Don't You Forget About Me...

I gave "Ready Player One" 5-Star's for Ernest Clive's first book to bring virtual reality alive in the OASIS of his creation.  He wrote a sequel.  As with Andy Weir's sequel to "The Martian", an absolute must read follow-on after such an incredible first book.  Unlike  Weirs' second effort, "Artemis", which was a complete literary train wreck, Clive wrote a strong sequel called, "Ready Player Two" that is every bit as good as his first effort.  In fairness to Weir "The Martian" is one of my all time favorite books.  But to avoid being a troll, Weir and Clive communicate, or at least Clive gave Weir a nice mention in the credits.  The difference is that Clive doesn't deviate from what he is good at doing...which is bringing video games to life on a written page.  Since "Ready Player One" was published, the movie was also produced.  As spectacular as the movie showed on the silver screen, there is still no screen as spectacular as what can be knit together in the human mind...great writers know this and Clive can still bring it.  This is highly suggestive that  may be a great writer.  Although I will go to the movie for this sequel when it is produced,  given Clive's writing, the book will still be better. Interestingly Clive also gives Spielberg acknowledgement for help advice in the credits suggesting, perhaps, that "Ready Player Two", the movie, will not be far behind. And they obviously don't have to screw with the name...

But now, on to the review, which I will not pack with spoilers. Let's just say, "Ready Player Two" is another epic quest across the OASIS delving far deeper into Shermer Illinois than one should go...even if you are a John Hughes fan.  Far deeper into Prince's "The Afterworld'', even if you are a rabid Prince Fan, and so much deeper into Middle Earth, that even if you are not already in love with Tolkien, you might be forced to start reading that Parthenon of fantasy from the very beginning.  I suspect most of Clive's topics will enjoy a resurgence of interest. Did Prince, for instance, really become a Jehovah's Witness?  Damn, I missed that on the news...  I've already checked the reference...it definitely seems true. Sorry to you Prince fans if I'm behind the times.  Which means, Clive, generally speaking, must be staying on the factual side of his cultural references. I'll probably fact check a few more, simply because fact checking is in vogue these days here in early January, 2021.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling Clive at all for his deep references to pop culture.  Every single fan of the 80's will love this book as much as the first one.  What a trip down memory lane.  And, even if you are not a fan of the multitude of references, beyond there being something for everyone, even the best fans can't possibly get every reference.  My daughter, who is worried about reading either of these great books, since 80's culture does not belong to her, shouldn't be.  The book is still extremely enjoyable even if you don't get the reference...Clive's style is such that you know it's a reference.  And maybe, you will go watch a John Hughes movie, you happened to have missed.  Look, I'm just saying that you can't go wrong with Molly Ringwald...no matter what...but I did not know that John Hughes actually played Brian's (Anthony Michael Hall's) dad in the Breakfast Club.  Yes I fact checked it. Yes it's true. 

So, perhaps, as a gamer, you grow tired of just another quest.  Just another search, and collection of gems, or keys, or stones, or in this case, shards.  Yes, collect the seven shards of the siren's soul and win a prize.  Seems old hat.  And certainly, without the cultural references, it might be.  However, that's not only what Clive does.  He mixes it deeply with his first.  In fact, it might be worth going back to reread the first, in advance. He also, beyond gaming, he began exploring, for the first time, the true futuristic realm of true artificial intelligence.  He even mentions the Singularity.  Now, let's not get carried away.  Clive is not the software engineer that  Weir was back when he worked for a living.  He is also, not the science fiction writer and advanced thinker, that is Philip K. Dick or Neal Stephenson or even Ted Chiang.  But he begins to address some of the same advanced subjects that humanity must face, should one happen to believe, AI could become self-aware.  Since I personally don't believe in that fiction, I am happy if he stays in his gamer, and pop cultural lane. And for the most part, he does. While bringing those subject's up...he doesn't really try to treat them with a deep philosophy.  That's probably a good thing.  He knows his blind spots unlike at least one of the aforementioned authors (Andy Weir).

He also cleverly avoids the deep technological understanding that would necessitate both the operation and the security of the massive server complexes necessary to create the OASIS.  He sticks to his craft.  He tells a story.  This fundamentally is why I believe Clive's work is so good.   Also, despite criticisms registered in these reviews, he deserves some defense.  He mentions destroying the planet from environmental catastrophe based on the endless consumption of resources.  So too, did he, in "Ready Player One".  If you didn't like that in RP1 you shouldn't have read RP2. That is no surprise from a book about science fiction particularly when the plotline demands that everyone plug into the OASIS to escape reality.  Second, he mentions, the gender fluid nature of computer generated Avatars inside the OASIS.  This is a perfectly natural outcome of dealing with computer generated artificial life forms.  You can also be a dragon, a wolf, or even a lamp...but he doesn't really mention those potentials.  Also, despite the criticism, he doesn't beat the reader up about it.  It's slightly more than a casual mention that will certainly have occurred to anyone with a brain who has ever logged into an online game and been asked to select an avatar.

I rarely give 5-Stars to books, as in my mind a 5-Star book is a must read and an immediate classic.  RP1 is such a book.  RP2 is just as good so I'm in a quandary.  We must not forget that RP1 came first and thus I think you get Clive's craft by simply reading it.  Thus RP2 isn't necessary reading if you've read the first.  So I'll give RP2 a rating of 4.75 stars overall...which will look like a full 5 stars...but in reality, it's slightly less...  So don't forget about RP1, and don't walk on by RP2...  If you are a fan, read them both...

Mooch's Black Cat

I begin by searching for my black cat in a dark room. I see a faint outline of her in the corner but it could be my imagination. She is close as I sense her brush by my leg. I call her name but she will not come to me. That is her nature, she is a cat. I get frustrated. That is my nature. I turn on the light only to discover that she is not in the room. That must be God's nature. As I turn to leave I see a box in the corner. I wonder if my cat is in the box. I also must wonder, as Schrödinger did, if my cat is alive or dead. That seems odd to me because this is no random cat, it is my cat. I am hopeful that she is alive. I curse the quantum foam and play along with the Fates. I open the box. My cat looks dead. She is motionless and her eyes are closed. I reach to touch her. She awakens, opens her eyes, and jumps out of the box...

The Fallacy That is TRUMP

Fred, Freddy, Fritz.  Names we don’t hear often but the names of the three people in our current President’s past life that explain in real terms, why Donald J. Trump will go down in the book as the worst President in American history.  And, if we recover from the damage he has done to our many institutions, he will be recorded as either the most dangerous or the most destructive.  Trump supporters will immediately dismiss the new book from which the narrative of these three names become known to us without ever considering the story...and I quote “Disgruntled family member, lifelong dem, writing just to cash-in on old news”.  That quote was to describe the author of the just released, topping the book list in record sales in a single day, and arriving with all the fanfare of a federal lawsuit blocking it’s publication... just denied by a federal judge, Mary L. Trump, the President’s niece, offspring of his deceased brother, Freddy, and sister of his nephew Fritz,  has arrived so we may hear her version of Donald’s formative years.  And what created, in her words, “...the world’s most dangerous man”.  

She is definitely a disgruntled family member, and that’s fair.  And why shouldn’t she be?  As Machiavellian empires go, one might notice her worth  to the Trump family based on her unique lineage.  Donald Trump wasn't the first born. The first born honor belongs to Freddy, her father.  Donald was the second born.  In medieval times, Donald’s off-spring wouldn’t be in line for anything.  As the line of royal blood succession would go to Fritz, Freddy’s 1st  son. But as with all history, with regard to the Trump family, facts are of no value.  Thus, when Freddy passed away at 42, a broken man, broken and bullied into the ground by his own family, that branch of the family tree, that included Mary, was cut from the trunk.  Not because it didn’t continue to exist, but because, if you are a Trump, sharing something with someone else, means you get less. Thus Mary and Fritz get nothing...their dad is dead.  You don’t share with a dead man. You don’t have to believe this line of succession, that is if you don’t believe in facts. What kind of a selfish family does that to their grandchildren?  Yes, obviously there is no royal bloodline in our Country, and certainly not in the Trump family, but it’s a good example of just another in a long list of problematic decisions committed by the most selfish and arrogant man alive today.  Of course we already knew this.  It feels good, however, to hear this charge levied from on the inside of the very much not a royal family.  

Regardless whether you initially believe Mary’s version of the Trump family history, or not, the fact’s will support her version.  The family exists, the company exists, the house in Queens exists, and the many properties accumulated and subsidized by the Federal government exist.  Fred Trump built the empire that Donald Trump effectively stole from his family.  The records exist but have been long hidden.  It’s no wonder it’s been so hard to put the pieces together.  And, when the Trump financial records and tax records finally see the light of day, animus or no animus from Mary, the facts as they trickle out will shed light on the career of the most amazing fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.  Mary Trump will be charged with telling the correct version of the story.  Not the one we’ve read about in the tabloids for so many decades.  The Donald, for his ego, can be happy in the knowledge that any publicity is good publicity, and with any luck, he will avoid the embarrassment of prosecution and jail time without the hope of a Presidential pardon.  Which many will pursue, but to that extent, I would not support. This comical chapter of our Nation’s history will hopefully be quickly forgotten.

Fred, Trump’s father,:  by all accounts, was a hard worker.  SIx days a week, 10-12 hours a day, a classic workaholic.  He built the empire, but he didn’t start it.  His mother fronted him the money, and kept the books in the early days to get him rolling. Fred was henceforth able to amass a large housing construction and management business by building apartments with subsidies from the Federal Housing Administration on the heels of WWII.  It was the income from the rent charged on those thousands of units that funded the subsequent building of the empire, and later, Donald’s lifestyle.  It also bailed him out as the building ceased, and the bankruptcies caused by his incompetence mounted.  Perhaps the best story is the one about Atlantic City.  Simply put, if one casino is good, wouldn’t two, or three be better?  Maybe in Las Vegas, but in a brand new location, where there wasn’t a market.  All Donald achieved was the creation of Papa Johns, a Domino’s, and  Pizza Hut, all on the same street corner, in a City that was still eating at Taco Bell. Those are my words, not Mary’s, but that’s the analogy.  If you ever wondered why Atlantic City never caught on.  In a larger sense, Donald’s failure in Atlantic City not only took a major negative  toll on his father’s empire, he arguably doomed the City itself to failure because of the failure of these casinos.  This isn’t hate speech coming from me, This is his business record.  And it’s abysmal.  His father repeatedly had to bail him out of his bankruptcies and bad business deals.

Freddy, Fred’s first son, and aire apparent to Fred’s business, tried to break away from the looming shadow of his Father.  He longed to do something else with his life.  Not only did he obtain his business degree from Lehigh University and was President of his Fraternity, through  ROTC he obtained a commission in the Air National Guard, he  learned to fly aircraft, and on his own  accumulated sufficient hours to become a commercial pilot.  Not something easily accomplished without military flight hours. And by all normal standards of performance, demonstrated both academic and leadership acumen.  Thus it was no surprise he was hired by Northwest Airlines and flew 727s on several routes. The problem, as recounted by her daughter, was that Freddy was never good enough for Fred who hated that he would do something different with his life other than commit totally to the family business.  He believed the military to be a waste of time and thought being an airline pilot was akin to being a glorified bus driver.  As the story goes, Donald, observed his older brother doing everything his father disliked, Freddy would do everything wrong in his father’s eyes.  So Donald gained his Father’s favor by doing everything exactly the opposite of Freddy. Thus Donald fraudulently gained his father’s favor by being a charlatan and thus successfully pushing Freddy under the bus and out of  the line of succession.  And if you think, perhaps that Donald was just savvy, not a ruthless bully, his torment of his younger brother Robert was not passive..  Donald would actively hide his younger brother’s toys just to torture  him until he cried.  This torment at the hand’s of Donald was not unknown to his family thus Donald was sent to military school so peace could return to the household. 

At the end of the day, and by all accounts, there is nothing extraordinary about the Trump family and the Trump  management company that makes the Trump name anything special.   Calling it an empire is to confuse a management company with a real empire.  The only thing that makes the Trump brand, TRUMP, is it’s big letters, right alongside Donald  telling you it’s great.  Is telling you something is great enough to warrant praise?  Just like the MAGA campaign the whole idea of being told to make America great again, never resonated with those who already thought America was great.  Where did these notions come from?  Well, when a snake oil salesman is selling snake oil, he first has to create the non-existent market for snake oil. The track record of Donald creating demand for something that doesn’t exist, is perhaps his only talent.  But many, including me, would conclude it’s less the strength of Donald, and more the weakness of his targeted victims.  And Donald also knows that as well.  His primary marks, as  Mary has said, are people Donald would have only contempt outside of his political rallies. There is something to be said for positive thinking, and Fred Trump was a believer in the power of positive thinking, but his son learned from this rule book, and took it to the extreme.  Every first and second utterance from Donald J Trump fits this profile.  There is no reason to believe this well written profile of our President’s upbringing is anything but highly plausible.  I suspect that after his Presidency has ended, given Mary’s lead, much much more about the history of the Trump family will surface and the sham of both this man and his life will unravel.  Four stars for the courage it took Mary to write this book...and we should all thank her for publishing and exposing how we created the fallacy that is our current President.  

Stalling for Time Saves Lives

When Timothy McVeigh went mad and bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building  in Oklahoma City, and became the most notorious domestic terrorist in our Nation’s history, he had a motive.  His act was in retaliation for what he believed to be the oppression of freemen at the two botched incursions by the Federal government during the standoff at Ruby Ridge and siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco Texas. McVeigh targeted the federal agents of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and two other federal agencies housed within that building when he committed his crime. Ironically, as vile a crime against America as this was, few American’s would argue that those Government standoffs were indeed botched and good examples of Federal law enforcement gone bad.  Giving no justification for such horrific crimes against fellow American’s, for which McVeigh forfeited his life appropriately through his criminal prosecution and subsequent execution, there can be no better understanding of what actually happened at Ruby Ridge, and Waco, then through the eyes of an FBI agent who was involved in both standoffs.  In his book, “Stalling for Time, My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator”, written after his retirement from the FBI, Gary Noesner, gives us a crystal clear portrait of the FBI position on the use of both tactical response and negotiations during a crisis standoff.  The indictment of the FBI’s position on the use of force, outweighing the use of alternative peaceful negotiations is abundantly clear.  Yet when properly applied, the negotiation tactics have proven over and over again, that life can be spared, and violence reduced.  

At the top of the heap, perhaps an Oxymoron’s in its use (my words, not Neosner’s), is the very phrase, “FBI Negotiator”.  Chief among the stated policies of the US Government, is simply, that “We do not negotiate with terrorists”.  Why then have a negotiator in the first place?  The answer?  Because we actually do negotiate and must negotiate if we are to save lives, not just the lives of hostages and innocents caught up in the chaos but also those of law enforcement who must engage in the tactical actions if force is used. The US Stated policy isn’t actually a policy.  It’s merely a sound bite taken from a brazen speech, post 9/11.  And a terrible impediment to much ground that was gained in the aftermath of the incompetence displayed in 90’s. Of course we negotiate with bad guys.  Everything is a negotiation.  Even in the grimmest of situations, even when all hope is lost, final words, attitudes, and information derived from speaking with, and barging for, concessions, can lead to a tactical edge if and when the shooting starts.  But the biggest gain, of all negotiations, is time.  Whether that time leads to a peaceful settlement or not, stalling for time is everybody's friend and it should be job #1.  The patience to stall for time, in the midst of a crisis, however, is perhaps the hardest thing to do.  The negotiator, thus, finds themselves, not only negotiating with the perpetrators, but also with the tactical force, with the itchy trigger finger, chomping at the bit to break down the door.

Knowing this, why then, did things go so poorly at Ruby Ridge and Waco?  Noesner grapples with this question throughout his book.  Himself, suggesting and agreeing to the use of deadly force against an estranged husband who had taken both wife and child hostage, for which he knew, as an experienced negotiator, that hope was gone...and in fact would set the husband up for a sniper’s bullet through his final negotiated words… Noesner carries that burden with him though he knows  he saved the life of an ever grateful wife and her child that day.

As it turns out, and the reason I read this book, is because it was one of the references for the NetFlix series, WACO, about David Koresh and the tragedy that befell his compound after the long and frustrating siege.  All of us who can remember, lived through the reporting on the siege. I wanted to understand how truthful the series was in reenacting to the standoff.  I rate the show as highly accurate, given other material I have read, and of course now this book.  It should be noted that this standoff was indeed a tragedy given the loss of innocent life.  All blame can be placed on David Koresh, and of course, it is not in dispute that the branch Davidians set the final conflagration that took most of the lives of all inside the compound, but what is also clear, there was no compelling reason to breach the compound.  And the reasons given for final approval, that came from the top, were heavenly biased and misleading.  Truth was not spoken to power on that day.in Washington.  Bad decisions were made.

But this book is not just about Waco.  Noesner provides incite into a number of high profile standoffs, not just in the United States, but around the world, in which he was involved.  From domestic incidents, to prison riots, to the hijacking of aircraft by Muslin extremists, including the bombing of the 747 that broke up over Lockerbie Scotland.  Also included are random  kidnappings for ransom and finally, his involvement in capture of the Washington Sniper.  In which case,  believe it or not, negotiations were being attempted through the use of notes left behind by the snipers (John Mohamed and Lee Boy Malvo) and controlled through use of the media to provide indications back to them.  True to form, the powers that be, choose not to take some of Noesner’s hard learned advice.

This is a short but powerful read..  Noesner is firm, credible, and clear. Perhaps based on his decades of experience in negotiations, where clarity with very little ambiguity is paramount.  This book is a must read if anyone questions the tactical response using what may be observed as an excessive use of force.  With so many shows on TV depicting these crucial scenes where ego, competence, fear, and adrenaline come together...it’s nice to see ground truth.  Law enforcement activity is most successfully executed when boredom takes precedence over action.  Negotiations, much like stakeouts, are long periods of time being away from home, uncomfortable, while drinking a lot of coffee and eating cheeseburgers.  Stalling for time saves lives.

The Red Eagles of CONSTANT PEG

Ever wonder what’s been happening in the skies over central Nevada?   Much is still speculation and many extra-terrestrial hunters spend a large percentage of their waking hours trying to peer into the valleys and canyons of those regions certain that if they stay vigilant they will remove the fog of government lies and discover the existence of aliens.   The truth is out there, but whereas it might not be as spectacular as it could be to discover the US government has been conducting horrific biological experiments on ET, which no doubt includes anal probing, the real truth is less science fiction and more history and heroics courtesy of some fine Americans and the United States Air Force (USAF).  The aliens, of course, would not be life forms from another planet, but rather technology from a foreign country...in this case from Russia--in the form of their jet fighter aircraft.

Ever heard of the Tonopah Test Range or TTR?  Long before it became a secret base concealing the first operational home of the F-117 stealth fighter jet, it was a remote Department of Energy laboratory.  Later, it was to host the first cover story to explain the increase in operations and construction that would surround the arrival of the super-secret F-117.  What’s really weird, and awesome at the same time, is that this cover story was also so sensitive and treated with such respect by those in the know, that even as the F-117 jets were arriving at Tonopah and going operational, the word of the cover story, never got leaked.  The MiGs remained more classified then the Nighthawk. The story was thus never told.  A failed cover story.  Finally, in 2006 the mission was declassified.   And one of those original fine American’s decided to write some of their previously undisclosed history.

Before they were the Red Eagles they were the TAC Red Hats.  TAC stands for Tactical AIr Command.  Back then, TAC was on a leadership rampage. What resulted was the rise of the “fighter generals” as described in the great history book by Mike Worden of the same name.  This was, and has been, their heyday.  Yet their rise to prominence culminated in the dissolution of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the previous reign of the “bomber generals” over the USAF.  This was thirty years ago.  This event ushered in the 3rd epoch of USAF maturity since it’s birth as a new service in 1947.  The epochs were defined and characterized by Jeff Smith in his illuminating work entitled.  “Tomorrow’s Air Force”.  The rise of the fighter generals happened on the eve of the first Desert Storm war in Iraq. It was the late 80’s and I was a newly commissioned officer in the USAF.  A SAC trained warrior as we were called...forged in the fire of a nuclear weapons maintenance squadron, inside a profession and an maintenance Air Force Specialty or AFSC well known for eating their young.  Everyone remembers the 80’s with the movies, Top Gun, the music, Billy Idol, and our clothing choices, parachute pants. It was a fine time to be young and unafraid. 

With all that going on it’s no wonder that a few fearless pioneers went unobserved in that high desert of Nevada.  They were guided by a vision to train fighter pilots, the cream of the crop fighter pilots, to join an echelon above the best of the best, to cap-off their training with an aerial engagement of actual adversary alien (foreign) aircraft.  In this case, actual Russian MiG fighters straight from behind the Iron Curtain. The training would be conducted in complete secrecy.  The Cold War was still in full swing. We were still a decade away from the fall of the Berlin Wall.  America’s strategy was still nuclear deterrence with actual limited nuclear strike options materializing to confront the nightmare of the Fulda Gap scenario which was deemed not only real,  but likely.  What burned in the heart of Air Force planners at the Pentagon  was the ability to gain Air Supremacy over the communists in the event a conventional war kicked off in Europe and 50,000 Soviet tanks streamed across the border, through the Fulda Gap, and  into Germany.

Who were these planners at the Pentagon? Enter Gaillard Peck, known as Evil Peck in his band of fighter pilot brothers. These brothers, seasoned in the aerial combat of Vietnam, knew the Air Force could do better.  Their august plan?  To build a squadron of real Russian MiGs and train pilots to fly them and to fly against our best of the best in aerial combat.  

“America’s Secret MiG Squadron, The Red Eagles of Project Constant Peg”, is an effort by Evil Peck, to describe how he got it done, in complete secrecy.  How did he pull it off? How did he get it approved, funded, and operational?  What it took, despite the huge bureaucracy, and what was the resulting success of this elite squadron of US owned and operated Russian MiGs?  It is also an essay about winning and losing, It is an essay on leadership and egos.  What is wrong with the United States Air Force  but also, what can be done right?  Evil Peck, through his own eyes reports on being inside the bureaucracy that made it all happen.  There was also some losing going on and Evil is too much of a gentleman to place blame where it belongs.  Those of you who know me know I will not pull the same punches.  Having been in and around the Air Force myself, since 1982, as an officer in the field, a civilian on the Air Staff, and as a contractor supporting the Pentagon, I have seen it all.  Evil Peck nails it.  He also tells the story of Bud “Chops” Horan, who cloaked the program in secrecy, almost to a fault...given the need for a cover story that never really emerged...and for good reason.  OBTW that story still hasn’t emerged.  More on that later...

First some background before I get deeper into this book review. Flying high performance jet aircraft is a lethal enterprise...not  just because of the necessity to dogfight in combat.  These technical marvels of the sky can kill you very quickly. Thus the training required to learn just how to strap on engines with more thrust than weight is not something those who are in the profession have ever taken lightly.  It demands no compromise and the best of the best training required is an absolute.   A block approach was adopted by the Air Force to build the best of the best.  Baby steps.  Learn and master in stages.  Finally, when you’ve mastered the jet you still have a long way to go.  You are only learning for one reason, to fly in combat.  At the top of the flyer’s pyramid stand the aerial aces.  Those who have downed other enemy fighters in combat.  During wartime,  experience was gained in the heat of the dogfight.  What did you do?  What worked and how did you survive? Pass that on to the flyers in your squadron.  From previous combat it is well known in the fighter community that 10 missions is the number required to gain comfort and some proficiency...that is if you don’t die first.  After all the book learning, after all the block training, after all the tactics and techniques have been described, you still must fly in a hostile exchange to really know how you will perform.  Enter,  Red Flag.  At the top of the heap, pilots are invited to Red Flag exercises to gain their 10 sorties of combat proficiency against a simulated aggressor aircraft….but is that even enough to eliminate “Buck Fever”.  The first time you look through your rifle scope while hunting a deer and hesitate before you pull the trigger.  That’s buck fever.  It’s a well known phenomenon.  How then, do you get the deer in the room? Let the pilot  see the deer, run with the deer, and down the deer in combat, or be bested by the deer...and learn that lesson too.  How do you put a highly trained USAF fighter pilot in place with their cross-hairs on said deer...a Russia pilot in a MiG trying to kill you.  How do you get the deer to 20,000 ft, AGL, moving at near the speed of sound?  Evil Peck figured it out.

Back then the Air Force fostered what was known as the one mistake mentality.  A single mistake would mean the end of your career, unless you were very lucky.  Some of this grew out of the nuclear posture of the Air Force where we constantly hung under the Sword of Damocles and a single mistake could not be tolerated.  But yet, how do you learn?  Particularly when you are coloring outside the lines.  When I was a maintenance officer on the flight-line in 1988, I remember an issue came up and at one point I had 10 senior NCO’s in my office, totaling 220 years of USAF maintenance experience.  I did the math but I didn’t try to solve the problem.  I told them to solve the problem.  My two years of maintenance experience wasn’t going to get it done.  And guess what?  In the morning 220 years of experience had that problem solved. As Evil describes leadership within the Red Eagles, the difference in leadership styles jumps off the page, from the maintenance officer, David Stringer, who went on to be a 1-Star general, a very very high rank for a logistics officer in those days, to George Gennin,  a commander who destroyed the Red Eagles because of his commander’s ego and classic blind spots. Later Col John Manclark would have to repair the  mess made by Gennin and get the sortie rate back up.

In his new best seller, “Talking to Strangers”, Malcolm Gladwell describes what happens when two people don’t understand one another at a very basic level. In the case of Bobby “Daddy” Ellis, the SMSgt who was the Chief of Maintenance for the Red Eagles nothing could be closer to the truth.  When the 6th Red Eagles Commander showed up, Col George Gennin, they immediately had a communication barrier.  They didn’t speak anything close to the same language.  Gennin seemed unwilling to even try to learn.  Ellis, on the other hand, owned those jets in every sense of the word.  He built them  from scratch.  He repaired them.  He maintained them.  When pilot's showed up to take their jet they trusted the maintainers were handing them something safe to fly, relatively speaking.  How would the pilot really know anyhow?  There were no manuals for these Russian MiGs.  There were no Techical Orders (T.O.s).  Knobs and switches were labeled in Cyrillic. Ellis knew these jets  down to the last rivet.  The pilot's knew and trusted the maintainers.  Gennin, on the other hand, knew none of this. What he knew was Air Force good order and discipline and was told that officers do not fraternize with enlisted men.  And this is what he imposed on the Red Eagles when he showed up.  Gennin was out for himself.  And hypocritically, as he would condemn Ellis for doing things outside the chain of command, he himself evaded  the chain of command, not reported in Evil's book. (you can find this story in the other book about the Red Eagles by the journalist Steve Davies). Gennin himself frequently  jumped the Chain of Command and would have routine conversations with the Commander of TAC, Gen Creech, behind his own bosses back.  He, better than anyone, understood the value of these back channel communications.  But fundamentally failed to understand the magic that was taking place right in front of him.  Instead of finding a way to join the team he decided to crush the spirit of the unit.  He claims credit for increasing the sortie rate, where the numbers reported by Evil show he did nothing of the sort.  Sortie rates decreased under his watch, the lowest to date in the history of the Red Eagles and morale was in the tank. He handed a broken squadron to the next commander’s both Manclark and White who really had to turn morale and sortie rates around.

This is a great book which captures a brief moment of Air Force culture.  Apart from Evil’s story and personal involvement he was humble and truthful enough to include stories of the Red Eagles written by other Red Eagles in his book.  These are all fascinating stories told in their own words. I’ve mentioned several times that the Red Eagles should have been the cover story for the F-117s.  They were not.  Perhaps, again, we return to Gennin.  Perhaps, we may never know, trying to break the Red Eagles into conformance with the USAF was one way to thrust them into the light of day...to assume their envisioned role as a cover story for those F-117’s, the primary reason for Tonopah’s resurgence, visibility, and obvious influx of major funding.  Ultimately the Red Eagle squadron at Tonopah was shut down as the F-117’s went public due to their involvement and success in the first Gulf War.

I alluded to it earlier, but a word about Intelligence collection in the United States...

What Evil doesn’t describe is this book is the inherent relationship the Red Eagles must have had with the United States intelligence community. I am speculating here.  For obvious reasons this may have been  been left out. And perhaps the reason is you don’t use an intelligence program as a cover story for another classified program.  Evidence in the book would suggest you don’t run off to Egypt and other countries around the world, as Daddy Ellis did,  to collect Russian aircraft parts, without US Intel in the room.  So they must have been there and Daddy Ellis must have been eyeballs deep in this community.  This is another piece of the puzzle that Geoge Gennin would have never have understood.  It’s a blind spot for most inside the Department of Defense, primarily because most employees of the DoD never possess the coveted clearances to go behind the Intel curtain.  And whereas they may brush up against it, they never understand it’s depth.  The relationship between DoD and US Intel meet at organizations such as the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) under Air Force Systems Command (AFSC).  You are on your own to research such things but I would start with the history on the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). And keep in mind the rules are different on the Intel side.  Those guys grow beards and don’t wear uniforms.. They also don’t serve as cover stories for DoD missions.  Typically it’s the other way around...

I close with a question for those alien hunters out there who may be reading this review and searching for ET in the high deserts of Nevada.  Ever seen a fighter pilot complete with face-mask and oxygen line connected to their helmet?  Check it out sometime... I'll give you a hint...

Keep Bringing the Juice Boxes

Sadly the book, “A Seat at the Table”, by Mark Swartz,  is the worst book I’ve read in a long time.  Heralded by the Chief Software Officer of the United States Air Force, Nicolas M. Chaillan, as a must read, I believe we are being led down the primrose path by the likes of personalities such as Swartz and Chalillan.  The buzz word in software is DevOps and whether or not we believe software is key to every business, and the business of most businesses, the tenants of DevOps are not new to the real business of innovation.  Recast as some sort of new  knowledge, when it comes to rapid development of anything, look through history at the companies who have found rapid ways to develop new things and get them to the marketplace, and the exact same rules will apply.  Nothing new here.  Even when applied to software.  What is new is the idea that the Chief Information Officer at a company should be in charge of it.  The danger, as I see it, is not with how the next Uber or Airbnb will get their app to market. The danger is that some companies are not strictly software development houses, They also do other things, like build cars, planes, and rockets.  Coming from a military background I’ll rephrase that as tanks, planes, rockets, and satellites.   Yes, the software development involved with these systems is extensive, 35 million lines of code and counting on programs such as the F-35 (including ground support systems), but so too must these companies also build the hardware that works, physically, and the hardware that supports and runs the software at the interface between the physical world and the digital logic inside..   The world does not consist strictly inside your desktop, laptop, and iPhone.  At least not yet.  The world is still a physical place.  And thus we must still interact with it in physical ways. Engineers build these physical systems.  Deeper still, is the need for these software driven physical systems to be secure.  This does not happen on the software side alone. Thus even if the CIO understands not only IT but software as well, they will not understand the other product development in other engineering disciplines.  They still are in a heavily supporting role.   

In the old days a company consisted of the CEO, COO, and CFO.  Typically, before the days where everybody wanted an MBA, engineering companies would advance, not necessarily the best engineers, but the good engineers who could communicate with the outside world.  Those smart folk would rise to the top and it was hard to compete with them because of their deep knowledge of what the company was actually in the business of producing. As the information age blossomed, companies began creating positions like the Chief Information Officer or CIO to run their Information Technology enterprise.  So let me just ask a question, who do the software developers work for?  Do they work for the CIO or do they work for the CEO?  In an information company, where software applications, games, webpages, shrink wrapped software are the products, do the software developers work for the CIO?  In a hardware company where the product is the next business jet, do the software developers work for the CIO?  The answer is no.  The fallacy here is that the CIO needs  a seat at the table.  The misunderstanding here is that the CIO drives the DevOps cycle.   What’s happening here is because of the surge in software development in every company, the CEOs and COOs understand less about the technology.  That is why if you put a software engineer in charge, like Elon Musk at Tesla, he is smart enough to speak all of the languages he needs to speak  in order to run the company.  The CIO can play his supporting role to keep the networks up so that everyone can do their job. The software engineers do not work for the CIO at Tesla, or SpaceX for that matter.

Hopefully you understand where I am going with this.  I like CIOs, don’t get me wrong, but giving them a seat at the table to drive DevOps when the software developers don’t work for the CIO is a dumb idea.  And it would be an even dumber idea to put them in charge of software development thus splinting the development of an integrated engineering solution.  Software might be the cool magic in any given hardware, who doesn’t love the artificial intelligence of a self driving car?  But the car can only drive because it has cameras that can see, radars that can feel, tires that can turn, and brakes that can stop the car. This is a fully integrated engineering hodgepodge of technology that must remain on the engineering side of the house under the CEO.  The CIO has other things to worry about, like making sure the engineers can communicate with one another and save data.  Driving DevOps is for engineering management and whereas it may have arrived for commercial companies it is still not ready for prime-time in the military...nor should it ever be.

The United States Air Force, as the foremost technology service,  has been enamored with this book and with other fantasies about Silicon Valley.  Thus the Air Force appointed a Chief Software Officer to drive software development into a DevOps future.  Yes Chalian has started a few software companies.  He has not, however, built a F-16, a B-2, or a MilStar Satellite.  Yes all companies can do better with their software development cycles, but  they still must build hardware.  They must build an integrated solution.  They still must test hardware and they still must secure everything from attack.   DevOps is antithetical to building defense systems that must work in a life and death situation while also under attack from both within (cyber) and from without (physical).  In this still highly relevant paradigm the CIO is still in a supporting role and should still just keep bringing the juice boxes.

Trust is Life or Death

How do you link terrorism, Adolf Hitler, sexual predation, murder, ponzi schemes, and the Black Lives Matter movement under one cover?  Ask Malcolm Gladwell to write a book….  And he has.  His latest is called “Talking to Strangers” and he has created yet another phrase for our culture and times, Much like he has with “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”.  The phrase, “Talking to Strangers'” will forever mean, don’t forget, when you are out there in the world interacting with people, you don’t really know what is in the mind of the person you’ve never met standing in line in at the checkout counter, even though you’ve seen them many times.  This is not to infer something nefarious is going on. It is to explain that although it is our human nature to give fellow humans the benefit of the doubt, and to trust them, we never know  how a person’s personality and what they are thinking, presents itself outwardly in a manner for us to infer anything about them.  The phrase, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover, was never meant to be about books. Thus, Gladwell has usurped the idea, and given it a new name.

Talking to Strangers is how Gladwell has recast the old line but given us a much deeper understanding of how? And why? It’s a thing.  This is not the simple classic admonishment that has become an internet meme or YouTube video where we are reminded not to get angry in the checkout line because the person in front of us might have experienced a death in the family, or diagnosis with the “C” word.   Rather, Gladwell presents the evidence from all these unrelated examples, that even with our very best intentions to read people correctly,  we always get it wrong…

Ironically, I write this review as the novel Corona virus, Covid-19, has begun amping up it’s chilling effect on the population here in the United States. Strangely, three things occur to me.  One, the “C” word, now apparently stands for “COVID-19”.  Two, just like not being able to judge a book by it’s cover, we really don’t know who is the carrier of the virus.  And three, social distancing tells us to keep six feet away from everyone, including in the supermarket checkout line.  Perhaps we will have to wait a few months before we get back to talking to strangers in line at the grocery store. But I digress...

As always, Gladwell did a lot of research to come up with this book. Most of the stories he relates to us are familiar topics in the news and the ones he connects with his ideas about not judging a book by its cover are well known to us.  How Chamberlain totally misread Hitler during his meeting with him prior to WWII, How Bernie Madoff with his ponzi scheme, pulled the wool over the eyes of Wall Street.  How Gerry Sandusky could have had a charity to help young boys and abuse them at the same time, under the watchful eyes of the most famous football coach in the world? How was a doctor able to sexually  abuse so many women on the US Gymnastics Team, sometimes with their parents in the same room?  And on and on...

The answer, in a nutshell, is that we are a trusting race of humans.  We evolved to trust because we have to live by trust and  trust our other fellow humans to live by us and trust us as well.  Maybe it’s to live in society together, but we’ve been evolving long before societies, so it must be something deeper.  But with regard to society, here is my own analogy from something I like to do, drive cars. In order for the rules of the road (society) to work, and not have mass chaos on our highways, we trust other drivers to follow the rules.  It’s funny that we can be so trusting  but yet we yell and scream at the a-hole who will not yield, or the maniac who passes us on the right.  After all, anyone going slower than us is an a-hole and anyone going faster than us is a maniac.  The dichotomy of thought is a classic human inconsistency.  We trust those a-holes and maniacs with our lives, and to stay in their lane,  as we wind down a two lane back road with a painted line in between us and a closing velocity of 140 miles per hour.  Since we are so trusting, perhaps we should be willing to believe the guy with the concealed carry permit is as reliable as his cousin on the highway.  This is a very pro-gun argument, and many of my friends would agree.  They are to be trusted.  But Gladwell’s argument, that we can’t judge a book by it’s cover, suggests we shouldn’t, or can’t always trust the smile on their face.  Yet the list of reasons to trust people in society goes on and on... otherwise we would all live in a cabin in the woods and write manifestos (I’m referring to unabomber Ted Kaczynski not HDT).

Here are the use cases Gladwell writes about:

Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain.  Chamberlain traveled to Germany multiple times  to meet with Hitler so he could report back to the world that he trusted Hitler because he told him his objectives were not world domination as they shook hands and he looked into his eyes. History was not kind to Chamberlain given how badly he misread der Fuehrer's face, despite the fact that he had written an entire book on the subject.  Did anyone actually read, “Mein Kampf”?

Amanda Knox and the Italian policia:  The Italian authorities and most of the world did not believe a  girl buying red underwear the day after her roommate’s brutal murder could have been anything but the perpetrator of a  violent sexual escapade gone bad.  When in fact, Knox is so ridiculously innocent, as to resemble any one of our shy, awkward daughters.  The missing detail, was of course, the fact that she was locked out of her apartment and literally had no underwear. She was seen by the Italian press, buying underwear the next day.  Who would do that after murdering their roommate? How about someone who didn’t murder their roommate. And the scandalous innuendo went viral from there....

Bernie Madoff fleeces all of  Wall Street given he had absolutely nothing to show for any investment he ever made?  How is that possible?  One man saw through the impossibility of it all...but no one would listen to him.  Madoff was too important of a figure.

In the Gerry Sandusky case, for decades, many looked away from the smoke, when there was not only smoke, but a fire.  Not just a campfire, but a three alarm conflagration and a towering inferno of abuse.

Gladwell’s point, in all these cases, has been those closest to the issues, those who could have seen the signs and understood what was really going on, have been unable to effectively communicate because they have been talking to strangers, literally.  Like a pig looking at a wristwatch.  No matter how much talking you do, if you haven’t a clue as to the premise, the context, and the language being spoken, you will miss the mark.

I’m reminded of my own “Talking to Strangers” experience from when I was in the Air Force many moons ago.  At that time the Wing Commander put me in charge of  an explosive safety mishap investigation.  The mishap involved the inadvertent firing of an explosive squib.  The squib is the first in a series  of explosive events that will  lead to the firing of the rockets in the ejection of a seat on the B-52H bomber.  It seems a maintenance technician pulled the ejection handle while on a Red Ball, an emergency maintenance response to an aircraft just before take off.  The maintainers blamed the mishap on the aircrew and the aircrew blamed it on the maintainers. Clearly, the maintainer pulled the handle, he was at fault. But if we let it go there, we would not understand what Gladwell is talking about.   After careful investigation I uncovered the following facts.  The aircrew refused to take the aircraft because the ejection seat handle appeared loose and it would wobble from side to side. Per the technical order (T.O.) the handle should not wobble. The maintainer insisted that the aircraft was safe for a one-time-flight and that the ejection handle, despite the slight wobble, would function if it became necessary to eject. Back and forth the maintainer and the aircrew went debating whether or not the seat would work.  The aircrew wanted to reject the sortie and the maintainers wanted them to fly the jet.  During the investigation, as I looked at the handle, and the disassembled unit, on the maintenance bench, there was no doubt the handle would work.  There was also no doubt there was a wobble. But during the incident the debate went on and on until the point that the maintainer was so frustrated with the aircrew, and their inability to trust his judgement, that  he said, “Look, it works!”, and he pulled the ejection handle.  The fact that the handle would work is so intuitively obvious to the most casually observing flatworm, it's so easy to see how the frustration would build.  This wasn’t a question of some arcane and mysterious black box, and there are many of those, for which the aircrew has to put their faith (and life)  in the hands of the  maintainers...this happens everyday. This is a very basic mechanical operation...the handle moves up and down...it’s an on or off proposition.  This came down to attitude, respect, and the ability to communicate, whilst engines running, and trying to move fast, in the heat of an aircraft launch.     Fortunately, the squib only sets off the first event in the chain of explosive event’s leading to the seat being rocketed out of the top of the aircraft. The seat has final safety pins that are only removed at the very end of the runway just prior to takeoff roll. Had those pins also been removed,  undoubtedly, both the maintainer and aircrew member would have been killed.  They would not have just been just injured.  They would have both been ejected violently through the roof of the B-52, traveling up on a rocket sled several hundred feet into the air, to be smashed by the seat leaving the aircraft, and then smashed by their subsequent fall to the ground…It would have been ghastly.

But it was the frustration of the back and forth, the lack of trust on both sides, the inability to see what the other one was saying, their inability to communicate, that neither party could be completely absolved, or completely blamed.  Gladwell would say, they were not talking to one another, despite all the training, they were effectively talking to strangers. Mishaps happen this way…in this case, the Chief of Flying Safety, a B-52 pilot himself, believed my investigation and called in every aircrew member from the wing to describe what caused this lack of trust and what we should do to enhance respect and grow closer as a flying wing.   We could not have tolerated the more ghastly mishap had it occurred.  On the flight-line, it’s one family...yet  there is always a tension between ops and maintenance, I could go on and on but I will not. Communication and understanding is key,  trust is life or death.