Today, June 29^th, marks the first anniversary of the passing of Secretary Rumsfeld. Over the past year, we have reflected extensively on the many lessons and insights imparted by our founder. In addition, among the Foundation’s networks and broader community of partners and supporters, we have been delighted to witness Rumsfeld’s legacy being carried forward in a number of terrific ways. One particular example that we are excited to feature in this blog post is a meaningful initiative honoring Rumsfeld’s significant impact on the Republic of Georgia.

As we gear up for next month’s 2022 CAMCA Regional Forum which will be held in Washington, D.C., we thought it would be a fitting time to shed more light on the inspiration behind our Foundation’s unique regional focus on the CAMCA (Central Asia-Mongolia-Caucasus-Afghanistan) region, spanning from the South Caucasus to Mongolia.  

Following the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan, we are pleased to report that all our Fellowship alumni that were living in-country at the time were able to safely depart. While they settle into new realities across the globe and the people of Afghanistan continue to face many challenging circumstances, we'd like to take a moment to showcase a few of the talented Afghans within our alumni network and some of the important new projects and positions they have undertaken in recent months.

We were delighted to interview our Board members for this closing blog post of the year to provide an opportunity for our community to learn more about the terrific individuals at the Foundation’s helm. Read on for interesting insights like their favorite leadership lessons and what they’ve learned from working with our founder, as well as their passion for the Foundation’s work and much more.

In this latest Service Series post, we asked our friends at Warriors & Quiet Waters Foundation (WQW) to walk readers through one of their flagship programs for wounded veterans. Their Fishing Experience ─ called “FX” for short ─ brings together a small group of former service members from across the country for a unique and powerful week-long experience in Bozeman, Montana. 

If you’ve picked up a copy of Rumsfeld’s Rules, you may recall reading the following lines, “I’ve found that many who excel at leadership learn from people who aren’t even alive. They read history, and most of all biographies....