Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (retired),like his father before him, has devoted his career to defending the United States. He completed four combat tours in Vietnam, flight reconnaissance missions during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and air escort missions in the Berlin Corridor before becoming assistant vice chief of staff for the Air Force. In his retirement, 72-year-old McInerney has worked as a businessman promoting advanced technology in the service of national defense. He spoke with The Examiner about the beliefs that have guided all of his life.
Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I am a practicing Catholic and I have a very strong Catholic belief, although I’m ecumenical. I would, if I couldn’t find a Catholic church, go to an Episcopalian or other church in order to go to church on Sunday. I remember as a young lieutenant in my first tour in Vietnam in 1963, in Bac Lieu province — Mass was said in Latin in those days. So it was no different for me than if I was going to Mass in the U.S. Having been an altar boy as a youngster, and as a cadet at West Point, I was very comfortable in that environment. Traveling around the world, wherever I’d go to Mass, I felt very comfortable no matter where it was.
Did any event in particular especially influence your faith or your path in life?
There’s an old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes, and certainly my four tours in Vietnam reaffirmed that, and reaffirmed my belief in the power of prayer. I wouldn’t equate any one event with that, except in reflection I would say that you never quite understand why people next to you or on your wing are chosen, and you are not. But it gives you an overall understanding that you’re in the hands of a supreme being, and if you have a strong faith you accept that. You aren’t necessarily comfortable with it, but you certainly accept it.
What would you recommend young people seek to understand more fully in order to preserve the country you’ve spent much of your life defending?
I am a product of WWII — my father participated in WWI and WWII. I lived in Germany for three and a half years following WWII, in my early teens, and saw the devastation that was created by that war. And I focused on the Soviet Union my entire 35 years in the Air Force, and understood that fundamental threat. I think what’s important now is that too many young Americans do not appreciate why we are free, and why we have choices. They are aware of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they’re certainly aware of 9/11. But they should take time to understand in a deeper way, rather than simply the media portrayal, the threats that we face. A great threat to this world is radical Islam, which is an ideology just as bad as Nazism and communism and fascism. It cannot be denied or ignored.
How would you convince relatively comfortable Americans that the seemingly faraway threat of radical Islam still demands their attention and understanding?
Technology enables rogue states with an ideology of radical Islam to come not only to our cities, but to European and to Israeli cities as well. I would tell someone that the Iranian nuclear weapons will be in the hands of terrorists, and they will be in U.S. cities in 10 years. This is a danger that young people must understand before it’s too late. Are we on the same collision course that we found ourselves on in September 1939? It’s a very dangerous world.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
Christianity and Catholicism are the cornerstones and the keystones of my moral beliefs. And particularly in the military, the understanding of Christianity’s core values, starting with love thy neighbor as thyself. That has certainly been the keystone throughout my career and in all of my endeavors in life — whether 35 years in the military, or in my business life of the past 15 years.
