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Any beings advanced enough to traverse interstellar distances are at least a thousand years beyond our technical level. Spending gobs of time examining our missiles is equivalent to sending the Air Force back to the Middle Ages and insisting they examine the chain mail factories.
In 1975, I was called to active duty in the Air Force, studying U.S. space launches that used nuclear power. I felt it was a big deal to be involved in such an important project - we were providing technical support for launch recommendations that ultimately went to the president.
My father was a Tuskegee Airmen captain in the Air Force and a very strong personality. He believed in fairness and ethics and living up to the commitments you make to others. He ultimately became a judge, and he would talk to me over and over about how important it is to be fair.
I spent about seven years during the Vietnam War flight-testing airplanes for the Air Force. And then I went in and I had a lot of fun building airplanes that people could build in their garages. And some 3,000 of those are flying. Of course, one of them is around-the-world Voyager.
Well, my favorite memory of a president was in 1984. I was in the grandstands at Daytona, and maybe I was 20 years old. So just sort of down in Daytona, having a good time for the 500 - or for the 400 in July. And Air Force One lands on the back straightaway. It was President Reagan.
The armed forces are paying a lot more attention to the use of energy. The Air Force has realized that the paint on planes is heavy, so there are going to be a lot more silver planes, or planes painted in a less heavy way, so that you are using less fuel to get from point A to point B.
My father served 26 years in the Air Force as a pilot and a pioneer in our missile programs. I learned early about the sacrifices a family makes when a member is repeatedly deployed, and also the fulfillment that comes from serving our country. My brother, my son and I all became Marines.
Bill Clinton sitting on Air Force One getting his hair cut while people around the country cooled their heels and waited for him, became a metaphor for a populist president who had gotten drunk with the perks of his own power and was sort of, you know, not sensitive to what people wanted.
It occurred to me that my family had achieved the American Dream, from being poor to starting a business to giving me and my brother an amazing education. It's one reason I joined the Air Force, because I believed I can never give back to America what America has given to my family and me.
In Syria, a no-fly zone targeted at Assad's air force and safe zones for refugees fleeing the fighting would help tamp down the death toll that plays into the hands of ISIS and other Sunni militants who can position themselves as the only groups that are really defending the Sunni population.
The POW camps of North Vietnam were packed with Air Force and Naval Academy graduates. The six midshipmen in my Naval Academy class of 1968 who served as liaisons between the Marine Corps and the Brigade of Midshipmen later suffered nine Purple Hearts in Vietnam, and one man killed in action.
If I was a CIA front company, what would I want to be able to do? Well, I would want to be able to land at military airfields as a civilian, so there's got to be some document that the Air Force or the Army has that would list all the civilian aircraft that are cleared to land at military bases.
I grew up in a time when people believed in duty, honor and country. My grandfathers were both officers. My father was a General in the Air Force. My brother and I were both in the Army. I've always felt a kinship with soldiers; I think it's possible to support the warrior and be against the war.
When 'Red Tails' came along, all I knew was that they were the first African-American fighter pilots in the U.S. Air Force. I had no idea how deep the story went or about all their amazing achievements. There were a few Tuskegee Airmen on the set to make sure everything was as authentic as possible.
It was a unique childhood, to say the least. My father was born in Patiala to refugee parents and was a part of the Indian Air Force. The talented few amongst the Air Force pilots are made test pilots. Test pilots are best suited to look at the space programme as they are trained to expect the unexpected.
My father wanted to be a hero. He went to the Air Force Academy, was valedictorian, and then he found himself strafing villagers in Vietnam in a war he didn't want to be in and didn't understand. He was extremely conflicted about the line where he went from being the good guy to possibly being the bad guy.
I can still remember them wheeling the black and white TV sets into our classroom at school so we could watch the men landing on the Moon, and that obviously had a huge impact. I later found out those people flying Apollo were ex-military test pilots, so I decided to join the Air Force and become a test pilot.
I had just been in some repressive situations - the black middle-class college scene and the crazy United States Air Force - and so I just felt like getting out of that. I thought, now, that I wanted to be a writer. I had something that I wanted to do, that I was interested in doing, so I wanted to pursue that.
I am an Air Force brat who grew up at various Air Force bases. I changed six schools in about five years and got stability for the first time when I was sent to a boarding school, Rishi Valley. I lived outside of a cantonment-style living and was among an eclectic mix of kids and got exposed to books and other things.
The first thing I did after getting a Master's degree - and the Air Force was very kind; they let me stay on at school to get a Master's - I went to Denver for the Armed Forces Air Intelligence School, six months. Fundamentally, we had a major effort on in Southeast Asia, and this was training folks to support that effort.
I got my first patent in 1979 before I left the Air Force. I called it the Digital Distance Measuring Instrument. It used ones and zeros and dots and dashes and a magnifying lens to read binary-encoded information from a scale that was photographically reduced. It used the same kind of technology that's used in CDs and DVDs.
In 1982, Israel began an invasion across its northern border, seeking to root out elements of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israeli military wreaked destruction all the way up to Beirut and forced the P.L.O. out of Lebanon. It also defeated the Syrian Army and, particularly, the Air Force wherever it engaged them.
I was taught to think outside the box. Before my grandfather was one of the original Mad Men, he and a group of other Air Force Intelligence officers formalized brainstorming as a problem solving technique. He taught the concept that creativity can be taught at Buffalo University. My dad invented toys. My mom was a photographer.
One of my favorite courses to teach is when we go to the Air Force. We've done a few at Air Force bases. What's great about that is that it's a one-week course. It's five days and we work with them for about eight hours a day. We're not only teaching them self-defense, but we're also teaching them how to teach it on base to others.
Two of my bread and butters are my ankle and knee. That's why I always wore high-tops. I had to protect my ankles no matter if I taped my ankles or wore ankle braces. I gotta protect my ankles. Gotta protect the money maker. That's why I've always rocked the Air Force 1s. Of course, I put in orthotics in there 'cause these joints is flat.
First ladies, you know, we look at Michelle Obama, and we look at most first ladies, and they seem like they have it all. You know, they live in the White House, they go to state dinners, they ride on Air Force One, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But first ladies do often feel that they are given short shrift or forgotten or left at the margins.
My mother is Turtle Mountain Chippewa, and she lived on her home reservation. My father taught there. He had just been discharged from the Air Force. He went to school on the GI Bill and got his teaching credentials. He is adventurous - he worked his way through Alaska at age seventeen and paid for his living expenses by winning at the poker table.