How a genius fighter pilot improved military strategy (Boyd)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 12/29/2002 | James P. Stevenson

[nightdriver]

Is this the same Col. Boyd that Chuck Yeager refers to in his book?

[FreedomPoster]

I don't know for sure, but from what I do know, I'd say "almost certainly".

[Gunrunner2]

You are absolutely correct--no IQ measurements.
(There are the AFOQT tests, however, but those are more SAT-type than IQ. Now, the pilot/nav portion of the AFOQT does involve some problem solving/spatial relationship intuitive questions, but it is not an IQ test.)

[archy]

Also - I must be wrong, but my recollection is that Marine ground forces weren't used in Desert Storm except as a bluff. Can somebody set me straight on this?

Nah, you've just been reading historical accounts by sometimes fawning authors depending on senior Army sources, or Army after-action accounts downplaying the Marine role. From the early days of the ground combat [see the 11th Marines activities circa FE 24th, for example] to those of the Marine First and Second Division, combined with an Army heavy brigade for the push into Kuwait and into Kuwait City- see details of the fighting of the airport there for a particular example of the character of that operation.

In general, those Army units working alongside those of the Marines had generally favourable opinions of the operations of that brother service, though of course both have their own different ways of doing some things. But see *this account* for example, for an Army description of the efforts of the Marines fighting alongside them. Those participants do not seem to think that the Marines were *just* engaged as a decoy force.

My own activities as a newspaperman during the period were spent in part in covering the activities of a particular Army Explosives Ordnance Disposal detatchment, which was among the many tasked with cleaning up the *little surprises* left in Kuwait City by the fleeing Iraqis. [There's a long-standing rumor about why EOD was thought to be so desperately needed at once, if true, I can well understand why the matter would remain highly classified to this day, and be better dismissed as *just rumors and speculation....* I see nossink!] That EOD team set up shop in a building where their ground support and security was provided by Marines, and you never heard such high praise for the professionalism of the Marine grunts as from the senior NCOs of the EOD team, many with 25 years or so of service, repeatedly using the Marines as examples to their junior enlisted personnel and newer officers as the example they too should follow.

I am not and have never been a Marine. But those of that Corps have gotten and deserve my respect the hard, old-fashioned way, particularly during the Desert Storm/Shield period. They earned it.

-archy-/-

[Poohbah]

Genghis John was an American original, all right.

I remember boot-legging my XO's copy of Boyd's "A Discourse on Winning and Losing" brief and running a Xerox, not being satisfied with the results, and HAND-TYPING it into Harvard Graphics on the one computer with a laser printer late one night.

The XO came into the office, looking for something he'd forgotten. I thought I was in trouble.

The XO looked at what I was doing smiled at me, punched me on the shoulder, and told me "Genghis John would be proud of you, boy!" He then asked me to run a second printout, and to save him a copy of the file on floppy.

Seems "Genghis John" Boyd thought that the Xerox machine--and the ability to bootleg copies of documents that higher-ups wanted to vanish--was the greatest tool ever invented.

[hchutch]

He's the guy who came up with OODA and the dictum of "Two simpler platforms can defeat a larger, more complex platform). He literally created the "Lightweight Fighter Mafia."

[MudPuppy]

I finished this book last night.
It was awesome.

I think I'm going to gift a copy to my cousin who is in her first year at the Air Force Academy.

Semper Fi!