Stephen Coonts - Combat

“I’m satisfied that you understand your responsibilities and are carrying them out. I cannot change any ratings, try to instruct you in how to rate the candidates, or try to influence you in any way about how to carry out your responsibilities, as long as you’re following the MOI. End of discussion. Have a nice day, Colonel.”

Norman got to his feet, and he shook hands with General Ingemanson when he offered it. But before he left, Norman turned. “I have a question, sir.”

“Fire away.”

“Did you have this same discussion with anyone else … say, Colonel Ponce?”

General Ingemanson smiled knowingly. Well well, he thought, maybe he’s not as stuck in the world between his ears as he thought. “As a matter of fact, Colonel, I did. We spoke last Saturday evening at the O Club over a few drinks.”

“You spoke with Colonel Ponce about the board, at the Officers’ Club?”

Ingemanson chuckled, but more out of exasperation than humor. “Colonel, this is not a sequestered criminal jury,” he said. “We’re allowed to speak to one another outside the Selection Board Secretariat. We’re even allowed to discuss promotion boards and the promotion process in general — just not any specifics on any one candidate or anything about specific scores, or attempt to influence any other board members. You probably haven’t noticed, but Slammer spends just about every waking minute that he’s not sitting the panel at the Club. That seemed to me the best place to corral him.”

“‘Slammer’?”

“Colonel Ponce. That’s his call sign. I thought you two knew each other?”

“We were assigned to the same wing, once.”

“I see.” Ingemanson filed that tidbit of information away, then said with a grin, “If I’d run into you at the Club, Norman, I would’ve spoken to you there too. You seem to spend most of your time in your VOQ or out jogging. Neither is conducive to a heart-to-heart chat.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harry and I have crossed paths many times — I guess if you’ve been around as long as we have in the go-fast community, that’s bound to happen. I’ve got seven years on the guy, but he’ll probably pin on his first star soon. He might have been one of the Provisional Wing commanders out in Saudi Arabia or Turkey if he wasn’t such a hot-shit test pilot. He designed two weapons that were developed in record time and used in the war. Pretty amazing work.” Norman could tell Ingemanson was mentally reliving some of the times they’d had together, and it irritated Norman to think that he could just completely drift off like that — take a stroll down Memory Lane while talking to another officer standing right in front of him.

“Anyway,” Ingemanson went on, shaking himself out of his reverie with a satisfied smile, “we spoke about his scores. They’re a little skewed, like yours.”

“All in favor of the flyers, I suppose.”

“Actually, he’s too hard on flyers,” Ingemanson admitted. “I guess it’s hard to measure up with what that man’s done over his career, but that’s no excuse. I told him he’s got to measure the candidates against each other, not against his own image of what the perfect lieutenant colonel-selectee is.”

“Which is himself,” Norman added.

“Probably so,” Ingemanson said, with a touch of humor in his eyes. He looked at Norman, and the humor disappeared. “The difference is, Slammer is measuring the candidates against a rigid yardstick — himself, or at least his own image of himself. On the other hand, you — in my humble nonvoting opinion — are not measuring the candidates at all. You’re chipping away at them, finding and removing every flaw in every candidate until you come up with a chopped-up thing at the end. You’re not creating anything here, Colonel — you’re destroying.”

Norman was a little stunned by Ingemanson’s words. He was right on, of course — that was exactly Norman’s plan of attack on this board: Start with a perfect candidate, a perfect “10,” then whittle away at their perfection until reaching the bottom-line man or woman. When Ingemanson put it the way he did, it did sound somewhat defeatist, destructive — but so what? There were no guidelines. What right did he have to say all this?

“Pardon me, sir,” Norman said, “but I’m not quite clear on this. You don’t approve of the way I’m rating the candidates?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all, Colonel,” Ingemanson said. “And I didn’t try to correct Slammer either — not that I could even if I tried. I’m making an unofficial, off-the-record but learned opinion, on a little of the psychology behind the scoring if you will. I have no authority for any of this except for my experience on promotion boards and the fact that I’m a two-star general and you have to sit and listen to me.” He smiled, trying to punctuate his attempt at humor, but Weir wasn’t biting. “I’m just pointing out to you what I see.”

“You think I’m destroying these candidates?”

“I’m saying that perhaps your attitude toward most of the candidates, and toward the flyers in particular, shows that maybe you’re gunning them down instead of measuring them,” Ingemanson said. “But as you said, there’s no specific procedure for scoring the candidates. Do it any way as you see fit.”

“Permission to speak openly, sir?”

“For Pete’s sake, Colonel … yes, yes, please speak openly.”

“This is a little odd, General,” Norman said woodenly. “One moment you criticize my approach to scoring the candidates, and the next moment you’re telling me to go ahead and do it any way I want.”

“As I said in my opening remarks, Colonel Weir — this is your Air Force, and it’s your turn to shape its future,” Ingemanson said sincerely. “We chose you for the board: you, with your background and history and experience and attitudes and all that other emotional and personal baggage. The Secretary of the Air Force gave you mostly nonspecific guidelines for how to proceed. The rest is up to you. We get characters like you and we get characters like Slammer Ponce working side by side, deciding the future.”

“One tight-ass, one hard-ass — is that what you’re saying?”

“Two completely different perspectives,” Ingemanson said, not daring to get dragged into that most elegant, truthful observation. “My job is to make sure you are being fair, equitable, and open-minded. As long as you are, you’re in charge — I’m only the referee, the old man what’s in charge. I give you the shape of one man’s opinion, like Eric Sevareid used to say. End of discussion.” Ingemanson glanced at his watch, a silent way of telling Norman to get the hell out of his office before the headache brewing between his eyes grew any worse. “Have a nice day, Colonel.”

Norman got to his feet, stood at attention until Ingemanson — with an exasperated roll of his eyes — formally dismissed him, and walked out. He thought he had just been chewed out, but Ingemanson did it so gently, so smoothly, so affably, that Norman was simply left wondering, replaying the general’s words over and over in his head until he reached the panel deliberation room.

The other panel members were already seated, with Ponce at his usual place, his unlit cigar clenched in his teeth. “Gawd, Norm, you’re late, and you look a little tight,” Ponce observed loudly. “Had a wild weekend, Norm?”

“I finished my taxes and ran a ten-K run in less than forty minutes. How was your weekend?”

“I creamed the general’s ass in three rounds of golf, won a hundred bucks, met a cute senorita, and spent most of yesterday learning how to cook Mexican food buck naked,” Ponce replied. The rest of the room exploded in laughter and applause. “But shit, I don’t have my taxes done. What kind of loser am I?” They got to work amidst a lot of chatter and broad smiles — everyone but Norman.