 Charles A. Chuck Horner was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1936. He graduated from high school in Des Moines and enrolled in the University of Iowa in 1954. Reserve Officer Training Corps was his ticket to the United States Air Force and to flight school. He was awarded a degree and a commission in 1958. And then completed flight training at Spence Air Force Base, Georgia, and Laredo Air Force Base, Texas, earning his pilot wings in late 1959. After combat crew training in the North American F-100 Super Sabre, Horner joined the 492nd Tactical Fighter Squadron in England. In 1963, he transitioned to the Republic F-105 Thunder Chief and served in the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. He volunteered for combat duty and served two tours in Vietnam between 1965 and 1967. He flew 41 missions in the thud as a member of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, Thailand, including the first aerial attacks on North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile sites. He went on to fly an additional 70 missions from Corat Royal Thai Air Base as an F-105 Wild Weasel. In September 1967, Horner was reassigned to Nellis Air Force Base as an instructor and then liaison officer at the Air Force Tactical Fighter Weapon School. He went on to lead two Tactical Fighter Wings, two Air Divisions, and the Air Defense Weapon Center. In March 1987, Horner took command of the 9th Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces. On August 3, 1990, General Horner was flying an F-16 to TAC headquarters when he was called back to 9th Air Force. Iraq had invaded Kuwait. After flying to Central Command headquarters, he went with General Norman Schwarzkopf to brief President Bush and then on to Saudi Arabia, where he became the first coalition's forces air component commander. During Operation Desert Storm, people around the world came to know Horner and his rye commentary during daily briefings. In one memorable scene, General Horner remarked, quote, This is my counterparts headquarters, unquote, as a building in Iraq took a direct hit. After the Gulf War, he pinned on his fourth star and completed a distinguished career, leading the North American Aerospace Defense Command, United States Space Command, and Air Force Space Command. General Horner retired in 1994 with more than 5,300 flying hours and a variety of fighters. General Horner now lives near Eglin Air Force Base, Florida with his wife, Mary Jo. Gentlemen, please join us in welcoming to the Gathering of Eagles stage, General Chuck Horner. Sir, we are honored to have you as one of our Eagles for GOE this year. As the CFAC of Desert Storm, can you please set the stage for what was asked of you prior to the beginning of the war? What was the question? Can you set the stage for what was asked of you prior to the beginning of the war kicking off? That I don't screw up. Well, General Schwarzkopf came in in November of 1979 and we talked and he said, we're going to put Syncom out of business because we don't have anything to do. And I said, well, fine. He said, but he said, actually, there's a real threat. Iraq came out of the Iran-Iraq war, poor, with a huge military, and they're sitting right next to Kuwait, which has got money and they need money. So he said, we need to orient the command towards Iraq invading Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. I said, fine. So we started planning at that time. Before that, we were always planning to stop the Russians from taking over a warm-morning port in Iran. So it was a big change of direction. We had an exercise in July where we worked out what we do to halt an Iraqi invasion. And suddenly the intel started being the same as the real world, which is scary because most of the time, intel people don't know what they're talking about. And it was a funny thing. He said, we were thinking. He said in November, he said, in the past, General Christ, who was a Marine, had given you the job as Air Component Commander. And he said, I've decided to continue that. And I said, well, thank you very much. And I said, who's going to be the ground component commander? And he thought, because of the tension between the Marine Corps and the Army as to who's going to run things on the ground. And he said, I guess I will be. And I said, well, then I want you to understand something. I'm going to talk to you in a way that you don't appreciate. I'm going to have to point out things to you that make you look stupid. And because, quite frankly, you don't know how to fight air. And then you take that criticism and that struggle, and then you put on your unified commander's hat and make a decision, and that's what we'll do. I promise you that. And he said, OK. And he was always good that way. You flew two tours in Vietnam. What lessons remained with you as you began planning for the Gulf War? The Vietnam was the greatest learning experience the military could have. A, don't get in a war that is essentially a civil war in which your dog in the fight is stopping communism. B, don't let the politicians in the Pentagon and in the White House and Congress get involved in the actual execution of the war. Have them give you a military objective or a political objective that is achievable military force. Then you get into things like rules and engagement. Rules and engagement are designed to protect the politician because bad things happen in war. And the military has got to tell the politicians, hey, boy, if we go to war, bad things are going to happen. We're going to kill civilians. We're going to kill women and children, so get used to it. Don't try and stop it. And they tried to stop it with rules and being stupid. So one thing I determined from President Bush when we briefed him, he knew what he was doing. And he gave us a mission that was militarily achievable, liberate occupied Kuwait. And only rules he laid on us was fight as a coalition and keep the loss of life down. And he meant also enemy life. And so, believe me, those of us who are in Vietnam really responded to that. Sir, who are some of the mentors that she looked up to? We've had great mentors. One of them just died last week, Bill Kirk. If you ever knew Bill Kirk, you probably knew the most innovative, creative, and great guy to work for. He never went to college. He got red land off the BG list for something that he didn't do, but he took full responsibility for. He was fired as a wing commander and eventually led USAF with four stars. He had the job at ninth prior to me. And he taught me things like, take joy when good things happen to other people. You know, we in the military are very competitive people. And so, somebody gets promoted and we're not on that list and sometimes we feel anger or we feel disappointment. And he taught me take joy when good things happen to other people. And so, that was one of the big lessons he taught me. The other thing is, Bill Kirk was extremely smart and extremely lazy. He would sit there with his feet up on his desk and come in the Pentagon working for him. And I'm all lathered up and running around and everything. And he'd just smile. And he knew I was doing his work for him and he liked that. So, probably the greatest guy in terms of changing things for the better was Bill Creech. He was a real pain in the ass. His visits to our bases, we'd call creature feature after the horror stories. And one time he chewed me out because there wasn't a hook on the back door of the bathroom in the DV quarters where he could hang his bathroom. I mean, nobody wears bathrooms. But he kept me around, I don't know why, because I'm the exact opposite. He's very neat and, you know, good looking, handsome and everything. I'm just, it looks like a sack of flour with a rope tied around it kind of person. And I think he kept me around, he'd run ideas and I'd argue with him. I always argued with him and I was always wrong. And I think what he kept me around for is if he could convince me then anybody could get it. So, but he's worth studying. He had a book, TQM, or five pillars of TQM. I said, you never use the term TQM. He says, oh, that's the current buzz phrase. I had to use it to sell the book. But he really changed things for the better. And he was absolutely 100% interested in readiness. Everything he did was towards readiness. And if our accident rate got too low, he'd start to worry, because we weren't training hard enough. Things like that. You know, you don't find people like that in the military anymore. They're there, but we got to find them. Sir, with over 60 international officers in the audience and ACSE students who may be serving as part of a coalition in the Middle East, what some unique challenges could you, or rewarding experiences, could you impart on us from your time? Well, the key to coalition is having respect for one another. Every nation's a sovereign nation. In the Gulf War, we had a Lieutenant Colonel from Canada. We had a three-star from Saudi Arabia. We had a Colonel from Kuwait. And every night, we'd all sit around a two-star from England and one star from France. We'd sit around the table twice a day at changeover in the Command Center. And everybody spoke with equal voice. Now, it's easier for airmen to do coalition than anybody. First of all, we all spoke English, because English is the language of aviation. And second of all, rank has very little importance to airmen. The flight lead is in charge. And it may be a second lieutenant, it may be a Colonel. And the wingman follows the flight lead, and it might be a Colonel on the wing. And normally, he'll let the second lieutenant be in charge until he screws up, and he'll say, you're out of here. But so we have respect for individuals, and we speak the same language. We tend to think the same. So it's much easier for airmen than, say, ground guys, who are completely different. The French, head French guy in the Desert Storm didn't speak English. And Sir Peter D. Labilier, the head of the English contingent, walked into the room, and the French general went, oh, Dabilier, he started babbling French. Well, Dabilier's ancestors came over in the Battle of Hastings, 1688. And so Sir Peter looked down at him and says, I'm sorry, mate, I don't speak a bloody word. Sir, this week is a very unique opportunity for each of us with having such great leaders, military leaders speak to us. What lessons do you want to impart on this ACSC class as we move out next week and back to the field? I don't think I can teach these people anything. They've sat in this room and been bombarded by the brightest minds in the world, and they thought, oh, what a bunch of horsemen were. So just go be yourself and do your thing and you'll succeed. All right, Sir, at this time we will open it up to questions from the class. And now the spring butts can stand up and ask their questions. Come on, collards. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a few questions. You can move to the side, microphones. There's a designated mark right there. Good morning, Sir Major Clayton from Seminar 18. A question is, what's your most rewarding leadership experience that you've had in your career? Being a father. I've always had fun. I tell you, have fun. If you're not having fun, get out of the military. It's got to be fun. Life's too short. And so I've had jobs where I had people that I didn't like. I worked for and I sort of gutted through those. I had jobs where I worked with the most wonderful people in the world. And I loved that. But at the end of the day, the thing that's most important in your life is your family. So learn about that. Don't put them overboard for getting ahead in the career. Come on, you've got to get up faster and talk faster. General, Major Davenport, Flight 28. As an aviator, can you share with us one of your most memorable experiences either in combat or flying? I really love combat because there's nothing better than to be shot at and missed. And of course, it all comes to crashing. We had guys get shot down. And they'd get picked up and come back. And they'd have trouble holding a drink for some reason. So I never had the privilege of being shot down. So to me, it was always fun. But it changed. We had one guy, he was on his 90th mission, got shot down, picked up, brought back. And so he said, I don't want to fly strike anymore. He says, can I fly with the weasels? We always put a single seat on the wing of one and three. And so we said, sure. He says, you guys have it easy. So we'd always go in ahead of the strike package and try and suppress the radars. And then strike package command. And then we'd come back and try and get them to shoot at us so we could find them. And so he goes in this mission and we go in and we're going fast. We're going over 600. Going in and of course the radars all shut down. We start pointing down them. And there comes strike package. And then they come back out. So now we're going and we're trying to get a, the SAM sites to come up. And on this one, we get a Dr. Pepper. That's a sighted 10, 2, and 4. And suddenly they all shoot. So we had 16 missiles coming up in that particular mission. He came back and he says, I want to get back into strike business. Combat is the most fun there is. It doesn't get any better than that. Yeah. Good morning, General. Thanks for coming and taking part in this. This is Major Haney Flight 32. Don't suck it. So we've read a lot of books this year. And a lot of the books and speakers suggest that during Vietnam, some of the problems that were within the Air Force was that a focus on the strategic mission caused the tactical mission to lose focus in training and resources. Today we have some issues where maybe a focus on the insurgent fight or has caused us to lose focus on some of the strategic stuff. What lessons can we learn from your era and that transition from Vietnam to the end of the Cold War that could help us today? Well, the first, one thing I want you to take away from it is don't ever use the term strategic and tactical because it confuses things. And they mean different things to different people. But there's no doubt about it. SAC got the money when I came in the Air Force. For the first three years I was flying in an operational unit. I had one flying suit. And it had both arms ripped off in having fun and games in the bar. And so just sewed them up. Well, I looked like Frankenstein with all these seams sewed up in the suit. And that, of course, changed in 65 when we started getting interested in conventional war. And as a result, we had this huge buildup. The way we do things, and you're in it right now, you're going through the dry spell in the military budgets. We went through the dry spell in the fighter business in the 50s. And then it would go to the glut where we got everything. We became everything. SAC got nothing. So it's feast or famine in the military. Get used to it. It's the way we do business and democracy. It sucks. It's the poorest way to do business, but it's reality. So get used to reality. And now we're on the upswing again. And you're going to get stuff you never got before. You're going to get flying time you never got before. You're going to get fuel, parts, things like that. As a storm happened to occur at the peak of readiness of the military. Because Reagan pumped all that money in in the early 80s. And it takes a decade in order to spend it, get it right. And we had all this new equipment, new capability just coming into the inventory. And as a storm we looked really good. And you're on the upswing now. So congratulations because you've been through the drought. I don't know if I answered the question or not. I forget the question now. The trouble being old. You're here to study ancient history called the Gulf War. Good morning, general. Major, over here, sir. Yeah, there you go. Major Jeremy Sexton from Flight 18 and JSTARS Navigator. Based on your experiences working with our allies, what, if any, planning procedures, systems management, or execution methods that you feel we should emulate or incorporate into our way we do business? Man, that's a school question right there. Jerry O'Malley said, when you go to a dance, dance is the one that brung you. And what he's telling young colonels who are going to be generals, don't change the way you do business. Americans are free people. We're free thinkers. Air Force people tend to be a little obnoxious because we're really free. But the point is that just be yourself always, whether it's within the service, within your marriage, within working with a coalition. And a lot of, I could never negotiate with the Arabs because they're masters at it. Their whole life, the game is more important than the product in terms of that's the way they're brought up. So when I was dealing with Asadi or Kuwaiti or Bahraini or UAE guy or Oman, I'd just say, I'm sorry, Ahmed, that's the best I can do. And I'd just stop. I couldn't negotiate. I wouldn't make them angry, but they understood that I was a fool and I wasn't going to get in the game with them. And so there's things like that. Just always be yourself, whoever you are. And the same with dealing with your subordinates. All of us have worked for people who were one day or a good guy the next day they're an animal. And it's really frustrating and it ruins a unit. So if you're an animal, just be an animal. Everybody's used to that. They can handle it. If you're really a nice person, just be a nice person all the time. And you know, when you fire them, smile. But Americans, we're highly respected, but people are wary of us because we do come on like a thunderstorm. And so when you're in a coalition, people will allow you to lead because they recognize the command and control you bring, all the things that they don't have. On the other hand, don't ever act like you're in charge because you start doing that and they'll chuck you overboard in the army. So just be yourself and be humble. And particularly if you're a fighter pilot, which is impossible, be humble and just listen to people and get along. Approaching your mic. Or just going to the bathroom. How can they put the mic so far away? Is this PT? Morning, sir. Bob Johnson from Flight 19. Can you talk about a failure that maybe you couldn't fix but had to bounce back from and how you did it? My wife would tell you it's our marriage. We did a lot of things in Desert Storm that we did poorly. Intelligence exploitation we've done poorly. And I don't think I can fix that, but the intel community can. If they start allowing their people to make mistakes and quit trying to get promoted, that kind of stuff. Desert Storm, we hit a bunker that was used in air raid shelter. It was a horrible thing and I felt terrible about it, but life goes on. So in your life you're going to have a lot of mistakes and a lot of errors. Bill Creech always allowed us to have mistakes. He would never allow us to have breaking a law. You know, doing something for yourself. He just was deaf on that. But I made a lot of mistakes and he'd say, hi, you make it again, you're fired. I'd say, I understand. And so you learn to live with mistakes. And quite frankly, I had some very deep depression moments. We'd have an aircraft accident kill a couple of people and I'd have to take it on myself as my fault. And I could have made excuses about it and said, well, you know, they shouldn't have been flying in that whether I wasn't there or something like that. But if you don't take responsibility for things that happen, then you're really not worth it. You've got to take responsibility for bad things that happen. Bill Kirk, when he got redlined off the BG list and fired and sent to 9th Air Force as the DO, I was the DO up at Seymour Johnson in the fourth wing. So I went, I had to get down there for something and I'm down there and I go over to his house for dinner and I loved Bill Kirk. So I wanted to make him feel good and I said, boy, did you get a raw deal because the reason he got fired is because he wouldn't fire a squadron commander. And the reason he wouldn't fire him is because he knew the squadron commander says, you want a case of black catmine? He says, sure. So they shipped it back in the airplane and they declared it but they shipped it in a government airplane and that was the big crisis. So he wouldn't fire the squadron commander so they fired him. So I said, boy, it wasn't your fault and it's terrible that I thought, he says, hold it. He said, I deserved everything I got. He said, I ran the risk of embarrassing the Air Force and, you know, he went on to be four-star general. So take responsibility for problems and expect to be disappointed, expect to be down in the dumps. When I was the wing commander, you know, you want to make general. And so I'm out at Luke and wing commander and one of my guys comes in and tears the gear off and F-15 slides to a halt. Fortunately, they got out okay. So I'm sitting, she takes, what's her name to the chapel so she can put up her music and all that, get ready and nobody in the chapel. And I'm really feeling disappointed because I'm not going to get promoted and feeling sorry for myself. And I happen to open the Bible and it said in Psalms, disappointment is for the treacherous deceiver, meaning if you're disappointed, you're fighting God's will. And I said, oh, took the spear out of my chest and said, and turned out okay. Good morning, sir, Major Ferguson, Flight 14. During Desert Storm, did you and the ground component commander not see eye-to-eye on certain things and how did you resolve those issues? Well, first of all, Schwarzkopf was the ground component commander. But the next echelon was a third army and that was John Yosef and John Yosef and I roomed together. And so if it went bad, it was Yosef's fault. If it went good, it was Schwarzkopf's fault. The problem we have in the army is they don't have an echelon above core for warfighting. They're doctrines on core at that time, maybe it's changed. Commander, we had five cores. We had Gary Luck, who's a great guy, 18th airborne core. Anytime you're dealing with Korean generals, army generals from Korea or army generals from organizations like airborne core, they understand the value of air power because their life depends on it. When you're dealing with the heavy one, in this case, 7th core, they think they are God and everybody works for them. So then we had an Islamic core and we had the Marine core. The Marine core was very good to work with because Walt Boomer, who was the head Marine in Desert Storm, was probably one of the most talented, thoughtful, really great people to work with. So the 7th core commander coming from Germany, in there they play zero-sum games. So in other words, there's 100 sorties of air available to the armies in Europe. Well, if the German core is getting air, then I'm not getting air. So what he would do, he'd send me a list of 200 targets he wanted killed because he thought he was going to win the war himself. Gary Luck had sent me a list of two targets. Yozak said, I don't know what to do. And so what I had, I had a Lieutenant Colonel Baptiste in the Air Force and a Colonel, I'll think of his name, Wilcox from the Army. And they would sit down and sort through all the lists. And they'd say, okay, hit this one, hit this one. And the other thing we had the advantage over the army is it took them forever to get any kind of intelligence products. And we were getting them directly from DC. John Morton used to send us a bunch of stuff. And that information was fresh. So as a result, when we'd go to hit a target, we had a pretty good idea it was there. And even then we had to invent the killer scouts because they moved their stuff around so much on the battlefield. So working with the army is kind of tough sometimes because they have a different mindset. And within the army, they have a different mindset. So I don't know whether to answer your question or not. Ask again. Good morning, sir. Major Lozaker. As you know, but for the benefit of the audience, the Air Force had no combat-ready conventional C-STAR forces available for Desert Storm. I was wondering, as a two-part question, first, how did that and your perception affect recovery operations? And are there any lessons that you think we should carry forward as we face new peer adversaries in the future? Well, it's not exactly right they didn't have any forces. They did. There was a political issue. The regular army and the special operations army, no matter what they'll tell you, they don't get along. And they think differently. They want to fight differently. Sorskov, they called, Powell called Sorskov. I was sitting in the office and Powell says, Norm, we're going to send you two battalions of special operations soldiers. Where do you want to put them? He says, Sudan. So what happens is the Special Operations Army tries to draw the Special Operations Air Force away from Big Air Force, the regular Air Force, because they see the same division. And it's not true at all. Because the two cases where the Special Operations Insurgents in Kuwait got overrun, they got 16s of bailed amount. It wasn't gunships like they always practice. So after the war I came down and I chewed out Downey. And I said, you know, you got to get a grip. The Air Force is one force and we have capability to go in and pick people up or put them on the ground. And that's the capability we were in the war with. Second thing about search and rescue. You do whatever you can. In the case of Rhonda, she got and ceased our business inadvertently. And it cost her two broken arms and some people. So we got to be careful about trying to put labels on things. But the PJs were in the soft force. We had PJs. In fact, the guy who bailed the one's insertion out was a PJ. On the ground with him. And he was being an Air Force guy. He took a survival radio with him. So when they had to run away and leave all their radios, they were huddled in a waddy surrounded by Iraqi forces getting ready to come in and bayonet them. And he pulled out a survival radio and was able to talk to AWACS and get the F-16s to come bail them out. And they got a helicopter and picked them up. So we have ceased our forces but they're generally in the Special Operations Force. And Special Operations Force went to the mission because they work for an Army Special Operations guy. Long question, long answer. Future? Who knows? It's up to you. You're running things. Good morning, General. Lieutenant Colonel Firas from Kuwait. First of all, please accept a bigger thank you from Kuwait, bigger than anyone else in this room. I've been made to feel that way when I go to Kuwait. Thank you. Thank you. My question is, being the CFAC and leading coalition of pilots is a very hard thing. How did you manage to curb everyone's enthusiasm, especially having pilots from Kuwait who might be more eager than everyone else? If you can let us know how to maintain a single flow. You know, you scared the Saudis. You brought your airplanes into Iran and they were afraid you were going to start the war. So they withheld all munitions and then they transferred your airplanes away and then they brought them back. But quite frankly, your people that came out were all very talented and followed the rules. No problem. I was worried about the mirages getting shot down by our forces. So the way we worked that out is you had A4s and mirages and we just put the mirages on the wing of the A4, told them to stay close. And that way our F-15 guys will shoot anybody given a chance, knew that it was a friendly mirage. I did have one funny experience. The first SCUT attack we thought was they might have poison gas and warhead. So SCUT attack, SCUT attack. Everybody got up in the TACC, there was a shelter down about four floors down into the ground. And they all put on their chem gear and they all went down there. I'm sitting at the table and I noticed the Lieutenant Colonel from Kuwait was sitting here. He's a great guy and he has no chem gear. And my chem gear is right there in the sack. So I just sat there and I said, Inshallah. And I was sitting in my thing and he looks at me and I look at him and he looks at me. We're the only two people in the room. And I'm not going to leave because he can't leave. He's going to die. And I'm thinking to myself, Horner, you're the dumbest SOB that ever pulled a stunt like this just to make one guy feel good and you're going to die. And I said, Stupid. And there was no gas so we came out okay. Yeah, I noticed a big change in Kuwait after the war. Suddenly, before you guys had been kind of distant, hard to work with. Or did that change? You became great allies, great friends. Thank you. You'll find something about the Arab world. It's very hard to get to know somebody from the Arab world. They're suspicious of Westerners. They've been treated poorly sometimes. Our deep relationship with Israel bothers them because they feel they have to remain true to the Palestinians. But once you make a friend and murder the vice, never lie or shade the truth with somebody from the Arab world. If you have to say, Ahmed, I love you like a brother, but your son is the ugliest kid I've ever seen. Say it. Because once they know that you tell the truth, once they know they can trust you and that you respect them and their religion, you will make a friend like you've never had a friend before. They'll be the, they're a friend for life. We make friendships in the Western world very easily, but they don't have the depth or the meaning that friendship does in the Arab world. So if you get a chance to serve in that part of the world, make sure you always tell the truth. Don't try and out-negotiate them. You're a baby when it comes to that. And always, always be honest with them. They'll respect that eventually. You may not like it at the time. So that it. Sir, sir, can you talk to us about when you wrote your letter of resignation in theater? Oh yeah. And kind of, you know, what you gained from that and how you instilled that faith back in our elected political officials that was kind of lost in Vietnam? Well, in Vietnam, I absolutely had great anger with our leaders, particularly in the military. Because they thought they knew what they were doing. They had no idea. They were dishonest, trying to be political. All sorts. We had stupid rules, things like that. So, okay, I'm, and I'm, you know, captains are very good at judging people. So, you know, I had all those judgments in my brain. So, we're sitting there, phone rings. It's Parsons from up in, in Tabuk. Good news, bad news. What is good news is we shot down two Iraqis. What's the bad news? We shot them down 60 miles inside Iran. Missed the road sign. I said, okay, well, in Vietnam, we just missed, we'd replot the shoot down and be inside Iraq. We decided we're not going to lose our integrity in this war. So, I call Swarovka, good news, bad news, and I know he called Cheney. So, I'm sitting there, and I said, well, the undersecretary of defense for voting rights and women's affairs will send a staff summary sheet, and it'll say you need to put a buffer zone. We had a buffer zone in North Vietnam, and I used to fly in it because the North Vietnamese knew it was a buffer zone, so they had no sands or guns up there. So, I'd go up and fly. In fact, I was in China a couple of times. And I said, okay, well, if they put a buffer zone, it wasn't going to work. So, I said what I'll do is I start outlining all the arguments against whatever measures that the Pentagon would send our way. And then I realized that wasn't going to work because what Swarovka often says after this meeting up in the headquarters, he'd say, Chuck, come up to the office. He says, I got this thing from Pentagon to keep from flying into Iran. And he says, well, what do you think about that? And he'd say, well, thank you for your interest in national defense to do it. Because why buck the secretary of defense sends you a letter you're going to follow. So, I said, I got to do what my generals in Vietnam didn't do, and I wrote my letter of resignation on a pad. And I was going to have to say here, because that's all you can do. That's the only leverage you have. And I hated it because I dearly did not want to do that because I was at the top of my game. I was at the peak. It was a wonderful time. But I owed it, my integrity owed it to that captain in Vietnam. So I wrote it. And so that night we go to the meeting and I'm waiting for him to say, check him up. The office he never did. Next night he didn't. Next night he didn't. And pretty soon I lost the letter. I wish I had it today. And so after the war, we were at a stamp unveiling in D.C. and Cheney's on the dies. And we're standing there and everybody's taking pictures. And I said, did you hear about us shooting down the Migs in Iran? He said, yeah, I did wish you hadn't done that. I said, so do I, but it happens. And I said, did you hear anything about how to keep that from happening again? He said, matter of fact, I got a staff summary sheet that outlines some measures you could take to help you from doing it again. And I wrote on the bottom of it, they'll know what to do in theater and send it back. So that letter of resignation never got sent because Cheney knew what to do, had faith in us. And that faith is really something I'm indeed grateful for. So you may face the same thing sometime. Be prepared to bet it all, put all the chips on the table. And you're not worth your salt if you don't, because you owe it to the people fighting the war. The most important thing we do in the Air Force is maintenance. That's the number one priority. That was Creech. He says, without good maintenance, I got a bunch of college graduates sitting around the bar thinking they're somebody. But on the other hand, everything we do is important. Even chaplains are important. I know there's a couple in the audience here and I'm sorry that I put you at the bottom of the list. But believe me, when the war comes, you move right up to the top of the list. You got another question since they won't... Sir, my name is Major Powell. I'm from Flight 35 and a GUE member. We've all read throughout the year about how important Desert Storm was, like the most significant campaign in U.S. history, and in particular, the most significant air campaign. Since you led that effort, did you know at that time after it was over how significant this campaign really was in our history that we would be still talking about it 26 years later? Well, I had breakfast with someone whose grandfather fought in Desert Storm. It made me feel old, as actually his father. Better if I say grandfather. Obviously, we were extremely happy to come home. That was the most important thing to us. We were extremely happy. The American people felt good about it. I worry a little bit that we read too much into it. Every war is different. Every war requires a different mix of force, different strategies, different ways of doing business. And what happened is you had the American people feeling guilty about how they acted during Vietnam. And you have an American military who felt guilty about Vietnam. And then suddenly all this money Reagan put in the budget, all this leadership Bill Creech gave us, all the great things that happened under Goldwater Knuckles and under the training we had, red flags and Desert thing out in Fort Irwin, all that and blue flags, all that came together. And then we had an enemy who had some structural problems. They were in a dictatorship, so you weren't allowed to think. They had an impressed army which didn't want to be there and was treated like crap. We had people making the Russian equipment ten feet tall. And we had everything was dysfunctional on the enemy side and functional on our side. So we came out of it looking like we really knew what we were doing. And I worry about that, that there was a euphoria created by getting rid of the guilt from Hangover from Vietnam. There was low expectations that the guided weapons and the F-15s, 16s, all the new equipment, jamming pods, weasels, brought to bear. And sometimes we can become, start what we call drinking our own bathwater. We start believing our own lies. So the danger in Desert Storm is reading too much into it. The war to study is Vietnam. That was a disaster of our own making. And so that's where I go for lessons. I wouldn't go to Desert Storm for lessons, although I think all airmen feel good about Desert Storm because it proved what we always said along. That if you can get control of the air, you can kick ass. And that's exactly what we did. Is that enough for you? Yes, sir. Microphone 5. Hey, good morning, sir, Major Mansell. You actually kind of answered what I was about to ask. So I'll use your response to ask another question. After Vietnam, other than resources, what type of training approach did you see using the Air Force that helped turn us around? For me, personally, blue flag was essential. That's where we learned how to build an ATO. And I'll tell you what, not very many people know how to build an ATO. Fingers, golfing, is really worried about that now. We'll lose that. Red flag, no doubt about it. I was in the basement pentagon working for Bill Kirk. And we wanted to do red flag, moody suitors. And so we're sitting around, how do we sell this? Well, in the 105, going to North Vietnam, we tried to give the guys the first 10 missions out of their 100 in the lower group packages so that they could get used to being in combat and all that. So we gave them the first 10 missions. So we said, you know what? So we built a chart. It was like Al Gore's, The Globes of Warming, the hockey stick. So we built this chart and we showed loss rate versus missions. And we put first 10 missions. We put a high loss rate. And then if you got through the first, and then we said, you want to give the first 10 missions at red flag so that when they really go to war there, don't get shot down. Well, it was like Al Gore's hockey puck stick. It was BS. But nonetheless, everybody latched onto it. They thought it was great. But there's no doubt about it. Red flag is an amazing experience and it's very worthwhile. And I'll tell you, one time we were having a JCS exercise down at Fort Irwin and I was supposed to do the opposition air. I was a Brigadier. So I go out there and I'm worried because I'm getting six airplanes from Marine Corps, 12 from the Navy, National Guard unit comes out. I got a regular Air Force. I got a reserve unit. I mean, just a total disparity of people. And I'm supposed to pick up the baton on Monday and we're going to fly on Tuesday and start flying as together as a force. And I was really worried about that. And then I realized after watching them function, they all hit the ground. They'd all been in those. They'd all been in red flags. So they knew exactly how to work together, how to sit in a mass briefing. They knew each other's tactics, the way of doing business, call signs, that kind of stuff. So quite frankly, red flag is worth its weight in gold in terms of teaching people how to work together in a high density environment. We do other things. What Bill Creech did is he would go out on the flight line and watch a mechanic change a hydraulic pump. He'd come out of his office, go out there at Langley and pull a chair up and sit under the wing and watch the guy. And what he was looking at, he was looking for all the things that frustrate people from doing their job. And as a result, he moved all the airplane parts down on the flight line. So the crew chief, if he needed a part, just walked over and said, I need a hydraulic pump. And they could either say here or there's one being repaired right now. It'll be out in an hour or we got one on order. It'll be two days. Then he could make a decision. Then he was allowed to go to the crew chief next to him. And before that, to pull a part out of the war reserve kits required approval from the chief supply, Colonel. And he got rid of all that. And then if the guy didn't have one, and he wanted to go borrow one from his airplane next to him, he'd go to that crew chief. And it was between those two crew chiefs. And the crew chief said, I don't care if they get in a fist fight over. They are the ones that are in charge. Make them negotiate. And so he did a lot of things. The thing he taught us is push responsibility and authority down as far as you can. In Desert Storm, the flight leaders could do whatever they thought was best at the time. I kept them from having rules of engagement. I controlled all the rules of engagement. And I depended on their good judgment. I depended on their knowledge of the laws of armed conflict. And we pushed authority down. I had four colonels, two in the day, two at night, who sat there, could make any decision. If somebody said, we want to divert green flight to target B, they could make that decision. Creech taught us that. Push that responsibility down, that authority down, people will respond. They'll do the right thing. And so if you find that you're creating an environment where you're in charge and you're micromanaging, you're a fool. You're robbing people of their initiative. And they'll surprise you. They're so much more capable than you are. It's unbelievable. Do they have to stand there after they ask the question? They go like that, like, yeah, I understand. I'm going to punch it in the newer. Sir, what are they going to ask you? They won't ask me questions. What are they going to ask you, Rhonda? We'll find out tomorrow. Sir, we appreciate you spending time with us. And I would like everybody to join us in thanking General Horner for spending an hour with us. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take a 20-minute break. As a reminder, we do have memorabilia sales out in the foyer. Just go out and turn left. I would encourage you to make your purchases now so you can get signatures from our Eagles this evening. Please be back in your seats by 9.45. Thank you.