Positive Leadership, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER7Developing Positive Leadership

General Rhonda Cornum, recently retired head of the U.S. Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, was on a search-and-rescue flight in Iraq in 1991 when her Blackhawk helicopter was shot down. Five of the eight crew members were killed. Cornum and two others were taken prisoner by the Iraqi army.

“Let me tell you something about my own experience,” she said. “So I got shot down. The next thing I know some Iraqi soldier is dislocating the shoulder in my already broken arm. I thought, ‘Well, I’m not dead. I’m a prisoner of war.’ As we were crashing, I remember thinking that I had two options—either I’d be dead or I’d be captured. Being captured was better. I could still wiggle my fingers, and that was ...