Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

Acknowledgments

Above all, I wish to thank President Bush and President Obama for their trust and confidence in asking me to serve as secretary of defense. It was the honor of a lifetime to serve my country and the two of them in that role. I dedicated this book to the men and women of the United States armed forces, and I thank them for inspiring me every day I was secretary. As I have written in these pages, they are the best America has to offer. I also want to thank General Pete Pace and Admiral Mike Mullen for their friendship and partnership throughout this adventure. It was a great blessing to have these two men by my side every day. I also could not have asked for more capable, professional, and personable colleagues than the service chiefs, combatant commanders, and field commanders with whom I was privileged to work. I want to express special appreciation to my senior military assistants Lieutenant General Gene Renuart, Lieutenant General Pete Chiarelli, Lieutenant General Dave “Rod” Rodriguez, Vice Admiral Joe Kernan, and Lieutenant General John Kelly. Each was a mentor and a friend.

I also want to thank the senior civilians in the Department of Defense: Deputy Secretaries Gordon England and Bill Lynn, the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force with whom I worked, and the undersecretaries and their career and appointed colleagues whose support, expertise, and counsel I relied upon every day. Words cannot adequately express my appreciation—and dependence upon—those in my immediate office, Robert Rangel and Delonnie Henry (who served four secretaries), Geoff Morrell, Ryan McCarthy, and Christian Marrone, and the NCOs who subtly but effectively managed us all.

In writing this book, I have relied on my personal papers and notes, as well as notes taken by my staff. Where I quote individuals in conversations or meetings, the source is either notes from one of my staff who was present or my own notes made during or immediately after the event.

I want to thank Robert Storer, chief of the Records and Declassification Division at the Pentagon, for his help in reviewing my classified documents, and to the commander and staff at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station for providing the facilities for that review. Appreciation is also due to Mike Rhodes, director of administration and management, and Mark Langerman, chief of the Office of Security Review, at the Defense Department for their professional and expeditious review of the manuscript and photographs.

I want to thank Staff Sergeant Tim Brown and First Lieutenant Dan Moran for permission to use their photographs.

I asked several people to review parts or all of the manuscript, and want to thank them for taking the time and effort to help me: Robert Rangel, Pete Chiarelli, Geoff Morrell, Thayer Scott, Ryan McCarthy, Steve Hadley, Eric Edelman, Michèle Flournoy, and Harry Rhoads. Obviously, responsibility for any errors or mistakes is mine alone.

Special thanks as well to Wayne Kabak of WSK Management, who began representing me twenty years ago and has become a close friend, adviser, and counselor. I also want to express heartfelt appreciation to Jonathan Segal of Alfred A. Knopf, a superb editor and guide. It has been a special pleasure working with him. I also want to thank Sonny Mehta, Paul Bogaards, Meghan Houser, Chip Kidd, Lisa Montebello, Cassandra Pappas, and Michelle Somers at Knopf for their important contributions to this book.

Thanks are due to my able assistant, Keith Hensley, for all his help in the final stages of preparing this book. Without his technical expertise, I would have been lost. I want also to express my gratitude to Bill and Vicky Yarcho and Chris and Wendy Belanger, close friends in the Northwest who helped us so much during my years as secretary.

Finally, neither this book nor the experience it recounts would have been possible without my wife, Becky, whose patience and understanding as I was writing were surpassed only by her patience and understanding through my tenure as secretary of defense and forty-seven years of marriage.