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On his big break

I was in [Omaha, Neb.,] and I was working for very little money and it was hard. I was working six days a week and I wanted to get out of Omaha. ... Then one night I get a call from Atlanta, Ga., from WSB, which was [one of] the most distinguished stations certainly in the South, and one of the most respected in the country. They were in the middle of the civil rights movement and the news director said, "We hear wonderful things about you. We've looked at your tape. We'd like you to fly down here. There's an opening in our 11 o'clock news."

Now, I was a 25-year-old white Yankee being invited to come down to be a prospect to anchor the 11 o'clock news in the largest and most important city in the South. I flew down and at the end of the weekend they said, "We've got a job for you." ...

By August of that year, NBC came and said, "We'd like you to go work for us full time." And my boss in Atlanta was not happy but then he said to me later, "We're just not going to be able to keep you, Tom. You go with our blessing." ... My first assignment was to cover this actor who was running for the Republican nomination for governor and the Democratic Party thought that he couldn't possibly win — and I was on the buses with Ronald Reagan and covering his campaign. That was a big break.

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On his difficulty pronouncing one letter

I have an "L" issue and I think ... over the years [it has] diminished a lot. I was unaware of it until I left South Dakota, and then I go back and listen to other people in South Dakota and it's not uncommon. In our family we had chronic hearing loss and I really think that it came out of that, that I didn't hear it the right way at the right time. I had a brother who had a really severe hearing loss and as a result his speech pattern is even more pronounced, although it has been a lot better now. I also grew up in working class neighborhoods where we didn't have speech therapists even though I was known as a kid who was talking all the time. ... It didn't really come up until I left South Dakota and I had a wonderful speech coach in Omaha who kind of got me started in the right direction. And I've worked on it over the years but when I get tired is when it shows up most of all.

On what it means to be an anchor

Internally, you're the captain of the team — you're the one the others look to and you help set the pace for what kind of a news division you have, what's important that you should have on the air and how you do it. I always had the reputation, however, of being not just the anchor but someone who listened as well to my colleagues and was not afraid during the 2:30 editorial rundown meeting to have a vigorous exchange about what was important and what we should be covering that day. And then on the air, Monday through Friday doing the news, it's always kind of undefinable for me. You convey something that the public either trusts or it does not trust and it has to do with the content and how you handle the news, but it also just has something to do with your persona.

"The real test of an anchor is when there's a very big event. Sept. 11 is the quintessential example of that, and that day it took everything that I knew as an anchor, as a citizen, as a father, as a husband, to get through it."

- Tom Brokaw

The real test of an anchor is when there's a very big event. Sept. 11 is the quintessential example of that, and that day it took everything that I knew as an anchor, as a citizen, as a father, as a husband, to get through it.

On covering the Sept. 11 attacks

I went right to the Today Show and sat down with Katie [Couric] and with Matt [Lauer], who were doing a very good job but this was kind of more in my area, if you will, than it was in theirs, though we worked as a team seamlessly. The first thing that we all agreed on was don't speculate — just report what we know because we didn't know a lot. We didn't know where it was coming from, who was responsible, how many people were still left in those towers. And then gradually, the responsibility for leading the coverage evolved to me and after the second tower went down I thought: I really have to prepare this country in a way for what we're in for. So I looked into the camera and said, "This will change us. We're at war here."

On knowing when to retire

I don't think there was one big nirvana moment. What I did know was that I have so many interests in life and the seasons of news ratings and being an anchorman got in the way of some of that. I had been at it more than 20 years at that point. I had gone to all the big stories of the '80s, which was one of the most fertile times in American journalism, around the world and here as well. And I've always thought that life and my professional life should have seasons and I was now in a season in which I thought it was time to go on and do something else besides be there every night at 6:30 in the chair whether there was something important happening or not.

Tom Brokaw

The Women on 20s campaign, which seeks to put a female face on the $20 bill, has announced a winner: Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave whose ingenuity and courage led other captives to freedom.

Tubman narrowly edged Eleanor Roosevelt, finishing with 118,328 votes to Roosevelt's 111,227, according to Women on 20s. More than 600,000 votes were cast over 10 weeks, including more than 350,000 in the final round that began on April 5.

Early on, Roosevelt had led Tubman by nearly 15,000 votes, but the final round brought a reversal.

We'll note that Tubman's appearance on the $20 bill would have a special historical resonance: That's the same amount she eventually received from the U.S. government as her monthly pension for her service as a nurse, scout, cook and spy during the Civil War, as well as for her status as the widow of a veteran.

A petition has now been sent to President Obama asking him "to order the Secretary of the Treasury to change the current portrait portrayed on our American $20 bank note to reflect the remarkable accomplishments of an exemplary American woman who has helped shape our Nation's great history."

In the Women on 20s vote, Rosa Parks came in third, with 64,173 votes and Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to become the Cherokee Nation's chief, was fourth, with 58,703. Others on the ballot included Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Clara Barton and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

While the images of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and other historical figures on U.S. currency are bound by tradition, they appear at the discretion of the secretary of the Treasury Department. The department's own records "do not reveal the reason that portraits of these particular statesmen were chosen in preference to those of other persons of equal importance and prominence," according to one of its official websites.

The Treasury adds, "By law, only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on U.S. currency and securities."

Of course, it takes years for the Treasury to roll out new or redesigned bank notes. The Women on 20s group explains what they'd like to see happen next:

"President Obama already has publicly expressed an interest in featuring more women on our money. With at least 100,000 votes, we can get the President's ear. That's how many names it takes to petition the White House for executive action. We went way beyond that with well over a half a million votes backed by names and email addresses."

The group says that because Tubman, Roosevelt and Parks all attracted more than 100,000 votes at different stages of the voting, they all qualify for their own petitions.

Tubman's victory comes two years after the centennial of her death in 1913. At the time, NPR's Michel Martin spoke to the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture's chief curator, Jacqueline Serwer, about Tubman's varied life and legacy.

After explaining that Tubman had been born on Maryland's Eastern Shore (and named Araminta at birth), Serwer explained what made Tubman special — and earned a $40,000 bounty on her head:

"Well, she was very smart and had a wonderful memory and knew these byways and these secret routes like the back of her hand and so, when she rounded up a group of people whom she was going to lead to freedom, she knew exactly where to go, where to hide, when to wait, how to escape the slave hunters who were looking for her and looking for the folks that she was bringing to freedom. And she was just very clever. She was also very disciplined, so people, you know, who were tired or who wanted to do something different — she was very strong and could be very harsh at the same time that she was a very kind woman."

Serwer also noted the famous threat Tubman made to any fugitive who might lose their nerve on the path to freedom: "She would kill them. She couldn't risk all the others for the sake of — you know, of somebody who was going to fall by the wayside."

Tubman isn't known to have ever carried out that threat, Serwer said.

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Cesar Vargas has a resume most young Americans would envy. He graduated from a Brooklyn high school that counts Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders among its alumni. He made honors in both college and law school. But because he was brought to the United States from Mexico illegally when he was 5-years old, he can't fulfill one of his dreams: joining the armed forces.

"I do believe that because this country has given me so much, I do want to be able to give back," Vargas said in an interview.

For Vargas, who has traveled to Washington multiple times to press Congress for legislation to give immigrants like him a path to citizenship, this cause is both personal and political. The co-director of the Dream Action Coalition, a group that advocates for young Latinos, wants to become a military lawyer.

"It's a little frustrating," Vargas said. "This is the reality for us. This is the country we call home...What it really comes down to is the commitment to serve the country you call home, the country you want to wear a uniform for."

Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to see a path for immigrants like Vargas, known as Dreamers, to serve in the military. Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., has repeatedly pushed a bill that would give legal status to young undocumented immigrants who serve in the military. And an amendment to a must-pass defense-policy bill would encourage the Pentagon to consider allowing immigrants brought to the country as children to do so.

That amendment has been blasted by conservatives, who say it's a "severe threat" to passage of the $612 billion defense-policy bill, which typically passes with broad bipartisan support.

Led by Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, more than two dozen House Republicans wrote a letter to the chairman of the House Rules Committee threatening to oppose the defense bill if the immigration provision wasn't stripped out. The lawmakers pointed to previous times the House had voted to declare the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as unconstitutional.

"The language contained in Rep. Gallego's amendment contradicts the House's previous position and is a severe threat to the passage of the NDAA — legislation which funds the essential programs that America's military requires," the lawmakers wrote to House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions. "Especially in this time of increased terrorism, our national security should not be threatened by allowing such controversial language on a program we have rejected three times as unconstitutional."

Brooks pointed to Pentagon force reductions and claimed, "Americans are being handed pink slips as they serve in Afghanistan."

He added, "At the same time, you've got Congressman Gallego, who is wanting to promote illegal aliens and put them in a position to compete with American citizens for military service positions, and I find that truly unconscionable."

Rep. Ruben Gallego D-Ariz., who sponsored the amendment, said he was surprised the amendment had provoked such a clash. He said Republicans were using the non-binding amendment to "play immigration politics for something that isn't really controversial."

"This is something that is really important, not because these young men and women have a right to be in the military," he said. "No one has a right to be in the military. It's the opportunity and the privilege to serve in the military that we should extend to anybody that's in this country...they should have the opportunity to serve and repay their country."

Brooks said though the amendment is technically just a sense of Congress resolution, "it is the kind of political cover that would empower the Secretary of Defense in reaction to Congress to declare this vast field of DACA illegal aliens as vital to America's interest, thereby exempting them from the citizenship and or lawful immigrant requirements to serve the United States military."

"That is not the sense of Congress," Brooks said, "and it's certainly not the sense of the American people to put already struggling American families in the position of not only having to compete in the private sector with illegal aliens, but also trying to compete for military service positions."

Gallego's amendment passed with the support of House Armed Services Committee Democrats and six Republicans: Reps. Mike Coffman R-Colo., Chris Gibson R-N.Y., Frank LoBiondo R-N.J., Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., Martha McSally R-Ariz. and Ryan Zinke R-Mont.

Coffman, who served in both Iraq wars, says he agrees with his Republican colleagues that President Obama has overreached with executive actions on immigration. But he also insisted that the country needs immigration reform. Explaining his support for an amendment that many of his Republican colleagues oppose, Coffman drew from his own careers — both in the military and in Congress.

"I'm disappointed in my colleagues for fighting this," Coffman said. "I'm not sure why they're so opposed to this. I've been in the Congress side by side with people who are opposed to this, but yet they themselves didn't want to serve. These young people ought to have the opportunity to serve."

The bill is expected to be taken up by the full House this week and then must go to the Senate where Arizona Sen. John McCain leads the Armed Services Committee. McCain has said that there will not be a similar provision included in his committee's version of the bill.

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Like the "armored muscle" of a snake, Mann's book squeezes us in an ever-tightening grip as it glides from Josh's funeral to wrap itself around many of his mourners' memories, beginning with friends and slithering on to increasingly close relatives.

The book rightly builds to its most devastating portrait, of a father (with whom Mann is obviously close) who, years after Josh's death, was still trying to make sense of his eldest son's "cracked" life. Mann captures the delicate dance Josh's divorced parents did around him, trying to buttress him while hiding their alarm and pity.

Part of the difficulty of Lord Fear is that the object of Mann's obsession, while at times charismatic, is also deeply unpleasant — a warped person who sadistically tortured cats, bullied his brother Dave and cousins, and nastily abused his worried, ever-solicitous mother. And while Mann manages to convey why his friends and family were so poleaxed by Josh's death, we ultimately care more about the people who cared about him — beginning with his sensitive younger half-brother — than about Josh.

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Mann's book exemplifies several trends in memoirs. Most notably, it takes liberties with linear chronology. ("I think that's how memory works," Mann writes.) All names, except Josh's and Mann's, have been changed, along with some biographical details. Begun when Mann was in college ten years ago, Lord Fear features scenes constructed from often spotty memories.

None of this is troubling, because Mann is upfront about it. But in a book about trying to nail down the ineffable, we can't help wishing for more concrete facts to anchor us. An investigation of Josh's arrest record, for example, could have provided a clearer picture of how he supported his heroin habit.

But clarity may be beside the point. Josh, Mann writes, "is in the thick air of the messy moments of all the years that have passed without him." Fortunately, Mann clearly has been endowed with the empathy his brother so sorely lacked. It enables him to move us with lyrical descriptions of Manhattan seen from a distance ("rising out of the water, stacks of gold light outlined by dusk. Everything else is disappointment"), and simple assertions like "I wanted him to feel better than he felt." Let's hope Lord Fear frees Mann to move on to happier projects.

Read an excerpt of Lord Fear