Summary

Duty is a remarkably candid memoir by Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2006 until 2011. Gates pulls few punches as he describes serving under two very different presidents and presiding over two unpopular wars while juggling Washington bureaucracy, battles with Congress and his determination to provide his troops with everything they needed to succeed and thrive.

The book opens with Gates, then president of Texas A&M University, receiving a call in October, 2006 to inquire about his interest in replacing Donald Rumsfeld as President George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. Gates knew Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush (Bush 41), but not Bush 43, as he is called when there is a need to differentiate the two. Gates had been head of the Central Intelligence Agency and held other high-level posts, but he had turned down other recent offers...