What did you just say?? LeMay all but screamed in the guard's face. The guard, it was said, kept his posture - and his gun in LeMay's face - while behind his uniform turning into Jell-O. Knowing full enough that it could mean a trip to Leavenworth (LeMay was alleged to have ordered a court martial for an aide who put the wrong brand of Scotch on his Air Force plane!), the shaking guard repeated his first statement word for word, pulling back the hammer on his gun. "And just where the hell did you get an order like that?" LeMay demanded. "From the commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command," replied the guard.
LeMay turned to the man who accompanied him - who turned out to have been his personal executive officer - and ordered the frightened guard promoted two grade levels post haste. That, LeMay said, doing his best to grin (LeMay was troubled for his entire adult life by Bell's palsy, giving him the fierce natural expression for which he is best remembered), is what I want on this flight line, from my flight line guards! Or something like that. That's the story, though depending on who you heard it from, the kid was said to have fainted on the spot.
The pistol was already cocked, no need to do it again.