Page 23 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE PROGRAM

to go on a two-mile run carrying an M14 rifle with the rest of his battal-
ion. This was a signature Burn Loeffke request.
Before I met the general, I thought I’d do a little research to learn what
I could about him. I discovered that he was a West Point graduate from
the class of 1957 and that he had an undergraduate degree in engineering,
a master’s degree in Russian, and a doctorate in political science and that
he spoke fluent Russian, Chinese, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. As a
White House Fellow, he served on Henry Kissinger’s National Security
Council staff, and in the mid-1970s he was chief of the military mission in
the Peoples Republic of China and later served as the U.S. Army attaché
in the former Soviet Union during the Brezhnev era.
He was in combat in Vietnam, serving in the 82nd Airborne Division,
Special Forces, and as an advisor to a Vietnamese parachute battalion, earn-
ing two Purple Hearts for wounds in combat, four Silver Stars, and five
Bronze Stars for his daring under fire, which included running through
enemy fire during an ambush to retrieve a badly wounded soldier and hoist-
ing him on his back to save him. An airborne ranger, he was the first West-
erner to jump with a regular Chinese communist parachute unit. He later
served as chief of staff of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina. He was a champion swimmer at West Point. He competed in a
military decathlon in Russia and ran a full-length marathon in Commu-
nist China.
I sure tossed around that night. How would I possibly keep up with
this guy?

Somehow I managed the run. It was even fun, though I was exhausted. I
met the general in his office the next day, and the meeting went extremely
well. Loeffke was inspiring and seemed to take great pleasure in mentoring
a young officer. He was kind enough to spend an hour with me, pointing
out the ins and outs of the application process, the pros and cons of the pro-
gram, what to expect, what not to expect, and the best way to approach the
interview process if I advanced to the regional or national panels.
Encouraged by everyone’s support and faith in me, I made the leap
and applied. At age twenty-seven, after what seemed like an endless gaunt-
let of interviews and tests, I was selected to be a White House Fellow. I
was headed to Washington to serve during the transition between the
administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

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