The Air Force's Charles Gabriel How To Fly High: Having a plan and a can-do attitude were this general's wings.(A)

Byline: GLORIA LAU

The way Charles A. Gabriel saw it, people could be anything as long as they aimed high.

Gabriel knew from personal experience. He'd been misjudged when his football coach, Chubby Kirkland at the United States Military Academy at West Point, told President Truman during the Korean War: "This boy will never become military material."

Kirkland apparently thought the boy who played quarterback was better off playing football, something he excelled at, rather than going to war -- something he didn't seem cut out for.

But Gabriel focused entirely on making it in the armed forces. His belief in himself helped catapult Gabriel to become the 11th chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. He also became the senior uniformed Air Force officer responsible for organizing, equipping and training the nearly 1 million active duty members of the National Guard, Reserve and civilian force at 3,000 locations across the country and overseas.

When appointed by President Reagan in 1982, he was the first fighter pilot ever to serve as Air Force chief of staff.

Before that, chiefs of staff were bomber pilots or nuclear weapons deterrence experts. Gabriel, a four-star general, was able to get past that because he had more knowledge than most about tactical air power. His tenure would include the Libya raids of 1986.