Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

By Robert M. Gates

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Politics & Social Sciences

Robert Gates, the U.S. secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, gives a candid account of his years at the Pentagon from 2006 to 2011. He describes managing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, battling bureaucracy to get equipment to troops, and his relations with presidents, Congress and military leaders. Gates writes openly about the toll the wars took on soldiers and on him.

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• Shane Parrish: “This was a book I picked up while reading My Share of the Task. Significant parts of the book overlap in time so it was interesting to see the same situations through very different lenses.”