Then you have the fast movers. You’re hard as hell on them, because if they’re worth a damn, they can withstand your withering blasts and profit from them. If they’re not worth a damn, if they bullshit their way, you need to destroy them. You need to push them so hard that they fail, and fail totally. You want to get them the hell out of there, and they want to get the hell out of there and go someplace where they can suck up to somebody and get ahead.
★ By the time Chuck Horner was given his first command, the Horner family had grown to five: Susan had been born at RAF Mildenhall, in Suffolk, England; John at Seymour Johnson; and Nancy Jo came while Horner was serving in Washington. While the Air Force does not officially admit it, wives (and now spouses) are an integral part of their society. This is not a formal thing. Each wife is expected to find her own niche, and yet, even though the commanders’ wives are not in charge, the younger ones tend to look to them for leadership. Life in the unit is much easier when the commander’s spouse promotes harmony among the nonmilitary side of the community.
Over the years that Chuck was growing as an Air Force officer, Mary Jo grew as an Air Force wife. During that time they’d frequently run into wives of senior officers who tried to wear their husbands’ rank. That didn’t work. Back when they came into the Air Force, there was still a stiff and formal relationship based on rank. Wives were expected to conform in such ways as wearing hats and gloves to the teas at the officers’ club or to some senior wife’s house when she was hosting a coffee. That pretty much died out during the sixties.
Mary Jo had a different approach. As they moved around from base to base to base, everyone liked her, because she was spontaneously enthusiastic and genuinely liked other people. She was strong enough not to put up with any guff from her commander—and later senior commander—husband, yet she was and remains a loving wife and capable mother. People came to bare their troubles to her, because they knew they wouldn’t get the conventional response from her or a moralizing lecture. Often at night she would share their pain with Chuck—a husband got passed over for promotion, or Chuck had fired him, or the couple was facing a long separation because of a remote assignment. In a very real sense, they were in the job together, and each had a role to play.
Chuck Horner learned never to discount the role of the spouse in the military community. “You know immediately,” he says, “when you have a dysfunctional spouse at work, especially if she is the wife of the commander. Common sense says you don’t make a big deal of it, but you can’t help but be aware. Sure, you always try to pick the best person for the job—man, woman, married, unmarried, working spouse, whatever. Still, if you are choosing between two equal men to make a subordinate commander, and one has a wife who promotes harmony, and one has a wife who (for whatever reason) is constantly causing trouble, you may select the former, just because you have too much to do already and don’t need any headaches caused by strife in the distaff side of the house.”
GENERAL HORNER
Over the next years Horner commanded at four different bases, two air divisions, the Air Defense Weapons Center, and finally Ninth Air Force.
After commanding the 474th, he was promoted to brigadier general, and from 1981 to ’83 he was a division commander over two wings at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
From Holloman, he moved to Tyndall AFB in Panama City, in the Florida Panhandle. There he commanded the Southeast Air Defense Regional Air Division. As division commander of the southeast region, he had responsibility for U.S. air defense from New Jersey to Texas. Active-duty and Air National Guard fighter squadrons under his command sat alert at bases along the coast from Houston to Cape May, while radar sites every two hundred miles or so were collocated with FAA radars and were netted to provide an air picture at the command headquarters in a large building in Tyndall.
Three months after starting the job at Tyndall, he was moved over to command of the Air Defense Weapons Center (also at Tyndall), a more interesting and important job. It involved transitioning the wing from F-106s to F-15s, operating the radar controllers school, operating the Gulf air-to-air missile testing ranges, conducting Red Flag-type air defense exercises, called Copper Flag, and operating a large fleet of T-33s for air targets and F-100/F-4 drones for shoot-down aerial targets.
Bill Creech retired during Horner’s tour in that command, to be replaced by General Jerry O’Malley. Soon after he took over, however, O’Malley and his wife were killed in a plane crash, and Bob Russ became the new TAC commander.
Then, as a major general, Horner replaced Tony McPeak as the TAC Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans at Langley (where he had worked at TAC as a major). He was responsible for the beddown of the forces and for preparing input on such matters as the budget, manpower, doctrine, war plans, studies and analysis, and joint matters. He also worked closely with the Army at nearby Fort Monroe, where their doctrine effort was centered.
From there he moved to command of Ninth Air Force and CENTAF, where one bright day in August he was ordered out of the sky and to Shaw AFB, ready to begin the biggest challenge of his life. . . .
II
Shield in the Sky
4
Mission to Jeddah
SATURDAY, August 4th: it was time to fly to Camp David to brief President Bush and his chief advisers.
Well past midnight, Horner, Schwarzkopf, and the other Camp David pilgrims boarded a C-21 Learjet, the Air Force transport normally used by VIPs, for the flight to Andrews AFB. The trip was tense and uncomfortable. The seats were small and the jet was full, so legs cramped, necks and rear ends ached. Everyone was exhausted, on edge. Horner himself was anxious; the thought of briefing the President was unsettling . . . not because it frightened him, but because he wanted to get it right, and that made it difficult to relax.
The CINC eased his great bulk into the tiny seat and tried to sleep; he was so large, he seemed to take up the entire plane. Horner slipped into a backseat next to Admiral Grant Sharp, the CENTCOM J-5 (Director of Plans), and reviewed his slides.
Sharp, a tall, gentlemanly, naval surface officer with gray hair and glasses, was a quiet man who spoke in well-constructed, thought-out phrases. Though he was old Navy and loved the service (his father, also an admiral, had been the Commander in Chief, Pacific Forces), he seemed more academic than military, which put him at a disadvantage when dealing with the fiery and mercurial Schwarzkopf. Sharp liked order and thoughtful discourse and hated the CINC’s tirades, while Schwarzkopf never warmed to scholarly types.
After a 4:00 A.M. touchdown at Andrews, they were driven across town to Wainwright Hall, the Distinguished Visitors Quarters at Fort Meyer on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and a five-minute drive from the Pentagon. At Wainwright, Horner grabbed a twenty-minute nap and a shower, which took away some of the cobwebs and grunge of the previous day and night.
Despite the antipathy of the ejection-seat technicians in the Life Support shop to storing clothes where they didn’t belong, Horner habitually kept a shaving kit and blue, short-sleeve uniform tucked up in the canopy of his F-16. Pilots normally used an underwing baggage pod for carrying personal baggage, but the pod limited maneuvering to only three Gs; and since he’d set out Friday morning to fight F-15s, there was no way he was going to stand for that.
He took advantage of the kit and the uniform now and, looking as put together as circumstances allowed, everyone regrouped and got in the cars that were to take them to the helicopter pad on the south end of the Pentagon.
By the time they reached the pad, it was about 6:00 A.M. Shortly afterward, they were joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and Horner’s old National War College classmate), General Colin Powell, who radiated the warmth and humor that make everyone acquainted with him think of him as a best friend. After the greetings, Powell drew General Schwarzkopf aside for some last-minute coaching, to head off the chance that Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney or President Bush might reach conclusions at the briefing that he didn’t
approve.
In Chuck Horner’s view, Colin Powell was a decent, honorable, intelligent, and genuinely likable man with unquestionable integrity who was also a brilliant schemer, manipulator, and political operator . . . and he had one serious flaw: he was Army through and through. He had never been able to admit the ascendancy of airpower. In Powell’s mind, it all came down to a zero-sum game, expressed in a simple syllogism: if airpower was growing in importance, then land power must be decreasing. That was bad for the nation, however; consequently, he had to make sure that brakes were applied to the growth of airpower.
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, wearing cowboy boots, walked up to the pad a couple of minutes after General Powell, and immediately introduced himself to Horner with a warm handshake and a smile. The Secretary of Defense was of medium height and build, balding, neat, friendly, and, Horner quickly learned, a good listener. Until this morning, the two had never met.
As for Cheney, this was just another general, not even a slim or handsome one, whose shy Iowa mumblings were not likely to inspire a powerful first impression. “What do you call the Secretary of Defense?” Horner kept asking himself. “Mister Secretary? Boss? Dick? Your Honor?” Yet, for his part, Horner liked what he saw: this man was smart, selfless, and straightforward.
Everyone soon piled into a fancy Marine helicopter for the trip to Camp David.
The low man on the totem pole has some advantages. For starters, he can observe; he doesn’t have to show off who he is. So Horner relaxed in the helicopter and watched Schwarzkopf and Powell do a power dance together, as they worked to establish their territory and power base, and made sure that they were recognized for their expertise in military matters and that, in the meeting to come, the Defense Secretary wouldn’t take off on his own. Though Cheney was in charge, the senior uniformed types (as always) did their best to keep the civilian leadership from making military decisions on their own.
Thus, Schwarzkopf ’s body language said to Powell, “You may be the Chairman, Colin, but the Middle East is my theater and I work for Secretary Cheney.” Thanks to Goldwater-Nichols, the CINC had a direct, unmediated working connection with the Secretary of Defense, making the Chairman hardly more than an adviser—though an extremely powerful and influential one. Powell’s body language, on the other hand, said to Schwarzkopf: “Norm, let me guide you through this political maze.” And to Cheney: “Dick, don’t reach any conclusions about using military force until I get a chance to convince you about what should be done. And for God’s sake, don’t go to Norm direct” . . . despite the chain of command. All the while, Horner wondered if his own body language said what he hoped it said: “Here’s the Joe Cool fighter pilot delighted to have such a beautiful day to fly up and see George, Dan, and the boys in the cabinet. Hope they’ll like Chuckie.”
CAMP DAVID
Camp David turned out to be comfortable, but not luxurious—it had earth-tone colors, a musty odor (like a mostly vacant summer cabin), government-issue hardwood tables, overstuffed brown vinyl sofas, and brass lamps. Since the windows were small and looked out onto the surrounding forest, and their light was only partially supplemented by lamps on end tables, it was dim inside.
Soon after their arrival, Horner and Schwarzkopf went into the conference room to check it out before they had to perform—to reconnoiter the battlefield. As Horner remembers it, the room was wood-paneled, with a neutral-colored office-style carpet on the floor. The meeting table could hold about twenty to thirty people around it, and there were chairs along the walls for straphangers (like him). An overhead slide projector sat on a small table near the right forward edge of the main table, and a portable screen was parked a few feet away in a corner of the room.
While the CINC stepped out to find a breath mint (their mouths being in full rebellion against the previous night’s coffee and stress), Horner was alone until the first attendee entered. He knew the face . . . it was remarkably youthful; the man looked to be about seventeen years old. True to his Iowa upbringing, Horner did as his mother taught, crossed the room, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hi, Dan, I’m Chuck,” to the Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle.
Even as his good humor and graciousness took hold, Quayle, like Cheney, probably figured, I don’t know who this odd general is, but I wonder how he made it past sergeant. He shook Horner’s hand, smiled warmly, and said, “Good to meet you, General,” without adding, “Dumb shit,” for which Horner mentally thanked him before retreating to a chair along the wall. He was soon joined there by Admiral Grant Sharp, who sat next to him.
Meanwhile, the rest of the high-level invitees entered the room—Secretary of State Jim Baker; CIA Director Judge William Webster; White House Chief of Staff John Sununu; National Security Adviser General Brent Scowcroft; Dick Cheney and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, who sat immediately behind him; and a few others.
Last came President George Bush, chatting with Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf. Bush was dressed in slacks and a windbreaker, looking young and refreshed for a man who carried the burden of the nation. When the President appeared, Horner searched carefully for what detractors called his “wimp” factor—the limp, willowy New England boarding-school boy with high-toned, squeaky voice and goofy gestures. Nothing of that showed. To the contrary: the man Horner saw was a commander in chief, cordial, polite, but in charge. Not bad, Horner thought, thinking over his initial impressions of both Cheney and the President. If we have to go to war, the civilian leaders we’ll be working for can do the job. He also remembered that the President had himself been a fighter pilot in the Navy in World War II, and knew what it was like to get hit and shot down. He was not surprised when, later, the President approached the day’s deliberations with the visceral knowledge that comes from being shot at and hit.
As he passed through the room, Bush walked past Horner’s chair and graciously reached for his hand, and Horner managed with surprising clarity, “Good morning, Mr. President, I’m Chuck Horner.”
He added to himself, Hooray, I didn’t screw that one up.
Soon the President, Powell, and Schwarzkopf took seats at the table and the meeting began.
The first business was a brief run-through of the CIA’s estimate of the situation in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf region, which was given by Judge Webster. Since Schwarzkopf had better and more recent firsthand information, based on the telephone calls to his major trapped in the hotel across from the American Embassy in Kuwait City, he jumped in with it, clearly loving the fact that he could one-up the CIA.
Score one for the CINC, Horner thought to himself. But shit, is this a tennis match? The obvious maneuvering left him cold.
Schwarzkopf was then officially introduced. As he started his briefing, Horner said two quick prayers: first, for the CINC, that his message would be accurate, accepted, and lead to the right actions. Second, that he himself would not doze off after two F-16 flights the previous day and a night without sleep.
The first prayer was answered when Schwarzkopf proved to be as effective as Horner expected, as he used map outlines to show the possible axes of Iraqi attack—most likely down the coastal highway toward Dhahran—and the ways ground forces could be employed to stop it.
And it didn’t take God long to answer the second prayer. Horner was soon in front of the slide projector, walking his way though the air component briefing. Though he was nervous, years of briefing very difficult generals about his failure to keep jets from hitting the ground and killing their pilots made this one easy. First, he talked about the size of the force they’d need (as it turned out, this would be about 30 percent of the actual war power finally deployed or at their disposal).24 Then he talked about how long it would take them to reach the Gulf and how soon they’d be ready to fight, if it came to that: about thirty-six hours to put the force in place, and another day to take the munitions out of prepositioning storage or off of ships on the way to the Gulf from Diego Garcia. Following that, he discussed the types of missions that wo
uld be flown against which targets, in the event the Iraqi Army came across the Saudi border (including types and amounts of munitions, sortie rates, levels of success expected, and possible losses). There would be, of course, direct attacks against the lead elements of the Iraqi armoredforce, but the strategy was to trade space for time, and therefore to attack the logistical support of the attackers—the fuel, ammo, food, and water supplies. As a result, while U.S. forces might seem to be losing in head-on engagements on the ground, the Iraqi Army would be starving itself to death, and at some point—a week or two?—their attack would grind to a halt and U.S. air would then attrit the remnants in the desert wastes of Saudi Arabia.
Following the briefing, questions were asked—the kind where the questioner already knows the answer but wants to let everyone else around the table see that he’s present and accounted for. For the most part, however, these questions were not relevant, or even intelligent. “How are you going to give close air support to the Arab allies?” Answer: “The same way we give close air support to anybody else.” To Horner, the procedure was more interesting than the questions themselves. First, Horner gave Powell and Schwarzkopf a chance to field the question, while they in turn waited for Cheney. Horner felt he looked a little dense standing up there, waiting ten or twenty seconds for the senior leaders to finish their waltz.
The silliest, most shallow queries mostly came from Chief of Staff John Sununu—What’s this idiot doing here? Horner asked himself—but later, while watching CNN, he saw that the same “dumb” questions were the ones the reporters were asking, and his respect for Sununu grew. Sununu had simply been doing his job.