Spartan Profiles: Don Cook
FOUR-STAR GENERAL
Although Hollywood likes to glamorize fighter pilots, like Maverick (Tom Cruise) in Top Gun, it was mostly bomber pilots who made Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan a success. “Bunker Busters,” “Daisy Cutters” and “Thermobaric Bombs” are now part of the American lexicon. Keying their success is Gen. Donald G. Cook, ’69, commander of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph AFB, Texas.
“Simply said, we prepare the air arm of the Defense Dept. to conduct its mission,” explains Cook, a four-star general. “Our team provides the training and education that ensures America’s global air superiority. America’s Air Force is the best in the world–bar none.”
Besides producing aviators, each year Don’s unit recruits and gives basic military training to more than 36,000 people; commissions nearly 6,000 USAF officers; educates more than 150,000 people; and teaches technical skills to more than 130,000 students. “(This is) the foundation for much of the might America brings to the war on terrorism,” says Don of the AETC, “from the aviators who drop the bombs, medics in the field and special operations forces to the researchers who develop smart bombs, intelligence experts and war planners who produce the strategies for combat.”
A bomber pilot himself, Don has personally flown more than 3,300 hours and, among many posts, served in the Senate Liaison Office, on the House Armed Services Committee, and as director of the USAF’s Expeditionary Aerospace Force Implementation, a unit that plans for the U.S. to be able to fight in two regional conflicts at once.
Don credits much of his military success to his ROTC experience at MSU. “The education I received and life skills I developed while a student at MSU provided the foundation for the military career I have enjoyed for the past 32 years,” he says. “My ROTC experience reinforced and instilled in me a set of values that I carry with me to this day – things like integrity, selflessness, service, patriotism and teamwork.”