Chapter Twelve explores three endeavors embraced by Rogers in the last decade of his life. His wanderlust and populist desire to gain practical knowledge and meet ordinary people prompted extensive world travel that took him to Central and South America, Europe, China, Japan, and the Soviet Union. These encounters bolstered his staunch anti-imperialism. Rogers also emerged as one of America’s greatest boosters of aviation. Seeing the wide-open skies as a new frontier and airplane pilots as updated version of the self-reliant cowboy, he promoted the development of commercial and military aviation at every opportunity and idolized flyers such as Lindbergh. Finally, Rogers embraced the newfangled media technology of radio. He became the host of a nationally broadcast radio program, first for CBand then for NBC, that allowed him to reach an enormous audience with his humorous reflections on the issues and personalities of the day. Rogers also became entangled in controversy when he used the n-word in one of his broadcasts, undercutting his record of supporting African Americans while forcing him to confront his own casual assumption of white racial superiority.

Chapter 2 analyzes the ideas of the airpower theorist William (Billy) Mitchell. It describes his life and his "America," which in the words of period novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was "careless and confused." Mitchell, like his America, pursued his goals aggressively regardless of the consequences. This chapter also discusses how Jominian first principles – concentration, offensive action, and decision by battle – figured in Mitchell’s thinking. It ends by explaining how Mitchell’s model of war’s nature was essentially the same as Mahan’s, the traditional model.