general raymond. he was 67 years old. the washington post remembered him as a key architect of the surge in u.s. forces during the iraq war. how do you remember him? well, very fondly. ray and i were classmates at the military academy. the we served together at first at the navy war college, when we were both majors and we were on the basketball team together. we were beer-drinking buddies, and his oldest son was the babysitter for our son, and his older son, tony, then serving in iraq, lost an arm in combat. extraordinary family. he and his wife, linda, just extraordinary group of people, and then in iraq, ray and i served together when i was commanding joint special operations command and he was the mnc, the corps commander there, and there are few times when you run into people as dependable as values-based and as courageous as ray odierno.