Submitted by Blake Konczal, Aug 4, 2008 20:25

Peter Rodman was of a generation of archetypes who made service to our Republic a life's work. He was a rara avis, and his type are fast becoming avis extincta. This being said, it may have been "Mao's China" but any country, even one as large as Red China in the 1970s, would eventually begin to take on the characteristics of a fanatical dictator like Mao. America in the 1970s was no more "Nixon's America" than in the 1990s being "Clinton's America." It's our America — pure and simple. Public servants like Rodman knew that, actually lived it.

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