Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

If there is any group on Earth with healthier egos than fighter pilots, they have yet to be discovered. Bureaucrats who run the Air Force personnel system believe that a menial job might teach humility to these fledglings. Over the years they have discovered this belief is founded more on hope than on reality—no fighter pilot ever has been or ever will be humble.

Test pilots talked of going into space. Space? And in a capsule? You don’t fly a fucking capsule, you sit in it and watch the instruments. You’re a passenger. To hell with space. Fighter pilots wanted to get on an enemy’s six and hose the sonofabitch.

To be called a tiger meant you had stainless-steel testicles that dragged the ground and struck sparks when you walked. To be called a tiger meant you were a pure fighter pilot and that you would not hesitate to tell a bird colonel to get fucked.

By 1954, Nellis was the busiest Air Force base in the world. It was also distinguished by its unusually high rates of courts-martial, sexually transmitted diseases, and those who had gone absent without leave.

“Sprad, if they object to Oscar, they have to object to all of us. The Air Force is integrated. We have been for years. We don’t have a problem. It’s their goddamn problem.”

“You’re older than most students. Why did you wait so long to go to college?” Boyd said he already had a degree from Iowa and that he was an Air Force officer seeking an engineering degree. “What do you do in the Air Force?” Boyd beamed down at Cooper and said, “I’m a goddamn fighter pilot.”

“You gotta challenge all assumptions. If you don’t, what is doctrine on day one becomes dogma forever after.”

I want to put this on a poster and hang it on every wall I come across.

“Major Boyd, I have just one question,” the general said. “Did you tell that colonel at Wright-Pat he was a lying fucker?” “Yes, Sir, I did.”

The general picked up his telephone and called Wright-Pat. And Boyd swears that as the general picked up the phone, he muttered, “They are lying fuckers.”

“You must have inductive thinking,” he said again and again to the Marines. “There is not just one solution to a problem,” he said. “There are two or three or five ways to solve a problem. Never commit to a single solution.”

Mary Ellen sat on the bed and clasped her father’s withered hands and told him how much she loved him. By then Boyd could not speak, but his hand clasped hers. His Snookums was with him. Mary Ellen sensed how very tired her father was. She leaned over and whispered that she knew he had been waging a mighty battle to hold on until she arrived. “You know, Dad, it’s okay. If you want to go ahead, go. It’s okay.” With tears coursing down her cheeks she told him that he should find the rest and peace he so desperately needed. “It’s okay, Dad.” A moment later, at about 5:00 P.M., Boyd smiled. His face relaxed and the grasp of his hand loosened. Mary Ellen felt her father’s soul pass through her and he was gone.

he thinks Boyd is the most recent link in a chain that began with Sun Tzu and continued with Musashi, the sixteenth-century samurai, and then with Mao Tse Tung. Richards says the similarities between Musashi and Boyd are many: Boyd’s shiny fighter aircraft was like the lacquered armor of a samurai. Both went into battle one-on-one. Both had personal habits that caused others to think them uncouth. Both lived by an austere code of honor and self-sacrifice. Both believed that if they confused an enemy before the battle, they had won even before the fight. In combat, neither ever lost a battle. Both read widely and were single-minded in their search for enlightenment. Both loomed large in their times. Both evolved from fighters into teachers and both left works that lived long after their death.

The biggest difference I see is that Boyd's ego preceded him. How much more could he have accomplished if he had played the game just a little bit? If he would have at least refrained from all out insulting people and ensuring that they knew they were defeated by him? Then again, would Boyd have been Boyd if he didn't have as many enemies as he did? He seemed to be energized by them.

After Ron Catton delivered his emotional eulogy at Boyd’s funeral, he stopped by the office of his congressman, George Nethercutt, to ask a favor. Catton wanted the Air Force to recognize Boyd in some formal fashion. Today Catton is a multimillionaire financial consultant and one of Spokane’s most prominent citizens. If he asks something of his congressman, chances are, he gets it.

I had no idea I grew up so close to this guy.