Mrs. Brush and the Seven Dwarves

Tibet - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

fliesinyoureyes.com

During June Week festivities at the Air Force Academy, it was customary to invite a nationally known celebrity to give a speech in Mitchell Hall at a formal dinner hosting perhaps 3000 participants including graduating cadets, their parents, family members, and visiting dignitaries.  One of my responsibilities, in addition to contracting the rock and roll band Sugar Loaf to play for the graduation dance, was to contact and invite a suitable speaker.  Traditionally, those who agreed to participate were politicians, entertainers, or academics who enjoyed a healthy relationship with the military.  The list of candidates varied, but without exception each was a famous person whose name was recognizable to the general American public.

Along with my roommate Mark Kuno, we compiled a list of dignitaries according to category.  Politicians: Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Barry Goldwater, Alexander Haig, George Schultz, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, and Henry Kissinger.  Movie stars: Bob Hope, Ann Margaret, Jimmie Stewart, and Lucille Ball.  Military: Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Generals Curtis LeMay and John Ryan, and Secretary of the Air Force Robert Seamans.

In an era before email and faxes I began sending invitations by mail in the autumn of 1971 to insure those attending the ceremony would be entertained by a memorable celebrity.  Since this form of communication was relatively slow by today’s standards, I sent more than one invitation at a time.  I thought naively multiple acceptances would come pouring back through the mail, and the major problem would be to renege on someone who was not used to taking no for an answer.  Bob Hope or Alexander Haig?  Let me see.  “Secretary Haig, we regret to inform you....”

I mailed the first set of invitations and within a month or two the responses began to appear.  All began, “So and so regrets to inform you ...”  Oh, well, these were busy people and this was understandable, so on to the next batch of potential speakers.  I sent a second mailing and received the same discouraging responses; the third attempt yielded similar results.  

It was now well into April, and time was getting short for anyone of any importance to take time from a busy schedule to speak to our graduating class.  In fact the list of possible speakers was exhausted.  I asked my friend,  “Mark, any ideas?  Not one invitation was accepted.”

Having been raised a Catholic, he replied, “You could always ask the Pope.”

A desperate invitation began, “Your Eminence Paul VI:  This letter may come as somewhat of a surprise, but what are you doing on June 7 of this year?”

Since a response from the Pope, let alone a positive one, was remote, extreme measures were required.  It would be a break in protocol, but after so many denials, I decided to give the speech myself.  The subject:  A parody of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and a description of the manner in which each dwarf depending on their personalities turned down the invitation to speak to the graduating class of 1972.  Sleepy fell asleep while reading the invitation.  Dopey thought Doc was playing a trick on him, as so forth.  Simple stuff, but hopefully the audience would be plied with so much alcohol by this point in the festivities they would be amused at the amateurish effort.

From the podium I recounted all the dignitaries who refused to speak including Paul VI and then extended this litany to the dwarves.  In all it was an unorthodox but surprisingly funny speech.  As laughter from the audience increased, I knew the Mateus was working its magic.   After the presentation some of my classmates and even some adults congratulated me on a most entertaining graduation talk.

Yet one member of the audience was not impressed.  Mrs. Brush, wife of my nemesis Lt. Colonel Brush, was the mother of seven children and saw some nefarious parallel between her family and the Seven Dwarves.  

The Brush began, “That was comical of you, Mr. Sturman.  I always thought Hollywood was more your style than the Air Force.”  Then he winked and added, “That was funny.  How did you ever come up with that?”

Mrs. Brush didn’t think my antics were as amusing as her husband.  She thought I was lampooning her, the Brush, and their seven children.  It was a lucky stroke, for although I was oblivious to the Brush’s family life, perhaps she would give her husband an ear full later that night when they returned home.  I didn’t deny her accusation.  It seemed a small consolation for him restricting me to my room during the last semester and making many of my classmates miserable for much of their Academy experience.      

Now forty years later my conscience has gotten the better of me.  I offer my apologies to the Brush family.   Hopefully, she didn’t leave the colonel with too many bruises that night.  If only John Paul VI would have said "yes," this never would have happened.      

Call in the Napalm, Mr. Spring!

Bridge on the Nile in Cairo, Egypt - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

Among my fourth class classmates at the Air Force Academy, Cadet Kirby Spring was truly exceptional. While the rest of us minions could do no right for an entire year, this frail, nondescript cadet with ashen skin hovered above the fray. The difference lay on his uniform which was adorned with more medals than a Russian Field Marshall. The ribbons started at this belt and ended slightly below the shoulder; Kirby was a bonafide war hero, and we were lucky to have him as a member of our class.

All basic and fourth class cadets were held to rigid standards and nothing was more rigid than the ramrod straight posture required by the upper classes. Yet every once in a while one would get a glimpse of a basic cadet whose decidedly more relaxed appearance did not bother the upperclassmen in the least. War hero we heard, a prior U.S. Army enlisted man who killed a lot of Viet Cong in Vietnam and was wounded in the process. While our tormentors were screaming their lungs out at us, Cadet Kirby Spring was having dinner at officers’ homes.

Basic Cadets wear fatigues, so military decorations are not worn. However, when basic training ended at the end of the summer, fourth class cadets were required to wear the formal service alpha to all evening meals and inspections. Service alpha is made to display decorations, or “fruit salad” in military vernacular. The vast majority of cadets wore only two ribbons: one for marksmanship and the other for having been on active duty while the United States was fighting in Vietnam. Kirby had Silver Stars, Bronze Stars, Purple Hearts, and a lot more. His "fruit salad" put most combat soldiers to shame.

War heroes come in all sizes and shapes; there’s not a correlation between physique and bravery. I remember remarking to my friend, Steve Oberst, “Just looking at Spring you’d never know he could cut your heart out in a second.”

“Those are the ones you got to worry about, W.R. Look at him wrong and you’re a dead man.”

Rumors abounded about Spring’s exploits. With his platoon pinned down he charged an NVA machine gun nest single handedly with only a bayonet between his teeth and a pistol in hand. He slaughtered all of the enemy and saved his unit. How could such a meek looking man reek so much havoc? His testosterone level must be off the charts, too high to measure.

When fourth class year came to an end we morphed into third classmen and were treated to a trip around the country to visit five air force bases on the ZI Field Trip. One of the stops was Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, home of tactical fighters which strafed and dropped bombs and napalm in preparation for combat in Southeast Asia.

One morning all four or five hundred of us were brought to an observation area to witness what air power could do to a variety of targets on the ground. The Wing Commander, a battle hardened fighter pilot, spoke to us over the public address and prepared us for the fireworks. As the show was about to begin, he announced, “Gentleman, one of you has looked at death in eye and not blinked. It’s usually my duty to call in the fighter strikes, but in this case it is only fitting that your classmate, Cadet Third Class Kirby Spring do the honors!” Bedlam erupted, as we screamed Kirby’s name and clapped until our hands were sore. The guy was barely twenty but already a legend in the Air Force.

And then later that year, we were shocked to hear that Kirby Spring was leaving the Academy and not by choice. Apparently, some of Kirby’s stories did not jibe with some of the army officers who had served in the same areas of Vietnam. As one thing led to another, investigators uncovered the real story of Kirby Spring. Far from being the nemesis of the Viet Cong, he had been a lowly personnel clerk serving at a U.S. Army base in Germany. Being a bright fellow, he invented a new persona and with access to all his military records was able document an illustrious but fictitious career. It opened all sorts of doors: entrance to the Air Force Academy, wining and dining with the Air Force’s elite, and dating their daughters, but it closed some doors as well. The last we heard Kirby was spending most of his life in Leavenworth Penitentiary, and as far as I know he is still there.

Charlie - the Un-leader Prologue

Penguins Peninsula Valdez, Argentina - photo by JoAnn Sturman

by Steven R. Oberst

It was my first day at my first flying assignment. So what if it’s a northern tier Air Force base? From the parking lot I can see 6 H-1 helicopters gleaming in the sunlight on this hot July day. Imagine my surprise when the first word I hear as I enter the flight ops building of the rescue detachment is “Dummy!” Delivering this one word rebuke is barrel-chested older guy in a flight suit. The recipient is 2nd Lt Bruce Cameron, who also happened to be an Air Force Academy classmate of mine. Bruce was sitting behind the ops counter. As I walked up towards them, the amazingly rotund flight suit turns in my direction and says “Who the hell are you?” Before I could speak, he answers his own question, “Oh no it’s another damned 2nd lieutenant.” Then Bruce says “Hi, Steve, good to see...but the flight suit cuts him off, “You two know each other? Don’t tell me we got another zoomie. Just what I need, another dummy around here.”

And so went my inglorious introduction to Captain Charles “Charlie” Crown, Detachment Operations Officer. This was the beginning of an association that would last for 2 1⁄2 years, a period of time forever etched in my memory. During this relatively short part of my life I would experience more “no shit there I was” moments, handle more stress, and have more fun than the rest of my flying career combined, or for that matter the rest of my career.

Un-Leadership: Most successful people will tell you that one or more leaders they encountered during their careers had a positive impact on their lives. I call these people “Life-altering Leaders” – People in your life who contributed in a very positive way to the person you are today. But what about the people we encounter who we would never want to emulate? You know, the lousy boss or superior officer who made your life hell. Well, I think of these people as “Un-leaders” - People in your life who provided you with negative lessons that helped make you the person you are today.

Charlie Crown was not the first “Un-leader” I had encountered in my life, and he certainly would not be the last. But, he was by far the ultimate Un-leader I have ever known. He undoubtedly honed his un-leadership skills as a kid. I suspect he was the school bully and loved to intimidate smaller kids out of their lunch money and/or their sense of well-being. During the time I knew him, Charlie tried to intimidate everyone he encountered, from the one stripe airman to the two star general. He used everything at his disposal to give himself the edge he needed to make the intimidation work to his advantage. His edge with the twelve pilots in the detachment was that he wrote our annual officer efficiency reports (OERs). But instead of getting us to blindly follow his un-leadership, we devised ingenious strategies for getting Charlie the notoriety he deserved.

A military handbook on leadership would likely describe Charlie’s leadership style as authoritarian or autocratic. Charlie never embraced General John M. Schofield’s concept of discipline, because he regularly practiced harsh and tyrannical treatment. (General Schofield is remembered for a lengthy quotation on discipline that all cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Air Force Academy are required to memorize. It is an excerpt from his graduation address to the class of 1879 at West Point.) However, rather than destroy “an army”, our unit actually flourished. All of the pilots under Charlie’s command shared a common goal: We hated Charlie’s guts and felt it our divine calling to save the Air Force from ever experiencing a “Major” Crown. We also found that humor and laughter were sure cures for whatever Charlie threw at us. The twelve of us would gather on a regular basis at the club and share our recent “Charlie” experiences. Some of the stories were so outrageous that we would laugh until it hurt. I kept track of the incidents we witnessed. Hopefully you’ll find some humor in our experiences and perhaps some ideas on how not to lead people.