By Richard Sisk
The War Report

Don Rumsfeld loved the camera but Bob Gates had a hard time saying “cheese.”

Robert Ward, who called it a career last week after photographing the doings of the Pentagon for 47 years, rated Donald H. Rumsfeld as the easiest defense secretary to snap and Robert Gates as the toughest.

“Robert Gates was a very serious man,” Ward told the American Forces Press Service as he retired from his photographer’s job in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “He took the job seriously, but he was wonderful at doing it. He will certainly go down in history as one of the finest secretaries of Defense,” Ward said.

“He was a little difficult to photograph because he rarely gestured, and he didn’t smile a lot,” Ward added. “When he did smile, it fairly lit up the room. He had a wonderful smile, but he just didn’t show it very often,” Ward said of Gates.

Ward, a Vietnam veteran, served 12 defense secretaries since going to the Pentagon in 1974 after responding to an ad in the newspapers.

Read more about Bob Ward and see photo essays of the work of this craftsman and gentleman here.

(Photo: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon after the 9/11 attacks. Defense Department photo by Robert Ward.)