Yeah, Boyd's bio was a dry but super informative read. I loved it, some pretty funny anecdotes. I've been into aviation my whole life and I had never heard of him until I picked up that book at a thrift store.....I was pretty impressed with him, had no idea that he had pretty much steered USAF tactical aviation right to where it ended up by Gulf I, ensuring the USAF had the planes it needed to complete the mission sets presented after so many years of more or less planning for "the Big One" to come out of eastern Europe. An incredibly forward thinking individual.
I think my favorite story in the book is not about aviation though. Stormin' Norman presented his battle plan to the White House and it was another large scale, mass frontal assault, what Boyd had always called "hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle". Well, Donald R was one of Boyd's cronies back in the year, took one peek at the plan and threw it back at the Gen, telling him "nah, figure out a way to go around it all, the come back with THAT in your new plan". The plan executed by coalition forces was more or less a product of Boyd's battlefield thinking. Pretty impressive that it came from an aviator's influence, correctly assessing history and what could be changed to make modern assaults less costly for the good guys!!