Colonel Slife chronicles the influence of the late Gen Wilbur L. "Bill" Creech - a leader, visionary, warrior, and mentor-in the areas of equipment and tactics, training, organization, and leader development. His study serves both to explain the context of a turbulent time in our Air Force's history and to reveal where tomorrow's airmen may find answers to some of the difficult challenges facing them today. Colonel Slife, who addresses such controversial topics as the development of the Army's AirLand Battle doctrine and what it meant to airmen, is among the first to describe what historians will surely see in years to come as the revolutionary developments of the late 1970s/early 1980s and General Creech's central role. Creech Blue enlightens the Air Force on its strongly held convictions during that period and challenges the idea that by 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Air Force had forgotten how to wage a "strategic" air campaign and was dangerously close to plunging into a costly and lengthy war of attrition had it not been for the vision of a small cadre of thinkers on the Air Staff. In exploring the doctrine and language of the decade leading up to Operation Desert Storm, Colonel Slife reveals that the Air Force was not as shortsighted as many people have argued. Contents * FOREWORD * Chapter 1 * AN ARCHITECT OF VICTORY? * Notes * Chapter 2 * MAKING OF BILL CREECH * Ideas and Doctrine * A Vision of Air Warfare * Equipment and Training * Organization and Leadership * Notes * Chapter 3 * THINKING ABOUT AIR WARFARE * The "Warfighter Conference" * Extending the Battlefield and AirLand Battle * Frustrations within the Air Force * Analysis and Summary * Notes * Chapter 4 * TOOLS OF THE TRADE * Realistic Training Takes Root * Instruments of Air Warfare * Defense Reform Debate * Analysis and Summary * Notes * Chapter 5 * ORGANIZING TO FIGHT, BUILDING LEADERS * "TAC Turnaround" * Creating More Leaders * Analysis and Summary * Notes * Chapter 6 * TO DESERT STORM AND BEYOND * Increasing Turbulence in Airpower Thought * Equipment and Training: Steady as She Goes, Mostly * Organization and Leadership: The Fighter Generals * Desert Storm: The Crucible of Combat * Post-Desert Storm: Changes in the Wind * Analysis and Summary * Notes * Chapter 7 * CONCLUSIONS * Notes * BIBLIOGRAPHY