable and trust and iraqi security forces have taken on expand admiral allowing all this progress to

occur even as we have withdrawn all of the us surge brigades additional us brigade combat team and thousands of non us coalition personnel with further reductions ongoing like to explore for a few minutes what led to such progress the popular understanding is that it was the surge commonly seen as the us sending thirty thousand or so more combat troops into iraq in truth the surge was much more than that and should be in splendor stood more broadly as not just the commitment of more troops but as the accompanying surgeon employment of counterinsurgency principles as well this is not a discount the importance of sending additional troopers especially such a magnificent ones as we have here in this auditorium with us today at the low point of the security situation in iraq we're seeing more than fifty dead bodies and might turn up on the streets of baghdad alone so there was no

doubt that more troopers were needed to help quell the terrific violence just as importantly though the commitment of additional forces signal to the iraqi people the united states' commitment to seeing a rock through the crisis in many cases giving iraq is the confidence to eventually stand up to the extremists themselves to signal a commitment and the resulting companies are forces generated were key ingredients increasing the softball or awakening movement that's so benefitted the security situation in iraq and two thousand seven another key ingredient of the surge was the accompanying a rocky search well over one hundred thousand additional soldiers and police were added to the ranks of the iraqi security forces and two thousand seven ranks that now number over six hundred thousand and total additionally over a hundred thousand local citizens join the sons of iraq program which employed local rock is to help keep their communities secure until

rocky army and police elements were available to maintain security in the area together these efforts provided the strength in numbers necessary to confront the elements that stoke the violence and brought that debt to its knees perhaps the most important element of the surge though was the focus on ensuring our soldiers were employed in line with key counterinsurgency concepts for example as the search commands coalition in a rocky forces begin to focus first and foremost on securing and serving the population we deploy our troopers together with a rocky security force personnel to joint security stations and patrol base is located in the rocky neighborhoods where they lived among protected and served the locals his trust they sought to earn and did earn over time the hard won trust the results from living with the people prove critical improving security as local citizens reassure the security forces were in their neighborhoods to

stay increasingly alerted troopers to malign activity and let them the weapons caches and enemies' safe houses as coalition and iraqi forces began to provide breathing space from the violence embolden the rock is increasingly began to reject violence and those employed this lead to and reinforce the implementation of another key counterinsurgency concept of fostering of reconciliation efforts on the reconciliation front were many and various coalition and iraqi commanders for example facilitated local meetings to bring together rival leaders newly willing to work in partnership for their communities and by the way if you get better or as well in fact as the great colonel ricky gibbs and his brigade in southern baghdad also us in iraq elements work together to reach out to individuals from insurgents to solder us who oppose the iraqi government encouraging them to participate in the political process offering amnesty programs and providing skills training to

disenfranchise military age men we also implemented counterinsurgency concepts inside the wire at our detention facilities identifying the irreconcilable hardcore detainees and separating them from the rest of the day any detainee population and providing jobs training civic education and basic skills training to the rest all of these initiatives proved important efforts to make a rocky communities back together and build support for the iraqi government and other counterinsurgency concept on which we focused was a need for operations to be comprehensive the struggle in iraq and indeed in any counterinsurgency campaign is ultimately about the legitimacy of the government the iraqi people at the end of the day where the decisive terrain and their support for their government was essential just the increased security enabled by the surgeon the concepts we implemented had to

lead to the governance and economic improvements that may be a rocky government legitimate in the eyes of its people we just partner with a rocky officials to help make this the case electricity generation oil production and for commercial development investment were all increased significantly and further job training micro loan programs and job creation initiatives are underway even as the bulk of those tasks are transition to iraqi institutions and overtime in fact the iraqi government has even enacted major legislation on contentious issues increased its managerial capacity and budget execution and conducted important elections by pairing additional us and rocky forces with the employment of counterinsurgency principles secure and serve the population foster reconciliation employ a comprehensive approach we helped achieve important progress in iraq and as president obama recently announced this progress will enable us to carry out

the task is agreed to in the us a rocky security agreement as he also noted however we will have to keep our eye on several looming challenges these include upcoming national elections at the end of the year resilient sunni and shia extremists maligned extra were influences lingering after sectarian mistrust increasing budget pressures still adequate levels of basic services the release of over ten thousand iraqi detainees the anticipated return of hundreds of thousands of moroccans displaced by the sectarian violence and unresolved internal boundaries disputes as president obama stated and i quote there is renewed calls for help in iraq but that hope rests upon an emerging foundation we are of course helping iraq strengthened that foundation again the rock is in a much better state than it was

in early two thousand seven and a number of those in this audience should be rightly proud of the roles they play in tough situations there to achieve progress that we now see turning to afghanistan we see a situation in marked contrast to that in iraq the trend has frankly been a downward spiral in many areas of the country the insurgency in afghanistan has expanded its strength and influence in levels of violence in some areas in two thousand they were double those in two thousand seven the taiwan not tied up and associated syndicate of extremists have demonstrated considerable resilience due in part of the presence of safe havens just across the afghan border with artist on and in part of the steady flow of revenues from illegal narcotics trafficking and donations from outside afghanistan the resurgence of these groups is also resulted in varying degrees throughout the country from frustration with the slow development of afghanistan's fledgling government his legitimacy has suffered due to the

security situation an inability to provide adequate essential services for the people and corruption our fundamental objective in afghanistan remains as the president recently explained to ensure that transnational terrorists are not able to establish the sanctuaries they enjoyed their prior to nine eleven accomplishing this game though requires not just killing or capturing terrorists but also developing afghan security forces reducing the drug trade that finances the insurgency fostering the growth of afghan government so that it can achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the people creating basic economic opportunity for afghan citizens and so forth essentially achieving our objectives in afghanistan requires a robust sustained and comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign which is of course where president obama described last month when he laid out the new strategy for afghanistan and given the situation

we have an opportunity to apply lessons we've learned conducting a complex counterinsurgency campaign in iraq to our efforts in afghanistan while noting that lessons learned in one operation have to be applied with great care in another in fact if there is any overriding principle of counterinsurgency is that context matters what worked in one community in iraq in fact they not have worked in the neighboring community or even one month later in the same location and so we certainly cannot perform a wholesale transplant of successful practices from morocco expect them to work in afghanistan indeed the challenges in afghanistan are in some ways more daunting than those in iraq afghanistan is after all larger and more world in iraq and has much more rugged terrain and harsher climate afghanistan is considerably less human capital and far lower literacy rates in iraq and it has less natural resources as well

by comparison toll revenue generation in afghanistan last year was under one billion dollars compared to the nearly sixty billion and oil revenue alone generated in iraq and afghanistan has very little infrastructure by which the government can deliver basic essential services and afghanistan we are building not rebuilding therefore while the principles of counterinsurgency remain valid these principles nevertheless have to be adapted to the unique cultural political geographic and human terrain of afghanistan will this is a point in such a presentation which has featured speaker should look around and check to see if the audience is still focused shall we say and the best way to insure focus sometimes has to tell another quick story and this one is quote specially curtain as it relates to recently declassified operation conducted as part of the struggle against extremism a struggle which of course has obviously been very involved in this operation

was conducted on an unnamed island in the pacific ocean as the story goes in for the time was deployed to the desert island cannot several missions and they found they had to hire some local inhabitants the scouts and translators it turned out however that the locals were cannibals so the commander who had completed all of his pre deployment language and cultural awareness training now part of preparation for deployment at the command level technology made a point speaking to the cannabis before the contract was finalized in their language in fact your part martinelli told the cannibals one team one fight make way together a team of teens all that good stuff will pay well for your services will our unique any of our rations but please he said please don't eat any of our soldiers were cannibals responded in a very reassuring that are promising not to eat any the troopers on the islands and they shook their hands shook hands with a commander want to work everything was going smoothly until about four weeks later when the commander called the campbell's together for a meeting once

again we're all working very hard and i'm very satisfied with their performance he said however one of our sergeants has disappeared did any of you know what happened to the cannibals all shook their heads no and profess to have no idea of the missing sword his whereabouts after the commander left however the leader the cannibals turned to the others and asked firmly which one of you idiots at the sergeant for the camels all hung their heads and look down and finally one of them neatly put in his hand in the air and said i did you fool the head camel shouted for four weeks we'll be needing lieutenants captain stephen majors and no one noticed anything i and then you have you know any distortion and now you know this time i didn't say anything about generals i'm sure their absence women noticed immediately

probably only by various but that's beside the point well now that i hope is that everyone refocused our move back to the serious stuff and serious it is indeed counterinsurgency principles for afghanistan as was the case in iraq additional forces are needed in afghanistan more on the way in this regard as president obama recently announced plans to deploy additional troops to afghanistan and some nato and coalition nations have pledged more trainers and forces as well having more forces on the ground will enable our troopers and those of our afghan partners to hold more effectively areas that have been cleared and work to facilitate follow on economic and governance improvements and having more trainers on the ground will accelerate that continued development of the afghan national security forces to sustain that substantial commitment from the us and the international community will be necessary to forge progress in afghanistan and these additional commitments are important steps

forward as in iraq the resource requirement afghanistan is not just for additional coalition military forces but also for more improved afghan security forces indeed this is an important part of the new strategy announced last month which calls for a focus on expanding and professionalize in the afghan security forces efforts are also underway to involve local citizens in securing their communities or the afghan public protection program together this will all help to provide the strain the numbers necessary to halt the downward spiral of violence in afghanistan just more forces will not be enough power because again as in iraq it is hell forces are employed that matters as much if not more than the fact that there are additional forces operating in a country known as the graveyard of empires our forces must partnered with iraqi counterparts to show the afghan people that they are not would be

conquerors but are instead they are to secure and serve the afghan communities doing so will require being good neighbors and while that may be less culturally acceptable to live among the people and certain parts of afghanistan and was in iraq it is nonetheless necessary to locate afghan and i sat forces where they can establish a persistent security presence and can kim to know the dynamics in the intricacies of local governmental religious and tribal structures fostering reconciliation will be another important counterinsurgency principle employed in afghanistan there has been some debate surrounding this issue as many afghan and us leaders believe that a high level reconciliation effort would require lawmakers to agree to pre conditions that they would never be willing to consider this may well be the case but it does not prevent reconciliation from taking place at the local level where local commanders and leaders sufficiently familiar with you local dynamics can identify reconcile the elements of the

insurgency and provide social and economic and alternatives to them in order to win them over to the new afghanistan finally the insurgency and security situation in afghanistan work why are a truly comprehensive approach one that addresses the root causes an underlying factors that make certain areas fertile fields for the insurgency an important element of a comprehensive approach a civilian capacity given that the greatest long term challenge in afghanistan is the need for economic and governance development we need to augment the civilian expertise in afghanistan as well and this also is part of the new strategy president obama announced last month which calls for more fully resource in the civilian aspects of our mission and significantly increasing the development issue as always military action is necessary but not sufficient additional civilian resources will be essential to

building and the progress that our troopers and our afghan partners can achieve on the ground another important element of our comprehensive approach in afghanistan is understanding and approach in afghanistan and pakistan as a single problems as a single theater with different rules of engagement on either side of the afghan pakistan border this too is in approaching doors in the new strategy the militants and extremists operating out of parker's times tribal areas pose a threat to afghanistan as well as a serious regional and even global threat thus even as we actively pursue militants and seek economic in governance improvements in afghanistan we also have to encourage the podcast on the government to recognize that these militants are the most significant threat to their country's very existence indeed in support of our pakistani counterparts we're also working to help them increase the capability and capacity a pakistani forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations

providing training and equipment that can help enable a cultural shift an institutional change required to produce a force capable of addressing the extremist elements in the federally administered tribal areas north west frontier province and other areas of pakistan under threat returning to afghanistan an important focus as we pursue a comprehensive approach in that country is achieving greater unity of effort between the various elements of our operations in view of that imperative were working hard to ensure that civil and military efforts are synchronized and complimentary this saturday in fact ambassador richard holbrooke the us special representative for afghanistan pakistan and i will host an all day off site with us civil and military leaders engaged in operations in afghanistan to address issues in which additional civil military coronation is necessary moreover work is ongoing in kabul and islamabad one development of joint civil military campaign plans similar to the one that ambassador

crocker and i developed in baghdad we're increasing our civilian and military footprints in afghanistan focusing our troopers and securing and serving the population fostering reconciliation pursuing a comprehensive approach and working toward greater unity of effort we can help afghan forces and leaders achieved the security economic and governance improvements they're so necessary in their country the increase in forces and focus on securing the people are needed to help create a breathing space that will allow afghans to stand up for themselves and also allow the gov to begin working for its people and providing an essential services instead of simply struggling to survive with improved essential services and better overall performance the afghan government will gain legitimacy as this takes place opportunities for reconciliation will become possible as that takes place intelligence and evelyn improves as intelligence improved security operations become more precise and effective and because of

all that security improves further each factor reinforces the other and overtime and with sustained commitment progress in each can reverse the current trend in certain areas of afghanistan and reason rather than later well having described the situations in iraq and afghanistan and the way forward in each let me conclude by noting what a tremendous job our men and women in uniform are doing in implementing america's policies in these two countries and throughout the central command region where more than two hundred and fifteen thousand soldiers sailors airmen marines and coast guardsmen there's a great deal of those in uniform in recent years our troopers have selfless and perform complex missions under tough conditions and very challenging situations and many of our military families have endured link the separations during repeated tours in combat

through it all our men and women in uniform and their families have been truly magnificent last july fourth i had the honor of raising my right hand in baghdad with one thousand two hundred and fifteen of our soldiers sailors airmen marines as they re enlisted in a combat zone for another tour of service they did this knowing that they likely would be asked to deploy again during the term of their new and less needless to say i cannot say enough about the zen all our great young americans in uniform and you're and there's no question in my mind that they deserve the description the tom brokaw offered after seen them in action in iraq calling them america's new greatest generation beyond that i can assure you that there is no greater privilege and serving with the members of the new greatest generation as they strive to do our country as asked of them we should all be very proud of them and grateful for their courage commitment

determination and skill dr ellery this describe their reactions to you today the vermont listening to general david petraeus speaking a kansas state university's mccain auditorium apr presents continues after three years now takes questions from the audience that would show progress in afghanistan and then there's the military violence going down for some of them are looking for allies in afghanistan have a better situation well there will be a series of metrics are benchmarks and in fact interestingly there is an effort on going right now too to refine what's been developed in the inner agency in washington and that effort

is ongoing it's a combination of folks from the intelligence community course department offense folks of a new national security council staff and then also on capitol hill most explaining that some members of congress last week and were testifying but there's a number of different ways to see that as there are security steps for that those are being taken advantage of them and those that were rock or coal for example and one of the metrics of all things we used to track down in the fourth brigade of the first division was shops in the dora market daniel there'll be a number of these kinds of things the country certainly progress of the afghan security forces will be another important measure commercial activity the progress and the generation of electricity and in there it just a

host of these in fact we did have quite a substantial number that we focused on but iraq or frankly at some points we are focused on some pretty basic one such is can we put the electrical towers up again and i have them stay on and so you have some very obvious ones in terms of the repair various items of the infrastructure and then your ability to just maintain it actually that functioning and keep it open but again that that development effort of these benchmarks and so forth is actually ongoing i think they'll be determined and laid out for congress probably sometime in early may and then lock those down instantly start watching us but that's not to imply that they don't already have these in kabul and said general mckiernan has a whole host of different metrics in powerpoint slides of course the in the military that we track and then use to measure how are doing number three police

officers what role do you believe when operations will play into careers hundred us in the committee's ornate as well as their son is one of them and do you believe that we in their ability to fight to future conventional fights well first or to play a very significant role in those are being commissioned him at work product can are some are some among those will indeed be involved in counterinsurgency operations what i would remind you though is that counterinsurgency operations like any military operation are some mix of off against the fence and stability support operations and i think that if you ask for example again the fourth brigade of the first in your division or whether they can still be a conventional operations i think the answer would very much bs donnelly conveys some other things as well and it may be that they can't do some aide might not be able

to do a box formation brigade box formation moving across the desert if it comes to that but i suspect that they can practice obama didn't write pretty sure i'm clearly when you focus more on stability support operations are going to do less on the often sing the fence but that is not to imply at all that we cannot do often says and defensive operations in fact as the focus shifts to afghanistan i think you see over there for example extensive use of indirect fire and other components of traditional conventional military operations although again you have to have the non kinetic as well as the kinetic and you have to work very hard but to make sure that you get the mix right and that's the real part of this is determining what the kampala it should be as you blend together often stevens and civilian support operations but if you'd told the for example the troopers who fought the battle of soccer

city in march in april of two thousand eight that they did not in a conventional operations i think you get a bit of a challenge so it's more about the mix of these operations and that's what i think will be focusing on we may shave it one way or another over time both in our training and in our operations but were always going to do some of all of those different elements james jorden so unlike of kansas they think very much that situation deteriorates in pakistan how secure to feel the armament is your arm that there were no more shooting can be done to help secure the well for so we actually we are confidence in the security of their nuclear weapons and their storage and her handling of those beyond that there is no question if you open aperture now beyond that particular component that the threat posed by the extremists internal pockets don represents

what what most observers assessed to be the most significant threat to the very existence of pakistan as opposed to the traditional threat if you will that the pakistani military has focused on to the east with india and in this case this is another situation in which there has to overtime be a transformation not unlike the transformation that took place by the way about three or four years ago but as our own military services came to grips with how we should better prepare for and conduct operations in places like iraq and afghanistan but it's an enormous shift for the pakistani military to transition from it focuses almost exclusively on conventional military operations mothers often some the fence along the their eastern boundary with india not to focus more on dealing with the

irregular warfare threat posed by the internal extremists who have caused such alarm in recent weeks in particular although i should note that there is a significant offensive operation underway in parts of the northwest frontier province as of right now in pakistan and that they're in there is a determination by the pakistani military to roll back some of these advances by the pakistani taliban general just think the regime and those who see here from overland park kansas media migration is to parse their prematurely the first is in afghanistan for several years when he was in high school and ever since ireland expressed to me that he felt that the cultural challenges posed both in afghanistan and iraq would present a fight unlike anything we've seen as a nation obviously as you've expressed with operating within these cultural

context neighborhoods establishing detroit's two suitors but something is fundamentally altered the way the military will be able to trade and opportunity in the future or is this just a kind of regional time tasting and on my second question was is there any truth to the rumor that your nickname new cd features yeah absolutely and it's no secret when i was a kid when the league baseball nearly a name like petraeus nobody can pronounce that nicer a lot probably a little bit like a peach of those days and those the age of eight or nine came up a bit that i'm a little league game and the announcer said now that is david a book about the beaches and the minute stock yes my classmates at west point which is about as far as that one dada you know i don't always listen on with it in fact it's an interesting story because

i grew up seven miles from west point i went to west point i think you know obviously very highly west point married the superintendent's daughter that's another story yeah sublime day honestly a blind date it was imagined in a cadet at west point he does find out the ear blind date is the superintendent's daughter ba i know we get married and double their kids were baptized at west point so have enormously strong feelings for west point but that as i was there a lot of the kids are my school were employed at west point for the summer during which is going through the cleave experiences they call the spirits as it used to be called before they charge that it's now new content marriage or something more correct that area that there were these barracks and all my old girlfriends were sending messages through the laundry bag and unforeseen when upper classman intercepted them and it started out dear peaches

you connected and debts or that lent so there is that right expense that every man what about the cultural challenges where they are enormous and they do present considerable difficulties and this is why i mentioned earlier that you have to get as you have to change your mindset be the decisive terrain in these kinds of endeavors is the human terrain yes mountains high ground still matters bridges still matter crossing sides all of that still matters but again the most important component the decisive element is the human terrain and it is very different train from that which we know are in fact i've argued over the years that what helped me perhaps more than anything else when i ended up in a rock and look baca was a surveying graduate school all things are not just because it was some good morning but because it was an out of my intellectual comfort zone experience to go surfing grad schools to find out but lo and

behold there are some awfully smart an incredibly bright and talented people who don't think the same way that those of us in the military tend to think and it's a very salutary experience because that's the same experience that the great troopers of the black lions course found whenever there and west rashid in southwest baghdad and if they had been there before they get a good dose of how do a rockies have arabs muslims sunni as well as hear think and so understanding the cultural context understanding human terrain having a truly nuanced and very granular as we say appreciation for the local circumstance in local context in who's who and how is it supposed to work how does it work and all the rest of that is of paramount importance and i think that that's an area in which our army are or military services have changed enormously over

the years and focusing on their return to tell me there's just one more mr president city where is number three share my question is a little off topic but i do appreciate your honesty practical approach to a lot of military challenges that we face in the last few years i think that one of the most important considerations in the debate over whether the us military allowed gays and lesbians to serve openly is whether arms unit cohesion considering destructive effects caused by the investigation and separation of soldiers from their unions and the practical application of the policy by with soldiers were scheduled for deployment or are serving in combat theaters are less likely to be investigating or discharged do you think the current policy of don't ask don't tell the most gorgeous gorgeous well let me actually let me start out by saying that are generally spent the

bulk of my career going around minefields rather than walking right into them yeah the pay in what i would do what secretary gates and actionable mullen said recently and that is frankly that we have an awful lot on our plate in the military right now with two wars in a host of other challenges and i'm not sure that we want to add something else to the plate at this moment so with that i think that's where i would actually come down on that particular issue and to stay with my secretary mike chairman if i could

you've been listening to general david petraeus commander us central command petraeus took a kansas state university on april twenty seven two thousand nine as part of the landon lecture series and j mcintyre four k pr thanks to the kansas state office of mediated education for audio from this event for some soldiers fighting in iraq the war is finding its way into poetry just anger branson of war news radio looks at this new generation of soldier poets i thought originally that the war had have not too much impact on my poetry but i went back through my archives for the last two and a half years and i've found an amazing amount of war related to poetry

it's frightening mickey caesar is a writer from lawrence kansas he spent eleven years in the military including year and a half in canned beer in kuwait as part of operation iraqi freedom his first poetry collection was called vanishing white's book was actually really distributed while i was deployed with the army in the desert cizik is one of a handful of soldier poets writing about iraq brian turner is another a lot of times even really busy with missions when we come back from a mission to speak for rick wagoner on fleek a conservative government that would wake up and write in my journal what happened and none of the mail and in homewood started a couple lines or on a tower turner's poems eventually turned into the award winning collection here bullet at the time though he wasn't looking for a literary fame he was trying to record his experiences work through them and send a coded message home

things that happen that they only a story i've heard that happened though some prominent in another platoon in the paper lead phillies you're cordial the books and film and mail home of callaway atomic family what was going on about the outcome turner wasn't the only one who turned to poetry as a way of coping with the stress of war gregory samuels trained iraqi police in baghdad they would appoint or by day to day events you know the fight on it with usually late at night i usually know i would work usually sixteen eighteen hour days every day we were there so towards the end the night before i go to bed i you know it to report my computer and i would take a break and i want you to write a letter to my wife or write you know some kind of owns what do those poems sounds like here's the beginning of mickey caesar's music captain fike ms messina gangrene set in that music with sergeant

flows at fifties open up in the morning in drumming the strange slow percussion of interwoven lines small wonder ceasefire and five month and sparrows return walk or by words disperse in the breeze that if the infant these are the morning prayers of infantry while writing helped these men handle the anxieties of life in a war zone it sometimes isolated them from other soldiers again brian turner sally i didn't hear the polls with the volt when i was working there because i had a feeling a lot of them wouldn't come up and play a venti you know i come in and hear paul van and did a lot of people wouldn't do that but if they have those writing poetry the word oath sometimes for wrongly convicted on ok we give them if not a trait that usually portrayed in an

entry there's no question that all of us in there with a front runner energy got a master's degree and they rarely do here and ultimately it you know no one ever asked me like what if we did and it wasn't just other soldiers who were nonplussed by this intersection of poetry and wore nike sees this as that other writers weren't always thrilled to find a soldier in their midst a lot of my polish friends were very shocked to find out that i was going to go off to the war it was a strange image for them to think of their friend the poet carrying an m sixteen for cesar one of the hardest adjustments was discovering that the war central to his life was such a small part of life at home during the demobilization process and i picked up a copy of the kansas city star looking for news news about the war defense which i had been

living twenty four hours a day and was dismayed it wasn't a surprise but still i was dismayed to find that the first reference to the war in the kansas city star that day was on page forty eight back in a world that seems light years away from the war cesar and other soldiers have struggled to communicate their experiences and sometimes explains it sees there it feels more appropriate to keep silent i saw both in myself and in other sylvester worth a mere inability to describe how they felt and difficulties reconnecting with their communities and their families because the experience was so completely vetted don't want to create two different personalities and the people have remained at home they don't care for their soldiers with the love and support their soldiers but

so many of the words that come from mom just all and four short years old give up on the idea of communicating their stories the stories and their experience themselves seem to have become more secretive almost to the point of speaking about them would somehow profane that experience though it's been impossible for many soldiers to put their experiences into words and often feels wrong to try for some writing is a healing process becky season the feeling that there is life in duty and requirements upon mom that make separate an alien from their family their homes and their loved ones

many of my palms speaking of that that isolation and alienation that soldiers feel coming back into a culture that bluntly put is more concerned with american idol then the events that are impacting lives in iraq to get a sense of that isolation listen to these lines the poems title twenty nine degrees twenty four minutes fifty one seconds north forty seven degrees for thirty minutes eight seconds east refers to the site of the mass of a rocky scraps are from the first gulf war the music has stopped she notices keeping green tea for the tall gray man with the briefcase he wins by the register head and shoulders above or below a flea market and unaccountable seasons between them have pulled away artillery pieces from the last war roast in the sun a slow desert that as when the iron

praise for rain yet here her heart flutters when the door chime ringing and he wonders if she could see that vast parched mile of our more what you might feel if anything words help make he sees a deal with the alienation but it also helps simply to be with veterans who understand i know that when i speak to another soldier are another veteran there's little asked to be heard now that they're back home what's in store for the soldier poet brian turner is working on a memoir of his time in a rock while gregory samuels is pursuing a master's in history mickey caesar is currently working towards a masters in creative writing and poetry i had this strange idea that experience would fade and become less important to me as i spend more time back in my civilian life but found

surprisingly so that idea that i continue to write that if they rule evil man