Boydmania

Air & Space Power Journal, Fall, 2004 by David R. Mets

Boyd never presented his body of ideas in digestible form, and his acolytes, including Coram, make a virtue out of his deliberate refusal to do so. (43) Consequently, his notions remain too vague to amount to anything other than a moving target of little use in structuring a debate or attempting to educate one's mind on the nature of war before arriving at the battlefield. Coram insists that Boyd is the greatest fighter pilot in Air Force history and the greatest theoretician since Sun Tzu. (44) I have looked into the mirror, but I cannot see the proof for either case. Nor do I see an apostle in Coram's mirror. I do, however, see on page 130 of his book the statement that "Southerners and fighter pilots know the story is more important than the facts" (emphasis added). The part about fighter pilots is wrong; to the rest of the sentence, I say amen! (45)

Notes

(1.) "John Boyd, Technology and the Careerists" [letter to the editor], Naval War College Review 51 (Winter 2003): 141.

(2.) Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Boston: Little, Brown, 2002).

(3.) See Coram's Web site, http://www.robertcoram. com/prostate.html. No doubt Col John Boyd's death from prostate cancer struck a chord with Coram, given his own experience with the disease.

(4.) Robert Coram, "Two Days in May," Atlanta 41 (May 2001): 1c, http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/lane.htm (go to the EBSCOHost link).

(5.) I do not imply that an inevitable disconnect exists between journalism and good military history. A case in point is Rick Atkinson, whose book Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1993) is one of the best accounts of the first Gulf War and whose first volume of the history of World War II has garnered rave reviews. Yet, he is a leading journalist for the Washington Post. Clearly, he understands the critical use of interview sources and the necessity for valid archival research.

(6.) Coram, Boyd, 273.

(7.) Retired from the Air Force with 30 years of service, I have been invited to speak at Quantico four times, and I number among my thesis students two marines of the highest character. Clearly, some marines may be contemptuous, but Coram is much too prone to sweeping generalizations.

(8.) Grant T. Hammond, The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).

(9.) Dr. Grant T. Hammond, "Myths of the Air War over Serbia: Some 'Lessons' Not to Learn," Aerospace Power Journal 14, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 1, http://www.airpower. maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj00/win00/ hammond.pdf; and idem, "Myths of the Gulf War: Some 'Lessons' Not to Learn," Airpower Journal 12, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 1, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/ apj/apj98/fa198/hammond.pdf. Hammond does not deal with Boyd's private life. Although Coram deplores the irresponsibility that Boyd displayed in his private life, he seems to take lightly the irresponsibility in his life as an officer.

(10.) Long ago, Lt Col (later Gen) Walter Kross also used a myths format to discuss the military-reform movement of that day. See "Military Reform: Past and Present," Air University Review 32, no. 5 (July-Augmt 1981): 101-8, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/ aureview/1981/jul-aug/kross.htm. Although I address four myths here, I do not mean to imply that there are only four of them--either in the book or among the acolytes.