So much for the first half of Willem’s life (or so he’d conceived of it in the days when he’d imagined that life was basically over at sixty). Returning to the Netherlands after a brief postdoc stint in China, he’d got caught up in politics and surprised himself by getting elected to a parliamentary post. He was a member of the center-right party that was almost always part of every governing coalition and that accounted for many cabinet members. Re-elected a few years later, he found himself with a junior cabinet position relating to defense. And this developed into a career that accounted for much of the "second half" of his life. For decades he had reliably been re-elected and served in various posts mostly related to intelligence, foreign affairs, or defense. His name had been mentioned from time to time as a possible minister of defense or even prime minister, but he had never really sought that level of responsibility. Not until 2006 had there been an openly gay cabinet minister, so there was that.