For General (Clark), Mostly Salutes or Hoots [View All]

[DoveTurnedHawk]

More than 40 years ago, a high school swim team here showed up one man short for a state meet. Everyone assumed they would forfeit the relay race -- the organizers, the school, even the team, which was resigned to loser status. But the teenage captain had a different plan.

Young Wes Clark announced that he would swim twice in the relay so the team could compete.

<...>

Wes Clark won the relay for Hall High School that day, demonstrating the traits that would define his life and his career: a supreme confidence in himself, an absolute disregard for conventional wisdom and a relentless force of will. Those gifts, and an undisputed brilliance, would carry him through a modest childhood shaped by profound loss, through West Point to the highest levels of the Army, and into the presidential race today -- his first foray into politics.

<...>

Scott Thompson, a colleague in the White House fellows program, is indebted to Clark for emotional support and advice when Thompson -- who was then married with children -- decided to publicly acknowledge that he was gay.

Dan Christman, a West Point friend and retired general, said that when he became very ill with spinal meningitis in the early 1980s -- before screening techniques for HIV-tainted blood were fully developed -- Clark doggedly canvassed their entire War College class to find a suitable blood donor for his friend, and he did.

<...>

Ultimately, <Clark> makes no apologies. "In any organization, there are personality conflicts," he said. "The worst thing you want in the military is a guy who follows the gang, 'Hey, I'll just go along to get along.' I was never that kind of a leader."

<...>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45166-2003Oct18.html