Continued: A general's new mission S

LAKE OSWEGO, ORE.

Somewhere on the scale between swagger and shuffle, gruff and glib sits Gen. Merrill (Tony) McPeak, the Air Force's answer to the Great Santini.

Santini was a fictional Marine pilot whose intense assessments of right and wrong, duty and cowardice got him crosswise with, well, almost everyone he encountered. But he was one heck of a pilot.

McPeak? He keeps his cool a little more and gets along better with others. But he exhibits the same curt impatience for ineptitude, be it moral or political. And, according to those who've seen him in action, he's also one heck of a pilot.

Which all helps explain how the one-time supporter of President Bush finds himself among Sen. Barack Obama's inner circle of advisers. As one of a dozen national campaign co-chairmen, McPeak has schooled Obama on foreign policy and military issues, introduced him at more than a dozen campaign rallies and stood in frequently as a campaign surrogate with news media.

"He's someone who understands what a commander in chief will have to deal with," says Nayyera Haq, spokeswoman for the Obama campaign. "He's a Republican who crossed party lines. He was an obvious choice."

McPeak, who admits his own flaws as readily as he condemns them in others, downplays his impact on the presidential race between Obama, an Illinois Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.

But in a contest that could turn on issues of national security and the war in Iraq, McPeak, the former chief of the U.S. Air Force, has given Obama, who never served in uniform, valuable credibility on military and warfare issues.

Obama's fitness to be commander in chief, McPeak says, was an issue when he first entered the race and will continue to be a concern with voters right up to when they cast their ballots. It's not, however, an issue with McPeak.

"He has gut-fighting sidewalk smarts that have allowed him to prevail when people said he couldn't," says McPeak, a resident of Lake Oswego, over a cup of coffee at Blue Joe, his favorite local cafe. "And he did it in a way that they didn't even know their throats were cut until they tried to smile."

No wonder the two hit it off.

McPeak, too, finds a way to prevail. He grew up poor, but got a scholarship that paid his tuition at San Diego State College. He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps in college because it offered $1 a day. Between classes, he pumped gas, washed dishes and "hashed" at a campus fraternity

The military wasn't exactly a calling, but the idea of flying intrigued him, so he joined the Air Force. Lightning reflexes put him in the elite ranks of fliers.

During the Vietnam War, he became part of a secret flying squadron called "Misty" that served as forward observers along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, spotting targets and calling in air strikes.

"You had to be rather fearless," says John Hammar of Montgomery, Ala., who served in Misty around the same time as McPeak. "Usually you were hunting trucks and convoys. Sometimes you'd take ground fire. Sometimes you get shot down."

McPeak flew 269 combat missions in Vietnam. Many vets came home shattered. Not McPeak. He moved up, becoming a four-star general who served four years on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"I spent 37 years either fighting somebody or getting ready to, and loved every minute -- including Vietnam," McPeak says. "But I was a professional. This was my job."

Yes, he thought U.S. policy on Vietnam was misguided, just as he thinks it now is in Iraq.

But, he says, "you don't want fighter pilots who spend all their time in introspection."

'So personal'

It's midwinter in Iowa. The roads glisten with ice. McPeak relaxes in the cushy seat of a charter bus. The only other riders are Obama and a couple of top campaign staff.

"I got to know him in the context of cold pizza and Diet Cokes," McPeak says. "That was a highlight for me because it was so personal. We're not talking national security. We're watching NCAA basketball on satellite TV. We're betting on the games."

Not so long ago, McPeak wagered on Republicans to run the country. He was Oregon co-chairman of "Veterans for Bush" during the 2000 campaign. He was a staunch conservative and had advised the elder President Bush as a member of the Joint Chiefs.

Former Rep. Denny Smith, R-Ore., also a fighter pilot, was the other co-chairman. He says McPeak was deeply interested in Republican politics, even attending a precinct meeting.

Then, Smith says, "something happened that he was very unhappy about."

Smith says he doesn't know what triggered McPeak's decision to leave the party. McPeak says he was turned off by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney's go-it-alone policies, which he says helped alienate the United States from the rest of the world. But the clincher, he says, was the invasion of Iraq -- a decision he opposed from the outset.

"I didn't leave" the Republican Party, he says. "I was tossed out. I was tossed out by foolishness in Washington."

He registered as an independent and started helping Democrats. He first signed on with Howard Dean's presidential bid. Then, after Dean self-destructed, he joined Sen. John Kerry's campaign.

McPeak, now a registered Democrat, says he regrets endorsing Bush without doing his homework. "If I had met him I would have understood immediately the guy was kind of shallow."

Meeting Obama for the first time, McPeak says, was electric.

"I sound like a case of puppy love," McPeak says. "I'm a 72-year-old guy with scar tissue on top of my other scar tissue. I'm not that easy to impress." But, he says, "this guy has just got 20,000 volts running through him."

Three months after Obama scored big in the Iowa caucuses, his campaign bus rolls into Oregon and down the Willamette Valley to Salem. McPeak's on it. During a break, a reporter asks him about a statement by former President Clinton that a campaign between his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and McCain would involve "two people who loved this country."

"It sounds more like Joe McCarthy," McPeak says, comparing Clinton to the communist-hunting senator of the 1950s.

The comments prompt immediate scorn from the Clinton camp. McPeak calls Obama and offers to resign. Obama declines, but dispatches aides for a gentle chat, suggesting that the brusque McPeak choose his words more carefully.

Back at the Blue Joe coffeehouse, McPeak assesses his shortcomings. "I'm blunt, and bluntness is not the name of the game in politics," he says. "It's careful calibration, and I'm not very good at it."

He also admits to a reckless streak. About a year and a half ago, he was stopped and cited for driving under the influence. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to a diversion program.

"It was a bad mistake, very stupid," he says. "I had to go to rehab. I haven't had anything to drink since."