He put an end to the Bush-era stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan beyond their enlistment date. (personal note: my son will be in harms way for six fewer months with Obama as president, so you know I love this one.)
Stop-Loss Will All but End by 2011, Gates Says - NYTimes.com
Remember this:
These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they're doing because they want to do it.
The Pentagon chief was meeting privately later yesterday with 172nd Stryker Brigade families at Fort Wainwright in Alaska, the unit's home base. Rumsfeld's aides said they expected as many as 600 people to attend and to have a chance to ask questions.
Reporters who traveled with Rumsfeld from Washington, D.C.,
were to be excluded from the session.
Rumsfeld: 'I'd love to be Santa Claus. I'm not.' | Concord Monitor
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There were a bunch of news stories about this when it happened. The families were very angry. They said Rumsfeld was rude. See, those people who signed up didn't know they were going to get royally fucked. I remember at the time, Republican bloggers saying they should quit "whining".