On a helicopter with Petraeus in Iraq. Our partnership in two wars would last four and a half years.
President Bush meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in their conference room (the Tank). From the end of the table, moving clockwise from me: Steve Hadley (National Security Adviser), General George Casey (Army), General Buzz Moseley (Air Force), General Jim “Hoss” Cartwright (vice chairman), General Pace (chairman), and Admiral Mike Mullen (Navy). Not visible is General Jim Conway (Marine Corps).
With President Bush at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq, for a meeting with the Iraqi Presidential Council. From left, Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi (Shia), Prime Minister Maliki (mostly hidden), President Jalal Talabani (Kurd), and Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi (Sunni). There was no love lost among them.
Aboard a C-17 cargo plane converted into a hospital plane. Such was the skill of the doctors and nurses on board that I heard of only one patient who died en route home.
I present Marine First Lieutenant Dan Moran his Navy Commendation Medal with V for valor at a Texas A&M home football game as 85,000 fans cheer him. I had handed him his diploma in 2003 when I was president of the university—a job I loved—and next saw him in the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
With Marines during basic training. I visited all of the services’ basic training facilities to see new recruits preparing to go to war.
Visiting the plant in Charleston, South Carolina, where skilled and dedicated workers complete the assembly and equipping of mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs). They knew they were saving lives.
Watching an MRAP being loaded for airlift to Iraq.
Enlisting new recruits in my hometown of Wichita, Kansas. They volunteered to serve knowing they would go to war.
At Kansas State University in late 2007, I called for more money for the long-underfunded State Department and U.S. development programs abroad. Coming from the secretary of defense, the speech made a big splash.
Becky and I arrive at Pacific Command in Hawaii, my arm in a sling. I had never broken a bone or had surgery before I was secretary of defense. I managed to do both within two years after taking the job.
With President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008. It was the only time I saw him sit patiently through hours of boring speeches. He lasted longer than most of his colleagues.
Lieutenant General Pete Chiarelli was one of my closest confidants. A tireless advocate for the troops, he was always exceptionally candid with me.
The dedication and opening of the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. To my left, the president, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, Admiral Mullen, and Jim Laychak (president of the Pentagon Memorial Fund).
I was the only secretary of defense to take an entire motorcade to a Burger King. Geoff Morrell, left, and Ryan McCarthy of my office enjoy my lack of discipline.
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and I are joined in the Oval Office by White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, at far left, and National Security Adviser Steve Hadley. It really wasn’t four against one. Well, sometimes it was.
In Baghdad in September 2008, for the change of command from Petraeus to General Ray Odierno. I can’t remember the reason for the levity, but there wasn’t much of it in Iraq.
Holding an informal press conference at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in September 2008. Twenty years earlier, as the deputy director of the CIA, I had been providing weapons to the Afghan resistance to attack Soviet aircraft at that base.
A birthday present from Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England. I was uncertain about the symbolism: did he think I needed the costume for my many battles?
Just another tourist in Kosovo.
Visiting my heroes who had fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Section 60, Arlington National Cemetery, late 2008. There would be many more.
In Kandahar, Afghanistan, checking out an M-29 Reaper drone, which represented a major innovation in reconnaissance and weaponry.
It wasn’t all drudgery and conflict: attending a Little League baseball game at the White House with President Bush and Admiral Mullen.
President Bush and I say our farewells in the Oval Office a few days before the end of his presidency.
One editorial cartoonist properly captures the venality of certain members of Congress, and another depicts the reaction to my announcement that I wanted to kill or cap three dozen major weapons and equipment programs.
With General David McKiernan, commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. He was a fine officer, but I relieved him on this visit.
Speaking to a group of Marines in Helmand province, Afghanistan, with the ever-present backdrop of MRAPs, a life-saving vehicle I championed. I would take an individual picture with every soldier and Marine present on such visits.
President Barack Obama was always friendly and gracious toward me, even when we disagreed.
Briefing President Obama in the Oval Office with JCS vice chairman Cartwright, perhaps Obama’s favorite general.
A U.S. ground-based interceptor missile in its silo at Fort Greely, Alaska. The GBIs there are the heart of our missile defense against limited threats from North Korea and Iran.
A press briefing aboard an E4B en route to Singapore. The plane, a converted Boeing 747, was dubbed by the crew “The Big Brisket” in recognition of my fondness for barbecue, which was often served on these flights.
CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and I share a laugh while taping a joint interview at the Pentagon. She was a terrific colleague and a highly valued one—not least for her sense of humor.
With two presidents in a dressing room at Texas A&M University. Obama supported George H. W. Bush’s Points of Light Foundation. They were the sixth and eighth presidents I worked for.
Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai and I always had a warm relationship, even when he was bitterly criticizing the United States. Many of his outbursts were provoked by our failure to heed concerns he voiced in private—and by internal politics in Afghanistan.