Best Defense

Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Farewell to Ike Skelton

I was sorry to see the passing of Rep. Ike Skelton, a profoundly decent man who represented the Old School in Congress. He was well-read. He cared about professional military education. And once, when I was writing a profile of him for the Washington Post, he proudly showed me, about three blocks north of his ...

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Wikimedia

I was sorry to see the passing of Rep. Ike Skelton, a profoundly decent man who represented the Old School in Congress.

I was sorry to see the passing of Rep. Ike Skelton, a profoundly decent man who represented the Old School in Congress.

He was well-read. He cared about professional military education. And once, when I was writing a profile of him for the Washington Post, he proudly showed me, about three blocks north of his house in Lexington, Missouri, the spot where his Confederate ancestors whipped the Yankees. He also told me about standing on his front porch as a boy and looking up at the glider pilots overhead — training for the invasion of Normandy, it turned out. Then we drove over to Whiteman AFB, where the stealth bombers live.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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