Yeager – by General Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos, pub. Century Hutchinson, London 1986

Strictly this book has little to do with cross-cultural issues, though Chuck Yeager served in a number of countries including Germany, Pakistan, Spain and the Philippines and had extensive dealing with people from other cultures.  I am including a review of this book because I found it interesting.  Chuck Yeager is well known as the first person to fly faster than sound, breaking the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 in 1947, he was also one of America’s leading test pilots for many years, at a time when the US Air Force was introducing its first jet aircraft.  Yeager was also put in charge of America’s training school for astronauts, which was later closed when plans for the military use of space were changed.

However Yeager was first and foremost a fighter pilot, a man who once shot down five German aircraft in one sortie, he flew the P-51 Mustang over Western Europe in World War II.  He also saw service in Vietnam where he flew 127 combat missions. 

In 1971 he was posted to Pakistan as US Air Advisor during the period of the India-Pakistan War over East Pakistan.  He and his wife Glennis experienced cultural problems with the eight servants in the house they were living in, in Islamabad.  Glennis Yeager complained about their laziness and stealing to a visiting tribal chief, Malik Atta.  Atta’s reaction was to say, “Be so kind, Madam, to point out the culprit and I will shoot him on the spot. This instant. He’s dead.”  It took the Yeagers a while to calm Atta down and get him to put his gun away.