Everyone just called him “the major.” He was the Department of Defense official in charge of the Operation Warp Speed team assigned to Moderna, one of the companies working at breakneck speed on a vaccine. The major was tasked with keeping Moderna’s efforts on track, the logistics guy to their science guys.

Work on the vaccine was progressing exceedingly well last summer when the team hit a glitch. An immense air handling unit for its manufacturing factory could not be delivered because of tight Covid-19 restrictions on interstate trucking, threatening an indefinite delay in the race to test their vaccine.

So Moderna called the major. His team arranged for a law enforcement escort to accompany the key piece of equipment all the way from the Midwest to Massachusetts, and vaccine production continued on pace without interruption.

That anecdote appeared in an extraordinary story in the New York Times recently on how Operation Warp Speed is about to accomplish the impossible: deliver the first coronavirus vaccine within a year.

Here, finally, is the bright spot we all need in an otherwise frustrating, deadly fight against COVID-19. Here, finally, is something America does well.

Warp Speed has two leaders, one a scientist, one a general. In charge of the science is Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who had led research and development at the drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and was on Moderna’s Board of Directors.

In charge of logistics is Gen. Gustave F. Perna, who led Army Materiel Command. 

Perna and Slaoui is a partnership for the ages.

The key to their success was the same key to America’s success fighting World War II: a tight, creative collaboration between business and government.

There’s a great book called “Freedom’s Forge” about how American industry armed the military during world War II. Operation Warp Speed’s leaders discussed the book and decided to apply its lessons to their effort, imposing a “battle rhythm” on their meetings, The Times reported.

Perna called it a “whole of America approach.”

“I like you to think of it this way,” Perna recently said in a roundtable hosted by the Heritage Foundation. “Our world’s best scientists and doctors working beside the world’s best military with the support of American industry and academia, that is Operation Warp Speed. And we are really proud to be working together and as a collective team to drive towards a solution of safe and effective vaccine for the American people.”

Operation Warp Speed was the brainchild of Dr. Peter Marks, the top vaccine regulator for the Food and Drug Administration. Administration officials proposed the coordinated effort last spring.

The collaboration between the Pentagon and the Department of Health and Human Services was launched to support pharmaceutical and biotech companies with funding and government expertise, from clinical trials to logistics. According to an early memo, the goal for a vaccine was October.

Operation Warp Speed created six teams of clinical trial specialists, epidemiologists and budget experts, each team assigned to the vaccine makers they identified as having the best chance of success. Pfizer and Moderna were two of those, both of whom have now shown success rates of 90% or better in their vaccine trials. 

Back in March, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, cautioned that it would be a “year to a year and a half” before doses could reach the public.

On Tuesday, Fauci said the progress that has been made on vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer and other companies since January is “beyond historic.”

“Operation Warp Speed has been a success,” Fauci said definitively during a virtual summit hosted by STAT, a website that tracks biotech and pharmaceutical developments. “It’s a total revolution.”

Slaoui said this week that some Americans could start receiving a COVID-19 vaccine by the second week of December.

On Tuesday, Perna said federal officials believe they’ll be able to keep their promise to distribute 40 million doses by the end of the year. He said they hope to distribute 6.8 million doses to states within 24 hours of an emergency use authorization.

Colorado is one of 10 jurisdictions chosen to participate in a COVID-19 vaccine distribution pilot program by Operation Warp Speed and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The test, conducted with the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and Pfizer and McKesson pharmaceuticals, will demonstrate the state’s end-to-end logistical readiness to distribute the vaccine when it becomes available.

Was government in general, and the military in particular, essential to the project? After all, Pfizer paid for all their research themselves, and had minimal government help along the way.

But Pfizer signed a $1.95 billion agreement in July to sell the federal government 100 million doses of its vaccine if it were successful. So the government guaranteed Pfizer a buyer. In business school, I believe that is called incentive.

And nearly $2.5 billion in federal funds helped Moderna directly — to buy raw materials, expand its factory, and grow its workforce.

All told, OWS has poured $10 billion into the clinical development and manufacturing of potential vaccine candidates, according to STAT. OWS has already stood up more than two dozen vaccine manufacturing facilities, Paul Mango, HHS’ deputy chief of staff for policy, told STAT recently.

And it has already stockpiled hundreds of thousands of doses of as-yet-unproven immunizations. As soon as those immunizations get the go-ahead, the U.S. can distribute within days. Yes, the vaccines were manufactured before we know if they will even work or not. How’s that for American chutzpah? 

There’s a lesson in Perna’s “whole of America approach” for our politics, and our immediate future of shared power between Democrats and Republicans.

Yes, Republicans generally favor more of a market approach, Democrats more of a government approach. But when the two figure out a way to work hand in glove, market and government, rather than throwing punches from opposing corners, then horizons are lifted, possibilities are expanded, and America soars.

I’m thinking we’re all pretty tired of fear, of gridlock, of division and distractions at this point.

The “whole America” success of Operation Warp Speed speaks to our deepest desire.

We just want to heal.