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309 26. The Secret Is People It was a defining moment, and it happened every year. At the conclusion of the closing awards banquet of the 2011 Airlift/Tanker Association convention, all of the four-star generals in attendance stood on the stage, linked hands, and led over 3,000 members of the American air mobility community in the singing of “God Bless America.” This time there were five of them: General Raymond Johns, the current AMC commander; General Thomas Ryan, General Ronald Fogleman, and General Walter Kross, former commanders of MAC or AMC; and General William Begert, the first airlifter to command the Pacific Air Forces. Among those thousands singing along were nineteen-year-old onestripers , midcareer officers and sergeants just back from the wars, active and retired colonels and generals by the hundreds, corporate representatives manning exhibits or patrolling the crowd for business, and “graybeards” back to reconnect. Spouses were there also by the hundreds, some renewing old friendships , and some, perhaps for the first time, getting an insight into the community and mission that drove their spouses to work so hard at such demanding and unpredictable jobs.1 And there it was before them, a spirit of camaraderie, passion for country, and pride of mission that made it perfectly natural for leaders of high rank, some of them with moistened eyes, to be the song leaders for such a diverse group. They were, as AMC commander Raymond E. Johns Jr. had just said in the keynote address, the people who “answer the call of others , so they can prevail.”2 The Airlift/Tanker Association is both a product and an underpinning of the unity of the airlift community. Formed as the Airlift Association on the initiative of General William G. Moore and other Vietnam-experienced airlifters in 1969, the organization soldiered through its first decade as a meeting of mainly tactical airlift officers and senior enlisted personnel focused on having a good time over drinks and golf and renewing connections. But they also sat down each year to a growing agenda of meetings that included senior leader panels, discussions of new aircraft programs and tactics, personnel briefings, and other serious matters. Following the consolidation of air force airlift forces in the mid-1970s, the strategic airlift community merged into the association with The Secret Is People 310 little difficulty.3 In 1993 Airlift Association leaders asked the AMC commander General Ronald R. Fogleman to endorse the growing professional content of the annual convention by authorizing military personnel to attend it on funded official orders. Fogleman agreed, subject to continued expansion of the conference agenda and changing the organization’s name to include the tanker personnel entering the new command.4 Thereafter, the Airlift/Tanker Association conventions became massive affairs of meetings, panels, award presentations , vendor exhibits, golf tournaments, and legendary Crud jousts. Crud is one of two competitive events that simultaneously make enemies and brothers out of air mobility units and people, even if they are women. The other event is the annual Airlift/Tanker rodeo held to allow flying and support units from throughout the American air mobility community and from foreign air forces to compete professionally. But while the rodeo involves a great deal of socialization and after-hours alcohol, it also features flying and firearms, so it tends to be an event overlaid with serious intent and attention to safety. In contrast, the social aspects of Airlift/Tanker Association Crud competitions are less restrained by good judgment and probity. The game itself involves fiveperson teams jostling around a billiard table trying to knock a target ball into a pocket with a hand-launched object (cue) ball. The action is furious as individual players make “sorties” to and away from the table to make their shots and interfere with the shots of their opponents through mild checking, yelling, wild gestures, and generally uninhibited profanity. Drinking is permitted during play, and the rules basically demand it. So the play gets wilder by the minute . Airmen shove generals aside, the generals shove back, and minor injuries do occur from overly enthusiastic checking or face plants on table edges.5 But the annual Crud tournament is what everyone has been waiting for, and it is played with zeal worthy of crusaders. Teams honored to represent their units practice for months in their free time to get ready. If the reader finds it hard to understand how an arcane form of billiards can be so important to a community...

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