It would give him time to oversee the major offensive under way in Afghanistan but bow out before the presidential elections. You make MPR News possible. Individual donations are behind the clarity in coverage from our reporters across the state, stories that connect us, and conversations that provide perspectives. Help ensure MPR remains a resource that brings Minnesotans together.
Most of that is due to physical issues, including obesity, diabetes and asthma. Scouting also teaches kids how to lead people their own age, a skill Gates found extremely useful during his career. He has a long history with the Boy Scouts — both he and his older brother are Eagle Scouts, and he has a photo of his father in a scouting uniform. Gates is stepping in at a time when many advocacy groups are calling for the Boy Scouts to also allow openly gay adult leaders.
Issues such as whether to use military force in Iran and Syria, the growing tensions between China and Japan and how to make government work. Gates took the job of defense secretary because he felt it was his duty to serve while American men and women were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. His favorite part of the job, he writes, was visiting the troops, which he did frequently. He would sit at their hospital bedsides, eat with them in the deserts of the Middle East and attend their funerals at Arlington Cemetery.
It was his attachment to the troops that led him to know it was time to leave his job in summer Meeting troops and their families on bases has been his favorite part of the book tour. Active-duty troops, their spouses and parents approach him at book signings to tell him how much it means to them that the secretary cared about them, fought for them and invested huge amounts of money to get better battlefield protection for them.
The book tour, the travel and the constant interviews will end eventually — or so he plans. He relishes the laid-back lifestyle — he rows on the lake, he runs in the morning, he visits his two children who both live nearby. I love it! A phone rings during the interview, but Gates ignores it. He added: "The pace and the number are going to depend on the conditions on the ground. Petraeus, interviewed on television on Sunday, refused to rule out the possibility that even a modest withdrawal of troops next year might have to be delayed.
McChrystal, having left the military, is to switch to an academic life, teaching a course at Yale University on "how dramatic changes in globalisation have increased the complexity of modern leadership". This article is more than 11 years old. Veteran politician who performed same role under George Bush will retire next year despite sense of crisis in Afghanistan.
Robert Gates plans to retire to his home in the Pacific north-west next year. Reuse this content.
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