Click here for the article body, or here for the audio.  You can also read NPR’s interview with General Schwartz here.

I’m not sure about the comparison to Mr. Spock — what is NPR trying to say, that all Semites look alike? — but General Schwartz’s biography is extremely exciting, and we are accordingly very proud of his achievement, and what he will do for the Air Force.  The Navy always boasts about how much of the world is covered in water, but 100% of the earth is covered in air.  The possibilities are positively endless.

Schwartz will hang a framed copy of a Time magazine essay — titled “The Essence of Courage"— on his office wall. It’s a moving piece by the late Hugh Sidey about that failed Iran hostage rescue and the mettle of the men who took part.

“I recommend you Google it,” Schwartz says quietly. “Because it will tell you a lot about what I believe in.”

What he believes in is the ethos of the special operator, the term for the military’s elite commandos on the ground and in the air. It’s stayed with him as he moved on to staff jobs, then took over the U.S. Transportation Command — a somewhat mundane job of making sure troops and equipment make it overseas.