Rhoads was sitting in a command center in Norfolk, Virginia, waiting for the attack to begin. Rhoads was immersed in Air Force black programs, having started out as a pilot of, first, an F-117 stealth fighter, then of various experimental aircraft in undisclosed locations. By the time of the Haiti campaign, he was chief of the Air Combat Command’s Information Warfare Branch at Nellis Air Force Base, Virginia, and, in that role, had converted Minihan’s phone-jamming idea into a detailed plan and coordinated it with other air operations. For days, Rhoads and his staff were stuck in that office in Norfolk, going stir-crazy, pigging out on junk food, while coining code words for elaborate backup plans, in case one thing or another went wrong. The room was strewn with empty MoonPie boxes and Fresca cans, so he made those the code words: “Fresca” for Execute the war plan, “MoonPie” for Stand down. After the Haitian putschists fled and the invasion was canceled, Rhoads realized that the setup had been a bit convoluted.
