Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

by Tom Clancy

  Chuck Horner takes up the thought:

  I have no idea what Creech liked about me. We were certainly never what I would call friends, or even had very much in common, other than a love for flying and the Air Force (Creech loved the joy of being a fighter pilot). So I avoided him as much as possible, and in the beginning, I even fought what he was trying to do. But when I realized he was actually showing us how to succeed and that is exactly what we wanted to do, I became one of his biggest advocates.

  For his part, he was often very hard on me (which was good for me), and he was a giant pain in the ass (because he kept after details). Yet he gave me prime but challenging jobs, then made sure I worked my ass off. And in those jobs we did work hard to improve things—to have better-looking jets, cleaner facilities, and to take control of our own lives rather than ask for help without doing anything to make things better on our own hook. As the same time, I never tried to suck up to him and tried to be honest and admit mistakes to him I did not need to reveal. Though I think he liked that, I didn’t actually do it to impress him. That is just my way.

  In the end, I think he judged me on the scorecard of our accomplishments, based on his awareness of what my NCOs thought of how I was doing. But I will never know.

  ★ By the time Horner and Creech met, Creech was starting to make his presence felt. One of Creech’s notable qualities was his ability to know virtually everything going on in his command. He was simply a powerful listener (“You’ve got to get your ear down at the other end of the pipe,” he liked to say); he was always on the phone, or taking trusted sergeants and officers aside to get the straight story. His network of such people was vast. Thus, he was well informed about the situation at the 58th Fighter Wing when Colonel Chuck Horner first arrived there.

  The immediate challenge at the 58th was that the wing was so large, encompassing F-104s, F-4s, F-15s, and F-5s, that it had to be split in two. Horner was to be the commander of one of these new wings, which he assumed would be the one containing F-4s and F-104s. Meanwhile, he assumed that the existing wing commander, Pete Kemp, who was current in the F-15, would get the far more modern F-15/F-5 wing.

  Since the F-4s and F-104s were far older than the F-5s and F15s and needed better maintenance leadership, Horner worked hard to find the best possible people for those aircraft. He wanted the best for his wing.

  But then on the day before the split occurred, Pete Kemp was told he was leaving for another job, and that Horner would command the F-15/F-5 wing (now called the 405th Fighter Wing). After watching Horner make all the right moves for the F-4s and F-104s, Creech had moved him on to the challenge of making himself proficient in the more up-to-date aircraft.

  ★ In 1980, Horner was sent again to Nellis AFB, but now as the wing commander of the 474th TFW. In those days, the wing was equipped with long-out-of-date F-4Ds, but in a few months it was scheduled to receive the newest F-16As. That meant that, once again, Creech was offering Horner a large challenge, as well as the chance to make himself proficient in still another up-to-date, top-of-the-line fighter. He was to become one of the handful of pilots proficient in both air-to-air and air-to-ground in the two finest fighter aircraft in the U.S. inventory.

  Meanwhile, the 474th offered many additional challenges. Not only were they switching over to the F-16s, but they were also taking on the very demanding Rapid Reactor commitment, because they were pledged to NATO. They had to be ready to deploy hours quicker than any other wing in the Air Force; then they had to be certified in all the mission areas required for a wing stationed in Germany; and at the same time they had to maintain all the other worldwide capabilities of any other wing. The wing successfully handled the commitment, as well as the F-16 changeover, and then six months after taking on their first aircraft and pilots, they won the TAC F-16 gunnery title, while taking an Operational Readiness Inspection and a Nuclear Assurity Inspection. “The results that followed these huge efforts were because of the entire wing effort and were not just a Chuck Horner thing,” Horner is quick to add. “I just had the privilege of being there at the time.”

  In fact, Horner was taking command—a process as natural to him as flying.

  I like a big challenge. That’s what motivates me. I like to be faced with a task that no one else can do—or at least do as well as I can in my own mind. On the other hand, I don’t care a hoot about small tasks, tasks that strike me as mundane or trivial (even though I also understand that the mundane may be as important as anything else; Jonas Salk must have conducted millions of mundane tests and observations to create his vaccine for polio). So I would much rather be given command of a wing in transition than a wing where things are going smoothly, and my challenge would be to make it better (without having a lot of room to make that happen). For instance, I was always happier to command a wing that was transitioning out of an old, difficult-to-maintain aircraft, like the F-4D, into a modern aircraft.

  What turns my key is fear of failure in the face of a great challenge. And what causes me to go into the idle mode is to be given something to do that really doesn’t need much doing.

  None of this means that I have any illusion that I am the reason the big job will get done. That’s not my function: I am a cheerleader, a mender of faint souls; I’m the one who listens to contending views of the path, the method for the use of resources or the organization of effort, and then decides which way to go.

  ★ These facts were not lost on Bill Creech. In the Air Force, commands are doled out very selectively, and most higher officers get only one of them in their entire life. But Creech kept moving Horner: two wings, two air divisions, and an air defense weapons center—all command billets. Then, after two years on staff, he spent five and a half years commanding regular forces, and spent the last few years of his career as a unified commander.

  As a commander, you only get things done through other people. You lead people, you manage things. And if you can’t lead, you command. You order people to do what you want. Sometimes I had to order people; sometimes I just didn’t have time to go through all the niceties that leadership demands and had to lay a little leather on somebody. But leadership is best.

  When you lead, you have to create an environment where the leader is the chief server. That is to say, he is the one who makes it possible for everyone else to do their jobs. He provides the backup and the support. I saw command as an inverted pyramid. I was the lowest guy in the food chain and the airman was the highest guy in the food chain, and it was my job to make sure I was working for all those people as much as possible.

  The environment you create as commander will also have other characteristics. For one thing, it has to suit your personality (so you don’t go crazy); within it, you have to lay down realistic guidelines and goals (so people won’t fall off the face of the earth and will know where they’re going); yet it has to allow those under your command the freedom to do their best and most creative work. And then you have to trust yourself and everyone else to let all that happen.

  ★ For Horner, the leadership environment he liked to create tended to approach the edge of chaos . . . but a focused chaos. A “chaotic” style goes with the fighter-pilot ethos, partly because fighting in air-to-air battles is by definition chaotic; partly because a fighter pilot’s quickness of mind thrives in situations where inputs are many and varied and come lightning-fast; and partly because fighter pilots are themselves notably chaotic.

  Wherever I went, if I didn’t find chaos, I made it. Or else I did outrageous things. Why? Because I was goddamned if I was going to let anybody control my life. And that was an outward sign of letting people know that this is an individual. It’s a revenge against the uniformity of the military service.

  ★ Yet Horner brought chaos down to earth and made use of it.

  If you impose control to bring about order, then you will snuff initiative. My job was to exploit professionals and to get them to produce their best. I had to focus them, while letting them be themselves. Sometimes
this generated friction, conflicts, or even explosions. So be it. A little friction is the price you pay for getting everyone to feel free to act and to use their initiative and talents; and this was especially true of the highly spirited people I was usually lucky enough to command.

  On the other hand, some kinds of friction can be nonproductive. So it’s very important to create the kind of environment where people can dislike each other yet remain civil. You need an atmosphere where they can debate and where you can get the best arguments from them; yet you have to make sure they don’t come to blows or fall into some kind of irrational rage. Sometimes my subordinates would gang up on me. And sometimes I’ d arrange situations that would make that happen. When I saw people getting too diverted by personal differences, I would turn myself into the enemy—not by doing anything hostile, but normally by humor with a sting in it. . . . I had no plan here; it was just instinctive, situational; it was a gut thing.

  I’ve learned to support my guts. I’ve learned to trust myself. Not that I always get it right. But you have to make decisions based on uncertainty. You have to make decisions when the evidence is not clear. The black-and-white decisions are easy to make; they’re nobrainers. If what to do or where to go is so clear-cut that anybody can recognize what to do, then you don’t need a leader to make a decision. The hard decisions are the ones where the results are fuzzy, and where there’s no convincing rationale to tell you that one way is right and the other is wrong. What I learned is to go with my instincts, even when other people had equally valid arguments on the other side of the issue.

  ★ By the time he commanded the 47th TFW, Horner had come a long way toward internalizing and bringing to life these principles. He knew that he could create an environment where the NCOs and officers were permitted to tell the truth and give their unbiased opinion—and that his respect for them and trust in their judgment and integrity in those areas where they were experienced would lead them to make every effort to succeed and bring the unit along with them.

  ★ Horner’s handling of his NCOs and officers was one of the most crucial aspects of his leadership.

  Noncommissioned officers—sergeants—are the heart and soul of the Air Force. They run its day-to-day operations, and they are fiercely independent.

  The NCO’s job is to manage the enlisted force, lead and train the young airmen, and enforce discipline. Within that frame, they don’t think a great deal about officers, except insofar as an officer can cause the NCO problems while he attempts to do his job. They love a good commander who gives them meaningful work to do, and they despise a commander who undermines the performance they are trying to enforce among the enlisted members of the wing. If a commander loses their respect, they’ll dismiss him as useless and wait out his time in office in the hopes that a good commander will come along.

  Pity the poor officer who loses their trust. They can kill an outfit’s productivity and capacity just by doing little or nothing. They do not have to work against the commander, they only have to do the job as told . . . and the commander will not fly his sorties, pass his inspections, or win his war. On the other hand, the simple act of listening to their advice and their views pays huge dividends in gaining their respect and loyalty.

  Another way to win their support is to fire the right NCO. It goes without saying that not all NCOs are good and productive. The NCOs know who is getting the job done and who is coasting, but they will never tell on a fellow NCO to an officer. Fortunately, good NCO leadership is easy to detect. The best NCO leader is usually so busy getting the job done that the commander can’t even find him unless he scours the flight line or back shops. There he will find clues: a clean wheel and tire shop; a hangar floor so scrubbed you can eat dinner off it; an office filled with pride, military courtesy, and helpful airmen; a motor pool where the vehicles are in good operating condition and neatly parked in straight rows.

  The NCO who tells you how to run the wing, or finds a thousand faults with the way his boss is doing the job, is likely to be one with weak leadership skills and a bad attitude, and he or she needs to go before it infects the rest of the organization. That is why it is important that a new wing commander fire the right NCO. If he targets the NCO who is not carrying his weight, and is an embarrassment to the other NCOs, that wing commander has it made; the NCO force will make sure he is a success. If the hapless new wing commander fires the NCO he should recognize as one of the unsung heroes, then the other NCOs will at best perform cautiously. Why should they try extra hard if their boss is too stupid to know the difference?

  So when a commander sees a unit that’s gone bad, he has to fire or reassign the leadership of the unit, firmly and without hysterics. It is the hardest thing to do in command, for he can never be certain that he has accurately identified the person truly responsible.

  By way of illustration, Chuck Horner tells this story:

  When I took command of the 47th wing at Nellis, I made some immediate changes that upset a few people. For starters, I sent NCOs who had been sitting in air-conditioned offices out on the flight line, with instructions given in private, “You’re going to do it right, or you’re going to retire.” Young airmen who’d been playing loose with how they wore their uniform, got their hair cut, or shined their shoes also came in for close scrutiny from the new wing commander; and if they needed to be sharpened, I stuck them verbally in the sharpener—to include also their NCO supervisors (in the event they had forgotten what we were all about).

  For a while, the wing went silent, while everyone decided if I was a good or bad commander. If I was to get their trust or loyalty, I had to earn it.

  The first breakthrough came one day when one of the best NCOs in the unit pulled me aside and told me to keep it up. I asked what that meant, and he told me that I must be doing good, because of what he saw when he stopped for a beer in the Tiger Inn, the bar just outside the back gate at Nellis. While any of the NCOs might stop there for a beer en route home, it was a pretty wild place. The folks who usually hung out there were the malcontents and young men looking to get thrown in jail or out of the Air Force. So this good NCO told me that I must be doing it right because the walls of the bathroom cubicles were filled with graffiti about how much of a shit Colonel Horner was. “Colonel,” my confidante said, “at least you are pissing off the right people.”

  To this day I am certain that I made mistakes. However, the wings I commanded all had measurably higher output, aircraft in commission rates, more sorties flown, and better inspection results, to name a few, so I must have been right more times than I was wrong. I know in my heart that at each base I had the NCO corps solidly behind me, making up for my lack of experience and providing the leadership I was not able to provide.

  What I had was a deep desire to make the unit better. I walked the flight line day and night. When I saw something that needed to be fixed, I made sure the person I gave the job to had the resources to get the job done. I used to lobby at the headquarters for construction supplies. I challenged my own maintenance people to fix their own work spaces so they were neat and clean. You’d be amazed how it makes people more productive if they have a shiny floor to work on in the hangar. The light is better under the aircraft, and people don’t get oily when they have to go down on the floor. Same for dining halls, same for clubs, dorms, offices, every aspect of the work and housing area. You start at the flight line so everyone knows what is most important in the Air Force: getting the aircraft and pilots ready to go to war. But then you also pay attention to the toilets, so the troops have a decent place to relieve themselves. Ditto for the dorms; they have to be clean too, and we had a program to fix up the dorm rooms so they were not dingy, moldy, and overcrowded, with rusty showers, broken blinds, and missing fixtures and light covers. I expected very high performance standards from the troops, but only because that is what they wanted from themselves.

  I made sure I was their servant, and I made sure my officers felt the same way. It was a no-harm, no-foul e
nvironment. I listened to the NCOs, but was never afraid of them or unwilling to say, “Thank you very much for your view, I will take it under consideration. In the interim, get your ass out there and lead,” and they did. All of us were working so hard to get the job done that we didn’t worry about who was in charge. In reality, they were in charge, since they were the only ones who could bring about success.

  Officers are different from NCOs in a lot of ways. First of all, they stand out more, so it’s easier to see how they are performing, and then there are several classes of officers:

  To start with, there are the young ones whom you’re grooming, the lieutenants and the captains with a future in the Air Force. So you’ll want them to be energetic. You want them to make mistakes, but you want to keep close supervision on them.

  Then there are the career officers who rose up from NCO and who went to officers’ training school. Though they might be smart and talented, their careers have time limits. They’ll almost certainly never be promoted to command ranks, just because they don’t have enough time. Even so, they’re proud of being officers. It’s a big deal for them, because they’ve done it on their own (nobody in their family ever went to college or had anything like a professional career). So if you treat them honorably and with great respect and encouragement, they’ll give you fine, steady work. When they do screw up (or anyone else, for that matter), you chew their ass (I tried never to let a screwup go unpunished; letting them go creates apprehension and leaves things hanging out of balance).