| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is a great honor and pleasure to return to the US Air Force Academy today. It is also a great honor to be associated with the name of Ira Eaker, a true American hero and one of the fathers of American air power. I'm sure by this time you have seen Twelve O'clock High, and I assure that if you haven't, you WILL see it in the future. You may know that Major General Patrick Pritchard, the character played by the actor Millard Mitchell, is based on Ira Eaker. When we use the movie at the Naval War College, we focus on Pritchard as an example of strategic leadership-linking the tactical and the operational levels of war to national policy. This is what Ira Eaker did: he was responsible for proving the feasibility of daylight precision bombing as an operational concept linked to national policy. Someday many of you will be expected to provide this same strategic bridge between operational art on the one hand and national policy on the other.
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