Subsequently I went to the Strategy Division, a growth opportunity that pushed me well outside my operational comfort zone and stretched me into a more conceptual kind of work.
I was tasked to clarify the Air Force role in a new organization known as the Center for Low Intensity Conflict (CLIC)—and then somehow get the Air Force establishment behind it so we could get it manned and off the ground. It was a real-life master’s course in maneuvering big-picture concepts through the bureaucracy.
You have to have an idea that has traction and relevance, and you have to present that idea in a visual manner that people can clearly see will provide a productive, useful outcome.
While it made great sense to me, we encountered resistance from decision makers who were committed to other Air Force disciplines. They saw it as more of a distraction than a core mission. The fighter community and big war crowd were not on board, so somehow we had to convince the leadership at Tactical Air Command.
You have to develop champions for this kind of effort, and we did that.
General John Shaud was an ardent advocate and clearly instrumental, as was my direct boss, Colonel John Sullivan, and Colonel Alan Gropman, the deputy director—the same Al Gropman who had mentored me as a history instructor back at the Academy. He had a natural feel for emerging trends and understood the bureaucratic requirement to demonstrate competence in this area. He was also the one who hired me into this, knowing that it would be one that stretched me outside my operational lane into more conceptual work.
In this case, we required flag officer support. We had to bring the leadership at the Pentagon aboard, and also had to bring the leadership at Tactical Air Command aboard.
* * *
Suzie clarifies: Not to interrupt, but Norty is being very kind and beating around the bush—maybe even to the point of being politically correct. He’s a very positive man and it’s very rare that you’ll ever hear him talk “anti” anything—particularly when dealing with issues involving the Air Force. The fact is that especially at this time—the mid-1980s—the Air Force had a very “fighter/bomber”-centric culture. By its very nature, low-intensity conflict didn’t focus exclusively on fighters or bombers; it was focused on special operations. So it took away from the status the Air Force felt—and, frankly, had—at the time. They didn’t like that, and this is what Norty was up against.
He plays it down, but he had a tremendous challenge in convincing these people to come on board—a huge fight. You can’t look at it through today’s paradigm because today’s special operations are revered and respected. That was far from the case back then. So today’s operators (and the funding that allows them to excel) are reaping the benefits of those early- to mid-’80s bureaucratic battles like these. And Norty was just a major at this point—laboring to persuade the generals who were running the fighter and bomber communities.
Norty continues: I agree with that. I remember General Shaud contacting General Chuck Horner (who at that time was the Tactical Air Command Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans) on this, and asking him to fly from Tactical Air Command headquarters at Langley for a one-on-one briefing with me at the Pentagon—and bear in mind that he’s a two-star and at this point I’m still a major. He was a little skeptical about attending, but to his credit, he made the trip. I knew going in that he’d be against the idea—coming at it from the fighter culture/mentality that Suzie referenced. I knew that it would be a profound effort to swim upstream and try to convince these powerful people that this was worth doing. But I had a good presentation package and I had been interacting with senior officers for so long that when the briefing room door swung open and the general stepped inside, nerves were never a factor. I knew that he would never become an enthusiastic supporter, but it was essential that by the time he walked out that door, I felt confident that he wouldn’t submarine the effort. That’s exactly how it played out.
* * *
The idea sometimes is not to hit a grand slam, but just not to ground out.
He was patient and listened to everything I had to say. Then he asked some questions about the resources that would be involved. How much money were we talking about? And how many people?
This was a joint endeavor between the Army and Air Force, and I was the action officer on the Air Force side. My counterpart on the Army staff was Andy Krepinevich, a brilliant staffer with a PhD. He and I were partners on this, working hand in hand at the Pentagon. We learned to trust one another and we remain good friends to this day.
We both understood that resources are precious, so we tried to size it in a way that wouldn’t create unnecessary friction. Lean and mean.
You have to scope your idea in a way that people can tolerate—a way that is affordable in terms of both manpower and dollars.
In the end, we persuaded Chief of Staff Larry Welch that the Air Force needed a presence in this area. It created a generation of youngsters who understood counterinsurgency and capacity building, and it brought back some of the skill sets that we had in the Air Commandos of the Vietnam era.
* * *
Initiative 17 was a controversial initiative that I, along with others in the Pentagon’s Plans Directorate, was tasked to implement. Based on the flawed assumption that rotary aviation was not something the Air Force should perform, it called for the transfer of all of the Air Force special operations forces helicopters to the Army, leaving the Air Force with only a handful of helicopters devoted to ICBM site support and search and rescue operations.
It was an agreed-upon initiative. Irrespective of my personal assessment that it never should have been signed, as one of the project’s action officers, the task came to me, among others, to orchestrate its implementation.
It was one of the “31 initiatives” that General Wickham from the Army (John A. Wickham Jr., U.S. Army Chief of Staff from 1983 to 1987) and General Gabriel from the Air Force (Air Force Chief of Staff from 1982 to 1986) had agreed to in a memorandum of agreement signed on May 22, 1984. The overall intent was to provide for “the fielding of the most affordable and effective airland combat forces” by instituting an unprecedented level of cooperation between the two services, an early attempt to reap the benefits of what we now refer to as joint operations.
The process exposed me to the dark side of the building, where guerrilla operations occurred in terms of disregarding the chain of command in efforts to derail the initiative. The way it unfolded was ugly, with others inside and outside of my group—enlisting the support of people on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in Washington.
The truth is that I was against it as much as others on the team who engaged in these tactics, but I was never comfortable using disloyal maneuvers to dislodge it. Both the Army and the Air Force Chiefs of Staff had agreed to it, and signed that agreement. I felt that my responsibility was to make my arguments in as compelling a manner as I could, and I did my very best to highlight the risks associated with pursuing the initiative, but where I differed with others working the project, I never felt like I should operate outside natural boundaries and go around the Chiefs’ backs—or my boss, for that matter.
Bear in mind that much of my team was comprised of the original operators, the Old School whose lives were 100 percent tied to those helicopters. With the choppers gone, where would they go, and what would they do? But more than this, I believe they were driven by a passion for the mission and a conviction that Army aviation (at the time) wasn’t up to performing the mission of long-range clandestine penetration of denied airspace, and I couldn’t argue with them on that.
A part of the job is to be a champion for your mission because this is a competitive marketplace, and missions rise and fall based on how effectively people advocate for and represent their capabilities.
I worked my ass off to champion my position, but I refused to go back-channel and usurp my boss. I didn’t do it then, and I didn’t do it twenty-five years later when, as Chief of Staff, I was at odds with the SECDEF over the number of F-22s the Air Force n
eeded (see chapter 6). Throughout my career I respected my chain of command.
It was one of those lessons of bureaucratic competition that I observed and had mixed feelings about. Sure, I was happy with the outcome: the initiative died. But does the end justify the means? I don’t think so. Usurping one’s boss and the chain of command? I just wasn’t comfortable with being disloyal, I guess.
* * *
Suzie: These guys still had the Air Commandos spirit of “find a way, any way.” Most of them retired as colonels, very lovely officers but it was different for Nort in that Nort was still going to be a part of the big Air Force and the Air Commandos were totally—their heart, their soul, their being—was Air Commando exclusively. They were going to protect that at all costs. They respected Nort—and Nort respected them—because he always would choose the right thing. In their hearts, they knew that even if he had been there with them, he still wouldn’t have gone along with it because he’s straight and narrow and he never varies.
Norty: In the end they went around the backs of the chiefs of the two services and succeeded in making sure that this transfer never occurred. They did it offline, behind the scenes, in a way that happens all the time in Washington where people work back channels. Before you know it, you’re sweeping up the ashes of what used to be the initiative. In this case, most of those who pulled this off never got caught. They got promoted and became damn good colonels. But one individual, Lieutenant Colonel T. J. Doherty, took the heat for the whole group. He got caught and he got fired. He had enjoyed a successful career as an MC-130 pilot, ops director, and commander. And he ended up being relieved for going to the mat and doing whatever it took to ensure that the Air Force did not relinquish a vital special operations asset, our entire rotary-wing aircraft operation. Post Air Force, he went on to fly for TWA and American for over fourteen years, but he went out with the satisfaction of knowing that he had won—for himself, and for the entire special operations community.
* * *
In hindsight, looking back through the eyes of a four-star general, I see things a little differently. The way it played out had consequences in ways majors and lieutenant colonels don’t appreciate. It set a bad example that soured a generation of conventional Air Force leadership on the special operations community.
On the flip side, I go back to Jerry O’Malley as an example of the appropriate way to handle these things. As early as 1980, O’Malley was an ardent proponent of forming a Space Command, both within the Air Force and ultimately at the unified command level. This was no small endeavor, and his first step would be to get the Air Force Council on board—a feat that many deemed impossible. The Council is composed of a small group of three-stars who control the purse strings, making high-level resource allocation recommendations to the Chief and secretary.
Through persistent and impassioned advocacy, O’Malley was successful in convincing the group that the concept was worthwhile … to the tune of a $7 billion increase in the budget. Exhilarated by the Council’s official support, O’Malley met with the Chief, General Lew Allen, and laid it all out in a carefully conceived, eloquent presentation. While agreeing that a Space Command was ultimately warranted, General Allen believed that the idea was premature and would create a distraction resulting in a loss of capability. He would not support the plan.
Unsurprisingly to anyone who knew Jerry O’Malley, he persisted. He tried new approaches and new lines of logic, but he never went behind the boss’s back. He never used the guerrilla tactics I had just witnessed. That was not a part of Jerry O’Malley’s toolkit.
It took a few years, but finally, when O’Malley became the four-star Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Allen relented and agreed to support the endeavor—but that’s a testament to Jerry O’Malley’s unrelenting persistence, untarnished reputation, and inspired knack for coming up with innovative new perspectives to frame a challenge. In this case, just a few months prior to General Allen’s retirement, O’Malley convinced him that the Air Force would be best served by rolling out the new Space Command under the leadership and guidance of a scientist with a broad space background who was well respected by the teams that would have to be brought on board—and there was nobody who exemplified these qualities more than General Allen.
It’s another great example of the impact Jerry O’Malley had on me, in this case demonstrating firsthand that you’ll win a lot more battles with an aggressive, persistent, imaginative, and well-executed plan of attack than you will by just flailing away below the belt.
I would not have participated in the back-channel activity. But I probably would not have reported it, either, since I wasn’t their supervisor. Had I been in the supervisory position in that office, I would have been compelled to “break their legs.” This is one of those complex things involving relativism and your values. It’s a hard call, but upon reflection I don’t think I would have done that to them, because I understood why they were doing it. I understood their passion.
But what it was really about was the culture. The rotary-wing culture and special operations in the Air Force was a very influential group. It elevated the state of play in the fixed-wing community. This was a bunch of guys who were close to their ground-force counterparts (Special Forces, Delta, SEALs, Rangers) who were in the fight all the time, in tight spaces, who carried their weapons with them. They actually knew how to shoot. These were the storm troopers of the Air Force special operations community. It was a tragic thing to lose that part of the culture. What they fought for was right; but how they did it I couldn’t quite get my head around.
They were secretly referred to as the “SOF Mafia”—most came from the 1st SOW: Lt Col Lee Hess, Lt Col T. J. Doherty, Maj Gary Weikel, Maj Greg Colvin, and Maj Gary Heckman. These were the ones who made contact with Congressman Dan Daniel from Virginia, and Ted Lunger, one of his aides. It ended up playing out in the Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, and supported by Congressman Earl Hutto. Before the chiefs knew what hit them, suddenly the “31 initiatives” had to reprint their title page to read the “30 initiatives.”
* * *
There are certain indelible milestones in an officer’s career, and the same is true for any profession. A baseball player’s first hit, then his first home run. A salesman joining the Million Dollar Club, or a surgeon’s first operation. For Air Force officers, taking the flag to assume one’s first squadron command is one such milestone.
It was spring of 1986 and the cherry blossoms lining the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial had just reached peak bloom. I had just returned to the office when the phone rang. It was always good to hear from Colonel Gropman. “Norty, I’m sorry to have to break this to you …” he began, then paused before delivering the “bad news.” “ … but I’m calling so that I can be the very first one to be speaking to the new squadron commander of the Thirty-Sixth Tactical Airlift Squadron at McChord!” That’s how I heard about it, and it’s a moment I will never forget. I couldn’t wait to share the exciting news with Suzie and embark upon the next leg of our great adventure.
* * *
Suzie describes how that played out: When someone outside the service hears about a military transfer, I think they often just automatically assume you leave the office on Friday, then Monday morning bright and early, you show up at the new assignment, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to dive into the new job. Hello? What about the house that has to be packed up, and everything you own moved across the country, and then unpacked, and setting everything up to start your life all over again? And by the way, we did this twenty times over the course of our career!
When we received word that Norty was going to be a squadron commander up in Washington State, you did not see me doing cartwheels in celebration. I was not happy to be moving to Seattle, and I was far too young to be a squadron commander’s wife. But I sucked it up and went for it, thrilled to pieces that we each had to drive our own car twenty-eight hundred miles from one side of th
e country to the other.
We loaded up the cars, said goodbye to our beautiful townhouse, and crammed ourselves in beside the boxes jammed inside our respective vehicles. I lowered the window and called over to Norty, “You take off and I’m right behind you.”
“Why don’t you pull out and I’ll follow you?” he called back.
That man knows me all too well. He figured that by being behind me for the whole trip, there was no way that I would chicken out, turn around, and head back to DC. Good call.
This was not one of those trips where you arrived and thought, “Wow, that drive flew by in a heartbeat.” We drove … and drove … and drove … with the highlight being the diversity of beautifully decorated public restrooms I’d experience on our frequent comfort stops. When we finally got to the Montana line, I felt a big knot in my stomach. Montana was the ugliest state I’d ever seen in my life. I kept thinking, “Oh, my gosh, I sure hope Washington is better than this.” It had to be, right? I can’t tell you how many friends raved about the spectacular Mount Rainier. Well, guess again. The entire eastern part of the state is just one big desert. “This is not good,” I thought. Or maybe I even said it aloud, I don’t remember since I was so distraught at the time.
We arrived in May, so naturally I arrived in my summer clothes. It was so cold and so cloudy I came this close to freezing to death. Until that moment, I had never understood the concept of people wearing summer sweaters, but then I got it. We were about to move into the summer sweater capital of the world.
In spite of all my whining, the squadron was lovely, and the splendor of Rainier had not been exaggerated. I had a Spouses Organization that was really chugging along and they did great things. The only problem was the age thing. Norty was so young to be a squadron commander, which meant that at thirty years old, I was way too young to be a commander’s wife. I wanted to be one of the girls, like I always had been. At first it wasn’t easy for me to accept the reality that those days were over, and that wasn’t who I was going to be. I could no longer hang with the people who had two-year-olds and the three-year-olds. I became so bored that I decided to get a job. That’s when all the trouble began, and that silly little food and beverage job at the Tacoma Dome Hotel almost cost Norty his career.
Journey Page 16