Clark responsible for 200,000 Army Families in Europe

[catherineD]

I've read there are people who don't think that Clark's experience is as valuable as Dean's experience as governor of 600,000 in Vermont. But in addition to being Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Clark was also the Commander-in-Chief of our European Command at the same time. I've looked up the numbers, and this means that he was in charge of more than 200,000 members of army families.

It is interesting to consider the differences between being a governor and a commander. Being a governor certainly introduces you to working with a legislature, though I've gotten the impression that Dean's relationship with Democrats in his legislature wasn't that good, since he was to the right of them. I understand that Clark worked with the national branches -- Congress and the Supreme Court -- asking Congress for additional money for the families in his charge and asking the Supreme Court to support affirmative action. Interestingly, to the left of what those institutions seemed inclined to do. As commander, Clark's interests weren't in how many votes he could get from his people, of course. From what I can gather, he seems to have been interested in improving things for them, nevertheless, and from what he has said, as commander he had to concern himself with all of the needs of his people on what sounds like a very personal basis. Issues like spousal abuse, medical concerns, education for the kids.... Maybe it's just me, but I imagine the feeling toward those in his charge as being protective and more hands-on from top to bottom, than would be the case when you're a governor thinking about re-election and when so much of your attention has to be taken up with the politics of involvement with a state legislature. And I think it's human nature when more than one person is in charge -- as is the case in any of our states, where the governor, state legislature, federal government, and local governments are all responsible for governing -- that no one feels as personally responsible and people fall through the cracks.

Just some thoughts....





The URLs for the info are as follows:

...62,000 active component troops and 3,000 reserve component troops in 19 brigade equivalents, supported by 11,000 civilians and 11,000 local national employees; with 100,000 family members and 4,000 retirees. This structure equates to a Total Army population of 199,000 (of which 180K are in Germany, 8K Italy, 6K BENELUX, 5K elsewhere). http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/eucom.htm

This one gives the number of troops in Europe during Clark's administration.

http://www.fas.org/man/nato/news/2000/e20000104scope.htm

[Gloria]

1. Thanks for this info!!!!!

kick

[Spazito]

2. Excellent post!

Thanks for the links!

[Tatiana]

3. And people keep saying Clark has no domestic experience.

Didn't all those people need food, clothing, housing, health care???

[TLM]

11. Were those folks allowed to vote him out if he did a shity job?

Were they even allowed to question his policy?


Clark had no more domestic leadership experience than the warden of a prison.

[wyldwolf]

13. No, but he didn't do a shitty job so your point is irrelevant... as always

[Scott Lee]

15. Whoa! A triple flip out of a non sequitur into total irrelevence!

Nice going wyldwolf - I would expect no less a meaningless half argument from a Dean opponent.

[Scott Lee]

16. Then run him for president of Albania!

After all thats where his experience in domestic leadership truly lies, right?

[SahaleArm]

19. Yet the Mayor of Vermont is emminently qualified to run the country? n/t

[Bombtrack]

20. I wouldn't nominate Dean for dogcatcher after I've seen the ruthless,

lie-filled, mean-spirited, and devisive campaign that he has. Not to mention his regressive, corporate-pushover governence of his little state

[wiley]

4. Clark on Domestic Issues

I think Wesley Clark has the experience, and definitely the expertise and intelligence to restore what Bush has destroyed in just 3 years. Then he will make things better.

:beer:

[robbedvoter]

5. And topped it by saving twice as many Albanians as Vermont's population

Go figure!

http://Blog.forclark.com/story/2003/11/28/81836/095

Samantha Power details his efforts in behalf of the Dayton Peace Accords and his brilliant command of NATO forces in Kosovo. Her chapter on Kosovo ends, "The man who probably contributed more than any other individual to Milosvevic's battlefield defeat was General Wesley Clark. The NATO bombing campaign succeeded in removing brutal Serb police units from Kosovo, in ensuring the return on 1.3 million Kosovo Albanians, and in securing for Albanians the right of self-governance
****

[TLM]

12. Wrong... fully 80% of the albanians kiled by the serbs

were killed AFTER clark's bombing campaign started.

The air war did almost nothing to halt the Serb's efforts... as they targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The serbs were stopped by the withdrawl of Russian support... and Clark almost fucked that up too.

[wyldwolf]

14. see, robbedvoter gives a source for his statement. You, on the other hand

Expect us to believe you because you say so. :eyes:

[Jai4WKC08]

6. More "fact, not opinion"

Great job tracking down some of the facts and the figures.

It might also be worth mentioning the multi-billion dollar budget for which Gen Clark was responsible (sorry, don't have time to look up the exact figures now). Like any executive, he and his staff developed that budget, defended it before Congress, probably wrangled with key legislators to keep in what he thought was most important, and was accountable for how the funds were spent. I daresay a bigger budget than the state of Vermont has ever seen.

[Myra]

7. Thank you for this great summary catherineD, and for the links

General Clark's experience is very well rounded;
he has had to deal with many issues an elected leader
would deal with. You point that out very well.

And welcome to DU!

[MariaS]

8. I have thought since the beginning

that Clark's experience in domestic issues was more up close and personal than the other candidates. The others have governed from afar and Clark was more hands on. I think he has a better ablility to understand the day to day trials and tribulation of life. The story he tells about Gert yelling at him about pot holes and a lack of pampers in the commissary says it all at least to me anyway.

[Jerseycoa]

9. Army families?

Or army family members? So I have it straight. Thanks for doing this research.

[catherineD]

10. Sorry, I meant army family members. I think it was about

110,000 troops when he was there, plus their families -- I just heard him say on CSPAN about 40,000 kids. And there were also civilian and local employees.

[Bombtrack]

17. But how many ski-resort owners did he have to coordinate with?

Sorry, but until you can mediate between rivals like Killington and Sugarbush, I don't think you're ready to conduct foriegn policy.

[Myra]

18. You make an excellent point Bombtrack.

:evilgrin: