Lt General Rod Bishop: From USAFA to Leading Seven Commands

Meet STARRS Chairman of the Board Lt. General Rod Bishop, USAF ret, USAFA '74, interviewed by STARRS & Stripes Host CDR Al Palmer (USN ret). Gen. Bishop talks about his time at the Air Force Academy as a young cadet and his Air Force career which led him to leading many different commands in USAF, including the 3rd Air Force in Europe.

General Bishop talks about the cultural shifts in the Air Force and Air Force Academy he observed upon retiring – shifts that motivated him to found STARRS. Through personal anecdotes, he underscores the value of leaders listening to their people to build trust in their leadership that creates unity. He also offers lessons drawn from a career that took him across the globe and into the heart of both warfare and humanitarian missions.

In the second part of our episode, General Bishop shares his experiences maintaining fighter wings in Europe, his time at SOUTHCOM, and navigating the complex landscape of international threats. Learn about the critical role of joint military exercises and collaboration, exemplified by a significant humanitarian mission with Joint Forces Command. We also delve into the logistical and strategic intricacies of major operations, including President Bush's tour of Africa, and reflect on the sacrifices made by American personnel. 

This episode is a compelling look at military leadership, strategic planning, and the enduring spirit of service, all through the eyes of a seasoned commander.

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For more information about STARRS, go to our website: https://starrs.us which monitors and exposes the CRT/DEI/Woke agenda in the Dept. of Defense and advocates a return to Merit, Equality and Integrity in the military.

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Transcript

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 0:12

Well, hello America. This is Commander Al Palmer, nited Navy retired. I'm your host here at Stars and Stripes and we're here to tell you a bit about the problems and the solutions we see for reserving and preserving our military in the United States.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 0:33

And I'm happy here to be with you today to welcome our Chairman of the Board, Llieutenant General Rod Bishop. General Bishop is an illustrious command pilot from the United States Air Force and he's had an amazing amount of experience in command across Europe and the South Africa portions of the world. So, rod, welcome sir. It's good to have you with us today.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 1:00

Al, I'm delighted to be here with you. Thank you for the invitation.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 1:05

Well, so tell us a bit, because I know a little bit about you and I share one thing with you. I'll let you know right away I'm also a graduate of USC's Assistance Management Program, with a master's degree, like you do, so we share that among Air Force too. Anyway, but please tell us about your background and what brought you into the service and how did you feel when you left it.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 1:33

Well, what brought me into the service, I guess, was a little bit of encouragement from my dad. He had taken me down to Annapolis when I was in high school. I liked it but I said, yeah, it's pretty old. I knew nothing about the Air Force Academy until my high school class in geometry section on triangles had a picture of the Air Force Academy Chapel and I said now that looks futuristic and a neat place, and so that's what brought me in. And I guess how does it feel?

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 2:01

When I left it I felt so proud and that's one of the reasons I think we started UpStars is because I was hearing a lot from fellow graduates and I was hearing a lot from my wife and I retired outside the gate of the Air Force Academy so we could sponsor cadets and I was hearing a lot from those cadets that quote the culture is changing underneath my feet and my fellow grads who lived in the area and retired before I did, saying I don't feel that same sense of pride anymore. So, um, that's a little bit about me. Uh, back back to you.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 2:45

So when you were there though there's a special feeling that I've been there quite a few times there's a very special feeling about the process of becoming a cadet, especially as a dually, because you're coming in from the outside world. So how did that feel to you making that transition? Was that difficult for you, or was that not so difficult?

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 3:13

I don't think it was so difficult, al. I knew it was going to be tough. I prepared myself physically, the mental portion. I never really had any thoughts of quitting, I just loved the place. Not a day I regret having served there. But I did regret again when I retired and my wife and I, for example, host tailgate parties over parents' weekends for parents and cadets, and I would hear from cadets things like well, I feel like I'm being indoctrinated. Or if they told me "we need leaders of diversity one more time I was going to throw up. I mean, when you hear that from people who are experiencing, I go, oh, what the heck is happening and I should have maybe taken action sooner than that, sooner than we did in standing up STARRS. As I'm sure you know, we're only a little over four years old now and Ben incorporated well, just over three, and you know a number of these events were happening in the 20 teens, when, because we retired to the Colorado Springs area in 2009.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 4:27

You put me on the spot to talk about myself, because it's really one of the I guess the biggest things I've ever learned about my military career is that all of us are better than one of us and it's all about the team that we build or are a part of team. That that we build or are a part of um. So let me start with um.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 4:51

I guess my days as a second lieutenant and finishing pilot training. I was fighter qualified coming out of pilot training, but Vietnam was winding down. Uh, I thought we were entering an era of peace and I just didn't want to spend my career training for the next war. I wanted to. As I looked across the different missions that the Air Force did, I decided that personally I'd like to see the world. But also I saw how, at the time dating myself now Military Airlift Command was so involved in humanitarian activities around the world. So I chose and had to actually fight for the most used transport at the time was C-141. And I'm glad I did. It was a great career. The old Starlifter took me to 110 countries throughout the world, which I would say gave me a great appreciation for the blessings that we have in the United States of America. Any person who has been blessed with command will tell you that the greatest experience that you can have in the military is being in command, and I had that blessing bestowed on me seven different times in the Air Force and two in the joint world.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 6:22

And the very first command that I had was a challenging one because it was forming an entirely new squadron out of 550 people that lived in 19 different spots on an Air Force base. It's called an Operation Support Squadron and we brought everybody together as one team and you learn values and you brainstorm how can we make people in life support that put life preservers on airplanes have an affinity and feel unified and cohesiveness as part of a unit, say with people who are forecasting the weather, or people who are in the RAPCON, the radar control, or people up in the tower. So you know that was a nice challenge, a fun challenge, and we found lots of ways to do that from. You know our own intramural teams playing. You know mothers playing life support, et cetera. Plus, one thing I did that I felt was fairly effective is I called them brown bag lunches. Every day I went to a different part of one of those 19 different buildings and just sat down with those people and you listen. That's where I learned that trust and confidence go both up and down the chain of command.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 7:51

There are times in my second command. There are times I think that you learn, that you know, maybe you're going to have to have a forceful hand. And one of the things in my second squadron that I did, which had everyone in the entire squadron shaking their head, was we had an air crew stand-avow visit coming our way and to me it seemed like a given because they gave you the 300 questions on a test for each different crew position and you know that was a major part of the score of that air crew standardization evaluation. So, against everybody's advice, I mandated that nobody was allowed to go home, even if it, I mean, they could go home at the end of the day. But they had the test on those 300 questions to 100%. And people were asking me why in the world are you doing that to us? We're only going to get 40 questions. And I said, well, you'll see. Well, when that squadron scored 99.6% on the ACEV evaluation and won the Outstanding Strategic Airlift Squadron in the Air Force Award, they kind of understood, I think.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 9:13

Being a commander, I always used to tell people learn from other commanders around you and I had the benefit, as a one star, of working for both general pace and then general hill at us southern command, first as their chief planner and then deputy, and what I learned from them was, you know, do what you can do, focus, do what you can do, focus on what you can focus on. Don't overload your plate. But again, make sure that you're building a team. So, for example, southern Command has 32 countries. It's a combat command of the United States that looks at South America, central America and the Caribbean. And I remember General Pace telling me, Rod, we can't be everything to everybody, because the role of the outward-looking combat commands anyway is to essentially help the other militaries and theater security cooperation, help them build their capacity and theater security cooperation and help them build their capacity. And so we found ways to design manners in which we could criteria in which we could determine where the next dollar was spent. That was General Pace's criteria for me, and one of the things that we took big advantage of cause, an important part of the things that we took big advantage of because an important part of the CELF-COM mission was trying to keep drugs out of the United States was an organization that was called JATF Joint Interagency Task Force South and at that organization we had members, I want to say, from 15 different federal agencies in almost all the countries in the South America and the Caribbean countries where drugs were flowing through. So you know, just building that team with people of different countries and different organizations.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 11:13

Out of that grew some pretty good, I think, recommendations that we gave to the Department of Defense the day after 9-11. And we had seen at Southern Command how bringing people together and leveraging each other's capability was hugely successful. But working with the interagency inside of DC we also saw how dysfunctional it was, and so two of our recommendations were implemented within a year and I think they're pretty major recommendations that we put forth. One was to stand up a combat command. I mentioned most combat commands look outwards. We had no one focusing inwards it's homeland security, or inwards to the security of our Homeland, I guess I should say, because standing up a command that did that IE, us Northern Command, was accomplished in less than a year. And to bring all the I think there were over a hundred different intelligence agencies that had a piece of part here and there in that drug war and we recommended bringing everyone together into a department call it Homeland Security. And, sure enough, that was stood up in less than a year but one. We had a third recommendation that still we're fighting to this day it hasn't been implemented yet and that was secure the southern border. Because we rationalized back in 2001 if you have 30 000 americans a year being killed to drugs, uh, terrorists could use the same routes, the same cartels to uh to come through that porous border. So unfortunately you haven't secured that one. But you know some great lessons learned in positions not being a commander.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 13:06

The other, a command I guess I'd like to speak about, would be being a joint forces commander, although I retired as the air commander Europe and Third Air Force commander, as the Air Commander Europe and 3rd Air Force Commander, which gave me the responsibility of 30,000 American airmen and their families and our missions to support both SACIR, com-usafe, the commander of UCOM with air and space responsibility. This was before the combat command called africom was set up. We had air and space responsibility for 93 countries. That was, you know, just a tremendous job. Again, working with partner nations and their security cooperations. And here's where I took a lesson I mentioned from general pace we can't be everything to everybody. Well, 93 countries, I mean what? What progress are you going to make? And so what? We did a couple of things in that command. Before I get to speaking about the joint forces command, we did a couple of things in that arena to help us focus uh, you know, if you're gonna go visit 93 countries what real impact you're going to make. So we went through a really detailed, structured process of what countries would can we bring the most benefit to and what countries the United States of America can most d a future conflict. And I think the work that we did with some of our now very strong allies was successful and showed the benefit of culling down, so to speak, those 93 countries into a manageable number that we could make progress with.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 15:03

Another thing that we did, again taking age out of lessons that we had learned from other commands, I think, was what are the top 10 worries? I mean, the day I took command, I asked my numbered Air Force, which I think most people realize are primarily fighter heavy. I mean we had three fighter wings over in Europe. I asked them the question why do we have these three fighter wings here and what are the top 10 things that should keep us awake at night? And so to show you the value of the thought process I mean in the intelligence of people that we had. I mean, they did. We would research each one for a week and, uh, the number one thing that should keep us awake at night they came back with was Russia invading Ukraine. Well, Russia's done that twice now and then would drill down on that rabbit hole. And the second one was Russia invading Georgia, which happened three months after I left command.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 16:06

And so some real good thought process and I have to believe that at least the United States Air Forces in Europe were better postured for whatever could come our way, having gone through those exercises and thinking through those things, could come our way, having gone through those exercises and thinking through those things. Plus, we had the opportunity to recommend the SACEUR different courses of actions on which we should take in each one of those contingencies. And then, finally, that opportunity over in Europe gave me the wonderful experience of having to command military members from other services twice. One was in an exercise, but it was a major exercise. I was aboard the USS Kersage, a marine-like type of aircraft carrier, in the mid when we started that exercise and we had sold. After we had gone through that, what are the top 10 things that would keep us awake at night and what should America do? In each of those cases we came to the conclusion that, you know, short of all-out war, we really probably wouldn't use those three fighter squadrons as an example in any type of armed contingency beyond deterrence. And so, as we went through that and looked at the capabilities that we had in the United States Air Forces in Europe, for example, we had a base opening capability called CRG, that readiness group that would go out and open up bases. We had airlift, we had tankers. We had a great relationship with Air Mobility Command, us Transportation Command, so we sold ourselves as the potential headquarters that would be of great use to SACURA and any type of humanitarian operation in any one of those 93 countries. And he bought off onto it. And so Joint Forces Command came out and we did a big almost month-long exercise based around that Again, preparing not only our forces but our Navy and Army brother for how to react, for example, in the case of a major humanitarian operation.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 18:38

Just before I retired I got to be a JTF commander for about a two-week operation. I was told it was probably about a month, because we got two weeks notice, a heads up from the Secret Service, that President Bush was going to make a kind of a swan song tour of Africa, if you will, and visit six countries. And here we are, two weeks out and the Secret Service announced that they would like to have air cover everywhere the president went. And having spent most of my life in air mobility, I mentioned to him and you know, we don't have enough free airlift or enough airlift in the whole free world to be able to bring fighters and barriers and sweepers and fuel trucks and bladders to six different locations. So you know, together with them, we planned and we looked at. Some of the locations were near the coast and so I said well, how about if we have some Navy Aegis cruisers there? So I flew down to Portugal and met with the 6th Fleet Commander and he gladly lent us a couple of his Aegis cruisers for that operation, which was really a lifesaver, because people don't understand when the President of the United States goes somewhere out of the country to an austere location like I mean. Well, I was over there.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 20:04

President Bush came to Europe a lot, but it was to the UK or to France or it was to Germany where those nations would provide the protection. One time he came over and went to Albania. That's a major operation for us because now Albania didn't have an air force that could provide that cover. So you know we had to stand up a little group to do that. But when you're going to, you know which is thousands of miles away from where we were in Europe to all these countries in Africa, miles away from where we were in Europe to all these countries in Africa, all the stair locations. We had to deploy some radars to one of those nations and we deployed over 2,000 Americans in a very, very short period of time to those locations to run the different bases, et cetera. All told, when all is said and done, and working with air mobility command, their mobility command told me they they flew 790 missions and people don't realize how big that is when you count the, you know the tanker support, the airlift over all the hard cars etc. That you have to move around.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 21:17

So that was a great way to really wrap up my career, because I retired about two weeks after running that operation. But again it reinforced for me again just how and I did before I retired I went to Washington and met with the Secret Service there and said you know, I got a personal letter from President Bush but and said you know, I got a personal letter from President Bush but I said you know you were successful in this mission because we have great Americans and we carried that mission on the backs of great Americans that made great sacrifice. I know the challenges of trying to keep things secure until the last minute, but an operation like that, uh, it would be nice to have more than two weeks to to go in and plan it. So that kind of gives you a rough sketch. Al as to some of the highlights, I mean I I could go into more.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 22:13

I flew, uh, hillary and chelsea on that famous mission where the former First Lady told the world that we were fired upon, and I was kind of scratching my head when I saw that one because I didn't remember where it came from. I thought, since I was on board, I probably would have and had the opportunity of being Air Force One and fly president in and out of Bosnia a number of times. So those are some highlights as well. But that's a good rough sketch, I think.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 22:52

So did you get a T-shirt for a flight crew on Air Force One?

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 22:56

No, we did get a lot of playing cards and matches.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 23:03

Okay, well, General, that's an amazing career and thank you so much for your dedication to your country and for being there when it was needed, and thank you also for continuing that now in STARRS. We need that more than ever.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 23:22

Well, thanks, Alan, just wrapping up the way. I would like to wrap it up if I could, because I mean, given seven Air Force commands, two joint commands, I personally feel. I personally feel the most important mission that I have had in my life is the one that I'm involved with now and that's trying to save our military and trying to get America to wake up to what is happening. I saw Cindy just showed a picture of Coast Guard Academy now Ensign with our general counsel and myself pitting on our shoulder boards at the graduation. That was another ancillary thing.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 24:09

I don't know if you have plans to talk about STARRS roles in the vaccine mandate, but that's one of the things that I think you know. If somebody who asked me if I were on my deathbed right now, someone asked me what do you think the greatest accomplishment you had in your life was? I would say unquestionably, and this has cost me lots of friends and this has cost me people saying you're off the reservation when we put that mission on. But once we peel back the onion on what the government was doing, what the government was hiding, how, and now we have the substantiation of eight different courts agreeing with the position that we took on that vaccine mandate. You know it's tyranny. It was tyranny at its best and I think it was wrapped up very well by an air force lawyer friend of mine who told me that that was nothing but a hilarion loyalty oath.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 25:07

People did not look at the data, they did not see that young people, you know, were not affected by the disease disease as the elderly and the obese were. So I would say, without question, I think I'm most proud of helping play a role. I mean it certainly played a role. Stars didn't do it all by itself, but playing a role and saving tens of thousands of careers and getting America and Congress to wake up to end that mandate. Unfortunately, the way in which Congress did it, I understand that that's as good as they could do, but I've described it like kissing. It's better than kissing your sister, kind of like kissing your cousin. Maybe that it just didn't go far enough, didn't go far enough in, you know, making it easier for people to get their careers back, cleaning up the records, changing all the discharges from under honorable conditions or from general discharge to honorable discharges, just didn't go far enough. There didn't didn't automatically connect some of the harmful effects, medical effects that have come, that we know have come from the vaccine to automatic health care etc.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 26:27

So we still have some work to do on that one we do indeed, and I think the best thing that we can do is take care of the troops in a way that they deserve and thanks.

Lt Gen Rod Bishop, USAF ret: 26:42

General again for doing it. We're trying.

CDR Al Palmer, USN ret: 26:44

Al Well, we'll end here for now, but again, we need the help of people, do we not? And they can sign on with us and help us come to some conclusion. We've got lots of work to do, and so, for this episode, it's Alan Palmer Palmer, your host, here for STARRS and Stripes. We'll see you the next time. Thanks very much for watching.