Donald Rumsfeld R.I.P. (1932-2021) A True Public Servant – The Lid

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld died Wednesday in Taos, New Mexico. He would have turned 89 next week.

A Chicagoland native and Eagle Scout who served 35 years in the U.S. Navy — including time as an active duty pilot — and as an Illinois congressman in the 1960s, he was more known as defense secretary during the Gerald Ford and George W. Bush presidential administrations — both as the youngest, at 43, and the oldest, 74, person to hold the post.

Rumsfeld presided over Cold War strategies in the 1970s, then oversaw the Pentagon’s response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, nearly three decades later.