Known and Unknown (109 page)

72

When my colleague Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Ivanov saw the photograph of a young Rumsfeld with former President Dwight Eisenhower in a Pentagon display, he mused, “That would be like me in a photo with Stalin.” I laughed and thought, “Not quite.”

73

(Top to right) With my senior assistant Robert Rangel, Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, and Lt. Gen. Gene Renuart at a Pentagon meeting with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo in 2005. In the years after the 2001 EP-3 incident, relations between China and the United States went from strained to somewhat more cordial.

74

It was an honor to welcome Lady Margaret Thatcher to the Pentagon in 2006 and to show her one of the ballots from the first free Afghan elections.

75

With Joyce at the Air Force Academy's 2006 commencement. Through all the challenges of my second tour as Secretary of Defense, Joyce was at my side. At my farewell ceremony in December 2006, Gen. Pete Pace presented Joyce with the DoD Distinguished Public Servant Award. He said the
Reader's Digest
version of the tribute was “We love you, thank you.”

76

Joyce skied with the wounded troops in Vail, Colorado, and then enjoyed a barbecue hosted by local firemen. They cheered at what they had never seen before: a seventy-year-old woman sliding down a fire pole.

77

With Joyce at our surprise fiftieth wedding anniversary party in 2004.

78

Waiting to see the President with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Pete Pace just outside the Oval Office, I paused to shine his shoes so he would look his best. It was an example of civil-military relations at their finest.

79

Thanking World War II veterans at the sixtieth anniversary commemoration of V-J Day in Coronado, California, August 30, 2005. On that day six decades before, I had been selling newspapers where the San Diego ferry docked nearby.

80

The world saw its share of natural disasters in 2005, requiring DoD relief, including Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake in Pakistan. Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré (left) led the Katrina effort with Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell (center) and Adm. Tim Keating (far right).

81

In the fall of 2006, Joyce suggested we go to the Washington restaurant Old Europe for what we expected to be our last dinner with the combatant commanders.

82

With President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Pete Pace at my farewell ceremony at the Pentagon on December 15, 2006. After my remarks, I sat down. As the applause continued, the President turned to me and, using an analogy from his favorite sport, said, “Don, they're calling you out of the dugout.”

83

With Joyce and our children, Nick, Valerie, and Marcy, the day of my farewell ceremony. We were ready.