Twice former SecDef, retired USNR captain, Donald Rumsfeld dead at age 88

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Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld DoD photo by Scott Davis, U.S. Army. (Released)

Advisor to four US Presidents and twice Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld has passed at the age of 88. Fox News reports;

Donald Rumsfeld, who charted an impressive Washington career serving under four presidents but whose legacy largely was defined by his controversial tenure as defense secretary during the Iraq War, has died, his family announced Wednesday. He was 88.

Rumsfeld, a confident adviser to power with a trenchant style that made him admirers as well as enemies, had a long and winding career in public life that spanned five decades. He had been a congressman and a White House chief of staff, and had a successful corporate career, too. But it was his second term as secretary of defense from 2001 to 2006 – during the most tumultuous period of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – for which he is most known.

“It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Donald Rumsfeld, an American statesman and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather,” Rumsfeld’s family said in a statement. “At 88, he was surrounded by family in his beloved Taos, New Mexico. History may remember him for his extraordinary accomplishments over six decades of public service, but for those who knew him best and whose lives were forever changed as a result, we will remember his unwavering love for his wife Joyce, his family and friends, and the integrity he brought to a life dedicated to country.”

While his time as President Gerald Ford’s defense secretary was dominated by lofty management challenges regarding the direction of America’s changing military, his role under President George W. Bush was quite different — and set in an instant.

On 9/11, just months into the Bush presidency, Rumsfeld was in his office in the E-Ring at the Pentagon. While monitoring the attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan, the Pentagon was hit with a third hijacked plane.

“I went outside and there were little pieces of metal spread all over the grass, and the smoke was billowing up, and the flame was very visible and leaping out of the building,” he once described.

After the attacks, Rumsfeld was part of a senior-level effort, which also included Vice President Dick Cheney, to marshal war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. But then their sights were turned to Iraq, where he and others insisted Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. During the beginning of the war, his off-the-cuff and sometimes acerbic style made the press conferences events in themselves. He rode a wave of popularity and never conceded that the war was not going as well as his press people were saying publicly.

What you may not know, which I didn’t recall, is that Rumsfeld was himself a veteran. He was commissioned into the US Navy in 1954. He became an aviator, flying the S-2 Viking. Leaving active duty for the reserves in 1957, he moved to the inactive reserves when he first became SecDef under President Ford in 1975. He ultimately retired from the Navy as a captain in 1989. During his time in the Navy he was the 1956 All Navy Wrestling Champion.

Between all his many positions in the federal government, he spent in sum more than 40 years in service of his country. Godspeed Mr. Rumsfeld.

Category: We Remember