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the division staff to serve as the operations officer, responsible for coordinating the combat operations of a twenty-thousand-man division. I was only a major and it was a lieutenant colonel’s position. I would have preferred to stay with my battalion, but wasn’t given that choice. It turned out to be very demanding and a stretch for me, but it marked a turning point in my career. Someone was watching.
    Years later, as a brigadier general in an infantry division, I thought I was doing my best to train soldiers and serve my commander. He disagreed and rated me below standards. The report is still in my file. It could have ended my career, but more senior leaders saw other qualities and capabilities in me and moved me up into more challenging positions, where I did well.
    Doing your best for your boss doesn’t mean you will always like or approve of what he wants you to do; there will be times when you will have very different priorities from his. In the military, your superiors may have very different ideas than you do about what should be your most important mission. In some of my units my superiors put an intense focus on reenlistment rates, AWOL rate, and saving bonds participation. Most of us down below would have preferred to keep our primary focus on training. Sure, those management priorities were important in principle, but they often seemed in practice to be distractions from our real work. I never tried to fight my superiors’ priorities. Instead I worked hard to accomplish the tasks they set as quickly and decisively as I could. The sooner I could satisfy my superiors, the sooner they would stop bugging me about them, and the quicker I could move on to my own priorities. Always give the king his due first.
    By the end of my career in government, I had been appointed to the nation’s most senior national security jobs, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State. I went about each job with the same attitude I’d had at Sickser’s.
    During my tenure as Secretary of State, I worked hard on President Bush’s agenda, and we accomplished a great deal that has not received the credit it deserved. We forged good relationships with China, India, and the Russian Federation, all major powers and all potential political adversaries. We did historic work on disease prevention in the Third World, including HIV/AIDS, and we significantly increased aid to developing countries. In the aftermath of 9/11, we made the nation more secure. We got rid of the horrific Hussein and Taliban regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the residual problems in those countries exposed deep fissures within the national security team. By the beginning of 2004, our fourth year, the Bush national security team had in my view become dysfunctional, which has been well documented. Since it was obvious that my thinking and advice were increasingly out of sync with the others on the team, the best course for me was to leave. At that time I strongly believed that for his second term the President should choose an entirely new national security team, and I gave that advice to President Bush, but he chose not to take it. I left the State Department in January 2005. President Bush and I parted on good terms.
    In the years that have followed my government service, I have traveled around the country and shared my life’s experience with many people in many different forums. At these events, I always emphasize, especially to youngsters, that 99 percent of work can be seen as noble. There are few truly degrading jobs. Every job is a learning experience, and we can develop and grow in every one.
    If you take the pay, earn it. Always do your very best. Even when no one else is looking, you always are. Don’t disappoint yourself.

CHAPTER THREE
    The Street Sweeper
    I have always tried to keep my life in perspective with my ego under control. That effort has been helped enormously by a wife and three kids who have