 I'm Dan Leif. I go by Fig. I'm a former Air Force fighter pilot and blah, blah, blah. But most importantly, at least right now, I'm the host of Figments. And even more importantly, this is it, folks. The final episode of Figments, The Power of Imagination on Think Tech Hawaii. The final episode, holy moly, of how many? Counting Figments on reality, which I did for a while. Over the past two plus years, I've done 62 episodes. That's kind of shocking to me. You can find them all on the playlist. So I'll give you QR codes for those at the end of the episode. And it has been a blast. I've learned a lot. I've been reminded of how lucky I've been to have my experiences, but even more to know the people I've gotten to know. I just don't have the capacity to do it anymore. And so I'm going to do other things, make other things the priority. I will miss this. I will not miss the preparation because maybe some people can pull this out of their back pocket. But for me, it's a lot of work to try to do things right. And of course, I wanted to do that. Before I go any further, I do have to thank the Think Tech Hawaii, a great nonprofit led by Jay Fidel, who enables citizen journalists like me to put their ideas, thoughts, friends, whatever, forward. And they've got a great show. Let's go to Think Tech Hawaii on the web. You can find all of the shows. They're refreshed every day. And it is a remarkable organization. I'd also encourage you to consider supporting them financially because that's what keeps them afloat. But they've been great to work with. All of the engineers and other facilitators that I've worked with are awesome. I'm working with Ash today. But they make this a very professional endeavor on a pretty low budget. And I appreciate their work. And I'm just working with them. So what was Figments? If you're tuning in for some reason to the last episode as your first episode, what was the idea? Well, I had been interviewed by Jay on several Figments episodes way back to when I was the director of the Daniel K. Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. And after that, and I thought, you know, I can do that. And I could with their help, with a lot of their help. And my notion was to present Figments based on my nickname Fig. But Figments as things that were born from somewhat fanciful ideas because Figments, while they have a sort of a negative connotation really every great achievement idea starts as just a seed as a figment. And so that's what I did. My first, it started with my story because I have stories and it was an easy one to tell because I knew it. I'd lived it about being a fighter pilot. But more importantly about how I was able to become an Air Force fighter pilot despite having color vision deficiency or as it's often inaccurately labeled being colored black. So if you go to episode one, that was the first one. And then throughout the course of Figments, I spent a lot of time talking with friends and acquaintances, some of whom I made through some of the acquaintances I made through Figments who had similar experiences in combat as fighter pilots in the Air Force or in the Army on the ground and sharing their perspective in their stories. And I'd like to start looking back on that first by acknowledging CB Long. CB was one of my guests on an episode about close air support, board air control, providing air support to the Army. And that's his buddy, Guy Gruders, who flew the airplanes. But CB, if we go back one slide, was a ground technician, radio operator, maintainer and driver. CB has hospitalized him in the Phoenix area right now after a serious cardiac incident. He's recovering. I spoke to him yesterday. He's a great guy, a friend of a family that's a friend of the network that we build as members of the military. So CB, I hope you're watching. Think of you often. You're in our prayers and get well soon. And then we did, through CB, I met Guy Gruders and heard his amazing story about being shot down twice and serving as a prisoner of war, serving as a prisoner of war. That led me to my next Vietnam veteran friend somebody had flown F-15s with shown here. And that's Greg Slick Aguirre. Slick was one of the best F-15 pilots ever. He then flew for Southwest Airlines and still flies today slightly older than me. But he began his military life as a Huey helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Folks, if I were to say watch one military episode, related episode of Figments, that's the one. Because he does talk about his life of flying helicopters, fighter jets with the airlines. But it's his story of helicopter combat in Vietnam that you'll find particularly moving. Again, a great friend and a great guy. So then I got to my own combat friend. Guy worked for me in combat. And his name is Dave Goldfein, fingers. And fingers Goldfein will later be the chief of staff, the Air Force. But while he worked for me as the commander of the world-famous and highly respected triple-necklo-american's greatest fighter squadron, fingers was shot down and rescued during the Coastal War, Operation Allied Force. That's not the story told. And his was the second episode in kind of the quintessential figment. Because he tells how he got excused, if you will, from the Air Force Academy between his sophomore and junior year to be a roadie in a rock band. There's much more to that episode than that. And that's another good one to watch. I hope they're all good ones to watch. But I really like that one. Fingers is one of the funniest guys ever. A great fighter pod and a real hero, a real hero. But it wasn't just military folks that I talked to. I also talked to some of the remarkable people I've worked with on other matters, like the Fantastic Doctor. There's fingers there right after he's been rescued and a humorous little plaque. Let me digress a bit where I told him that when I had been the nickel commander, I didn't get shot down after he was shot down and rescued. Of course, I was the nickel commander in peacetime. So there's a reason for that. But other people, not warriors, at least not warriors in uniform that I worked with, included the great Dr. Ala Mervit, who's been a partner in women, peace, and security endeavors with me, who has just Googled her name or watched the episode. One of the most remarkable folks I've ever known. And I shared some time with her on Figments. Go look at it. And then also had a chance to have on the show Susan Helms, who's one of my mentors in the Air Force. She was a bit younger than me, a colonel, when I was a three star, but she taught me about space when I was the vice commander at Air Force Space Command. And how could she do that? Well, she was an astronaut. That's how. And an astronaut who came back to the Air Force from NASA, not a common endeavor, a bit of another figment to be a three star general herself. And again, one of the remarkable folks that I've gotten to know in addition, I got to have a show with somebody I met long ago at a conference at Naval War College, the esteemed Dr. Oriana Mastrow, who is, I submit, the best scholar on national security matters with regard to China, People's Republic of China, period. Oriana is brilliant focused, incredibly big head, big not head brain for capturing and understanding details. And I got to know her and help her get into your force. I take some credit for that. But if you want to know what you should learn about Chinese global ambitions and how you should think about the US China relationship, but you could say rival right now, read what Oriana has written or see what she has said because she's remarkable. So these were all serious topics. I had a session in one show on leadership with the best leader I've ever known and one of my favorite people on the whole planet. And I hope you'll go back and look at this one. I am going to give you the QR code. This is my daughter, Yating Li, and on the right, you can see she led me to run a marathon and those who know me know that's it. That's one of the most incredible leadership accomplishments ever. She was an Air Force Lieutenant and served in the Air Forces and Intelligence Officer for six years. But most importantly, now she works in industry for Google at this time and is a true expert on leadership. And I've rewatched that episode sometimes to think about what I'm doing, how I'm leading in any environment because we all have a chance to lead. That's a good time to say, well, what have I learned from doing things because I have learned a lot. It's been refreshing for an old guy and I am an old guy to have to put my ideas forward on camera for 28-ish minutes in a coherent way while conducting a conversation with people who are invariably smarter and more knowledgeable than I am. That brain stretching has been exceptionally valuable and that's been manifested mostly in the writing that I do and I do quite a bit of writing. I've also been reminded to be humble because these folks, and there are many more. So if you were a guest and I didn't mention you yet or don't mention you, please don't be offended. I can't go 62 times down the list here folks, but reminded of not just the great accomplishments but the great commitment of people and the humanity of the folks I've had a chance to associate with. And what a blessing that has been for me and what a reminder to be grateful for my life experiences, my friends, my travel, my family, everything that I should be grateful for. And I learned that from ThinkTech. So I've learned how to find out another thing. I've learned how to find out the background of images. Are they public domain? Are they copyrighted? Are they somehow protected? That sounds like a non sequitur, but I'll say this about ThinkTech, the great organization that I mentioned earlier who hosted is their absolute sticklers on doing things right. And that's why they still exist some 20-ish years later. So I pause and do the obligatory and certainly appropriate acknowledgement of ThinkTech why. That's who brought you figments of our imagination. Please support them. And you can find them as you see on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and find a lot of great content beyond figments of the power of imagination and figments on reality. So figments on reality I haven't talked much about, but at some point, maybe eight months into my figments ThinkTech journey, I decided I wanted to opine, just have an opinion show, not an interview or a storytelling show. And really, if I could do anything, if I wish I could do that about five minutes a day because I have a lot of opinions and that's one reason too. I'm right, it says me or if they wouldn't be my opinions. That's another reason. But more importantly, I think I'm able to do it in a way that is absolutely devoid of politics. Politics matter. We have a political system. So we need politicians to execute that political system. I'm not sure they're doing a particularly good job of it either side right now. But that being what it may, I think a political commentary that is objectively as possible examines tough issues like Afghanistan, like COVID, like Russia, Ukraine, North Korea. I think that's important and there isn't enough of it. Everybody seems to have to take a side when it is our side. We should take our side, the American people and the humanity of the world. So I enjoyed doing that. I will tell you that the most popular episode in on reality and one of the most popular episodes period was my episode on the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was a debacle. And there were mistakes made by multiple administrations. Go watch that episode for my review of those mistakes. But understand I'm not blaming this administration, but somebody should be blamed. And my conclusion in that episode was we needed accountability. As of yet, we haven't had it and that's wrong. Not a political commentary, but that evacuation, the departure from Afghanistan was a debacle. The actual evacuation went well and there's been a lot of self-congratulatory commentary about that. What we ought not celebrate is how we got there. It was a debacle. People should have been fired. They weren't. I think that's wrong. That seemed to resonate with figments on reality viewers. So I think that kind of commentary is important. I wish I could do it in a manageable bite-sized chunk. Maybe I'll find a way going forward. But it wasn't all serious stuff. It wasn't all pandemic and strife. Some of the figments was just plain fun and it was a lot of fun. I like baseball. I love baseball. There might be a game on my TV in my home office right now. I could tell you the score, but I won't. And my buddy Ross Rowley and I had a few shows where we looked at baseball. There's Ross and I on the golf course, but he's wearing his Cardinals colors and my Brewers Brigalia. And he's an expert on baseball, a statistician, retired Air Force Colonel. If you like baseball, watch especially the first episode with Ross, Imagining Better Baseball is the title of that one. And then I had on the show two of the most remarkable people I know and two of my favorite friends. There are no bests, right? All of us who are blessed with good friends and it's hard to have bests. And that's Andre and Maria Jacques-Mathone on the right holding one of their each three Emmys. They're the writers of Mad Men in the first early years. Some of the writers say, you know, that it's a group endeavor, but they're holding the Emmys. So there's that. And they talked about how they imagined what got to the screen. And who would have thought that I'd know folks like that? And so Andre and Maria, you're always a blessing. It's always good to see and talk to you. And I think the viewers, you'll enjoy looking at that story, whether you've seen it before or not. And I like airplanes and I like fast cars. So I stumbled across, I think through the miracle of Facebook and a small secret closed group of old fighter pilots. That's might be what it's called that meet on Facebook. And I start, I stumbled across this guy or the guy who owns these two modes of transportation, Greg Sembar or Blower Sembar has that P-51 Mustang. And we talked about that most beautiful airplane. The P-51 is ever built. I'm fortunate to have about 11 hours in the back seat of various P-51s. The Ferrari, not so crazy, but I'm a Mustang guy of a different sort. But you want to know what it's like to own a real P-51 Mustang and fly it, then watch the episode with Greg. So that brings me to the most popular episode of Fignments, the power of imagination ever. And I don't, I'm kind of surprised by this because, you know, you take a former chief staff the Air Force and tell that remarkable story. I think that's pretty striking. An astronaut, any winners, things like that. My daughter, of course, she should be the most popular one in my book. But what was the most popular one by far? By double, I think, any other episode. The most popular episode was a fighter pilot review of the Top Gun Maverick that I did with Dallas Thompson. That's me on the left in Iraq. And I knew Dallas on the right from his work supporting the Navy. I was with the land forces. Those pictures have nothing to do with Top Gun. But Dallas had flown the F-14, he'd flown the F-18. So he was perfectly qualified to talk about Top Gun. And our timing was good. By far the most popular episode of Pigment's Bar of Imagination. So go watch the, if you haven't watched the movie yet, or if you're going to re-watch it now that it's had some time to settle on you, watch the review first. There are no spoilers. And some great insight for your viewing pleasure. So as I said, the commentary was good. I'd like to do that easier. Find a way that I could just think, talk, think, talk, and like five minute burst. That's not, let's think, talk. That's not think tech. So it doesn't fit the model for think tech Hawaii. But we'll see what we can do. What I am going to do and what is really pulling me towards us is kind of like that. Let me first say that it's not just the end of Pigment's. There are a couple other roles that have mattered to me that I'm stepping away from to allow time for the endeavors I'm going to discuss in a minute. I recently resigned from the board of directors and as a vice president member of the executive committee at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum here on Fort Island. It's a fantastic organization. I love that place. Alejandra, my bride still served on their scholarship. They will continue to be involved, but I need more time and that tells you that I have at least one and actually two things that I want to focus on and do right. Actually, the three things. The first thing, if you watch Pigments, you've seen several episodes about this or at least know they're out there. And that is peace on the Korean Peninsula, lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. This goes back to 2017 when I penned a prize winning paper odd for a D student fighter pilot, D student English. Okay, I was a D student several things, but especially English. So I've been interested in this for years, but frankly presenting my ideas and think to help me and on Pigments for imagination helped me think better and more about it. And that led to meeting some folks. Christine on, who was my last guest of women cross DMZ. Christine on last guest on Pigments and got me some notoriety that allowed me to get an article published in the New York time. And that has led to big opportunities. There's that front page article. Yeah, front page. Yes, I am bragging bragging with a purpose though, but a lot has flowed from that. I have a chance to make a difference. It's something I care deeply about. I realize it's a quixotic pursuit and I may just be tilting the windows, but maybe not. And I'll sleep better at night if I try to end that stalemate and that this matters to me in a quick thumbnail because in my mind and I'm quite convinced of this and trying to convince others, Korea is the most dangerous nuclear case for one bad mistake away from a nuclear conflict. Two were there because of the stalemate. The armistice was signed 70 years ago. This coming well next month, July 27, 1953 and not solving that problem. That the fact that we're technically still at war has enabled the North Korean nuclear advances and that we need to pursue peace and reconciliation through a formal peace treaty. I believe that. So I've been spending some time in Washington, DC. I'll be speaking at events surrounding the armistice there and I want the government, our government to aggressively pursue a peace treaty with North Korea. Very limited focus, not as a concession, not as a peaceman, but from a position of strength because if we don't do that, we're not going to get anywhere on denuclearization. We're not going to get anywhere on human rights and the human condition, North Korea. We're not going to get anywhere reconciling the wounds of war and I've been in enough conflict zones to know you got to do that. So that is endeavor one and my top priority. Endeavor two, I can't fully disclose so I'll give you a little teaser. Now there's something called honorary consuls where governments have an honorary unofficial representative here in Hawaii. We have a counselor core and we've got representatives from many countries from Switzerland to Bangladesh to Chile and they perform some roles to helping travelers representing the country unofficially during business or official visits and just being a presence with some formality for a country. Well, guess what? I'm going to be one of those. At least the State Department has approved my appointment and the establishment of a counselor post. So sometime in coming weeks we'll tell you what country is for, but not today. I will say this, it's an Asian country and it's not North Korea. So stand by for news on that that not as big a role or as significant as the pursuit of peace with North Korea but certainly not a small thing either and I want to be able to do it right. I would also like to be able to do life right and you know that's a learning process, isn't it? For all of us who are in our 70s but maybe somebody has it figured out. I still don't but I want to make sure that I have time to work in the yard to go on day nights to play golf with Alejo to do whatever with our crazy dog Ace who is by the way, he's getting better. He's officially been lifted from the terror watch list. So as he matures he's not quite the crazy dog that he has been. So I do want to live life right and to do that you've got to choose carefully what you do. So I'm going to pursue peace with North Korea. I'm going to represent a government that our country needs a good solid relationship with more on that in the news and try to be a good husband and father dog father whatever and use the time I have remaining well. It has been a pleasure to get feedback from those. I know some I don't know to reacquaint as I did with Rotten Ron, Rotten Ron. I hope you're watching this final episode. One of my crew chiefs in the F 15 to here take some slings and arrows on my ideas and also get some reinforcement that the power of positive thinking has value even in today's world and I try to do that. So thanks again to figments. Let's bring up the QR codes and I'll talk over them a little bit. That's where you can find it or you can go to think tech Hawaii on the web and look for all of the old episodes and look at some of the other things that have been presented by by other hosts. It has been an honor to know you digitally and to try to share some of my life and some of my ideas with you. So with that, I bid you aloha and mahalo. Thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at think tech Hawaii dot com mahalo.