Retired General David H. Petraeus, former commander of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has paid tribute to Senator Lindsey Graham following the senator’s death, remembering him as a steadfast advocate for America’s service members and a trusted partner during some of the most challenging years of the Global War on Terror.
In a personal reflection shared on July 12 on Linkedin, Petraeus described Graham as “the last of the Three Amigos,” a nickname he used for Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham—three lawmakers who, he said, consistently stood beside U.S. troops throughout the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham had the backs of our men and women in uniform – and my back – in Iraq and Afghanistan more than any other members of Congress, especially during the toughest days of the Surge in Iraq in 2007. I spent many more Fourths of July with them during my final decade in uniform than I did with my family; they were always out with us to celebrate that holiday and during every recess, tirelessly visiting with our units in the war zones on every Congressional break. And now the last of them has suddenly died.
The Three Amigos (my term), again, made innumerable visits to the war zones (and to Ukraine, Israel, Syria, the Gulf States, and numerous other countries, as well as the Munich Security Conference, etc.).
Much less well known is that Senator Graham served well over a dozen active duty stints in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Colonel and Judge Advocate General officer in the USAF Reserve.
Frankly, I did not welcome the first such stint in the spring of 2007, when violence was at its high in Iraq. But at the end of that trip, and at the end of every subsequent one, he returned from the field with extraordinarily valuable insights that had eluded us. I thus came to welcome all of his later trips – at the end of each of which he and I would meet with PM Maliki in Iraq or, in later years, President Karzai in Afghanistan. He was repeatedly of enormous help with each.
Years later, in June 2015, then-Colonel Graham retired from the Air Force – and even though he was running for President at the time, he closed the ceremony to the press and did not seek to exploit his service by using that event (at which I was privileged to speak, along with Senator McCain and General Joe Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who rightly presented a Bronze Star Medal to him) or speaking of his time in uniform during his campaign.
To say that he was larger than life, fought hard for issues in which he believed, and had a wicked sense of humor would be an enormous understatement. Given all that he did over the decades, especially for those serving in harm’s way around the world, his sudden death after another trip to Ukraine (fittingly) is extraordinarily sad and also extraordinarily tragic.
RIP Colonel Graham, the last of the Three Amigos.
