This is the third in a series of three articles on what I’ve learned

during more than 42 years of government service.

September 30, 2007  

This series of three articles on what I’ve learned during 42 years of service in the US Army and the Department of Defense would not be complete without a comment about what I’ll miss most when I leave government. And what I’ll miss most is the company of great Americans.

It was early May 1968, just over a month since James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King in Memphis and a month until my two-year obligation as an artillery officer was up. I was about to leave the Army and return to civilian life. Sitting at the bar of the Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, Officers Club that evening, an Army lieutenant colonel wearing Military Intelligence brass with a patch over one eye, a chest full of medals, and a hand-carved wooden cane sat down beside me.

Over a couple glasses of beer we got around to talking about my leaving the Army. He asked me what I planned to do as a civilian. “Go back to school then maybe apply for a job with the FBI or the CIA,” I told him. Two hours later he’d convinced me to apply for voluntary indefinite status and a branch transfer to the clandestine side of Military Intelligence branch. 

As we parted company, he pointed to the 9th Division patch on my uniform. “You won’t regret it. Just like in the 9th, you’ll be in good company. You’ll be in the company of great Americans.” At the time I didn’t fully appreciate what he meant, neither did I know that our encounter was no coincidence.

Indeed, I had been in the company of great Americans when I fought alongside the officers and men of the 9th Infantry Division’s Mobile Riverine Force in Vietnam during my first tour in 1966-1967.

They fought and died for their country in an unpopular war. They came home to war protesters and a divided country. They were stereotyped as baby killers and drug addicts in movies and TV programs. But like their contemporary counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, they did their duty with pride and honor. It took the nation more than two decades to realize that and what great Americans they were and are. Many of their countrymen may have abandoned them, but they never abandoned each other.

The colonel was right. I was in the company of great Americans in Military Intelligence when I trained and served with intelligence case officers and counterintelligence special agents between 1969 and 1976.

Unsung Cold Warriors, they operated in the undercover world of espionage and counterespionage around the world. Collecting intelligence on our countries enemies and foiling the treachery of the KGB, the GRU, and communist block intelligence services, most of their stories remain sealed in our nation’s classified archives. But like the warriors I fought with in Vietnam, they were dedicated men and women who served the American people with pride and distinction. Their successes were important, although few will ever know about them.

Again, I was in the company of great Americans when I studied with other US Army Foreign Area Officers in Taiwan and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and when I served with attachés and intelligence analysts in China and Washington, DC, between 1976 and 1984.

Immersed in Chinese language and culture and China and Taiwan political-military affairs, these scholar-soldier-diplomats were DoD’s China-Taiwan brain trust at a pivotal time in US-China-Taiwan relations. They wrote the scholarly studies, defense and national intelligence estimates, and the intelligence reports that gave US decision-makers insights into China’s military modernization, its rise as a regional political and military power, and its growing threat to Taiwan.

I was in the company of great Americans in the Pentagon when I served the Secretary, Assistant Secretary, and Deputy Assistant Secretaries of Defense and with the career civilians and military officers in International Security Affairs between 1984 and 1992.

They were people with vision and a clear sense of what served the best interests of the United States. They charted the course of the emerging US-China defense relationship and helped hasten the end the Cold War. They strengthened US friendships and alliances in Asia and around the world. They negotiated lasting agreements and they implemented innovative policies like those that maintained arms sales to Taiwan and the delicate military balance in the Taiwan Strait.

I was in the company of great Americans in Washington, DC, and Honolulu, Hawaii, when I served with the men and women of the Defense POW/MIA Office, Joint Task Force Full Accounting, and the office of the ASD/ISA between 1992 and 1994.

They worked tirelessly to account for the more than 88,000 military personnel whose remains have never been recovered from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War. They were analysts who poured endlessly over meager evidence like crime scene investigators, family advocates who represented their interests, civilians and military people who dug up scraps of bone from decades old crash sites in dense jungle and mountain glaciers and who negotiated the return of remains with the governments of Russia, China, North Korea, and Vietnam. They were people committed to accounting for every missing American soldier, sailor, airman, or marine.

I was in the company of great Americans as a member of the global security cooperation community when I served with the men and women of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency between 1994 and 2007.

Career civilians and military officers in DoD, the US Army, Navy, and Air Force, on the staffs of combatant commanders, and at US Embassies around the world, they built and sustained critical US alliances and coalitions. They negotiated, executed, and oversaw programs for the government-to-government sale of defense articles and services to 170 countries. They supported our troops and our coalition partners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The delivered millions of dollars in aid to disaster stricken countries like Pakistan and Indonesia.

I never saw the colonel again after that brief encounter in the officers club. I long ago forgot his name, as we often forget over time the names of those we only meet once. I have no idea what ever became of him. Someone later told me, however, that he had reviewed my personnel file at post headquarters the month before our encounter. I regret I never had an opportunity to thank him. He was a great American.