General Robert T. Clark This is Me

Education

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1. 1. MySA.com: Military

   www.mysanantonio.com/news/mili - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/10/2007   Last Visited: 1/11/2007

   Robert Clark was just out of Texas Tech University, a young lieutenant in the U.S. Army doing a dirty and unappreciated job - leading a platoon of soldiers through the jungle at the tail end of the Vietnam War.
   
   GI draftees were fighting as hard as ever, the dead and wounded coming home in waves even after Washington had replaced victory with "Vietnamization" - U.S. troops standing down as Saigon's government stood up.
   
   As tough as the job was, it got even harder when Clark was ordered to lead his platoon on a jungle patrol that took him and his troops outside of artillery range.They would have had helicopter coverage, but the aircraft were diverted at the last minute.
   
   "We were a rifle platoon in the jungle, in Indian country, with no other support other than the small arms we were carrying, and I can remember thinking, 'This is a hell of a note.'"
   
   Clark recently stepped down as the three-star commander of U.S. Army North, closing out a decades-long career.He enters civilian life in San Antonio certain that Vietnam was his life's test, the place that served as the foundation of his career.
   
   The casual observer, though, might think his toughest test came decades later when he fell under the media microscope in the wake of the killing of a gay soldier under his command.
   
   A gay advocacy group blamed Clark, then commander of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., for what it called "poor leadership" in the 1999 death of Pfc.
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   But the IG cleared Clark and his chain of command, and said that gay harassment was actually lower than normal at Fort Campbell.
   
   Clark, a 1966 MacArthur High School graduate, returned to San Antonio and led 5th U.S. Army, now Army North, for 31/2 years.In that job he oversaw 5th Army's transition from an organization charged with training and mobilizing National Guard and Reserve troops to homeland defense.
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   "We were very, very disturbed that one soldier could brutally murder another," Clark said, adding the controversy that spawned was difficult to deal with "because I was not at liberty to talk about the case."
   
   Clark ordered the court-martial as commander of the 101st Airborne Division and he also was required under military law to rule on any appeal filed by the defense after the trial.Any comment about the case would almost certainly have prompted defense attorneys to claim he had improperly attempted to influence the judicial process.
   
   Critics accused Clark and the post of being biased against gays and suggested he and the command were trying to cover up the case by their silence about it.After the trial, Clark asked a higher command to rule on any appeal and went public with his side of the case.
   
   National media outlets that had swarmed over the case soon after Winchell's murder did not respond to Clark's requests for interviews.Only local and regional newspapers in Tennessee and Kentucky responded, a turn of events he calls disappointing.
   
   Years later, his frustration with media coverage of the case is obvious.Clark thinks the media convinced people that he and other senior Army leaders tolerated the kind of abusive behavior that led to the killing.
   
   Today, he doesn't take what he reads or views at face value.
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   Clark, his father and grandfathers on both sides of the family have at least 139 years in the Army.That doesn't count three of his four brothers, who have 55 years in the Army and Air Force.
   
   "I could go into cousins too, but you don't have the print space," he laughed.
   
   Clark has lived on posts 49 of his 58 years.His father, retired Col.

2. 2. Camp #14 - Department of Michigan - Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War

   www.suvcwmi.org/camps/camp14.p - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/10/2008   Last Visited: 4/10/2008

   Commander Robert Clark9029 Lakeshore DriveWest Olive, MI 49460Home Phone: (616) 847-6708Work Phone: (616) 842-8596
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   Robert Clark Commander:
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   Robert Clark Delegate:
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   Our newest member, Robert Clark is the great, great grandson of Robert Finch.

3. 3. Military News - Veteran News: Units Prepare to Respond to Rita; Bush to Visit NORTHCOM

   www.militaryinfo.com/news_stor - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/23/2005   Last Visited: 7/28/2006

   Robert Clark, commander of the 5th U.S. Army, U.S. Northern Command officials said.A standing joint force headquarters is established in Austin, Texas.