"I realized she was right. Through our marriage, I had learned to listen for the subtle indicators in Judy’s words and tone that the family needed more time from me. Even though I wanted to adjust, balancing high priorities and competing schedules to get the most out of my career while maintaining the overall quality of life continued to be a personal struggle."
— Scott Gration

"I realized anew that we have so much for which to be thankful and so many blessings to share. The optimistic outlook of my Ugandan friends challenged me to have a positive attitude regardless of my surroundings, to cherish life and nurture relationships, and to share my blessings with others, even if those were just a green leaf or a colorful flower in a used penicillin vial."
— Scott Gration

"When I served as the operations group commander at King Abdul Aziz Air Base, I was responsible for aircraft operating from four bases in Saudi Arabia, three locations in Kuwait, and one each in Bahrain and Oman. I was in charge of a variety of aircraft, including F-16s, F-15s, A-10s, C-130s, U-2s, and search-and-rescue HH-60G helicopters."
— Scott Gration

"Without warning, a bright yellow-orange flash engulfed my room. It was followed immediately by a thunderous, deafening boom. Pain raced through my side and leg. My ears were ringing. I smelled the strong pungent odor of explosives. Groping around for my flight suit and boots, I felt shards of glass all over the floor. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I pulled slivers from my side. At least the bleeding wasn't profuse; it hadn't punctured an artery. I grabbed three T-shirts and pulled them on to absorb the blood. Then I slipped into the flight suit. Not able to find any socks, I just pulled my flight boots onto my bare feet."
— Scott Gration

"Watching photographers capture the image of Senator Obama looking out from behind the bars that once fenced South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, I saw more than a well-composed picture. I believed I was looking at a man who had the potential to do for America what Nelson Mandela had done for his country. I was observing an individual who had the potential to unite the different ethnic groups in America, someone who could ignite the economic engines of our country. That morning on Robben Island, I realized that perhaps I was traveling with a future president of the United States."
— Scott Gration

"I answered honestly but diplomatically. 'As I look back, it may have,' I said, gazing straight into the camera. 'As I was going through it, I did not perceive that it was a double standard because I did not know of Secretary Clinton’s use of a commercial e-mail account. But as I’ve reflected on it in the last couple of days, it does appear like there was a different standard that was used in my case from that which has been used in hers.'"
— Scott Gration

Use the URL below to listen to my interview on The Eric Metaxas Show that I recorded on 28 Nov in New York City.
Click here to hear the podcast.

This interesting article by Stephen Kinzer demonstrates that even though only a few people heeded Scott Gration’s warnings about potential challenges in South Sudan, he was taking good notes. The United States and the international community could have done so much more (at a very low cost) to prevent much of the suffering that South Sudanese are enduring today.

“Five years ago, pushed by an odd coalition of movie stars and conservative Christians, the United States midwifed the birth of a new African nation, South Sudan. Senior American leaders attended the glittering independence celebration. This was supposed to be a liberation or a human rights project or a return to godliness. Only a few analysts saw the folly of such an ill-considered intervention.”

“’This place could go down in flames tomorrow,’ General Scott Gration, the US military envoy, warned as independence approached. ‘The probability of failure is great.’”

“At the five-year point, that failure is upon us. Tens of thousands of South Sudan’s citizens have been killed in factional fighting. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes. The economy is shattered. Inflation is the world’s worst. Soldiers loot to compensate for not being paid. At least a billion dollars has gone missing from the central bank. Abductions and rape campaigns have turned much of the country into a terror zone.”

Leadership does matter—the United States needs more decision makers with hands-on regional understanding, more trained strategic planners, and a host of practical implementers. We need fewer firemen with loud sirens and bight flashing lights and more fire prevention professionals who remove flammables and ignition sources while teaching fire safety.

Please read Flight Path: Son of Africa to Warrior-Diplomat for the rest of the story.

Click here to read the article.

In this article, Monica Crowley lays out the argument that Hillary Clinton and her State Department officials knew enough about the emails rules to condemn Scott Gration and ultimately fire him as the US Ambassador to Kenya.

“She knew what she was doing. But perhaps the ultimate demonstration of intent was her June 2012 decision to force the resignation of Scott Gration, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, for, in part, setting up and using an unapproved private email system in 2011.”

While the logic of her arguments is valid, the “facts” she used to tell about Scott Gration’s use of emails in the State Department are wrong because she drew her information from the Inspector General’s erroneous report.

Please read Scott Gration’s memoir, Flight Path: Son of Africa to Warrior-Diplomat, to get the truth about my email usage while ambassador.

Click here to read the article.

The UK Daily Mail revealed that Bill O'Reilly shared photos of Barack Obama in what they are calling "traditional Islamic dress" on his program Wednesday night claiming they were from his half-brother Malik's wedding. In the National Ledger article stated,

“Many voters at the time believed that Mr. Obama was a Muslim and was not being truthful in saying that he was a Christian and the Obama campaign blamed the Clinton campaign for the picture and spreading that false accusation.”

“According to The Guardian, the Obama campaign had to enlist ‘Scott Gration, a retired air force general and Obama supporter, who was with the senator in Kenya, to explain the picture.’”

“He said: ‘Senator Obama was given an outfit and as the guest that he was, the great guest, he took this outfit and they encouraged him to try some of it on. It was a thing we all do.’”

Scott Gration was there at Wajir when then-Senator Obama reluctantly tried on these gifts as a good guest. He confirms that this picture was not taken at Malik’s wedding and President Obama is not a Muslim.

Read his book for all the details surrounding this story.

Click here to read the article.

After terrorists attacked Garrisa University College, Scott Gration’s wrote the following article responding to the senseless killing of students and faculty.

“I’ve lived through the pain and sorrow associated with the indiscriminate acts perpetrated by amorphous groups and faceless cowards who believe they can achieve their objectives by using fear, intimidation, and murder of innocent people.”

“On Thursday, April 2, I watched as television reporters unveiled another terrorist event at Garissa University College. Al-Shabaab gunmen shot their way into a quiet university campus, killing students in dormitories where many were still sleeping. In the end, 147 innocent people were gunned down and 79 were wounded in a cowardly effort to terrorize East Africans over Kenya’s support to the African Union’s fight against al-Shabaab in Somalia. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those who lost family and friends and those who were injured and traumatized by this heinous act of terrorism.”

He ended the article by writing,

“While the tragedy in Garissa is heartbreaking and the scourge of terrorism is a major challenge that we all must unite to defeat, the real story in Kenya is its demonstrated resilience, beauty of this country, and its bright economic future. By focusing on economic delivery though an integrated strategy and plan, the society will be transformed, and terrorists will lose their foothold in the region. We all must make this happen.”

Click here to read the article.

Host Michael Smerconish got Scott Gration's reaction to the recent revelation that Hillary Clinton used a personal email account during her time as Secretary of State.

Potential double standard: “As I've reflected on it in the last couple of days, it does appear like there was a different standard that was used in my case and that has been used in hers.”

Fired for using personal email: “Secretary Clinton and Cheryl Mills were in very close dialogue on all issues and I know that in my view, that she would have known that Secretary Clinton was not using the OpenNet. So I do find it sort of unusual that she stated that this was one of the reasons why I had to move on. And that as I look back, it seems a bit unfair.

End of his public career: “For me, this was a dream job. It was a job where I felt I was making a significant difference in light of America's interests and what we were trying to do here and to protect Americans. And to have that terminated over some allegations that were, in the end, proven to be false. And I was exonerated and these claims were dismissed. And to see this dream job of mine come to an end was very disappointing to me. And to now find out that in reality, other people in the Department, to include my supervisors, were doing things differently and were looking the other way, I think that's hard.”

Read all the background information about this story in his book, Flight Path: Son of Africa to Warrior-Diplomat. View the full transcript of his exclusive segment on CNN’s State of the Union at the link below.

Click here to read the article.

In Josh Gerstein’s article, Scott Gration has the opportunity to tell his side of the email story. The following are three paragraphs from Josh Gerstein’s article.

“’My experience was somewhat different than Secretary Clinton’s use of her commercial account, yet I was ‘fired’ for the use of Gmail in the US Embassy, my insistence on improving our physical security posture, and other twisted and false allegations,’ Gration wrote from Kenya, where he now works in the private sector. ‘I’ve chosen to move on and to be better, not bitter.’”

“’It is true that I used my Gmail account to access my alerts and unclassified personal emails. I had subscribed to three ‘alerts’ programs that sent me breaking news stories, analysis of important events, and Africa-related articles…I use Gmail because these services were not available on the State Department’s OpenNet computer network,’ the former ambassador wrote. ‘Over the years, I had also built a professional network that used my Gmail address. I wanted to have access to these capabilities and contacts while at work.’”

“’It is false that I ignored State Department instructions and willfully disregarded State Department regulations concerning the use of commercial email for official government business. I used the OpenNet for much of my official business as I had full access to this system in my US Embassy office and in my residence,’ he said. ‘My official emails were fully captured in the State Department data bases. I used Gmail for unofficial business and for my personal emails.’”

Please read his book, Flight Path: Son of Africa to Warrior-Diplomat, and Josh Gerstein’s article (link below) to get all the facts about his use of emails while the US Ambassador to Kenya.

Click here to read the article.

Andrew McCarthy wrote the following about Scott Gration and the State Department Inspector General.

“The Federalist reports: ‘Although Hillary Clinton and her allies may be claiming that her private e-mail system is no big deal, Hillary’s State Department actually forced the 2012 resignation of the U.S. ambassador to Kenya in part for setting up an unsanctioned private e-mail system. According to a 2012 report from the State Department’s inspector general, former U.S. ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration set up a private e-mail system for his office in 2011.’“

“Actually, it is one of the intriguing aspects of Secretary Clinton’s tenure that the Obama administration never filled the position of inspector general during that time. But a report on Ambassador Gration’s misconduct was issued by the IG’s office, signed by a deputy.”

Please read the chapter in Flight Path: Son of Africa to Warrior-Diplomat about the State Department’s “double standard” and the questionable legality of the acting Inspector General’s mandate while Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State.

Click here to read the article.

Covering the 2008 presidential election campaign, Nicholas Lemann began by observing, “The most mystical believer in Obamaism whom I met was Scott Gration, the retired Air Force major-general—a burly, friendly, artifice-less guy who assured me that he had only recently begun to wear a tie regularly. I went to see him over the summer at his house in Nutley, New Jersey. An American flag flies from a flagpole on the lawn.

“Perhaps because his background isn’t conventionally liberal, he is more open than the other top Obama advisers in expressing a soaring optimism about the possibility of a less arrogant, more coöperative, more empathetic America leading the world in confronting its most intractable problems. ‘We’ve screwed up,’ he told me. ‘We don’t really fix these things.’ He went on, ‘What doesn’t work, in Gration’s mind, is forcing a solution. Create an environment, give people the opportunity to air their differences, and see if they can come together. We don’t tell them what the solution is, but we do have an obligation—let’s get people in here, find out the needs, see if you can come up with a plan. Don’t try to freeze conflicts!’”

‘Gration was impatient with the idea that conflict is the natural state of the world, to be managed rather than resolved. ‘People are more alike than their cultures and religions,’ he said. ‘When Obama talks about global citizens, it’s the same framework. You see, religion and culture—they’re the way people communicate their values. They want stability, order, education. This is just humanness. Then you add on your religion, your culture—that’s how you execute it.’ His implication was that if we can get past the religious and cultural identities that serve as host organisms for conflict, and deal with people at the level of their humanity and their basic needs, then we can make real progress—especially if Obama personally holds an office that permits him to set the tone and lead the effort.”

Click here to read the article.

Michael Hirsh wrote this article about Scott Gration as the 2008 primary election campaign was beginning to heat up.

“Not surprisingly, the Obama campaign has begun sending Gration out on the stump—he did a 13-town tour of Iowa in July—in an effort to improve the inexperienced senator’s image on national security. Gration also contributed ideas to Obama’s much noted speech on counterterrorism Wednesday, when the candidate generated headlines by suggesting that, as president, he might invade the tribal parts of Pakistan.”

“Bill Burton, Obama’s press secretary, says Gration supplies extra ‘credibility’ for a candidate who has never served in the military. ‘He has an ability to educate voters about what kind of commander in chief Obama will be, in a way few can.’"

“Gration also has some strong views of his own on national security, which may not always be perfectly in accord with Obama's. Above all, he thinks there are far too many nuclear weapons in America’s arsenal and in the world, and he wants to accelerate the 2002 Moscow Treaty that called on Washington and Moscow to reduce their operationally deployed strategic warheads to about 2,000 by 2012. Even so, Gration says, he’s a ‘pragmatist.’ ‘As a fighter pilot I stood nuclear alert. I understood that during the cold war we had this requirement. I was defending America in that process. Things have changed right now. But we have to do it in a way that makes sense. I’m not one who just says get rid of everything unilaterally.’"

“’He and Barack share a lot of personal experience, given the way they grew up,’ says Denis McDonough, Obama’s new foreign-policy coordinator. ‘There’s a lot of kinship.’"

Click here to read the article.