Joint Force Quarterly. Issue 85, 2nd Quarter 2017

The old saying that history is written by the victors does not hold in all cases, but it still has a certain truth to it. Being able to know, with any certainty, what happened in the past is always a challenge, especially for the warrior scholars among us. As Editor in Chief, I have relied on the oral histories of those who have been involved over the years in producing JFQ. As you might expect, we have been fortunate to have many talented people at NDU Press with a common purpose of making General Colin Powells vision for the journal a reality. In a world filled with tweets, Facebook posts, and e-mail, receiving a handwritten letter has become a rare event. Even rarer for me would be to receive a letter from someone who was at the beginning of JFQs history. Colonel Frederick Fred J. Kiley, USAF, Ph.D., was in my seat at the formation of the journal and worked with General Powell directly to launch it, primarily as a means of fostering jointness among the Services. While I knew this fact, I had never had contact with Fred until he wrote me to discuss the most recent JFQ he had read. After reading his letter, I can say that having one of the founding folks speak so well of the current effort was a great moment in my professional career. Fred Kiley took General Powells vision, found talented people who could make it happen, and then led them to a successful start some 85 issues plus special editions ago in 1993. Not bad for someone who was also responsible for hundreds if not thousands of Air Force Academy cadets learning how to write well. Fred holds a Ph.D. in English and served for over four decades up on the Terrazzo. In a follow-up phone call between us, he helped fill in many of the gaps in my understanding of how and why JFQ came to be. Most important was how he identified his leadership style in just a few minutes of conversation by immediately giving credit to the team he built.