The Iraq discussion concludes and Reed, 58, heads for a hearing room in the nearby Dirksen Senate Office Building. He walks fast and purposefully –– always fast and purposefully -- the gait of a man who found the discipline for his life's work, though he did not yet know what it would be, at Providence's La Salle Academy. He was a young teenager then, the second son of a housewife and a janitor from Cranston. Reed wanted to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, no place else. His father, a World War II veteran who rarely talked war, and President Kennedy were men the boy admired. His mother and her sister, Reed's godmother, who lived in and owned the small house where he grew up, were among the women he admired.

Two of the nation's top intelligence officers await Reed and fellow senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the hearing room, where wood-paneled walls and a lofty ceiling evoke gravity, if not grandeur. Mike McConnell, director of National Intelligence, and Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, are briefing the senators on worldwide threats to U.S. security. (A classified session will follow in a sound- and bug-proof chamber.) Maples was Reed's West Point classmate. They've been friends for more than 40 years.

The intelligence officers finish their opening statements and Reed leaves for another hearing, of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy, of Massachusetts. Reed speaks in favor of a bill that would broaden breast cancer research and then he returns to Armed Services.

"Senator Reed?" says Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan.

Reed thanks the intelligence officers for coming to the Hill and asks the first of his 13 questions, all that time will allow.

"There are many fault lines in Iraq," Reed says. "One of them is the legislation that is passed but is somewhat nebulous and depends upon implementation, so I wonder: Do you have a sense of whether the legislation that was passed with respect to reconciliation and oil distribution, etcetera, will have any real effect going down the road?"

Maples and McConnell answer. Reed, a prominent critic of President Bush's Iraq strategy, continues with questions and observations. Senators pay attention. Reed, leading senators agree, speaks with authority.

"Everyone listens to Jack," says Kennedy, second-ranking Democrat on Armed Services.

Says Sen. Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska: "He is one of the most dedicated, committed, thorough, thoughtful members of the United States Senate. He studies the issues, he knows what he's talking about, he always makes a contribution. He's always very respectful, very civil. He handles himself very well. And everybody likes him."

In his 12th year in the U.S. Senate and 16th year in Congress, Rhode Island's senior senator has established himself as a leading voice on military and national-defense issues. With seats on the Appropriations Committee, the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and Kennedy's health committee, Reed has also emerged as an authority on economic and working-class issues. Reed is 50th in Senate seniority, but Knowlegis, a nonpartisan Congressional analysis group, ranks him the 17th most powerful senator overall –– ahead of Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd, former presidential candidates.

In this election year, Reed's name has surfaced as a possible running mate for two fellow senators, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama –– and, more credibly, as a contender for Secretary of Defense, and not just if a Democrat wins the White House.

Says Hagel: "There's an awful lot that would suggest that Jack Reed would be a very effective Secretary of Defense."

But this is not the future Reed envisions.

Reed checks his watch during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing where Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, presented his semiannual monetary policy report to the Senate. At right is Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Journal photo / Mary Murphy

MACHINIST JOSEPH A. Reed carried a photo of Mary Louise Monahan, the office worker with whom he would spend the rest of his life, when he joined the Navy in 1943 and shipped off aboard the Cebu, a repair vessel. The Cebu readied ships for the critical assault on Iwo Jima, among other missions, and when the war ended, participated in the occupation of surrendered Japan.

Joseph Reed wanted only to serve his country in war, not continue in a military career, and he returned home to Rhode Island in 1946 and married Mary, who was of Irish-Catholic ancestry. Joseph's family, originally from England, had converted to Roman Catholicism. Joseph found work as a laborer for a construction company and later as a janitor at St. Matthew School in Cranston. The Reeds had their first child, Paul, in 1947. John F., their second, was born on Nov. 12, 1949. Helen, their last, was born in 1954. They lived in a house on Pontiac Avenue in Cranston with Mary's father and Mary's sister Helen Monahan.

By the 1950s, Joseph had become a custodian in the Cranston public school system, a job that offered security and a decent wage. But it was not necessarily what he wanted for the next generation, and he and his wife, Mary, who had been denied a higher education by the hardships of the Great Depression, encouraged their children to develop their minds.

Jack, as he would be called, was just 5 when his parents enrolled him in weekly art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. Guitar lessons followed. Reading was valued, and, despite a limited income, the Reeds bought the Encyclopedia Britannica. They believed in family dinners. They taught the core values by example. They were the quintessential parents of the new generation, the Baby Boom.

"They were a warm, enduring example of good people who worked hard, asked for very little and gave so much," Reed says.

Jack attended St. Matthew, where he was studious and well-behaved except for a period in sixth grade when, as he recalls it, he was a "wise guy," a bit fresh with the nuns. His first ambition was to be an architect, but by ninth grade, when he enrolled in La Salle, he was focused elsewhere. His love of reading had brought him to history, and history had brought him to stories of war. The heroes of his father's generation, including JFK, whose command of PT 109 was legendary, fascinated him.

They won the war, they saved the world, and now they're standing guard on the watchtowers of freedom, the boy would think.

But this was the boy's impression, not the dinner-table talk, and so his parents were surprised, though supportive, when he said he wanted to attend West Point. Reed today can remember only one occasion when his father discussed his time in the Navy. And the discussion was more about discipline than heroics.

Reed was about 12, and Joseph for some reason brought up the Cebu, where the newest hands were assigned duty in the ammunition hold, the most dangerous place on board. Reed remembers his father saying: Everybody who went down there the first couple of times was crying almost, they were so concerned. But you know what? After awhile you stopped because it didn't do any good. You just had to keep doing your job. The other thing was: nobody ever looked down on anybody because we had all done it ourselves.

"It was a very good insight into behavior and how you treat people," Reed says. "I've never forgotten it."

At La Salle, Reed played football and ran track, was on the yearbook and newspaper staffs, served two years on the student council, and played drums in the band and guitar in the orchestra his freshman year. He was a Diocesan honor roll student. The Reed house was small, no room for a desk, so Jack sat at the top of the stairs, his books and notebooks spread around him. His schedule rarely varied.

"I would get home around 6 o'clock or so," he says. "My mother would always have supper on the table for us. I would watch The Huntley-Brinkley Report -- it was 15 minutes back then. Then I would study 'till 11 o'clock. I would do that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Then Friday night, I'd go out with my buddies." Saturday nights found Reed at the La Salle Canteen. Sundays held Mass and a roast dinner.

One day in the spring of 1967, as graduation from La Salle neared, the phone rang. It was an aide to Sen. John O. Pastore with word that Reed had been appointed to West Point. A short while later, Maj. Gen. Kenneth G. Wickham, the Army's adjutant general, wrote to Reed confirming the appointment.

"This letter is your authorization to report to the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, on Monday, 3 July 1967, between the hours of 7:30 and 10:00 a.m., Eastern Daylight Saving Time, to begin cadet training," the general wrote.

"Appointment to the Military Academy is difficult to attain and admission is reserved for only a select few of America's youth. All areas of cadet performance will demand your best effort. You should therefore give serious thought to your desire for a military career, for without proper motivation, a good attitude, and a spirit of dedication to the challenge, you will find it difficult to conform to what may be an altogether different way of life."

WHEN SENATOR Reed returns to his office from his Armed Services Committee hearing, North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi and G. Richard Fossa, Lombardi's chief of staff, are waiting. They are the first of nearly 10 constituents and lobbyists with whom the senator will meet today. Lombardi wants Reed's support for federal financing for road improvements in North Providence.

Reed shows a photo of his one-year-old daughter, Emily, on his Blackberry, to Richard Fossa, chief of staff to North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi, left, in his Capitol office. "Before you know it, this kid'll be in college," the mayor told him. Journal photo / Mary Murphy

Reed welcomes the men into the conference room that adjoins his private office. Photos of the senator with President Clinton, Chuck Hagel, former Sen. Claiborne Pell, former Cuban President Fidel Castro and other political notables share space on a wall with photos of Rhode Island schoolchildren and West Point cadets. The largest display is a flag that flew over Camp Cavallaro in Baghdad from July 4 to Aug. 28, in 2003. Soldiers from the Rhode Island National Guard's 119th Military Police Company signed and presented it to Reed, who values his connections to troops, not just generals.

Lombardi and Fossa mention that they've read some of the stories speculating that Reed could become defense secretary under the next president.

"I'm on the short list!" Reed jokes, a reference to being, as he likes to say, "five-foot-seven on a good day."

The men laugh.

"How's the baby?" Lombardi says.

"The baby's great," Reed says.

"Ah, thank God!"

Reed pulls out his BlackBerry. The senator is intensely private with his personal life and will not allow outsiders to photograph his daughter, but he likes to show off a picture that he took.

"This was at Thanksgiving but that was her Christmas outfit," Reed says. Emily is teaching her father a new appreciation of how time unfolds, and the senator turns momentarily wistful. "It doesn't seem she's 13, almost 14 months old," he says.

"Before you know it," Lombardi says, "this kid'll be in college."

"I know, I know. So I've got to stay in good shape."

"Senator, before we go any further -- come and visit us once in a while."

"Charlie, actually I was up, what –– last year? And I'm going to come again this year. I mean, I try to get around to every city and town or most cities and towns."

"We don't only want to visit with you when we need to," Lombardi says.

"We're going to get up there very quickly. Last week I was in Rhode Island -- I'm up there every week -- but I was up last week in Pawtucket at a textile operation, which was very nice."

Reed talks more about the company, North East Knitting, which is manufacturing high-tech combat apparel. Rosalie DaRosa is the firm's president.

"That a mother and a son?" Lombardi asks.

"A mother, three sons. Wonderful family. Just a nice, nice group of people. And this is ‘only in Rhode Island.' So we're doing the tour, we finish the tour of the factory, they say, ‘You've got to come in.' So we go in the lunch room. She had made this incredibly good chicken soup."

"You gotta try the chicken soup!"

"You had to! I came back and told my wife. I said, ‘This is the best chicken soup I've had in Rhode Island.' " Reed pauses. "But we've got a couple of projects you want to talk about."

Sen. Jack Reed, right, talks to one of his West Point classmates, Brig Gen. Patrick Finnegan, now a dean at the academy. At left is Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the academy's superintendent. They gathered recently for a West Point Board of Visitors Meeting in Washington, D.C. Journal photo / Mary Murphy

After Lombardi and Fossa leave, Rob Streicker, a young staff assistant, drives Reed (in Streicker's 11-year-old Volvo) from the Hart Building to the Rayburn House Office Building, a short distance away. A long line has formed to the screening machines: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is testifying before a House committee today and security is tight. But the Capitol Police recognize Reed, who served three terms in the House, and they wave him and the people with him past the line.

Reed finds the room where West Point's Board of Visitors, which oversees the academy, is meeting over lunch. Reed has been chairman and remains a member of the board, which comprises four senators, five U.S. representatives and six presidential appointees.

Two Army officers greet Reed with smiles when he walks into the room: one-star Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan, West Point's academic dean, and three-star Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, the school's superintendent, or president. The senator and the generals are classmates who became close friends as their careers advanced. The men get caught up on their families, but Reed's schedule does not allow him more than a few minutes' chat. It's almost 12:30 p.m., and he has a closed-door meeting with Democratic senators to discuss the federal budget.

EARLY ONE morning not long after this day, Jack Reed leaves his Jamestown home and rides with aide Jack Casey nearly four hours to West Point.

Reed returns regularly to keep abreast of academy developments, and on those occasions when he drives to Rhode Island with his wife and daughter, the family spends the night at Finnegan's house. On this Sunday, the senator is giving a reporter and a photographer a day-long tour of his alma mater, the place he and Julia chose for their wedding and reception, in April 2005.

Reed grows animated as the van carrying him, his guests, and Col. Bryan Hilferty, West Point's director of communications, enters the campus, which offers splendid views of the Hudson River from its perch high above the western shore. Memories of cadet life spill out, including one that impresses the movie lover in him: parts of Hello Dolly, Reed says, were filmed here in 1970, the year before he graduated.

Cadets standing at full attention greet the senator when he reaches Eisenhower barracks, where he lived when he was a student.

"Relax!" Reed says to a cadet. "I couldn't stand that way even when I was your age."

Cadet Cole Moses, a senior from Jenks, Oklahoma, who is bound for the infantry, leads the senator into the barracks. More memories spill out of Reed. He was four months shy of his 18th birthday when he reported to West Point, on July 3, 1967. The Vietnam War consumed America, and the boy assumed, as did most of his classmates, that he would be sent there. But the war was winding down when he graduated, and the Class of 1971 was assigned elsewhere.

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