I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this spring, heavyweight revisits some favorite episodes.

Yeah, I think I want to know why she made my life so difficult if she had some kind of thing against me.

Plus, we check back in with our guests to see what's changed in the years since.

How long has it been? Things have transpired.

Yeah, the last 10 years, everything's changed.

Listen to Heavyweight wherever you get your podcasts.

Pushkin.

Many years ago, I was on the board of a think tank called the Rand Corporation out in Los Angeles.

It was one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Rand does all kinds of work on health care and energy in the environment,

and most of all, they consult with the Air Force,

which meant from time to time various Air Force dignitaries would come and brief us.

And there were two I've never forgotten.

The first was a four-star general named David Goldfein.

From 2016 to 2020, he was chief of staff, the highest military post in the Air Force. Here's a Dave Goldfein story that sums him up. I was once in an elevator

with him at some conference, and we were all locked in conversation with the conference host,

and there was a man in the corner of the elevator who clearly worked for the hotel, older guy, in a maintenance uniform, who I'm ashamed to say,

we all treated like he was invisible, except for General Goldfein, who stopped the conversation,

reached over, shook the man's hand. Hi, I'm Dave Goldfein. How was your day?

In my experience, most powerful people do not notice the anonymous maintenance guy in the corner.

Second memorable person who came to Rand when I was there,

the secretary of the Air Force, Heather Wilson, the political appointee who runs the service along with the chief of staff.

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