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Journey: Memoirs of an Air Force Chief of Staff
An uncensored account of General Schwartz's term as the wartime US Air Force Chief of Staff under presidents Bush and Obama.The General’s dysfunctional home life drove him to apply to the Air Force Academy over forty years ago, where he was provided with a new family and sense of worth he had never earned from his own father. This purpose has driven the General throughout his remarkable career, taking him to Alaska, the Pentagon, and Germany; to Florida during Hurricane Opal, and has also allowed him to work alongside Presidents Bush and Obama and Secretaries of Defense Don Rumsfeld, Bob Gates and Leon Panetta.Journey is a book about leadership. It is packed with the General’s lessons from life in the breaking the mold, flying uncharted airspace, battles?from Iraq to the Pentagon, Afghanistan to Congress. It’s about pushing limits in an era of diminishing budgets and fewer resources to fuel the furnace of innovation. He chronicles the phenomenal story of the evolution of the US special operations, such as what was achieved when taking down Bin Laden. The General discusses the controversial new technologies that have been allowing America to build new capabilities in remote aircraft and cyber warfare. Many believe General Schwartz’s greatest legacy will be the dramatic acceleration of the “drone” program. He is a staunch advocate for it and this book will explain why.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
503 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 13, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 28, 2023
Overall, a good book. There are not many books about air operations outside of WWII or Vietnam, so that was interesting. Also, to hear from someone who was not a fighter or bomber pilot. But the book is rather brief and does not get much into the operational aspects. It also seems to be rather brief on his time as Chief of Staff, but then moves into more discrete policy discussions, rather than a memoir.
There are portions when Gen. Schwartz's wife tells her side of the story. In the audiobook, this can be some fun. However, there were times when it seemed she threw her husband's rank around, which I felt was inappropriate, particularly given an incident early in their marriage.
However, overall it was a good, but brief, book on the Air Force.
There are portions when Gen. Schwartz's wife tells her side of the story. In the audiobook, this can be some fun. However, there were times when it seemed she threw her husband's rank around, which I felt was inappropriate, particularly given an incident early in their marriage.
However, overall it was a good, but brief, book on the Air Force.
May 1, 2018
The book kept my interest because I worked for the guy. Throughout, he deals with persons who have shown the way or demonstrated something that he learned, including Suzie, his wife. Good perspective. The memoirs treated every section of his professional life at a very high level, even his time as CSAF. That was disappointing. For example, the description of his time at USTRANSCOM was superficial--part of it dealt with finding Scott AFB in the corn fields, a typical Washington DC view; part of it dealt with relationships with the POTUS and the rest was a summary of the mission statement and volume statistics. Memorable people? Lessons? On the positive side, throughout the book, he named people who have been impactful in his career as well as mistakes he made and the lessons learned from them. That demonstrated for me -- charisma and trust can overcome mistakes--but, from the book, he certainly made a lot of faux pas'. I thought that the second to last chapter was distracting. It was a sales pitch for current Air Force systems and programs; which will wane over time and detracts from the book's purpose--a leadership read.
September 29, 2018
Norty Schwarz was the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force from 2009 until October 2012. During this time, he played a key role developing the USAF’s RPA community into what it is today. Schwarz was unique as the first CSAF without a background in fighters or bombers, a fact that may have played to his advantage when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates began to look for new USAF leadership in the wake of the nuclear handling mishaps and other disagreements because OSD and the USAF.
According to Schwartz, the tension between Gates and the top USAF leadership (Secretary Wynne and CSAF General Moseley) was the result of the USAF’s preoccupation with F-22 production and development of the next generation bomber, whereas Gates was focused on the war in Iraq. In other words, the USAF leadership wasn’t on the same wavelength as their boss. Schwartz actually did continue to fight for F-22 production beyond the 183 that had been approved, but eventually accepted a tactical defeat in that battle in order to win approval for the next generation bomber.
Under Schwartz tenure as CSAF, the USAF predator CAPs grew from 8 to 56. Schwartz recognized that this rapid growth came at a high cost in terms of the health of the RPA community. As a bit of a side note, it was also under Schwartz that the term RPA replaced UAS or UAV. Although such changes in nomenclature may seem like trite tinkering, I agree that the term RPA is a better reflection of the fact that such aircraft and the intelligence systems that support them actually have a massive manning requirement.
Also of note are his comments about the future of RPA:
“We are currently developing the MQ - X , a stealthy RPA capable of surviving in heavily defended , contested airspace and performing a wide variety of ISR and strike missions . It will use modularity for rapid reconfiguration to serve any of a number of widely divergent missions . It must accommodate autonomous intelligence , surveillance , and reconnaissance operations , since it is possible that an enemy will be able to interrupt the links between the operator and the aircraft .”
Aside from these insights on events that have directly impacted my career, I found Schwartz’ book to be a little thin on content compared to other memoirs of senior civilian and military leaders like Rumsfeld, Gates, Hayden, and others. More specifically, I was a bit disappointed that many of the more interesting matters that took place under his watch (the battles over F-22 production, RPAs and the next-gen bomber) were summed up in a few paragraphs, whereas he spends several pages discussing the issues with the USAF mortuary process at Dover.
In terms of leadership principles or tidbits, some of what Schwartz has to say are mere common sense platitudes like “sometimes not getting what you want is a stroke of luck” or the idea that each of us has to work harder at some things than others. It is, however, refreshing to hear about the disappointments and setbacks that Schwartz experience along his otherwise stunning career journey, such as switching to a non-technical major at the Academy (“sometimes the best course of action is just to throw in the towel and adapt”), and being assigned to transports, rather than fighters, after pilot training. Schwartz is also honest about some of his own weaknesses and errors, such as the fact that he’s more of an average pilot in terms of natural flying ability, and he shares some fairly significant errors that he made over the years.
Some of the skills that have served him well is that he is very clear and explicit about his expectations with subordinates; he sees this as setting both them and him up for success. He also admits to being a keen student of the bureaucratic process and being intentional about developing himself into the kind of person who would be a good fit for whatever the next important assignment would be.
His discussion of working for different senior leaders is also interesting. Rumsfeld has sometimes been portrayed as a tyrannical hardass, but Schwartz says that he was never cruel. Instead, Schwartz says that Rumsfeld’s expectations and methods were intense but appropriately so, given the level and the consequence of many such decisions. “To his credit , the last thing he wanted was “ yes - men . ” Debate was encouraged , but arguments were expected to be impeccably well thought out and backed up with thoroughly documented research.”
At a personal level, I find it a bit difficult to relate to Schwartz. He probably would have been a good boss, but, at least through the book, comes across as lacking much personality. While I can admire the fact that he has maintained his marriage across decades, they didn’t have any children and spent some assignments apart. Overall, the book was barely worthwhile and I ended up skimming some of it.
According to Schwartz, the tension between Gates and the top USAF leadership (Secretary Wynne and CSAF General Moseley) was the result of the USAF’s preoccupation with F-22 production and development of the next generation bomber, whereas Gates was focused on the war in Iraq. In other words, the USAF leadership wasn’t on the same wavelength as their boss. Schwartz actually did continue to fight for F-22 production beyond the 183 that had been approved, but eventually accepted a tactical defeat in that battle in order to win approval for the next generation bomber.
Under Schwartz tenure as CSAF, the USAF predator CAPs grew from 8 to 56. Schwartz recognized that this rapid growth came at a high cost in terms of the health of the RPA community. As a bit of a side note, it was also under Schwartz that the term RPA replaced UAS or UAV. Although such changes in nomenclature may seem like trite tinkering, I agree that the term RPA is a better reflection of the fact that such aircraft and the intelligence systems that support them actually have a massive manning requirement.
Also of note are his comments about the future of RPA:
“We are currently developing the MQ - X , a stealthy RPA capable of surviving in heavily defended , contested airspace and performing a wide variety of ISR and strike missions . It will use modularity for rapid reconfiguration to serve any of a number of widely divergent missions . It must accommodate autonomous intelligence , surveillance , and reconnaissance operations , since it is possible that an enemy will be able to interrupt the links between the operator and the aircraft .”
Aside from these insights on events that have directly impacted my career, I found Schwartz’ book to be a little thin on content compared to other memoirs of senior civilian and military leaders like Rumsfeld, Gates, Hayden, and others. More specifically, I was a bit disappointed that many of the more interesting matters that took place under his watch (the battles over F-22 production, RPAs and the next-gen bomber) were summed up in a few paragraphs, whereas he spends several pages discussing the issues with the USAF mortuary process at Dover.
In terms of leadership principles or tidbits, some of what Schwartz has to say are mere common sense platitudes like “sometimes not getting what you want is a stroke of luck” or the idea that each of us has to work harder at some things than others. It is, however, refreshing to hear about the disappointments and setbacks that Schwartz experience along his otherwise stunning career journey, such as switching to a non-technical major at the Academy (“sometimes the best course of action is just to throw in the towel and adapt”), and being assigned to transports, rather than fighters, after pilot training. Schwartz is also honest about some of his own weaknesses and errors, such as the fact that he’s more of an average pilot in terms of natural flying ability, and he shares some fairly significant errors that he made over the years.
Some of the skills that have served him well is that he is very clear and explicit about his expectations with subordinates; he sees this as setting both them and him up for success. He also admits to being a keen student of the bureaucratic process and being intentional about developing himself into the kind of person who would be a good fit for whatever the next important assignment would be.
His discussion of working for different senior leaders is also interesting. Rumsfeld has sometimes been portrayed as a tyrannical hardass, but Schwartz says that he was never cruel. Instead, Schwartz says that Rumsfeld’s expectations and methods were intense but appropriately so, given the level and the consequence of many such decisions. “To his credit , the last thing he wanted was “ yes - men . ” Debate was encouraged , but arguments were expected to be impeccably well thought out and backed up with thoroughly documented research.”
At a personal level, I find it a bit difficult to relate to Schwartz. He probably would have been a good boss, but, at least through the book, comes across as lacking much personality. While I can admire the fact that he has maintained his marriage across decades, they didn’t have any children and spent some assignments apart. Overall, the book was barely worthwhile and I ended up skimming some of it.
March 10, 2019
A commendable and humble career diary rich in stories and lessons for all, but especially Airmen whom this special operator and Air Force Chief of Staff (CSAF) led for 40 years. I first heard Gen Schwartz talk shortly after he became the US TRANSCOM Commander back in September 2005. His message to our group of Air Mobility Command Operations Group Commanders and deputies was mostly about the Command’s role in righting the nuclear enterprise, which had recently suffered a number of unrelated, but telling, mistakes—all embarrassing, and potentially damaging to our country. Like other CSAF’s, Schwartz marked his place in history, and is most remembered for two significant things—one good and the other bad. First, was the Dover Mortuary problem’s in which human remain fragments had been mishandled, supposedly, and how he continually came under fire to get it right—even though much of the wrongdoing preceded his tenure. The other was growing the number of ISR CAPS from a handful to 56. This was no small undertaking that met with great resistance within the Air Force’s fighter pilot dominated culture. And as he said, it was the right thing to do. Schwartz was unique in ways from any other CSAF in that he was the first with a primarily special operations background, and with that, a significant amount of Joint operations exposure, which was needed at the time of his short-notice ascension to the position. A fantastic biography of a great Air Force, Joint and and national leader. You will love it!
March 20, 2018
Completely different to similar military bio's. Not a lot of detail of the time as CAF which I would have liked to see but he kept it interesting
His wife's perspective/narrative was interesting
His wife's perspective/narrative was interesting
September 20, 2018
I read this after meeting Suzie and then hearing General Schwartz speak. I enjoyed listening to both of them and wish the book showed more of their personalities and their life as a military couple.
November 20, 2020
A caveat, I grew up with General Schwartz so I am so in awe of his incredible accomplishments. He has given his all for this country. In this autobiography, Gen Schwartz shares the highs and lows of his career in the Air Force; the good, and the bad, giving lots of credit where due. His wife adds her commentary, too, and she gives you a peak into life of a military spouse. Together they brought about needs changes to the military. I would highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews