• IN THIS SECTION

Five Sept. 11 Suspects to Face Trial in New York

The Obama administration has announced it will try 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9-11 Gitmo detainees in a civilian federal court in New York, allowing them the protections of the U.S. Constitution even though they are not U.S. citizens.

Do you agree with this?

Yes
No
I don't know

View results

Four Radical Chinese Muslims Transferred to Bermuda

Four Chinese Uighers (radical Chinese Muslims) were recently transferred to Bermuda. Do you think it's a good idea to release Gitmo detainees to idyllic vacation retreats?

Yes
No
Not Sure

View results

June 18, 2008

My Memories of Timothy J. Russert

Colonel Kenneth Allard (US Army, ret.)

Tim Russert was already an established star of the Washington firmament long before I came to work as a military analyst for NBC News. During the later Clinton years, it seemed as if each week brought a new geography lesson of crisis and intervention in places most Americans could barely locate on maps. We went to war in Kosovo or we fired cruise missiles at laxative factories in Khartoum. No matter how far-fetched the place or the circumstance, it was brought to you LIVE! on MSNBC, launched by NBC as its cable news outlet several years earlier. It all seems quaint now but even then we recognized our continuing collective debt to Bill Clinton. 

Particularly on weekends, some of my hits originated from the NBC headquarters in northwest Washington where Russert ruled supreme on what everyone instinctively treated as sacred ground. There was no telling whom you might see there on a Sunday morning while Meet the Press was being taped: Senator Bob Dole, General Colin Powell, even UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan. Mostly you just stayed out of the way and remembered your place as the hired help, privileged even to glimpse the mighty or, better yet, to scarf down some of their Green Room pastries. Then it was off to an adjacent studio to give the cable news audience another five-minute geography lesson on whatever foreign clime had captured the short attention spans of the thirty-somethings in the control booth.

It is hard to remember exactly when I first met him, when the nodding acquaintance of hurried hallway passages gave way to the recognition of a handshake and the characteristic Russert grin. The grin is what you would remember most anyway because the sense of humor that came across so well on TV was also evident off-camera. The last time we talked was in the make-up room the week after he had taped a memorable hour-long conversation with Yankee stars Phil Rizzuto and Yogi Berra. "Forget about politics," I told him. "You should do that every week instead." "Weren't those guys GREAT?" he roared back. "Weren't they just AMAZING?" They really had been, particularly Berra, whose every utterance demonstrates why catchers have a native wisdom far beyond either politicians or professors.

It eventually got to the point that, whenever he saw me in the make-up room or getting miked up before going on-air, Tim would invariably grin and ask, "Who are we at war with now?" My come-back never varied either: "Nobody important but we can always hope." But as it usually does, the war that came with such terrifying suddenness on 9/11 mocked all the glib comments, all the best-informed predictions. A frantic race to the NBC headquarters had been punctuated by glimpses down the Potomac valley where smoke and flames were suddenly visible as the Pentagon was hit.

Dashing down the now-familiar hallways of the NBC studios, Tim was one of the first people I saw. What he must have seen in me was the former warrior in full battle rage, but whose duties now were vastly different. There was no time for the jokes or the wisecracks. Instead, he lightly punched my shoulder and said simply, "Well, Colonel, we're really counting on you now." It was enough and somehow, we all soldiered through those toughest of days.

From now on, it will be hard to think of Father's Day without recalling Tim Russert, the TV star who rejoiced in the roles of father and son. While not impossible to find such men in Washington, it is the sort of place where "seat of government" often gets confused with "center of the universe." Tim was a sensible antidote to all that, someone who seemed like your average Joe, but who in reality was someone very special.

Best of all: a man of faith who taught that faith to his son while living it himself. And who, while knowing many important people, also knew his Savior, the only one whose opinion truly matters when eternity, like war, suddenly comes for us all.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor, Former NBC military analyst Ken Allard, is an executive -in-residence at UTSA. Email: Warheads6@aol.com.

Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (0)

Print This E-mail This

Share It: