Review: Duty

It surprised me to read "I did not enjoy being secretary of defense," but that's the underlying truth to Robert Gates memoir – he truly felt it was his duty.

The 2006 midterm elections sent a message to President Bush: the public did not like the way his administration was conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response, the president asked Robert Gates, then president of Texas A&M University, to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Gates' tenure extended beyond the Bush administration's last two years, continuing an unprecedented two and a half more years into the Obama administration. During this time, he dealt with two wars, a whole world of international politics, a Congress whose primary interest was reelection, budget cuts due to the fiscal crisis, a politically charged White House staff, and a Pentagon dominated by inertial predictability.

It's that last one that was most interesting to me, because I was affected by his decisions regarding the MRAPs (Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicles). It was because of his efforts that I was able to ride around Kandahar province in a protective vehicle, rather than the notoriously vulnerable Humvee.

The issue at the Pentagon was one of focus and culture. From the beginning of the war, it was always supposed to last "just six more months." The military was never redirected from its five-year project horizon to the more immediate needs of the war. Hence, it took Gates' influence at the top to change the military's priorities. Consider this quote:

"There never was intentional neglect of the troops and their well-being. There was, however, a toxic mix of flawed assumptions about the wars themselves; a risk-averse bureaucracy; budgetary decisions made in isolation from the battlefield; Army, Navy and Air Force focus in Washington on the routine budget process and protecting dollars for future programs; a White House unaware of the needs of the troops and disinclined to pay much attentions to the handful of members of Congress who pointed to those needs; and a Congress by and large so focused on the politics of the war in Iraq that it was asleep at the switch or simply too pusillanimous when it came to the needs of the troops."

A recurring theme throughout the book is how sick and irritated he becomes with the highest levels of government, only to be refreshed every time he meets with everyday service members. Just like when he was a university president, he always made it a point to establish connections with the people he had to send into harm's way.

The book's final paragraph is its most touching, as he returns to the young people he admired:

"I am eligible to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. I have asked to be buried in Section 60, where so many of the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan have been laid to rest. The greatest honor possible would be to rest among my heroes for all eternity."