I like to hit different groups—sometimes lower-grade airmen; sometimes Saudis (they freak out when I sit down, but then get over their fear because they are curious); sometimes foreign officers or enlisted men; and sometimes my own longtime Ninth Air Force staff. I will get different information from each group. The longtime companions are the most open. They tell me what they really like and don’t like. They are my “emperor has no clothes” meter, and I try to hit them whenever possible for a reality check. The foreign officers and men tend to give me different angles on what we are doing and why we are doing it. Sometimes they give me information that can be useful in planning future operations, but often they are so indirect that I miss what they are trying to tell me. The GIs are full of questions and are an excellent source of the rumors that fill the air, most of which they believe. In some ways they represent all of America—filled with wonder about what we are doing and certain that very simple answers will handle the complex problems we face. Though most of them seem amazed that the general is sitting with them, after they get over their initial shyness, they open up in a hurry. Like all Americans, they stand in awe of no one for any length of time. I love their self-assurance, the absence of fear—they’ll ask me anything that’s on their minds. I love it that they think they are as good as I am. These qualities are perhaps our greatest strength as a nation. We really believe in ourselves—not in the sense that we arrogantly think we know everything, but that we are as good as the next person, and if we don’t know the answer to a problem that plagues us, we are capable of understanding a good one when we get it.

★ 1345 Lunch is over, and I go back downstairs to the TACC, stopping by the computer room to check how the ATO is coming. I always have one question: “Are we going to get it to the units on time?” The answer is always “yes”; the reality is usually no. Colonel Rich Bennet, the one responsible for getting the ATO published after the Black Hole guys give him the master target list and packages, is pulling his hair out, because Buster wants to make last-minute changes that will screw the whole thing up. People are busy fat-fingering in the 100,000 details that go into any ATO—takeoff time, tanker orbit points, munitions, call signs, code words, IFF squawks, no-fly zones, fly zones, coordinating points, lines on the ground, air routes in the air. I get out of there quickly, as people are very busy and working at a frantic pace, and I hate computers.