A full colonel, he is a group commander at a U.S. Army Air Forces base in Pianosa and is obsessed with becoming a general.
As such, he does whatever it takes to please his superiors—in particular, by repeatedly raising the number of missions the men have to fly to complete a tour of duty, beyond that normally ordered by other outfits.
Cathcart nightly makes lists of "feathers in his cap" and "black eyes", often finding something in the former category is in fact in the latter one, considering all the possible ways in which his superiors could react to them.
Cathcart is a master of political doublespeak, often completely contradicting what he says seconds after he says it, usually when a superior officer disagrees with him.
When Yossarian is caught AWOL in Rome, Cathcart is eager to have him court martialed and imprisoned, but Korn once again persuades him to offer him the credit for enough missions to send him home instead, to hush the whole affair up.