“Every time you take the president out of the White House, you introduce risk,” said Kenneth Valentine, retired Secret Service agent. But for Mr. Valentine, assigned to the personal protection detail for three U.S. presidents, his faith allowed him to do his job with confidence, “because I believed that I would be empowered to do my very best,” he said in an interview. Every time his team brought the president back safely to the White House, they joked that they had “cheated death,” but in his mind, cheating death also means living life to its fullest.
While Mr. Valentine loved his career and never had any doubts that he was exactly where he was supposed to be, it was a high-risk, high-stress job that took a toll on his family life. To make things work, there needs to be a lot of humility, sacrifice, and collaboration. This philosophy is also what helped him persist. Three times, he told his wife that if she wanted him to quit so he could be home more, he would. Each time, she said no.
