Gates compares his extended reign at Pentagon to soldiers' 'stop-loss' draft

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Gates Tells Troops 'Sense of Duty' Caused Him to Stay

12.11.2008 at 06:37PM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told several hundred troops here on Dec. 11 that a sense of duty caused him to agree to stay on in his current job through the administration change.

Gates opened the session at the headquarters for the southern regional command by joking about his recent re-appointment as defense secretary - which at one time he was looking to avoid.

"I now have a better appreciation of what it's like to be stop-lossed," he joked, referring to a program that allows the Army to retain Soldiers in critical specialties beyond expiration of their enlistment.

Gates said the crucial junctures of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and upcoming critical budget decisions at the Pentagon are among the reasons he chose to stay on the job. But, he said, the singular reason came down to a sense of duty.

If hundreds of thousands of young Americans are doing their duty without fail, Gates said, he had no choice but to do otherwise.

"Each of you could have done something easier, safer and probably better paid. But you chose to step forward to wear this country's uniform," Gates said. "You chose to volunteer -- in some cases re-volunteer -- knowing full well that a deployment to a combat theater was the most likely result."

Standing on a stage with a large American flag draped across a backdrop made of olive-drab green parachutes, Gates said that in the past two years he has come to realize that the priorities of his office are to do everything possible to get the troops what they need to succeed and protect themselves on the battlefield.


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[texshelters]

1. Not funny

neither are the war crimes Gates aided and abbeted in during his time at the CIA.

Peace,
Tex Shelters