Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Hard to believe seven years have passed since the 10th month of my "30 day" temporary assignment as the Secretary of Defense's Staff Director of the Detainee Task Force.  30 days turned into 6 months, which turned into 2 years.  

My Admin Chief was YNC(SW) John Krauss, one of the Pentagon heroes from the 9-11 attack.  Our Geren-Maples group did some important work over those two years. 

In the end, I was literally the last man standing and closed up the office in March 2006.  More than 40,000 documents of every conceivable classification were turned over to the National Archives.  

Having been very close to this personally for over two years, I believe historians and the public will look back favorably on the level of integrity that Secretary Rumsfeld brought to the processes.  One formal investigation led to more than 16 other formal investigations.  His direction to us was to "follow the truth, wherever it may lead us." 

2 comments:

Bob Maguire said...

BZ, Mike! I remember talking to you when all that was going on. You made some big sacrifices to do that job right.

Anonymous said...

Captain Lambert,

Many might consider that a career in the Military is nothing, because they consider that job is only to destroy the enemy. And even though that is what I consider the main objective of the military to be. I fully recognize the collateral duties and byproducts of the Military Services such as this one is beneficial to all of us. The Navy always seemed to find the proper man to get the job done.

Very Respectfully,
Navyman834