This morning I went to Bolling Airforce Base for the retirement ceremony of one of my oldest friends. We were roommates for two of our four years of undergraduate education at Amherst College. He was retiring, a “full bird” colonel after 26 years of service that has taken him from heading up ROTC at Cornell to heading up the Russia, Eurasia and Africa office at the Defense intelligence Agency. Along the way he picked up a PhD in American-Eastern European affairs and headed up the intelligence operation for Nato’s southern flank during the Balkan crisis of the late 1990’s. His service is something that we are all better off for–it was a bittersweet moment, but also filled with a sense of his accomplishments. My hat is off to him.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 