he introduced himself by handing me a laminated card identifying him as a member of the u.s. defense intelligence agency and as we ate and i answered his questions , giving additional details i was often surprised id remembered about conversations and meetings he was particularly interested in , i realized he was a man who not only did his job very well but who also had an interest in putting his work into some kind of meaningful context , interested in understanding a larger portion of his world than i had assumed , naively , he might be .