During the whole flight down, Bull allowed his fantasies to roam the country of his eyes. He needed a war. He need it badly.
-- Narrator (Chapter 18 paragraph p. 230)

Importance: Here, the narrator speaks of the transfer of 367 to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to the very existence of Bull Meecham. Bull is a fighter pilot, through and through. His life is the military. His life is war. Without such, he couldn't exist. Peacetime military service is barely enough to keep Bull going. He wants a war to help complete his existence, his purpose on earth.

Bull himself was obsessed by a carefully concealed fear that he would die in a plane, and he knew that death in flight could assume many shapes, a light on a control panel, a subtle change in an engine’s pitch, a frozen control, a migratory bird.
-- Narrator (Chapter 26 paragraph p. 334)

Importance: In a small window into the inner workings of Bull Meecham, the narrator reveals...