Journey Read online

  Copyright © 2018 by General Norty Schwartz

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Rain Saukas

  ISBN: 978-1-5107-1033-7

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1034-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedicated to Suzie, who made this journey possible, and all those members of the Armed Forces and their families with whom we had the extraordinary privilege to serve.

  Feathers shall raise men even as they do birds towards heaven.

  That is by letters written with their quills.

  —LEONARDO DA VINCI

  The men and women [of our Air Force] are a national asset, and together we will recommit ourselves to our core values and uphold the highest standards of excellence that have made our Air Force the best in the world.

  Our nation deserves nothing less. We will be ready if called upon.

  —GENERAL NORTY SCHWARTZ

  upon nomination for Chief of Staff

  July 22, 2008

  USAF photo

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword: By Leon Panetta

  Prologue

  Introduction: My Two Mistresses

  Chapter 1: We Don’t Chew Gum on Hot Mic

  Chapter 2: I’ll Never Be Your Puppy Dog

  Chapter 3: Colonels Normally Do Better Than This

  Chapter 4: You’re No Omar Bradley

  Chapter 5: They Must Have the Wrong Schwartz

  Chapter 6: All In

  Chapter 7: I Don’t Care about Your Goddamn Airplanes

  Chapter 8: A New Playing Field

  Chapter 9: Flight Plan

  Chapter 10: To the Very End

  Promotions

  Glossary

  Index

  Photos

  The greatest book has not been written, the fastest train has not been built, the greatest painting has not been dreamed. Go to, young man, go to.

  —JACK MCCALMONT

  USAF Academy Class of 1973

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Suzie and I started this project with the thought that some of what happened to us might be of modest historical significance, but it is also a story of two American kids, one from Arkansas, one from New Jersey, drawn together not by common experience, family or faith, but by respect for one another and a shared appreciation for the nobility of public service. We hope that our story illuminates the possibilities that our country offers to those who aspire … and care.

  We would never have completed the effort without the dogged assistance of coauthor Ron Levinson; and all those working behind the scenes, including our agent, Dan Strone, editors Chris Evans and Joe Craig, and editorial assistant Mike Campbell. Nor would we have the had success we enjoyed without wonderful friends and mentors: Gene Reinartz, Al and Barbara Navas, Mort Freedman, Al Peck, Alan Gropman, John Shaud, Dick and Annie Potter, Jim and Diane Hobson, Mike and Jane Ryan, Pete and Cindy Schoomaker, Dick and Mary Jo Myers, Pete and Lynne Pace, Mike and Victoria Carns, Joe and Dede Ralston, Don and Joyce Rumsfeld, Bob and Becky Gates, Leon and Sylvia Panetta, Mike and Gail Donley, Mike and Deborah Mullen, George and Sheila Casey, Gary and Ellen Roughead, Jim and Annette Conway, and John and Jan Ellsworth. And from my youth: Bob and Pam Munson, Steve and Leslie Lorenz, Frank and Nancy Klotz, Mike and Sandra Mosier, Skip and Joanne Sanders, Ron and Mary Scott, and Jim Green. To each of them, and so many others, Suzie and I express our admiration and gratitude.

  The stories in this book reflect my best recollection of events. Some names, locations, occupations, physical properties, and identifying characteristics have been intentionally changed to protect the privacy of those depicted. Other alterations are unintentional, as memory fades.

  Aristotle reminds us that “memory is the scribe of the soul,” but the older I get, the more I realize that the ink is not indelible. I’ve done my best to relay events in a way that evokes the feeling and meaning of what was said and what occurred; in all instances, the essence of the dialogue and events described are as accurate as memory allows.

  Shortly after I was sworn in as Chief, I celebrated Air Force Week with a speech at Bellevue University in Bellevue, Nebraska. The words I shared that day still resonate within me, cutting to the core of why I embarked on this journey and how much I believe that the future of our great nation depends on others being similarly inspired to do so. To those who have, and those who will, I dedicate this book.

  We are going to need young men and women to continue to step forward and say “Send me”—and that applies to every branch of our armed forces. We need people who know that accountability, character, and leadership are the only answers for the demands that we face. We need people who know that the blessings we enjoy come at a price. There are, indeed, some things worth fighting for and they are well worth defending for those who will follow us. We need people who know that the future of a free people will be written by people who serve. And those with honor, integrity, and creativity will justify America’s confidence in us. It all depends on what we do now … and in the days to come.

  FOREWORD

  by Leon Panetta

  Norty is, I believe, one of the finest officers I’ve had the honor to work with. He came at a very critical time in the history of the Air Force, and he responded with incredible leadership in making the Air Force an essential, credible, and capable partner in our national defense.

  As a young man, he understood the importance of hard work and dedication to his country, values that led to his decision to serve this nation in uniform. These values have guided him through a distinguished career in both the conventional and special operations communities.

  As the 19th Air Force chief of staff, Norty has led the Air Force with tremendous judgment, vision, and honesty. Even though he was planning to retire after his time at TRANSCOM, when he was called upon to help the institution he loves, he accepted the mission. And he always has.

  Norty led the Air Force during a period of intense operational demands and evolving strategic and fiscal challenges. He quickly moved to restore confidence in our nuclear enterprise—an absolutely vital component of our national security.

  [He was at the helm for] the Libya operation, where the Air Force flew over eight thousand sorties—conducting airstrikes and providing ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and air refueling capabilities to the NATO-led coalition. All of this helped rid the world of a brutal dictator.

  In Afghanistan, the Air Force flew more than thirty-three thousand close air support sorties in 2011 alone, in addition to having thousands of airmen serving on the ground. As the ground infantrymen tell me, there is no more comforting sound than jets arriving overhead to help get them out of a jam. Norty worked tirelessly to ensure that those jets would be there.

  Norty worked with his teammate, Mike Donley, to help the Air Force prepare for the future—a future th
at includes the security challenges like cyber, and opportunities to have to deal with fiscal constraints, and opportunities to open up the Air Force to all of those who want to serve their country.

  He played a key role in helping craft our new defense strategy. He has put the Air Force on a stronger footing by streamlining the fleet and pushing ahead with key platforms for the future: the Joint Strike Fighter, the new tanker, a next-generation bomber, and new, more advanced remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs).

  History will mark the great work that he did on the RPA program, and how he helped get more of this capability into the field. The United States is engaged in a global war on terror, and drone strikes are an effective tool to eliminate militants planning terror attacks on the U.S. I can personally tell you, from my capacity as Director of the CIA and as Secretary of Defense, how essential these operations are to the fight against terrorism.

  Norty’s decades in the special operations community all seemed to be leading up to May 2, 2011—the night of the bin Laden raid. We could not have done that raid were it not for the help of Norty’s airmen. And more importantly, as CIA director, I can tell you that we would not have been able to decimate al-Qaeda’s leadership were it not for the great work of those [RPA] pilots. And for that Norty deserves tremendous credit.

  Perhaps most importantly, America’s airmen and their families were never far from the minds of Norty and Suzie, who championed numerous support programs that have improved their quality of life.

  General Norty Schwartz is a good man, a good friend, a dedicated officer, but more importantly, a great patriot who has truly done his best in protecting the United States of America.

  PROLOGUE

  It was like a scene out of a Tom Clancy thriller, but not anything I’d ever experienced in real life. I was one of a roomful of top-level generals attending our June 2008 Air Force Corona conference when, one by one, every Blackberry in the room sounded an alert—a true “WTF” moment. The SECDEF (secretary of defense) had just relieved both the secretary of the Air Force and its chief of staff. Six fully functional W-80 nuclear warheads had mistakenly been loaded in AGM-129 cruise missiles, mounted on a B-52H bomber, and flown across the United States. None of the pilots, flight crew, weapons handlers, or security personnel had any idea they were dealing with live nukes. The bottom line was that they had lost track of six nuclear weapons for thirty-six hours, which was absolutely unacceptable.

  Just a few months earlier, four MK-12 forward section reentry vehicle assemblies, used on Minutemen ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) missiles, had been inadvertently shipped to Taiwan instead of battery packs that were to be used in Taiwan’s fleet of UH-1 Huey helicopters. They were eventually recovered, but it revealed a serious problem with nuclear-related inventory management. In two prior assignments I had been heavily involved in our nuclear mission, where anything less than doing it right and doing it well is intolerable.

  The outgoing Chief had also been at odds with Secretary Gates over war-fighting expenditure priorities, refusing to back down on the need to spend more on the F-22 advanced fighter program, whereas Gates saw the future in expanding the role of remotely piloted aircraft (often referred to as “drones”) and prevailing in the ongoing fights. The Air Force was struggling on many levels, and we all understood that one of us in that room would be selected to replace the Chief and become the highest ranking officer in the Air Force—a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and military advisor to President George W. Bush—charged with the challenge of turning things around.

  I had a few ideas of who that might be, but Schwartz was not one of the names on my list. The paperwork for my retirement was already approved, and all eighteen prior chiefs had been either fighter or bomber pilots. I was neither.

  The following day was my wedding anniversary, and Suzie and I celebrated with a special night out. Dinner was delicious, but “dessert” was unforgettable. It came in the form of a phone call from Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on behalf of the secretary of defense.

  “Norty, the president would like you to be the next chief of staff.”

  So much for those retirement papers.

  But what an honor, not to mention opportunity. As the first chief of staff chosen from the special operations rather than the fighter/bomber community, my challenge would be to return vigor to all the processes and missions with which we had been entrusted. I’d have to institute rigorous accountability and refocus our priorities to prove ourselves completely worthy of America’s trust. General Merrill “Tony” McPeak, one of the prior chiefs, said that “feigned indifference” is part of the job specification. If such be the case, then history will judge me harshly—I’m just not that good an actor. There was not an ounce of my being that felt indifferent about the trust and confidence the president showed in me by this appointment, nor about the overwhelming responsibility that I felt to use this opportunity to transform the recent fiascoes into significant, far-reaching enhancements that would benefit our Air Force—and our country—for many decades to come. I was inspired and ready to get to it!

  Introduction

  MY TWO MISTRESSES

  I must admit that I, like others in our business, had two mistresses. One was Suzie, and one was the military mission. Often my attention to the latter poorly served the former, but in every instance, Suzie understood—sometimes grudgingly—the reason for my sense of mission.

  I grew up without a mother at home, and my father was not always the most supportive of individuals. He meant well, but he had a difficult time expressing it. He was demanding and had high expectations in terms of performance in school, behavior, etc. There was never any doubt that if I failed to live up to his expectations, the consequences would not be pleasant. He was proud that I went to the Air Force Academy and ultimately did very well, but I can’t recall a single time that he actually told me so. When I married “out of the faith,” Dad seemed to take it as a personal affront. He refused to attend our wedding and wouldn’t have much to do with Suzie. It was awkward and regrettable.

  Suzie and I had been married almost twenty years when we decided that enough was enough. Dad was getting up there in years and we had just learned that I was being promoted to lieutenant (three-star) general. We drove from Washington to my hometown of Toms River, New Jersey, and headed for the house to give Dad the great news. We arrived to find him sitting in his old Barcalounger like he usually was (by now it was worn to bits) as if he hadn’t moved an inch in twenty years. “Hey Dad, guess what? We’re getting promoted to lieutenant general.”

  He leaned back, cranked his head and fired back, “You know, Nort, you are no Omar Bradley.”

  I didn’t know quite what to say. “No shit, Dad,” I finally answered. “Isn’t it a great country?” I caught the tiniest hint of a smile on his face for about a millisecond and then it went away. No doubt he was proud, but he was manifestly unable to show it. By the time I became a four-star he had passed away.

  But sometimes family dysfunction leads to unexpected outcomes—exciting uncharted paths—and that’s exactly what happened in our case. The Air Force became my home; it gave me a sense of community and purpose and a sense of worth that might have come from family but didn’t, because of circumstances.

  This book is the account of my term as the wartime U.S. Air Force chief of staff under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the journey that led me to such a humbling honor.

  Far more than that, it’s a book about leadership, in which I’ll share specific lessons and original insights that will broaden the management arsenal of any leader. Unlike the military memoirs and leadership guides we’ve seen so many times before, it’s a story about breaking the mold, flying in uncharted airspace, and how I overcame my own personal deficits to achieve success.

  It’s a book about battles—from Iraq to the Pentagon, Afghanistan to Congress.

  It’s about pushing the limits—in an era of diminishing budgets and fewer resources, find
ing inventive new ways to fuel the furnace of innovation and supercharge the engine of inspiration.

  It’s about controversial new technologies that give us the decisive edge in highly contested environments and allow us to prevail in all domains; recapitalizing our aging fleets with satellites and aircraft; and building new capabilities in cyber warfare. Many believe that my greatest legacy will be the “drone” program. It’s a contentious topic and I’ll get into why I’m such a staunch advocate in spite of all the controversy.

  Most importantly, it’s about teamwork—teamwork in the workplace, and the unique partnership between Suzie and me. The reality is that I would not have been half as successful had it not been for Suzie’s passion and her kicking me in the rear and nudging me on those many occasions when I was reluctant to act. Without her motivation, inspiration, and insights, I would never have made it to Chief. She and I are justifiably perceived as a team, and I don’t believe that is the case to the same degree with my predecessors or successors.

  Suzie also took important independent action that led to a cultural transition from the traditional military spouse to the modern one. She cornered Donald Rumsfeld at a party to share why she believed a recent policy change of his was “just plain stupid,” and ambushed a three-star general on the Pentagon’s Air Staff to persuade him to do something about the impractical and uncomfortable dress skirts female airmen were forced to wear. Early on we agreed that she could do whatever she wanted (without having to clear it through me) as long as it was for the betterment of the airmen, their families, and the Air Force—but not for us, and never personal. Outspoken, direct, and sometimes a bit loud, her style is unique and in direct contrast to my soft-spoken demeanor. Suzie stops at nothing to blast through the bureaucracy and defend what’s right for the airmen and their families. She’s a rock star, and this book is as much about her as it is about me. That’s why many of our stories will be told from both of our perspectives. Suzie’s will be indicated by italics, and she will have a dedicated chapter of her own.