The Unmasking of Ned Stark and the Future of Air Force Leadership
War on the Rocks
War on the Rocks
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2019
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Almost exactly one year ago, an Air Force colonel using a pseudonym -- 'Ned Stark' -- penned an article for War on the Rocks . This cri de coeur -- a call for major reforms to how the Air Force selects and promotes leaders -- quickly burned across the author's service. It fueled an important debate and even elicited a supportive response and job offer from none other than Gen. David L. Goldfein, the chief of staff of the Air Force. 'Stark' penned more articles for War on the Rocks and the Air Force Times in the year that followed. And now he is choosing to come out into the open and reveal his identity. Listen to his conversation with Ryan Evans on why he chose to join the public debate, the benefits and costs to using a pseudonym, the difficulties of hiding his identity, and the fundamentally important personnel and leadership issues at stake in the U.S. Air Force. Ned also talks about his future, the role of faith in his professional ethics, and what books have most influenced him.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You are listening to War on the Rocks, podcast on Strategy, Defense and Foreign Affairs. |
| 0:16.1 | My name is Ryan Evans. |
| 0:17.1 | I'm the editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks. |
| 0:18.8 | In this episode, we are going to be unmasking Ned Stark, the Air Force officer whose articles burned across his service. |
| 0:26.3 | He's writing under a pseudonym that I'm told is taken from some sort of weird TV show, but we're |
| 0:32.0 | going to sit down with him in this episode and reveal who he is and all |
| 0:36.0 | sorts of other things. |
| 0:40.3 | So Ned, or shall I say, Jason Lamb, Colonel Jason Lamb, tell us who you are. |
| 0:46.0 | Hey, good morning Ryan. |
| 0:48.0 | Jason Lamb, I'm a Colonel in the Air Force and been in coming up on 24 years. |
| 0:55.0 | And what's your background? |
| 0:57.0 | When did you join? |
| 0:58.0 | What do you do? |
| 0:59.0 | Sure. |
| 1:00.0 | So I graduated from the Air Force Academy in 95 and went straight to Intel School. |
| 1:05.0 | I've done a couple different things during my career but I'm principally an intelligence officer |
| 1:09.4 | and I'm currently assigned to the Air Education Training Command headquarters staff down in San Antonio, Texas. |
| 1:18.0 | What are your favorite jobs that you've had so far in the Air Force. |
| 1:23.4 | So there's a little bit of a funny story on that. |
| 1:26.0 | Second Lieutenant Lamb driving from Barksdale Air Force Base up to Las Vegas because we had to courier classified and have had to find Air Force |
| 1:35.9 | Bases to stop along the way. |
| 1:38.3 | We stopped at this one of the places we had to stop was Cannon Air Force Base in |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from War on the Rocks, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of War on the Rocks and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.