Highest Duty_ My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger [33]
But Representative Roberts believed his appointments should be merit-based. And so he had ambitious young men like me come to his office to be interviewed by a panel of retired generals and admirals who lived in his district.
After we’d gone to the post office to take a civil service exam and scored well enough on it, we were brought before this ad hoc board of military heavyweights at the congressman’s office. The board he put together had two tasks. First, to determine whether an applicant had what it took to make it at a service academy. Second, to decide which academy an applicant was best suited for. Since my dad didn’t know anyone in high places, I was grateful to have a chance to land an appointment on merit. I had a shot.
I was nervous going to my interview, uncomfortably dressed in my sport coat and tie, but I was excited, too. I’d devoured books about the military and about aviation since I learned how to read. I’d paid attention. So I was prepared when I finally sat down in front of that panel of four senior officers for their very formal twenty-minute proceeding.
The retired Army general seemed to enjoy lobbing questions. “Mr. Sullenberger,” he said, “can you tell me which branch of the service has the most aircraft?”
I assumed most applicants would give the obvious answer: the U.S. Air Force. But I knew this was a trick question. And I had done my homework. I’d studied the specifics of each branch of service and the aircraft they used. “Well, sir,” I said, “if you’re including helicopters in your count, the U.S. Army would have the most aircraft.”
The retired general smiled. I was passing the audition. As we continued talking, he seemed eager to have me go to West Point. But I was pretty straightforward that day. I wanted to fly jets in the Navy or the Air Force, and I didn’t want to go to West Point.
As things turned out, Representative Roberts offered the Air Force Academy appointment to another applicant. He gave me the Naval Academy appointment. Then, as fate would have it, the boy with the Air Force slot declined to take it. And so I moved up from the alternate spot.
I was eighteen years old and bound for Colorado. I would be receiving the full ride of a first-class education. In return, I agreed to pay my country back by serving five years as an active-duty Air Force officer.
I ARRIVED at the Air Force Academy on June 23, 1969, and as a kid from rural Texas, it was an eye-opening moment to meet the other cadets, who hailed from all over the country. Yes, a few of the 1,406 young men in my entering class were wealthy boys from elite families who got there through their fathers’ connections. More were sons of military officers, some from families with long military traditions. But once all of us had made our way through long lines to get our heads shaved, it felt as if those distinctions no longer mattered. It would be the same grueling road for all of us. Only 844 of the 1,406 who arrived that day would end up graduating.
We were welcomed to the academy on a gorgeous Colorado morning when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. From that day on, I was amazed by the West. You could see for a hundred miles in any direction, and the mountains were right there—a pretty stunning sight for a boy from the flatlands of North Texas.
The academy grounds were architecturally dramatic, and at the time, the buildings were fairly new. The Air Force Academy had been completed just twelve years earlier; the first class graduated in 1959. If I made it through all four years, I’d be in the class of 1973, which would be just the fifteenth graduating class. The first female cadets