Chuck Horner is dead. He died in 1962 on a routine training exercise in the Libyan desert.At least, that's the way he tells it. In fact, Chuck Horner is alive and well and living in Florida. What happened in the North African desert is something he can only explain as a miracle. His fighter was pointing nose down, diving toward the sand, and the controls were not responding. Just feet above the ground, against the laws of physics and counter to his training, one last maneuver pulled him out of his dive. Upside down and with the tail inches above the sand, Horner righted the plane and flew home. "Every day of my life after that event has been a gift," he says. "I was killed in the desert in North Africa. I'm dead." Horner thanks God for pulling him out of that dive. Readers who enjoy the inside story of modern military strategy and combat might feel some gratitude as well, because if the desert has claimed Lieutenant Chuck Horner 37 years ago, we would not today have General Chuck Horner (Ret.), whose stellar career has seen him serve as commander of the Ninth Air Force, commander of the U.S. Central Command Air Forces, and most relevant to Every Man a Tiger , the man in charge of allied air power in the Gulf War. The story of Horner's survival in the desert and the rich details of his successful command in the Persian Gulf, recounted by Tom Clancy in Every Man a Tiger , are all told with the same skill and craft that Clancy brings to his bestselling fiction. The two men are an impressive team: Horner provides the facts, and Clancy re-creates the drama.