Word: telling
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...attacks. Since their deployment in July, more than 30 soldiers from that brigade have been killed by roadside bombs. Gates had a message for them: "We're in this thing to win." Obama had said nothing of victory during his speech to the West Point cadets. "You can't tell soldiers to fight for a draw," says one of Gates' staff aides. But Gates never got to give his pep talk. There would be no trip to Kandahar, or anywhere for that matter. The helicopters were grounded by the Afghan weather...
...filled with index cards of quotes and anecdotes and one-liners he's collected over the years. His favorite comedians are both dead - George Carlin and W.C. Fields. Their sensibilities suit Gates' own - taking down institutions, puncturing pomp. He's even adopted some of their style. He loves to tell the same jokes about egos in Washington - "where people say, I'll double-cross that bridge when I get to it," and "the only place in the world you can see a prominent person walking down lovers' lane holding his own hand." (See pictures of U.S. soldiers delivering...
...pressed button-down, on the way back home from Afghanistan and Iraq. We'd been talking about the stress of congressional hearings, the burden of sending young men and women to war, and just as our conversation was drawing to a close, he said, "I always used to tell people that Texas A&M football caused me more stress than any job I've ever had. And they always thought I was exaggerating." I expressed disbelief, but he stood by the statement...
...stay on in a rival party's Administration. He has thrived through a combination of endurance, pragmatism and bureaucratic savvy. And during the past year, on issue after issue - Pentagon reform, missile defense, Afghanistan and now the Pentagon's move to repeal the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military - Gates has become the most important player in the Obama war Cabinet. It's a remarkable feat, considering that he's the only Republican on the Democratic national-security team...
...their offices," says an aide. It's what allows him to adapt his positions to changing times. Under Bush he justified the missile-defense program; under Obama he took charge of canceling it. Similarly, while he's never been a champion of repealing the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, he has agreed to carry out the President's order to do just that...