I flew with top pilots from both our 60 (MH-60 Pave Hawk) and 53 (MH-53 Pave Low) squadrons. I found the 60 easier to fly; it’s a sports car as compared to the larger, bulkier Paves, which were real workhorses. Just trying to stay in one place while hovering was a real challenge for me in either of them.
Get to know your team hands-on.
General Charlie Holland was a tough but fair boss when he was wing commander at Hurlburt. He would go on to become deputy commander of JSOC and commander in chief of SOCOM. Having piloted over one hundred combat missions in Vietnam, it wasn’t surprising that he would personally jump into the fray when he walked in to find two airmen duking it out in a command facility at Fort Campbell.
The MH-60 Pave Hawk felt more like a sports car compared the the Pave Low, a real workhorse. USAF photo
Piloting the MH-53 Pave Low was a real challenge for me, but it was the only true "penetrator" among all helicopters then in service. US Navy photo by PO2 George R. Kusner
Huffing and puffing in his Air Force flight uniform, the brigadier general did what he could to separate the two combatants before they injured each other. That’s when I stepped in. I tapped the general on the shoulder, and when he spun around, I smashed a cream pie into his face. The packed room erupted in laughter and applause, and everyone belted out a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” Orchestrating the whole thing was my way of showing respect for another accomplished leader, and making sure the boss would have a special birthday he would never forget.
Don’t take yourself—or the job—too seriously.
The airmen don’t even seem to notice my somewhat unorthodox headgear. Christmas Day visit to the missileers of our Air Force at FE Warren AFB.
Schwartz personal collection
Suzie: It took me six months to be in a position to leave my job in Washington to join Norty in Florida, but when I finally did pull up chocks to make the trip, I couldn’t wait to see what he had done with our new house. I opened up the door and damn near slammed into a stack of boxes he had crammed inside. In the six months he had lived there he had only unpacked some clothing and two items—the microwave and the TV. “Welcome, honey,” he said, smiling, oblivious to the fact that he had hardly done anything in half a year.
In October of ’92, I was deployed back to the Middle East as the commander of the Special Operations Task Force in Kuwait. Fundamentally the mission was to provide combat rescue support for Operation SOUTHERN WATCH. As commander, I had a secondary responsibility as the mayor of Kuwait International Airport. Bear in mind that Kuwait was still recovering from the war at this point, so we weren’t exactly looking like JFK. There were probably more construction vehicles on those runways than there were aircraft.
Not long after my arrival, I received word that the Task Force Kuwait commander would be returning into Kuwait International. As “mayor,” it was expected that I’d be there to meet his aircraft and officially welcome him back. In this case, I was especially looking forward to meeting him.
I suppose most professions have some name attached to them that really grabs your attention. If I’d ever meet someone named Heineken, it’d be hard to resist asking the obvious, “Any relation?” Most likely I’d have the same reaction if I’d meet a reporter named Cronkite, or a ball player named Musial. In the Army, this was one of those names: Brigadier General John Nelson Abrams. And in his case, he was one of “the” Abrams. He was one of three brothers who were Army general officers, and his father was General Creighton Abrams Jr., well known for commanding all military operations in Vietnam, and then going on to become chief of staff of the Army. General Patton (another one of “those” names) once said of him: “I’m supposed to be the best tank commander in the Army, but I have one peer—Abe Abrams. He’s the world champion.” Have you ever heard of the M1 Abrams tank? Same Abrams—it was named for Creighton.
At exactly 2:40 that afternoon, the tower contacted me with the heads up that his helo was within range, and I raced down the stairs and headed to the tarmac. When the helo touched down and the side door popped open, the first thing he saw was Colonel Norty Schwartz, standing at attention with a crisp salute. He stepped onto the pavement and returned the salute. I had heard about his swagger and he didn’t disappoint. With a ruddy complexion and sandy blond hair that perfectly blended in to the barren desert surrounding, his stocky frame amply filled out his green jumpsuit.
I smiled as he approached and tried my best to make him feel welcome. “General Abrams,” I said, “that’s a mighty fine-looking flight suit you got on there!”
He tightened up and stared at me like I had just insulted his grandma. “Colonel, this ain’t no flight suit. These are tanker overalls!”
Clearly I had picked the wrong guy to be offending on any issues surrounding tanks. So here I wanted to make such a great first impression, but the way he was standing there looking at me and shaking his head, I’m sure that he must have been wondering how this Air Force officer ever made it past first lieutenant. He started to walk away, then turned back toward me. “Incidentally, Colonel. When was the last time you were aboard an MA1A Abrams tank?”
“Well sir, regretfully I have never been.”
“Well, you get your ass out here at two o’clock and there will be a helo right here to pick you up and you’re going to have an experience this afternoon.”
At exactly two o’clock, as ordered, that’s exactly where my ass was. I climbed into the Blackhawk and was flown directly to the Udairi range, an immense complex somewhat similar to our own Army National Training Center at Fort Irwin. Ten minutes later, there they were—a perfectly aligned row of Abrams tanks. One impressive sight. Five minutes later, I climbed inside. With the deep growl of the Honeywell turbine engine, we lurched forward. What had to have been only twenty-five or thirty mph over the dirt and sand felt like we were going sixty. That’s when the real fun began. Even with the earplugs and the thick composite armor, you certainly feel the power when that 120 mm shell explodes out the main gun. It was some experience.
I returned to the airport and of course the first thing I did was find General Abrams and thank him. Turns out he’s a very cool guy who was just poking—a little bit of healthy interservice rivalry. Before I left, I assured him of one thing: “Sir, I will never again misidentify tanker overalls.”
Three nights later, I happened to be with him as we were launching planes for one of our joint exercises when I got the call. There had been a mishap. I was briefed on what had occurred and immediately decided what had to be done.
“Colonel, is everything OK?” the general asked.
“No sir, it is not,” I said in a massive understatement. “We’ve had a serious mishap back in the States and they’d like for me to come back. I will have a substitute here in forty-eight hours. Will you allow me to head back, sir?”
“Of course,” he replied without a second thought. I hopped on a military aircraft and immediately flew back.
This was a bad one. An Air Force MH-60G Pave Hawk went down in poor weather. It was the last in a four-helicopter formation that was carrying Army and Air Force special operations troops from Hill AFB in Ogden, Utah, to the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground, eighty-five miles west of Salt Lake City. The helicopter hit the water at 150 mph and exploded on impact just off the tip of Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Three crew members and nine passengers died immediately. The only survivor was the pilot, Air Force Maj Stephan J. Laushine. Somehow he was ejected from the aircraft, then rescued by three Army Rangers who paddled inflatable kayaks on choppy water and through the flames. The squadron commander of the 55th Squadron was in the right seat and two Ranger battalion commanders were also on the aircraft and perished.
So there were three battalion-level commanders that we lost on the same airplane—two-thirds of the leadership of the Ranger regiment were wiped out in an instant. And so, naturally, Suzie and I were off to multiple funerals. We took care of that and dealt with the other fatalities. It was a particularly p
ainful thing; you work hard to bounce back from something like that.
The interesting thing is what happened to Maj Laushine. As you can well imagine, he went through quite a struggle, but he wanted to get back in the pilot’s seat and fly again. Much to the credit of Charlie Holland and others who completely supported his return, he not only battled back, but he ended up getting promoted to lieutenant colonel and being the mission commander on two harrowing yet successful rescues. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for the first one, where he and his MH-53M Pave Low led another MH-53M and an MH-60G Pave Hawk deep into Serbian territory to rescue the pilot of F-117 stealth fighter Vega 31.
The second was the rescue of Hammer 34, an F-16 pilot who was shot down by a Serbian SA-3 surface-to-air missile about forty miles southwest of Belgrade. The rescue choppers engaged their countermeasure to narrowly evade two SA-6 radar-guided missiles and an SA-9 infrared-guided missile—plus substantial antiaircraft fire and small arms fire. In no small part due to the fortitude and determination of Lt Col Laushine—and all the others who risked their own lives to make the rescue—General David Goldfein is now the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Dave (a.k.a. “Hammer 34”) is the pilot they rescued that night.
This was one of those wonderful moments of redemption where Lt Col Laushine hit the lowest of the lows—then struggled through the pain and the anguish and the doubts and came back to triumph, saving other lives as well as his own.
By the way, years later, when I was back in Washington as a one-star, General Mike Ryan called upon me to brief at Army TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command) in Hampton, Virginia, in what turned out to be kind of a star chamber. There must have been at least twenty four-stars present. When it was my turn to speak, I stepped up and scanned the impressive group of flag officers—some familiar, others I was seeing for the first time. Sitting in the front row, directly in front of where I stood to speak, was none other than General John Abrams, who is now a four-star, and is in fact TRADOC commander. He was not wearing his tanker overalls this time. I did begin by deviating from my prepared presentation and told the story about how I had misidentified his tanker overalls as a flight suit. It was a nice icebreaker and they all had a good laugh.
* * *
In the fall of 1991, lean times and decreased funding prompted General Merrill McPeak, then Air Force Chief of Staff, to devise some means to increase efficiencies during a time when international tensions demanded increased warfighting capability. In layman’s terms, it was kind of like challenging the chairman of Coca Cola to come up with a way to make twice as much Coke for half the cost. What McPeak came up with was called the Objective Wing concept. In essence, it changed the base command structure from a “Wing Commander/Base Commander” system to a single wing commander (“one base-one boss”) with multiple groups under his or her command. Bottom line, at the end of the day, I became what was known as the First Special Operations Group commander.
Another one of McPeak’s brainstorms took place about five months after my departure. For some reason he decided that no two wings could have the same numerical designation. At the time, in addition to our designation as the First Special Operations Wing, there was the First Fighter Wing at Langley AFB, Virginia. To meet the Chief’s new edict, one of us would have to be redesignated. Guess who drew the short straw? On October 1, 1993, the 1st SOW was changed to the 16th SOW. You can’t imagine the fury that prompted among the Air Commando veterans of World War II and Vietnam. McPeak had his way during his tenure, but thirteen years later, on November 16, 2006, the wing reverted back to its original designation as the 1st SOW.
* * *
I had completed my “brigade level” command and flying supervisory opportunities and had already established credibility as a Washington bureaucratic operator. So we came back to Washington and I became the Deputy Director of Operations for the Air Force, working for Brig Gen Hal Hornburg. I learned so much about how to deal with controversial issues, which was priceless prep for the future. It seemed that every day presented another firestorm that had to be extinguished.
Efforts to retire the iconic SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft were extremely controversial and required some deft handling of congressional preferences—a great object lesson on how to deal with alumni and congressional interests, along with operational considerations. This was an ongoing issue that had been playing out for years through multiple administrations. The West Virginia delegation was not supportive of the retirement plan, so a great deal of my time was spent interacting with Senator Byrd’s staff. I gained an appreciation for the role of the Congress and staffs in pursuing controversial force structure changes, and learned how best to approach members and staffs on such initiatives—all valuable skills for later on, when as four-star general, I’d be the one in the hot seat being grilled by both Senate and House Armed Services Committees on so many contentious issues of the day.
Efforts to retire the iconic SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft were extremely controversial and required some deft handling of congressional preferences. USAF photo
While some contend it’s best to passionately state your case, I’ve been more successful by being direct, persuasive, and dispassionate.
* * *
When Suzie stares me down and says “You’re acting just like McPeak,” I know that I’ve done something really dumb and probably acted very unreasonably with her. She’s referring to General Merrill McPeak, the Chief of Staff who “had me for lunch” one day because he didn’t like the data I presented to him, even though it was 100 percent accurate and given to protect him before he unwittingly reported the wrong numbers to Congress.
There was an effort underway to reduce the B-52 bomber presence at Minot AFB (thirteen miles north of Minot, North Dakota) and relocate them to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. The Chief was about to go over and discuss the relocation with the North Dakota delegation, since their constituency could be impacted by the move. Understandably, for a meeting at this level, he wanted to be fully prepared and armed with all the appropriate backup data.
The problem was that somehow my three-star boss at the time, Buster Glosson, had sent a note to the Chief with some inaccurate data. We learned about this just as he was about to depart for the Hill. The worst thing would have been for him to have made this elaborate presentation based on faulty information. At some point it would have come back to haunt him and he would have looked foolish. Bear in mind that I was just a colonel at this point, so under normal circumstances it would have fallen to Bill Jones in our office to meet with the Chief and set the record straight, since Bill was the two-star Director of Forces. But Bill was out of the office at the time, so it became my task to meet with the impatient general and gently explain how the information that he had received wasn’t quite right, but that I had brought the correct info to set the record straight. And of course I wanted to do it without throwing General Glosson under the bus. I double-checked to make sure that what I had was the latest info, then headed down the Arnold Hallway to share those two small yet consequential inaccuracies.
Entering the door beside the gold plaque that read CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE AIR FORCE, I stepped into General McPeak’s outer office and checked in with his executive assistant, fully expecting to take a seat and wait for him, as had been the case with all of our prior interactions. Instead, I was briskly told, “Please, go right in, they’re all waiting for you.”
All? I wondered.
I stepped inside and all eyes swung in my direction.
“Well?” barked the Chief.
“Sir, it has come to our attention that some of the …”
“You’re wasting my time, get with it and just tell me what you’ve got!” he demanded.
I succinctly explained the inconsistencies, and frankly thought that would be it. Now that he had the correct data, he could head to the Hill and make his case. The reality was that very little was straightforward with General McPeak, and he was not happy with the way this meeting was unfolding.
“Colonel … this is a complete disaster!” He grudgingly reached for his little black book and began flipping through the pages. “We are going to go over every tail number of every B-52 in our inventory and you are going to tell me where you think they are based.”
And that’s exactly what I did, one by one, every tail number of every one of the eighty-plus B-52s in the Air Force inventory. I opened my own notebook and began: “64-026 … Barksdale. On alert … 64-044 …”
“No, wait,” he interrupted, then proceeded to rattle off some challenge as to how I was so certain that the aircraft wasn’t actually in maintenance or somewhere else at the time. Considering the fact that I had already given him the corrected data in the first five minutes, I thought it was all a tremendous waste of his time.
We had probably gotten 90 percent through the list when he slammed his black book onto the coffee table in front of him. “Colonels normally do better than this,” he grumbled, shaking his head and thumbing through some charts and spreadsheets.
I did my best to maintain my composure but it was not easy. I walked out of that meeting confident that I’d be fired as soon as my boss caught wind of it.
I wasn’t fired, but I vowed that no matter how high a rank I achieved, I would strive to be demanding but not demeaning.
Suzie: He was not a nice person.
Norty: He was prickly.
Journey Page 19