So I decided, “What the hell. The buck stops here.” And that’s what I said in my testimony: “I was the commander in chief who made the decision that we would refuel in there,” I told the senators. “I’m fine with that. If it was the wrong decision, you can hold me responsible for it.
“Now I’ll give you the circumstances, I’ll tell you what happened, and why I made the decision:
“Yes, it’s true that I wanted to improve relations with Yemen, but that was not the reason we chose to refuel in Yemen. We chose to refuel there for operational and not diplomatic or political reasons. It was the only practical port for our naval component to refuel their ships.
“The Navy has rules about fuel levels on their ships,” I explained. “In normal operations, they don’t let that level go below fifty-one percent.
“Ships traveling out of the Mediterranean could of course refuel in the Persian Gulf, but in many cases ships didn’t have enough capacity to get there without exceeding the fifty-one percent limit. That meant they had to find a refueling port between Suez and the Gulf. These were the possibilities: Djibouti, Eritrea, Jeddah, and Aden. That was it. Djibouti had been the Navy’s refueling port, but it was now a no-go. Eritrea was out because of the war with Ethiopia. Jeddah was out because we’d just had the bombings in Saudi Arabia. So there was no other choice.
“We looked hard at Aden. The Navy went in and vetted it, inspected it, and cleared it; and the Navy component for CENTCOM had the responsibility for security. We refueled twenty-eight ships during my tenure as CINC, and all without incident.
“Yet, having said that, there’s no getting around the risk. There is no risk-free place in that part of the world to refuel ships.
“If we’re going to have people out there, if we’re going to have people traveling around doing security assistance work, if we’re going to have forces on the ground training and exercising, if we’re going to have a presence out there day to day, responding to operations, in an environment that’s really hostile and where people are out to get us, and they’re watching our every move looking for an opportunity to hurt us, we’re going to have times when our people are going to get hurt.”
The senators walked out of that meeting satisfied with what I’d said; and it all ended there.
Later, to Tommy Franks’s credit, he stepped up to the plate and said, “I agree with General Zinni’s decision. I would have made the same one. It made military sense.”
The CENTCOM experience taught me a lot about the world and the role of our great nation in it. We could make a difference if we were committed to stand up to our obligations, not only as the last remaining superpower, but also as the last beacon of hope for many people on this planet.
Forty years as a Marine taught me that the only place to be is in the center of the arena. You get knocked down out there and you make mistakes. But you also realize that it sure beats sitting in the grandstands criticizing those who have the guts to be out there. And every once in a while you can make a difference.
I adjusted, with some difficulty, to civilian life and retirement after four decades of service. I missed the Corps and the arena that gave me a tremendous sense of fulfillment. Little did I realize that another form of service awaited me.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WARRIOR PEACEMAKER
After nearly four decades in the United States Marine Corps, Tony Zinni found it hard to adjust to a different life. He knew he had to move on to another phase, yet months passed before the new phase happened. Until it did, he briefly tried the usual occupations open to retired generals — memberships on boards of directors, consulting on military and foreign policy matters, senior mentoring, teaching college courses, lecturing at military schools, speechmaking.
These early pursuits brought in a comfortable income; all of them were interesting, and a couple were personally rewarding. Despite these satisfactions, however, he knew something was missing. He was no longer taking part in the significant events he watched unfolding every day on the news. He had moved from the heart of the action to virtual irrelevance.
The media networks offered positions as an analyst and commentator; their offers were tempting — a chance to keep a hand in. But he rejected them, preferring not to be a military Monday-morning quarterback. He didn’t want to be yet another retired general blathering on the screen about the state of the universe.
“I really believe that once you retire, you retire,” he comments. “The way is forward, not back. So for me, I really felt that the worst thing I could do is try to semi hang on. I wanted to cut the cords and get on with a different life. Just put the old life aside.”
The day he packed up his uniforms for good — a chore he had put off for months — was one of the bleakest of his life. The uniforms went into his attic; his sword went to his Marine officer son during his retirement ceremony. Yet this was a liberating pain; it was the opening he needed to finally accept that he had to move on.
About this time, wise counsel came from an old and respected Marine Corps friend, Paul VanRiper, a retired lieutenant general who had settled near Zinni’s new home in Virginia:
“The best way to manage your time is to divide your life into thirds,” he told Zinni. “One-third has to pay your mortgage, put food on the table, and cover whatever else you need to keep your household and family going. You’re not that old”—Zinni retired in his late fifties—“so look at doing work that you’re okay with, and brings home a decent paycheck.
“The second third comes from doing work you love, where the pay isn’t all that important. You might get some compensation; but that’s not the point. Whether these things bring in good money or not, this part of your life is about doing things you enjoy doing, things that excite you, inspire you. You can’t wait to do more.
“The final third is about whatever you want to put back. It’s work you do pro bono, because it’s the right thing to do; you have an obligation to do it. You feel required to give the service to your country, or to institutions — like the Marine Corps — that you have a close affection for.”
And that is exactly what Zinni tried to do.
After trying those various “normal” occupations open to retired generals, he moved on to more satisfying ways to pay the bills. He took care of the first third primarily by carefully choosing positions in businesses that had ethics, practices, and leadership of the highest caliber.
For the second third, he began teaching at William and Mary College. The pay wasn’t great, but he loved the wonderful faculty, loved being around the students, loved teaching, and loved passing on his experience to another impressive generation.
Early in 2001, he was contacted by Professor Steven Spiegel, the director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) at the University of California San Diego. The IGCC ran a series of workshops, sponsored by the Defense Department, that brought together prominent people from the Middle East to discuss arms control and security. Spiegel asked Zinni to join this effort as a consultant; and of course Zinni accepted. It was an opportunity to reconnect with the peacemaking and conflict resolution process that had grown into a significant part of his life during the second half of his Marine Corps service. A dream began to emerge.
At the end of July, he took part in the first of what would become several IGCC workshops. Held in Garmisch, Germany, it brought together an impressive group of serving and retired government officials and academics from Middle Eastern countries to discuss the peace process. Though, of course, Zinni had followed these issues when he was CINC at CENTCOM, and discussed them at length with regional leaders, he found himself gaining significant new insights.
And then for the third third — the “putting back” into the people and the institutions that were important to him — Zinni made sure he gave talks and classes at the Marine Corps University at Quantico, and at local high schools whenever the opportunity arose.
The thirds plan allowed Zinni to put some structure into the life of a retired general, but it did not yet solve the problem of filling what was still missing — some way to take positive part in significant events out in the
