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The chapter is set on April 19, 1991, during Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili’s discussion with international media following the Operation Provide Comfort commander’s meeting with Iraqi military just outside the Iraqi border customs house. The chapter overviews Shalikashvili’s reputation for putting the interests of others before himself and not politicking for career and explores to what extent he kept his ambition hidden. By examining his leadership of the 9th Infantry Division (and it’s experimental mechanized brigade) and then his subsequent seemingly “dead end” promotion (at the behest of General John “Jack” Galvin) to be General Crosbie “Butch” Saint’s deputy at US Army Europe (USARER), the chapter highlights Shalikashvili’s commitment to being a team player. It ends by discussing how the unexpected opportunity of Operation Provide Comfort once again shows the role of luck in determining success.

This chapter is set during the April 19, 1991, meeting, held at Iraqi border customs house, between Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili and Iraqi generals. The chapter reveals that Shalikashvili has been given the difficult assignment of actually returning all the Kurdish refugees back to Iraq, overviews his ability to be tough and effective despite his low-key manner, and highlights the grave risk that this mission could lead to military conflict with the Iraqi military. It overviews the complexity of the diplomatic challenges he faces in coordinating this multinational and multi-organizational effort to repatriate the Kurds back into Iraq. It also explains two leadership skill sets Shalikashvili brought to dealing with this challenge: his aversion to conflict and his broad “holistic perspective”—understanding how the parts relate to the whole.

Drawing on the themes of nature vs. nurture and the role of luck, this closing chapter presents the author’s perspective on what John Shalikashvili’s life tells us about the determinants and meaning of success. It holds that Shalikashvili’s American dream came about because of his belief in “seeing the world as it is, imagining it as it should be, and working to make it better,” a philosophy formed by Shalikashvili’s wartime upbringing, aristocratic background, parental influence, betrayals by loved ones, and immigrant experience.

The chapter begins on April 18, 1991, during Operation Provide Comfort commander Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili’s first overflight of the Iraqi-Turkish border. It lays out the scope of this post-Gulf War humanitarian crisis—over 500,000 Kurdish refugees trapped within deadly border mountains—and explains how especially fear of Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks prompted the Kurds to flee Iraq. The chapter’s second half flashes back to Shalikashvili’s first assignment as an officer, in Alaska in 1959–60, to show his exceptional job performance, his struggles with arrogance and ambition, and his incipient development of a leadership style based on the “three pillars of leadership” or “love, character, and professionalism.” It also shows his loneliness and search for belonging—including how, five years since being betrayed by her, Shalikashvili tracks down Blondie and offers a marriage proposal that is rebuffed, further raising the theme of unrequited love.

The chapter is set on April 19, 1991, when Operation Provide Comfort (OPC) commander Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili is changing aircraft on a runway in Diyarbakir, eastern Turkey. The chapter overviews both the geopolitics of how the crisis occurred and how the rapidly growing scope and internationalization of the problem led Shalikashvili to take over the international humanitarian mission from the first commander, US Air Force major general Jim Jamerson. The chapter explains how during his career Shalikashvili developed leadership skills of logistics mastery and diplomacy (including during Operation Steel Box and the movement of the VII Corps to the Persian Gulf) as well as turned being an immigrant soldier from a liability to a strength, and in the process developed an international mystique about him. Told through the eyes of OPC staff member US Air Force colonel Eugene J. Ronsick, who thinks it was a mistake to replace the original commander with Shalikashvili, the chapter also demonstrates how Shalikashvili’s persona can quickly change people’s attitude toward him from negative to positive.

The chapter is set on April 19, 1991, during Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili’s very first inspection of a mountain refugee camp (Isikveren). The chapter demonstrates the absolute misery of life in the camps and outlines the suffering and looming potential for massive death. It reviews the progress the international humanitarian mission has accomplished so far and the upcoming shift in mission goal from “humanitarian assistance” to “humanitarian intervention,” which means Shalikashvili now faces the herculean task of moving all 500,000+ Kurds out of the mountains. Seeing the misery in the camp, Shalikashvili recalls his own suffering when he’d lost people he loved, particularly his loss, within weeks of each other, of both his premature baby girl and his cancer-stricken wife. It explains how all these blows—these “betrayals” by people he loved—are what helped push him to make the military his closest family, to make caring for and even loving the military community an inherent part of his leadership modus operandi.

Set at the White House on August 11, 1993, the chapter reviews the Clinton administration and Pentagon’s decision-making in the days leading up to the August 11 Rose Garden ceremony to nominate General John Shalikashvili, the current Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It provides an overview of the candidate pool, explains why Shalikashvili was the preferred candidate, and provides an insider’s account of how Shalikashvili repeatedly told Chairman Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, and even President William J. Clinton that he didn’t want the job because he’d serve the country better by remaining at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The chapter also highlights some of Shalikashvili’s leadership successes as SACEUR, including establishing NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps and getting NATO to approve airstrikes in Bosnia.

The chapter is set in January 1958, the night of the first day of Field Artillery Officer Candidate School (FA-OCS), at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, when John Shalikashvili is considering quitting, given the insanity of the program. The chapter explains how he joined the US military through the “peacetime draft” as well as why, despite not desiring a career in the military, the call of the family business is motivating him, as it did his brother Othar Joseph Shalikashvili before him, to prove he can measure up to his ancestors, particularly his father, whom he greatly admires, by becoming an officer.

The chapter is set at Field Artillery Officer Candidate School (FA-OCS) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in July 1958, shortly after John Shalikashvili graduated with distinction. Told through the eyes of Roger O’Dwyer, an OCS classmate in the cycle after Shalikashvili, the chapter reveals how the school at this time was home to the worst institutionalized hazing in army history (including rigorous Jark Marches), and traces how Shalikashvili went against the grain of OCS norms to quietly help others graduate from the program. It both signals the first turning point in Shalikashvili’s transition from struggling refugee boy to serious adult as well as marks his officially becoming an officer in the US Army—the first major step down the path to the chairmanship.

The chapter opens with Donna Bechtold watching Larry King’s September 22, 1995, interview on CNN with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili. Through her musings, readers learn she fled Peoria in 1954 in order to not jeopardize his future, raising the theme of how the actions of others influence our lives and help determine our success. She also reveals that Shalikashvili’s statement to Congress that he didn’t know about his father’s Waffen-SS association was a lie, and that his struggles with knowing that his beloved father had “made a deal with the devil” in hopes of freeing his native Georgia was the wellspring, later in life, for much of Shalikashvili’s striving during his military career to always do the right thing and for the right reasons.

The chapter is set at Fort Myer, Virginia, on September 30, 1997, the day General John Shalikashvili retired from the US military. The chapter overviews the retirement ceremony from Shalikashvili’s perspective as he reviews the honor guard with President William J. Clinton and Secretary of Defense William Cohen and thinks back to that night when he first laid eyes on US soldiers in Pappenheim and the role that luck has played in his attaining the American dream. The chapter also thumbnails his accomplishments as chairman: (1) confronting historic change, especially by realizing Partnership for Peace and NATO expansion, (2) was more supportive of non-traditional military missions (military operations other than war, MOOTW), (3) prepared the US military for the challenges of the twenty-first century, particularly by downsizing the military yet upgrading their capability and readiness, including by emphasizing joint education, joint planning, and joint training, and (4) rebalanced civil-military relations. The chapter ends with Shalikashvili’s closing remarks, emphasizing his love for soldiers and their families.

Set at the September 4, 1991, congressional hearing at the Rayburn Office Building, Washington, D.C., the chapter uses Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili’s testimony to a House Armed Services Committee defense panel on military operations other than war (MOOTW) to thumbnail how Operation Provide Comfort was successfully concluded. It also describes how the success of the mission led to Shalikashvili’s current position as Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell. It also flashes back to Shalikashvili’s tour as a major in the Vietnam War, when he served as a senior district advisor for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). In that posting he was heavily involved in pacification efforts (increasing rice production, building roads, constructing hospitals, etc.) as well Operation Fisher, another significant refugee resettlement program. Shalikashvili’s Vietnam experience would be a major developmental step leading him to being more open to the use of force than Colin Powell.

The chapter is set during the August 11, 1993, White House Rose Garden nomination ceremony, with President William J. Clinton nominating General John Shalikashvili to replace General Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking US military officer. The chapter shows how far Shalikashvili has come, how close he now was to fully achieving the American dream, that he has aristocratic blood, and his stellar reputation among policy leaders. It hints at his abilities and personality, suggests the important role that four key ancestors have played in determining his career success, and foreshadows the problem that one of them will bring to his confirmation process.

This chapter is set during the September 22, 1993, Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing to review General John Shalikashvili’s nomination to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It first explores the development of a controversy that breaks out after General John Shalikashvili’s nomination when a Defense Daily report and a Simon Weisenthal Center press release, based on a reading of Dimitri Shalikashvili’s own memoirs housed at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, announce that Dimitri served under the Waffen-SS during World War II. This is followed by a flashback, from Dimitri’s point of view, of how and why he joined the German war cause and what he did while serving for them. The chapter ends with an overview of the Senate confirmation hearing where Shalikashvili denies knowledge of his father’s SS association and the committee okays Shalikashvili’s confirmation, subject to a suitable replacement being found to take over his current position as SACEUR.

The chapter explores General John Shalikashvili’s retirement. After overviewing his continued efforts to help maintain military readiness, care for servicemembers and their families, and improve international security policy, particularly through work with William Perry’s Preventive Defense Project, the chapter highlights how the opportunity to give a speech in support of Senator John Kerry’s nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate was an opportunity to thrust Shalikashvili back onto the national stage. The chapter also details a series of heart-related problems that plagued him in retirement, including one stroke that crippled him in 2004 and the final one that eventually took his life in 2011. The chapter explains the family legacy of heart issues that troubled both sides of his family tree, and details how this “last inheritance” did much to strip away the aspects of family inheritance—self control, diplomacy, and intellect—that helped him achieve his American dream.

Set in Pappenheim, Germany, in 1947, the chapter continues the theme of nature vs. nurture by introducing John Shalikashvili’s great aunt, Countess Julie Pappenheim. As European aristocracy, the countess symbolizes the rights and responsibilities of power and nobility (noblesse oblige) as well as the question of identity and commitment—all key themes for an officer, particularly one of foreign birth, rising through the US armed forces. It also touches upon John Shalikashvili’s troubled youth, outlines the continued struggles faced by the family as war refugees in post-World War II Germany, and introduces Dimitri Shalikashvili, John Shalikashvili’s father.

Set on nomination eve in Fallbrook, California, the chapter captures the reaction of John Shalikashvili’s high school classmate and former girlfriend Donna Bechtold (“Blondie”) to the media reports of his nomination as chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. It hints at her vibrant personality and outlines some of the qualities she admired in Shalikashvili. It ends with the teaser about luck as a determinant of success: that because she’d betrayed him over 40 years earlier, she’d actually helped keep him on the path to the chairmanship.

Returning to the eve of the first day of Field Artillery Officer Candidate School (FA-OCS) at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on January 1958, the chapter explains how John Shalikashvili, strategic by nature and aware of his poor academic and civilian job performances (Bradley University and Hyster Lift Company, respectively), decides to stick it out at OCS. It also overviews the impact that Donna Bechtold’s betrayal—leaving Peoria without a word—had on him, as well as the blow struck by another woman, someone back in Germany he’d turned to courting after Bechtold left.

The chapter is set in June 1952 in Peoria, Illinois, on the eve of high school graduation. Told from the perspective of Donna Bechtold, John Shalikashvili’s girlfriend, the chapter raises the theme of nature vs. nurture by introducing Shalikashvili as a newly arrived refugee in the United States, showing his capacity for empathy and tenderness, and giving a sense of the aristocratic ideals he brought with him to the New World. By contrasting Bechtold’s terrible home life, particularly her abusive mother, with her guesses at how wonderful Shalikashvili’s family must be, it introduces the theme of the influence that parents and upbringing have on our development. It also prepares the reader for the following three chapters, each of which is told mainly from the perspective of a different Shalikashvili relative.