I initially had misgivings about taking a break from flight duty, but soon enough I became one of only a handful of Air Force fighter pilots with a Ph.D. in history. Many of my colleagues find this as amusing as I do—we often joke that the term smart fighter pilot seems oxymoronic. Spending significant periods of time away from the Air Force in civilian, primarily university, environments only served to emphasize the reasons for the relative decline in Mitchell’s influence.