We'll be talking with Brendan at 11 Eastern in #boingboing. Click here to join the conversation or join #boingboing on chat.freenode.net in your client of choice.
We'll post the transcript here after we're done.
Update: Edited transcript after the jump.
[joelev] Good morning, Brendan!
[joelev] So we're talking today about Brendan's new book, "Now the Hell Will Start," which tells the story of Herman Perry, an American soldier in Burma during WWII.
[joelev] Where'd you first run across Perry's story?
[joelev] (Heh, giving Brendan voice might help.)
[BrendanKoerner] Voice! I love it.
[BrendanKoerner] Okay, your question was, How did I first hear about this tale?
[BrendanKoerner] It was back in September of '03.
[BrendanKoerner] I was researching an "Explainer" column for Slate on military executions.
[BrendanKoerner] I came across the name Herman Perry in an obscure bibliography
[BrendanKoerner] from the Military History Insitute in Carlise, Penn.
[BrendanKoerner] It said something like, "Pvt. Herman Perry, evaded capture by hiding with Burmese hill tribe."
[BrendanKoerner] How could I resist?
[BrendanKoerner] So very Kurtz.
[joelev] Why hadn't people noticed Perry before? Living with cannibals is seemingly pretty hard to miss.
[BrendanKoerner] Ah, correction–not cannibals. Headhunters.
[BrendanKoerner] Though they would occasionally gnaw on a bit of flesh as part of their ceremonies.
[joelev] Ah, of course. No offense meant, hill tribe!
[BrendanKoerner] Yes, the Nagas.
[BrendanKoerner] They're key to the book.
[joelev] Are they still, you know, headhunting?
[BrendanKoerner] I go pretty in-depth about their history, their dealings with the Ahoms, the British, and the Americans.
[BrendanKoerner] No, they're Baptists now.
[BrendanKoerner] The last recorded headhunting incident took place in the mid-1990s, in Burma.
[BrendanKoerner] About 35 heads were taken by a Konyak Naga village.
[joelev] Chad wrote:
[joelev]
[BrendanKoerner] Great question, Chad.
[BrendanKoerner] By the way, folks, Chad is the grandson of one of the book's key characters
[BrendanKoerner] The Tommy Lee Jones of this manhunt
[BrendanKoerner] I have yet to get a reaction from either family, apart from Perry's niece, Celestine
[BrendanKoerner] She very much loved the book, though she said parts of it were very painful to read
[BrendanKoerner] I tried to be as even-handed as possible
[BrendanKoerner] To present Herman Perry as a warts-and-all character
[BrendanKoerner] I think she respected that
[joelev] Have you had any responses from people saying you were *too* even handed? Perry did murder a fellow soldier.
[BrendanKoerner] Yes, definitely.
[BrendanKoerner] The Washington Post ran a feature on the book last week
[BrendanKoerner] And a lot of commenters hated the fact that the book's main character was a murderer.
[BrendanKoerner] And a deserter, to boot.
[BrendanKoerner] Some of them wished the book had been about the man who Perry had killed instead.
[BrendanKoerner] If someone wants to research and write the Harold Cady story, I'd definitely read it
[BrendanKoerner] But this book is Perry's tale.
[joelev] Did you realize when you first read Perry's quote that you'd make that the title of the book?
[BrendanKoerner] You know, I did sort of.
[BrendanKoerner] We went through about a dozen titles.
[BrendanKoerner] "Nagaland"
[BrendanKoerner] "Don't Come Up on Me"
[BrendanKoerner] "The Jungle King"
[BrendanKoerner] But in the end, we came back to the very first title I ever thought of.
[joelev] "The Four Hour Work Week"
[BrendanKoerner] That would certainly have sold more copies.
[joelev] It really is so, I don't know, epic.
[joelev] And lyrical.
[BrendanKoerner] Yeah, it's poetry. Accidental poetry.
[BrendanKoerner] Which is often the best kind, eh?
[BrendanKoerner] And I really tried to describe the Burmese jungle as a hellish enviornment, so it fit
[BrendanKoerner] They had a saying, the GIs did:
[BrendanKoerner] The only difference between Hell and Burma
[BrendanKoerner] is that Hell has a dry climate.
[joelev] Let's talk more about that.
[joelev] The conditions.
[BrendanKoerner] Yeah, I was fascinated by what the soldiers had to endure in the name of the Road.
[joelev] A predominately black work force, dropped into a jungle to build a road that would literally wash out behind them.
[BrendanKoerner] Very Sisyphean, yes.
[BrendanKoerner] I go into great depth about the specific torments of the jungle.
[BrendanKoerner] Malaria, ants, tigers, Japanese snipers, etc.
[joelev] The leeches!
[BrendanKoerner] Yes, that was the menace most reviled by the GIs.
[BrendanKoerner] They are everywhere in the grass over there.
[BrendanKoerner] And the only way to get rid of them is with a lit cigarette.
[BrendanKoerner] I have a passage where I discuss an OSS agent who got a leech stuck inside the tube of his penis.
[BrendanKoerner] Not a good time.
[BrendanKoerner] They had to create makeshift bamboo forceps to lift it out.
[joelev] Not for the OSS agent, at least.
[BrendanKoerner] No, perhaps his comrades thought it was a laugh riot.
[joelev] Did most black soldiers in WWII get shipped off for work duty and not combat?
[BrendanKoerner] Exactly. We hear about the showpiece units, like the Tuskegee Airmen
[BrendanKoerner] But the vast majority of black soldiers were used as laborers.
[BrendanKoerner] The War Department bought into the dodgy racial science of the day
[BrendanKoerner] and believed that black soldiers were biologically unfit for combat.
[BrendanKoerner] There were all these scientists who'd analyzed cadavers
[BrendanKoerner] and concluded that black soldiers lacked the necessary heel-bone length
[BrendanKoerner] to march long distances
[BrendanKoerner] Crazy.
[joelev] And is this something that would have been known to the black soliders at the time? That they were thought to be sub-human?
[joelev] Or at least sub-par for combat?
[BrendanKoerner] It was a huge topic in the black press at the time.
[BrendanKoerner] There were scientists at Howard and other black universities
[BrendanKoerner] who argued against this faulty science
[BrendanKoerner] to no avail.
[BrendanKoerner] The black press also advocated a campaign called the "Double V"
[BrendanKoerner] for "Victory at home and abroad."
[BrendanKoerner] The idea was, if black soldiers fought valiantly
[BrendanKoerner] they would earn civil rights back in the U.S.
[BrendanKoerner] So may blacks wanted the right to fight, rather than just toil behind the frontlines
[joelev] But they rarely got a chance.
[BrendanKoerner] Very rarely.
[BrendanKoerner] There was also a scientific myth
[BrendanKoerner] that black soldiers could see in the dark
[BrendanKoerner] due to their pupil shape.
[BrendanKoerner] So the War Department figured that would make them function well in the jungle
[BrendanKoerner] where it got dark early due to the tree cover.
[BrendanKoerner] Again, crazy.
[joelev] Well, that brings up another point (albeit awkwardly!): how *did* Perry survive in the jungles so well?
[joelev] I mean, it seems like even the Naga have a rough time of it.
[BrendanKoerner] Well, on his first go-around, it was all about bribery and charm.
[BrendanKoerner] Mostly bribery, I think.
[BrendanKoerner] He got the Nagas stolen supplies from the Army larders
[BrendanKoerner] with the aid of sympathetic black GIs.
[BrendanKoerner] The Nagas loved the tinned rations
[BrendanKoerner] esp. the fruit cocktail in heavy syrup.
[BrendanKoerner] Plus Perry had a rifle, while the Nagas only had spears and knives.
[BrendanKoerner] He really upped their hunting powers.
[joelev] Is that how he netted a Naga wife?
[BrendanKoerner] Yeah, that was an arranged marriage, actually.
[BrendanKoerner] It was the daughter of the village ang (chief).
[BrendanKoerner] He knew this would be a good alliance for the village.
[joelev] How long was Perry in the Naga camp before he got married?
[BrendanKoerner] Keep that fruit cocktail coming.
[BrendanKoerner] I had to make an educated guess in the book
[BrendanKoerner] but I think about 5-6 weeks.
[BrendanKoerner] She was pregnant soon thereafter.
[joelev] Clearly you missed out on a Del Monte branding opportunity here.
[BrendanKoerner] It's not too late!
[BrendanKoerner] Though I'm not sure how eager I am to revisit the Road.
[joelev] What was that like? (The uungle.)
[joelev] What's the area like now?
[BrendanKoerner] Beautiful, but dicey.
[BrendanKoerner] The jungle there is really hallucinogenic, lush and unspoiled.
[BrendanKoerner] But the security situation is dodgy.
[BrendanKoerner] There are a lot of ethnic militias and drug runners in the hills
[BrendanKoerner] and the Indian and Burmese armies don't mess around
[BrendanKoerner] (particuarly the latter).
[BrendanKoerner] Lots of bribes were paid to get us where we needed to get to,
[BrendanKoerner] namely, across the Pangsau Pass into Burma.
[joelev] I gather that's one of those areas where the borders are sort of in permanent dispute.
[BrendanKoerner] It's a hazy border, in that it's impossible to control or police
[BrendanKoerner] The Nagas and other "tribals" are allowed to go back and forth
[BrendanKoerner] But access is forbidden to virtually everyone else.
[joelev] How'd you find a fixer?
[BrendanKoerner] The classic journo way: friend of a friend of a friend.
[BrendanKoerner] His name is Oken Tayeng, and he was a godsend
[BrendanKoerner] despite the fact that he'd never been to Burma, either.
[joelev] How did actually visiting the Ledo Road change the book?
[BrendanKoerner] I'd actually started writing about five months prior to my visit
[BrendanKoerner] and just left a huge TK in the first chapter, where the present-day condition of the Road is now described.
[BrendanKoerner] The visit helped me fill in those details
[BrendanKoerner] but it also gave me such a visual sense of what Perry and his fellow soldiers must have dealt with
[BrendanKoerner] on a day-to-day basis.
[BrendanKoerner] I don't think I could've produced as evocative a tale without making the pilgrammage.
[BrendanKoerner] My one disappointment was not being able to locate Perry's half-Naga son.
[joelev] Did you have any leads?
[BrendanKoerner] I tried, but no dice.
[BrendanKoerner] Not really. I handed out tons of photographs
[joelev] Of the son or of Perry?
[BrendanKoerner] to Nagas and others, but everyone just shrugged.
[BrendanKoerner] As for Perry
[BrendanKoerner] I did hear some second-hand tales.
[BrendanKoerner] A woman in Makum knew of the tale
[joelev] Traveler5 writes: Did your research indicate how many other laborers deserted? Perry couldn't have been the only one to try it!
[BrendanKoerner] Good question. There were plenty cases of AWOL
[BrendanKoerner] but most soldiers would return after a day.
[BrendanKoerner] The jungle was just too harsh.
[BrendanKoerner] Plus the Army was VERY aggressive about punishing the GIs who shirked their duties.
[BrendanKoerner] Those GIs would be sent to the Ledo Stockade, where the conditions were really brutal.
[BrendanKoerner] Perry was sort of driven mad by his time in the stockade.
[BrendanKoerner] Well, that and his drug use, among other factors.
[BrendanKoerner] The stockade had punishment cells–"The Box," the inmates called them.
[joelev] Xieliex writes: You said you could not find his half Naga son. Did you encounter any groups that could have been decendants of other deserters?
[BrendanKoerner] Interesting you bring this up. There is a lot of scuttlebutt in the hills
[BrendanKoerner] that many African-American GIs left behind children.
[BrendanKoerner] As on Tangsa Naga elder put it, "There are a lot of people around here who look black."
[BrendanKoerner] So, yes, I think this is certainly the case.
[BrendanKoerner] And I definitely heard about some close interactions between black GIs and Nagas.
[BrendanKoerner] Like, the black GIs gave their guns to the Nagas after the war ended.
[BrendanKoerner] Those guns ended up being used in the various Naga liberation movements that have ensued.
[BrendanKoerner] Blowback!
[joelev] ChadCullum writes: I know you say this is the Herman Perry story, but as I read, I started to feel he was the key character in the "treatment of blacks during WWII" story. Were you surprised at what you discovered?
[BrendanKoerner] Yes, absolutely.
[BrendanKoerner] When I first heard about this story, I had no clue that race was an element.
[BrendanKoerner] Didn't even know Perry was black until I'd been working on the story for months.
[BrendanKoerner] I thought race would be a tangential part of the story for a while
[BrendanKoerner] but the deeper I got into the yarn, the more I realized that race was a eky part of the narrative.
[BrendanKoerner] There is a certain Rashomon effect here:
[BrendanKoerner] Black soldiers often saw Perry as this hero because he bucked a system they abhorred
[BrendanKoerner] while white soldiers didn't see race as a factor in the tale.
[BrendanKoerner] I was definitely surprised by the Army's treatment of black soldiers.
[BrendanKoerner] It just seemed like such a waste of talent, during such a critical time.
[BrendanKoerner] Maintaining Jim Crow seemed more important to the Army
[BrendanKoerner] than fighting the Axis.
[BrendanKoerner] Okay, that's a slight exaggeration
[BrendanKoerner] but hopefully my point shines through.
[BrendanKoerner] Let me just say
[joelev] Part of what surprised me
[BrendanKoerner] Go ahead…
[joelev] and I think it's related to the misuse of black soldiers and their talent in a way
[joelev] is how utterly pointless the Ledo Road ended up being
[joelev] It's just heartbreaking.
[joelev] Not just for Perry, but for thousands of these soldiers.
[BrendanKoerner] Yeah, it was a project with a noble intention
[BrendanKoerner] Definitely.
[BrendanKoerner] I think it's a classic case
[BrendanKoerner] of what happens when you put decisionmaking power
[BrendanKoerner] in the hands of people without first-hand knowledge of conditons on the ground.
[BrendanKoerner] The Army actually sent a major out to survey the jungle
[BrendanKoerner] and he reported back that the project wouldn't work–or would take many years to complete.
[BrendanKoerner] But the Army ignored him
[BrendanKoerner] in part because FDR wanted to mollify the Chinese
[BrendanKoerner] but also because the generals looked at their maps and said,
[BrendanKoerner] "Road goes here!"
[BrendanKoerner] And as the war progressed and airlifts became a more credible option
[BrendanKoerner] they kept on building the Road
[BrendanKoerner] because to back out at that point would have resulted in lost face
[BrendanKoerner] for some very important folks.
[BrendanKoerner] The men in the field paid the (ultimate) price.
[joelev] Well, we should probably wrap it up, but I wanted to say how knocked out I was with the book and the reporting behind it.
[BrendanKoerner] Thanks a million–it was a true labor of love.
[joelev] It's one of those books that reads like a novel and then you hit the back and gawk at the index and sources.
[BrendanKoerner] Wanted to quickly shout-out my website
[joelev] Please do!
[BrendanKoerner] http://www.nowthehellwillstart.com/
[joelev] And tell us what's up for you next!
[joelev] I presume it won't be "Well, the Hell Started"
[BrendanKoerner] Right now, child care–got a four-month-old kid.
[BrendanKoerner] The Hell starts with him.
[BrendanKoerner] But after that, back to magazine features for Wired, et. al. for a while
[BrendanKoerner] In prep for my next book
[BrendanKoerner] which I hope to start next year.
[joelev] Want to spill that topic yet?
[BrendanKoerner] It's a sequel of sorts to "
[BrendanKoerner] "Now the Hell Will Start"
[BrendanKoerner] but I don't want to say much beyond that.
[BrendanKoerner] Let me just say this:
[BrendanKoerner] It's another tale of an American abroad during the war
[BrendanKoerner] and his crazy adventures.
[BrendanKoerner] Not a soldier, though.
[BrendanKoerner] Hope the reporting will take me to Sri Lanka!
[joelev] If it's not Bob Hope I don't want to read it.
[BrendanKoerner] Heh heh…sorry, man.
[BrendanKoerner] Bob Hope never did Ceylon.
[joelev] Okay, thanks again, sir! I'm going to open up the chat to everyone.
[BrendanKoerner] Thanks a mil, and cheers to everyone.
