There was lots of shared joy and shared pain, often with people who’d been strangers until we came together for the war. There was lots of serious talk and some joking around, especially with the guys who were old Ninth Air Force friends or other longtime acquaintances like John Corder. It really was a living organism; it reacted to stimuli—pain, joy, and loneliness. Too often, we in the military draw our little boxes that explain how we are organized, who commands whom, who stands where on the command food chain. That’s all fine and rational and necessary, but in reality, while we try to create these hierarchies with the power to command others to go out and risk their lives in battle, we are actually a team of fallible humans who do our best to find the best course of action. But then people have to put on G suits and try. If they succeed, we all bask in the glory. If they fail, we try to learn why and perhaps have another collective go at it again. If they are wounded, captured, or killed, then the guy in the G suit suddenly gets the whole enchilada, and those of us who are ancillary to that event are left with feelings of pain and sorrow, and a somewhat guilty sense of relief that it wasn’t us who paid that price. Fortunately, I had been shot at and had taken pretty extreme risks, which gave me a fairly good understanding of the folks who strapped on the jets and headed for danger. In my view, anyone who sends others off, perhaps to die, needs that kind of understanding. As much as this thing we call command and control is about modern computers, communications, planning tools, and satellite photography, it is also about people wandering around in partial ignorance, trying to do good by doing evil, and feeling—sometimes all at once—joy-pain-fear-uncertainty-fatigue-love-and-grief.

★ 1600 I have appointments with the press—first with a newspaper writer, and then with TV people. The newswoman meets me in a trailer in the parking lot out back; the air conditioner hum keeps out the noise of planes and people. As she takes out her tape recorder, I sneak a peek at her legs. It’s been over six months, and I am no priest. She asks me about how the war is going, what is the matter with BDA, and when the ground war will start. I want to answer “Good,” “Nothing,” and “You have me confused with somebody who gives a shit”; but instead I try to be as open as I can.