I had been a senior staff writer at GQ Magazine, which then was under the

editorship of Art Cooper, who was something of a legend. He had been there for

close to 20 years. In the movie version, that guy would have been played by Sean

Connery, you know, Black Turtle Neck, Black Pants. They had a Balagray goose vodka on

the desk. I was there for a little over two years and in February 2002, Art Cooper

retired. I think, really, he was retired. There was competition coming at GQ

at that time for magazines like Maxim and FHM and to oversimplify the

perception, they needed new blood in there to run the book. And it didn't involve

me. I was in my late 20s. Our first son had just been born and we were

pregnant with our second child. And, you know, I was suddenly unemployed and I

didn't know what I was going to do. I sent a handful of story ideas to Bob Wallace,

the top editor at Men's Journal. Men's Journal at the time, it was similar to GQ,

but with like an outdoorsy bent. I would say they had a fair amount of, you know,

journalism with a capital J. And I go in, you know, to Bob's office. I was like ready

for my first day of school with my little notebook and my printout of my story ideas

and I'm ready to discuss them. And I forget how he did it, but essentially he's like,

yeah, we're not interested in any of those. And I was like, okay, what am I doing here?

He said something to the effect of like what we'd really like to have is a piece on the

Air Force Academy scandal. And I was like, yeah, who wouldn't, right? Like that was 2003.

That was a huge deal. The past five months have been the most

tumultuous in the history of the US Air Force Academy. There are four separate investigations

into the conduct of male cadets toward women at the Academy.

...