Seeping Into Your Soul
Hanging Around With Heroes, A Series (Ep. 4)
I’ve heard him described as the greatest combat leader the United States Air Force has ever know. When I think about leadership I often remember a tale he told me.
When I met Robin Olds in Colorado he was north of 80. But age and time couldn’t conceal his essence. He was born to fly. More than that he was torn from central casting for fighter pilots. Confident, sharp witted and square jawed. He was handsome.
He was a legend, 18 air to air kills, in the P-51, P-38 and the F-4. Indeed his record as a fighter pilot is hard to comprehend, with 13 air to air kills in World War Two he was a double ace. What’s remarkable is that over twenty years later, in a jet, in Vietnam, he had four more air to air kills.
Consider his awards, The Air Force Cross, Distinguished Service Medal, four Silver Stars, six Distinguished Flying Cross, and 40 Air Medal. Impressive as that might be it doesn’t make him a leader.
The military is known for arbitrary rules. Well, arbitrary to me. Many of them have a purpose. This is a story about one of the silly rules and how Olds dealt with it.
During the Vietnam War Olds and his squadron were based in Thailand. Flying to targets in North Vietnam took them over hundreds of miles of jungle. Much of it ostensibly controlled by the enemy. If it wasn’t the enemy the other power in these parts was nature, this is a hard place for people to survive.
It’s particularly hard for a downed pilot. Drifting down to the jungle canopy under your parachute canopy is a sort of purgatory. A pilot goes from king of the sky to hopeless peasant in a flash. A simple thing they did to help evade the enemy should they need to bailout was swap out the white on their helmets for something a little more fitting. Camouflage wasn’t a new concept.
Seems basic. Seems smart. But…. On the day this tale is told of a colonel was visiting Olds’ squadron. This officer was tasked with making sure the silly rules were followed. This regulation on the flightline, that rule on the munitions depot. I can’t remember exactly. But I remember the part about the helmets.
At the pilot equipment building this visitor led a rather heated exchange with the subordinate, non-commissioned, officers there. “Why are these helmets painted. “They are supposed to be white.” Demands that they be returned to their proper state were made. Naturally Robin got wind of this.
Later that day at the bar Olds found this colonel. In my memory Robin walked up to him jabbed a finger in his chest and informed him that they would happily make the helmets white again. But first he needed to do something, let Robin drop him in the jungle for a few days with a white helmet on. If he survived then no problem, white it will be.
Robin’s lip shuddered as he reach his stories climax. He was still angry enough about it decades later that he couldn’t conceal his contempt. The helmets stayed camouflaged and I like to think the visiting colonel needed to whiten something of his own.
Robin was also a colonel. In the military context they were equals. It isn’t as simple as that. Stepping outside protocol and standards can still result in headaches. Robin didn’t care. His men were flying into the most contested airspace in history. Their equipment and training was geared toward a different sort of mission. They were facing a tough reality.
I’ve taken that story to heart. When you lead people you need to protect them from the all to common bullshit large organizations seem to create in abundance. For most of us that helps diminish distraction, annoyance. It helps people stay focused on their work, the goals. For Robin it was about keeping men alive.
The second part of that lesson is what happens when you can’t keep the helmets white. When the silly rules Catch 22 you. You can still show your team that you know. That you agree. For Olds and the men flying missions this insurmountable foe came in the form of micromanaging and restriction borne of political considerations and not those of combat success. 1000s of miles away in DC politicians were dictating tactics and targets.
Olds could not win that fight. But acts of defiance matter even when they are not successful. For Robin his “middle finger” of commiseration with his men was the mustache. They weren’t allowed. They grew them anyway.
Of his he said, “It became the middle finger I couldn’t raise in PR photographs. The mustache became my silent last word in the verbal battles I was losing with higher headquarters on rules, targets, and fighting the war.”
Leaders are still part of the team. They need to feel the joy and pain of the team. Face the same hurdles and challenges as their team. Suffer consequences and take responsibility for failure. Just like the team. If you don’t lead like this you get less than people’s best.
Toward the end of our interview I asked Robin if he had a favorite moment in flight. I remember he bristled a little. Called it “provocative.” Then he recited something he’d written about flying over America at night,"towns and cities are like jewels thrown out on a velvet cloth. You're all by yourself, and right over your head, through the canopy, are the stars. There are times like that when you really don't want to land. It seeps totally into your soul".
The lesson of that day seeped into my soul.
You can see and hear more from Robin here and here.
Author’s Note: Over the course of my journalism and television career I’ve traveled the world to document the actions of individuals during warfare. I’ve met and interviewed in some capacity 100s of veterans, the actual number might be in the 1000s. This is an ongoing series to memorialize my experience and further record remarkable acts and attitudes the worst of humanity can inspire.