Start With Why

shows only what’s directly in front of the aircraft.
    Captain Robinson saw her job as something bigger, however, than just staring at radar, something more profound than just being the eyes and ears for the pilots who were hurtling into harm’s way at 1,500 mph. Captain Robinson knew WHY her job was important. She saw herself as responsible for clearing a path for the pilots in her care so that they could do what they needed to do, so they could push themselves and their aircraft further with greater confidence. And for this reason, she was unusually good at her job. Robinson couldn’t make mistakes. If she did, she would lose the trust of her pilots and, worse, they would lose trust in themselves. You see, it’s confidence that makes fighter pilots so good at their jobs.
    And then it happened. Captain Robinson could tell from the calm of Jumper’s voice over the radio that he was unaware of the threat coming at him. On a cloudless day, 20,000 feet over the desert, the alarm screeched in Rambo 2’s $25 million, state-of-the-art fighter jet. He looked up from his radar screen and saw the enemy engaging him. “BREAK RIGHT! BREAK RIGHT!” he screamed into his radio. On October 9, 1988, Brigadier General John P. Jumper was killed.
    Captain Robinson waited. There was an eerie calm. Before too long, Jumper stormed into the debriefing room at Nellis Air Force Base. “You got me killed!” he barked at Captain Robinson. Situated in the Nevada desert, Nellis is home to the Air Force Fighter Weapons School, and on that day, General John Jumper took a direct hit from a simulated missile from another U.S. Air Force jet playing the part of an enemy combatant.
    “Sir, it was not my fault,” Captain Robinson replied calmly. “Check the video. You’ll see.” General Jumper, then the 57th Wing commander, a graduate of the USAF Fighter Weapons School, and a former instructor at Nellis, routinely evaluated every detail of every training mission he flew. Pilots often relied on the video to learn from their exercises. The video didn’t lie. And it didn’t on that day either. It revealed that the error was indeed his, not Captain Robinson’s. It was a classic blunder. He had forgotten he was part of a team. He had forgotten that what made him so good at his job was not just his ability. Jumper was one of the best because there were others who were looking out for him. A massive infrastructure of people he couldn’t see.
    Without question General Jumper had been given the best equipment, the best technology and the best training that money could buy. But it was the mechanics, the teachers, his fellow pilots, the culture of the Air Force and Captain Robinson who ensured that he could trust himself to get the job done. General Jumper forgot WHY he was so good and made a split-second decision that cost him his life. But this is what training is for, to learn these lessons.
    Some sixteen years after his lesson over the Nevada desert, General Jumper went on to big things. Now a retired four-star general, he served as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force from 2001 to 2005, the highest-ranking uniformed office in the entire Air Force, responsible for the organization, training and equipping of nearly 700,000 active-duty, guard, reserve and civilian forces serving in the United States and overseas. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he, along with the other service chiefs, advised the secretary of defense, the National Security Council and the president.
    This is not, however, a story about General Jumper. It is a story about Lori Robinson. Now herself a brigadier general in the Air Force, she no longer has her face down a scope. There are no more bogeys and bandits, the Air Force’s nicknames for the good guys and the bad guys, in her life. Even though her job has changed, General Robinson still starts every day by reminding herself WHY she came to work.
    As much as she misses “her kids,” as she called those who served under her command, General Robinson is still looking for ways she can clear a path for others so that they can push themselves and the organization further. “The time to think of yourself is done, it is not about you, it is about the lieutenants behind you,” she’d remind her students when she was an instructor at the Fighter Weapons School. “If enough of us do this,” she goes on, referring to WHY she does what she does, “then we leave this military and this country in better shape than we