The Last Word—Commander’s Column by Fred Apgar

For the past several weeks, the media has been all abuzz regarding revelations made by former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, in his recently released book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War.  Depending on one’s ideology, you might praise Gates for exposing the duplicitous manner in which our Commander in Chief conducted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or you might ridicule Gates for being a self-serving and self-righteous partisan, whose motives for publishing the book were strictly monetary and vengeful.

I have a different view.  I have no doubt that much of what he revealed in his book actually occurred, but I take issue with Gates with the manner in which he chose not to address the issues he raised.  Gates worked as Secretary of Defense for four and a half years, bridging the Bush and Obama administrations.  In spite of all of the problems he witnessed, lack of trust between military and administration leaders, declining morale among members of the military, lack of enthusiasm in supporting military operations, and decisions based on pure ideology and political expedience, Gates remained silent.  Despite his moral and legal obligation to “protect” those whose lives had been placed in danger, Gates became complicit in all that has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If he really cared about the manner in which combat operations were being conducted, he would have done the principled thing and resigned and done so in a very public fashion.  He could have testified in a Congressional hearing about the issues he raised in his book.  He shouldn’t have waited more than a year to disclose the injustices he witnessed while he wrote his book.  He should have begun work, immediately, to correct the problems cited in his book.

I keep waiting for that principled leader to step forward and place the lives of those they have sworn to defend ahead of their own careers.

The views expressed in this column are solely those of the Commander and do not represent those of VFW Post #8870, its membership, or VFW.