Today, he pointed out, "Iraq has a real chance at a peaceful and democratic future; in Afghanistan, the Taliban momentum has been halted and reversed; and Osama bin Laden is finally where he belongs."
Any one of those would be a significant milestone. All three happened on Gates' watch.
Don't get the wrong idea, though. Gates' speech was not a "look what I did" moment. In fact, he was contrasting these significant bookends of his time in office to make two points about others:
First, he was applauding the graduates before him because they had made the decision to serve their country and entered the Naval Academy, despite the extremely difficult times for the military and the nation.
Second, he was giving credit where it belonged for the dramatic change in the war on terror's circumstances, to "the skill and sacrifice of countless young warriors and patriots."
Paying attention to those who do the fighting - and too often the dying - in the nation's wars has been a hallmark of Gates' time at the Pentagon. Though brought in by President George W. Bush to redirect the attention of Washington's unwieldy political and defense establishment on the surge and new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, Gates never lost sight of those he was responsible for sending into harm's way.
"I have come to work every day with a sense of personal responsibility for each and every young American in uniform - as if you were my own sons and daughters," he said in Annapolis.
