A friend of mine told me of a WWII fighter pilot describing one especially memorable mission.

A force of 57 P-51 Mustangs was on its way into Germany. Suddenly, they noticed a lone ME-109 approaching from the left, flying straight and level directly across their route of flight. No one said anything over the radio, or made any move to go after the German, but all wondered what in the heck he was doing.

They all knew the instant the 109 saw the Mustangs. The airplane jerked as if the pilot had sneezed violently. Then it rolled over on its back, the canopy came open, and the pilot bailed out. None of the P-51s had ever broken formation.

Finally one Mustang pilot asked over the radio “Do we all get to claim 1/57th of a kill?”

What secret weapon caused this reversal in the attitudes within the much vaunted Luftwaffe? When the U.S. entered the war Herman Goring said “Don’t worry about the Americans. They make great refrigerators and fine Chevrolet cars but that is all.” When Mustangs showed up over Berlin Goring was asked if he knew where the Luftwaffe might get some of those refrigerators.

There wasn’t one secret weapon, or at least not just one. There was the Mustang itself, but there were a whole host of things that went with it and before it. And most of those things were not even designed for that purpose originally. Around 2002 the U.S. Army put our a purchase request for backpacks designed to carry “a laptop computer, a water bottle and a 9MM handgun.” A friend of mine sent me that notice with the caption “They are giving the nerds guns!”

We have seen the Terminator. He is a nerd carrying a laptop and a gun, driving a Chevy with a Fridgidare in the back seat.