Rumsfeld Says America is Servicemembers' Gift to Future
(June 29, 2010) |
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| WASHINGTON, June 25, 2010 – America exists and prospers because members of the
U.S. armed forces step forward and protect it, former Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld said here today. "In a very real sense,” he said, “America is their
gift to the future".
Rumsfeld was at the Pentagon for the unveiling of
his official portrait at a ceremony hosted by Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates. |
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, right, addresses the audience while former
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld looks on during Rumsfeld's portrait
unveiling ceremony at the Pentagon, June 25, 2010.
DoD photo by Cherie Cullen |
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“This country – which has treated me so well – exists and prospers because the
members of the United States armed forces have volunteered to step forward and
protect it,” Rumsfeld said.
Rumsfeld served as the 13th defense secretary from 1975 to 1977 and as the 21st
secretary from 2001 to 2006. He is both the youngest and oldest man to serve as
defense secretary.
Both of his official portraits will hang in the Pentagon. The newest, painted by
Steven Polson and unveiled today, shows Rumsfeld at his stand-up desk with a
picture of first-responders and soldiers |
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unfurling the flag over the still-burning Pentagon on Sept. 12,
2001. |
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The unveiling ceremony was a veritable who's who. Former defense secretaries
William Cohen and Frank Carlucci attended. Retired Air Force Gen. Richard B.
Myers and retired Marine Gen. Peter Pace – who served as chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff alongside Rumsfeld - were there with their wives. Former deputy
secretaries Paul Wolfowitz and Gordon England, retired Air Force Gen. Joe
Ralston, retired Navy Adm. Vern Clark, retired Navy Adm. Ed Giambastiani, former
senior Pentagon correspondent Charlie Aldinger, and many more friends attended
the event.
Gates noted that the Defense Department is one place in Washington where there
is a degree of consistency and continuity, even as administrations and political
parties change. The men who have served as defense secretary have experiences in
common including “the challenges we face; the obstacles we have to overcome
within this building and across the river; the changes we pursue to
better-protect this country and do right by its men and women in uniform,” Gates
said.
The secretary pointed out that Rumsfeld began his second stint as defense
secretary on Jan. 20, 2001, with a mandate to transform the U.S. defense
establishment from its Cold War posture, attitudes and moorings to a force ready
to confront the threats of the 21st century.
“On a bright Tuesday morning in September, eight months into President [George
W.] Bush's first term, a decade of slumber in a holiday from history came to a
crashing halt,” Gates said. “This country and this military learned how
dangerous and unpredictable this new era could be, and saw in the starkest terms
how necessary was the task of transforming this department to meet these
challenges.”
Rumsfeld inspired, educated and often charmed a wounded nation, the secretary
said. Rumsfeld's first action on 9/11 was to rush to the aid of those killed and
wounded in the attack. In the days and months after the attack, Americans heard
straight talk from the podium about how the military really was going to “kill”
America's enemies – “jarring stuff for a country grown accustomed to euphemisms
and political correctness,” Gates said.
And the world saw the rapid removal of two odious regimes in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
In addition to fighting America's enemies, Rumsfeld “simultaneously and doggedly
pursued an agenda of institutional transformation and reform – grappling with
inertia and vested interests like the champion wrestler he once was,” Gates
said. “The result is an American military that has become more agile, lethal,
and prepared to deal with the full spectrum of conflict.”
Rumsfeld famously brought his own unique and bracing style of personal
management to the Pentagon bureaucracy, Gates noted, citing Rumsfeld's habit of
sending handwritten memos to his aides, who called them “snowflakes.”
Military and civilian employees “soon discovered that snowflakes really could
fall from above in the middle of August,” Gates said. “Self-described as
‘genetically impatient,' [Rumsfeld] did not brook much nonsense or suffer fools
gladly – as many an unprepared briefer would find out the hard way.”
Rumsfeld, who will be 78 next week, joked that he has been alive for almost a
third of the existence of the republic.
“I've seen our country in times of depression, prosperity, peace and turmoil,
[through] exhilarating triumphs and agonizing wars,” he said. “In my lifetime,
our national leaders have had to tackle the worst economic depression, order
troops into combat against the longest of odds on islands in the Pacific and
battlefields in Europe, win legislative struggles that belatedly but finally
brought equality to millions of Americans, right our battered ship of state
after the Vietnam War and Watergate and win a 50-year struggle against a
communist empire of boundless ambition an ideology of discredited lies.
“And we've seen this great nation take the offense after a devastating terrorist
attack – one that shook the foundation of this building now almost nine years
ago,” he added.
America has survived all these crises “because we are a free people, blessed
with a free economic system, a free political system,” Rumsfeld said. “We're
free to think and to act, to believe and to protest, to vote and petition, and
yes, free to succeed, free to fail and free to start again.”
The former defense secretary spoke about his favorite photo that brightly
illustrates what freedom can accomplish: it is a satellite photo of the Korean
peninsula taken at night. The free South Korea is bathed in light. In the
communist North, a small glimmer of light is seen around the capital city of
Pyongyang – otherwise the country is dark.
“They are exactly the same people north and south, exactly the same resources
north and south, but those millions of Koreans who labor in the north work not
for their families, but for a regime that enslaves them,” Rumsfeld said.
The United States is free and the people of America are free to make their own
choices, he pointed out.
“We can choose to engage the world and strengthen alliances with our friends and
our trading relations, deter potential foes and to take the fight to them when
necessary,” Rumsfeld said. “Or we can retreat and make the tragic mistake of
modeling our country after failing systems. If we choose the latter, let there
be no doubt, we are certain to fail the generations that follow.”
Rumsfeld said it was important to him and his wife, Joyce, that his second
official portrait includes the photo of the Pentagon workers unfurling the
American flag.
“It shows that the traits of resilience and perseverance – while remarkable –
are not uncommon in those in this department,” he said. “Those traits are what
sustained this country, and what I saw every day in the men and women I served
alongside months and years after the worst terrorist attack in our country's
history.” | |
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2010
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