Word: forte
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...left his parents and three sisters for Fort McClellan, Ala. There he fell in love with a college student named La Donia Miller, the woman who would become his wife. Despite his dad's warnings, he also fell in love with the idea of becoming a warrior. A three-year stint in Germany--tagging along on road marches, soaking up the camaraderie of Desert Storm veterans--led him to re-enlist. While in Europe, he spent six months in Bosnia. Suddenly the supply guy "was in full battle rattle, doing patrols," he says. "I loved being out there with them...
...Airways manages to reorganize under bankruptcy protection, Texas Pacific, based in Fort Worth, stands to own 38% of an airline once valued at $7 billion--all for an investment of $200 million. And that's not its only deal in the works. While public attention naturally attached to the US Airways transaction, Texas Pacific was quietly closing a deal 10 times larger: a $2.26 billion cash buyout of Burger King from Diageo, based in London. Bonderman and his partners are also finalizing the purchase of bankrupt Swissair's catering subsidiary, Gate Gourmet, No. 2 in the world with $2 billion...
Bonderman and Coulter learned from the best; they worked for one of the billionaire Bass brothers, Robert, in Fort Worth during the 1980s before opening Texas Pacific with lawyer William Price III in 1993. When European newspapers write about TPG's deals there, they love to run cartoons of the Texas raiders in cowboy hats. But none of the co-founders fell off a watermelon truck. Bonderman, 59, a skilled negotiator, is a Harvard law graduate. Coulter, 42, the savvy stock picker, is a Stanford M.B.A. Price, 46, who figures out how to restructure the distressed firms in which...
...Toyota pickup emerges from the gates of a mud-walled fort outside the Afghan city of Gardez, barrels down the road, and weaves through barricades bristling with grenade launchers and Soviet-era machine guns. The vehicle slams to a halt and an American named Charlie jumps out, his auburn beard and gold-framed Oakleys flashing in the sun. I ask him what he's doing in this rugged, dust-coated part of Afghanistan. He answers, "I work for the government...
...Qaeda and Taliban members left behind in Afghanistan. But a more benign task entrusted to U.S. special forces stationed in Kabul--training the fledgling Afghan national army--is also proving dangerous. Funds for the endeavor are scarce, and weapons and ammunition are "not the quality you'd want at Fort Benning," says Lieut. Colonel Kevin McDonnell, who is responsible for the training. The Green Berets have resorted to tossing rocks to teach grenade handling and scrounging al-Qaeda and Taliban leftovers. Sometimes the troops launch risky operations in recalcitrant villages, engaging in fire fights to capture dusty caches of arms...