Christopher E Franklin

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Christopher E. Franklin was built differently from the start. In high school he was a football star, an honors student, and one of those kids who never seemed to slow down. He moved at a pace that didn’t make sense to most people—always on the go, always juggling something, always pushing harder than anyone asked him to. He didn’t brag about any of it. He didn’t have to. His effort level told the story. Whatever he was doing, he was doing it at 150%.

When he went off to the Air Force Academy, the updates came back in small pieces—nothing dramatic, nothing detailed. Just hints. A leadership role here. An academic achievement there. You could tell he was excelling, but he would never say it outright. That wasn’t his style.

Flight school was the same way. Little bits of information, never the whole picture. A promotion. A new assignment. Something about the B-52. A deployment. It all came filtered and understated, stripped of context, as if he assumed the details weren’t worth mentioning.

Only later did it become clear what was actually happening—that while the rest of us were living ordinary lives, Chris was operating in a world of intensity, pressure, and responsibility most families never see.

And the truth is simple:

I didn’t fully understand what he was doing.
Not then. Not even close.

And that is the very point of this book. If someone doesn't tell it, much will never be  known of Their Service

Chris started at the top of the food chain—graduating with military distinction from the U.S. Air Force Academy, ranking #11 out of 967 cadets. From the start, he was built for command: disciplined, unflappable, and wired for responsibility. Before most pilots ever get near a combat aircraft, he had already completed Army Air Assault School, freefall parachuting, and the kind of leadership training that screens out anyone without the spine for it.

By 1994, he had earned his way into the B-52H Stratofortress community—the backbone of America’s nuclear and long-range strike capability. The aircraft may have been older than most of the pilots flying it, but the stakes were enormous. One mistake in that world is not a small mistake. Chris didn’t make them.

He became an Aircraft Commander—responsible for a multi-million-dollar platform, a five-officer crew, and missions that carried congressional oversight and geopolitical consequences.

Chris advanced fast.
He became the youngest pilot ever selected for the elite 49th Test and Evaluation Squadron—an assignment reserved for officers who can fly, think, analyze, and lead simultaneously.

In that role, he served as lead pilot on the first operational test of the JDAM program—the Air Force’s top weapons priority at the time. He managed test programs, government contractors, data systems, and funding pipelines, delivering new capability into combat faster than anyone expected. These upgrades were pushed directly to bombers supporting Operation ALLIED FORCE in Bosnia. He wasn’t observing history. He was shaping it.

When he moved into leadership roles—Flight Commander, Chief of Scheduling—he commanded teams of officers and enlisted airmen while managing budgets in the tens of millions. He was trusted with “first-ever” missions and history-making surges. He had the kind of authority you don’t receive unless people are willing to stake their reputations on you.

In Washington, Chris’s responsibilities jumped from operational to strategic. As a Foreign Liaison Officer at the Pentagon, he served as the Operations Officer for the 9/11 relief effort at “Camp Unity,” coordinating support for over 1,000 volunteers and recovery personnel after the attack. That wasn’t flying. That was human crisis management at its rawest. That's right, he was there that dreadful Sept. day when the country and possibly the world changed.

Then, as an International Political Military Affairs Officer, he prepared the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for meetings with the President, National Security Advisor, and Secretary of Defense. He developed policy and strategic analysis for the Middle East and Africa. He even authored the Chairman’s Middle East Posture Statement for Congress.

This wasn’t low-level staff work.

This was shaping the military’s voice at the highest table in the country.

Chris’s final military role brought every piece of his experience into focus. As Executive Officer for the Commander of the Eighth Air Force, he helped oversee more than 20,000 personnel worldwide. Then he deployed to Qatar as the Senior Offensive Duty Officer for Operation Enduring Freedom.

That job put him at the center of real-time combat decision-making—directing fighter, bomber, and close air support missions across the Afghanistan theater.

This is where our stories quietly intersect.

During that deployment, Chris helped coordinate the air operations that supported the recovery of Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell—the mission chronicled in Lone Survivor. He never bragged about it, never held it up as a defining moment. To him, it was simply the responsibility of the role.

Years later, on a path that had nothing to do with the military, I ended up supporting the Michael Murphy Foundation and met Marcus at a Gala in Long Island. I was so impressed with Marcus, his service and resilience. Marcus spoke of the humbling experience of those that came to rescue him. Pure coincidence, but not insignificant. I sat right next to Marcus at our table, never knowing the involvement Chris had in helping him get back home.

And here’s the truth:
I didn’t know this part of Chris’s service. Not the scale of it. Not the impact of it. Not the proximity to events that shaped modern American military history.

This book isn’t about glorifying anyone. It’s about truth.
And the truth is this: families often live side-by-side while entire chapters of their histories remain hidden.

Chris carried two decades of intense, high-level service—nuclear missions, combat operations, Pentagon strategy, crisis leadership—and most of it stayed beneath the surface. Not because he was secretive, but because he didn’t think it needed to be talked about. We talked about family, skiing, our times as kids pulling pranks from the roof of our house and the time we got stuck his truck stuck in the snow on a side of a mountain not far from the Academy.

But his service does need to be talked about.

This chapter isn’t a tribute. It’s a correction. It’s putting ink where silence used to be.
It’s acknowledging that while the rest of us were living our lives, Chris was doing work that required precision, sacrifice, and a level of responsibility people outside the military rarely see.

His service shaped him, shaped our family, and shaped history in ways most of us only discovered years later.

This is why the book matters.

Because stories like his don’t tell themselves—and they deserve to be known.