"Personally, I don’t think we had a sense of mission early in the 1930s. The world had been made safe for democracy not too long before, and there seemed no chance of a war. We weren’t conscious of Hitler. I happened to be in the Philippines during those times, and we had a bomb squadron, a fighter squadron, an observation squadron, and a pursuit squadron over there. We flew around the islands and did our training because that’s what you did in peacetime. I know that we didn’t have a sense of purpose at that time. We didn’t see anything on the horizon; we weren’t worried about anything. We were just worried about getting enough airplanes to fly, and we were worried about getting our flying done."
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Military leaders from the United StatesPeople from MissouriMedal of Honor recipientsAviators from the United StatesUnited States Army people
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Leon W. Johnson
Leon William Johnson (13 September 1904 – 10 November 1997) was a United States Air Force general who was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading the attack on the Ploesti oil fields during World War II, and commanded the 44th Bombardment Group and 14th Combat Bombardment Wing during the war. After the war, he commanded the Strategic Air Command's (SAC) Fifteenth Air Force. He was air deputy to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, at SHAPE Headquarters from 1958 until he retired in 1961, but
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