The interview gets more interesting in the latter parts, where they finally get beyond the usual suspects that Russert wasted his time with on Meet The Press. This clip says a lot about Clark's management style and approach to working with others:
People often say, "Well, you know, in the military, you could give these orders, and how would you be capable--" But in the military at the top, you really aren't giving orders. You're really working collaboratively, collegially, politically. You're persuading people to want to do what you want them to do, and you're doing it not just on military and diplomatic issues, but you're doing it on a whole range of what we call quality of life issues.
In Europe, I had 44,000 school children in the command, and I was responsible for their schooling, K-12. And we had schools in Britain and Spain and Germany and Italy and Turkey. And we had curriculum challenges. We had local control issues. We had parents who didn't get along and so forth.
So, we changed the currency. We increased the amount of local control. I encouraged commanders to give their soldiers and airmen off when the child was in a teacher/student conference. I believed the parent should be there. And you know, in the United States Armed Forces, we can make that happen. And we did.
DAN RATHER: So, what you paint is a picture of a Commanding General as you were as well, as kind of a mayor of a town.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: A big town. In this case, it was, you know, spread out all over. But I started that way. I mean we started working on schooling issues early in-- in my military career. I remember we were in Germany and there was a PTA meeting and my wife was very concerned about the school, and she spoke up and she really started to work the schooling issues.
And that's when we began to be aware that, you know ,you have responsibilities as a parent and as a leader to speak up, because the higher rank you have, the more your responsibility to speak out and help others.
And we always took that very, very seriously. So I had schooling issues. I had hospital issues. I had housing issues. I had spouse abuse, child abuse, suicide prevention, quality of life, spousal jobs. And when I was the commander at Fort Irwin (PH), I had the engineers on post, the commissaries, the post exchange, the chapels, the movie theatre.
I was driving down the road one day. It was a Saturday afternoon. I think we were gonna go shopping, and my wife said, "Your engineers, they still haven't fixed this pothole."
Now-- and she was right. They were my engineers. I had to call up a colonel and say, "Well, why is that pothole not--" You know I didn't do it immediately, but we got the pothole fixed and we got the commissary stocked with the right kinds of goods. And we fixed it-- We had town hall meetings where people could raise their concerns and-- and address the issues that affected 'em. And I was a mayor.
So, that's what leadership the military's all about. It's the one community where when you're in a position of authority you have 24-hour responsibilities for how the people who are associated with you live. People don't go home at night to their own communities. They're on your community. And you're responsible for in most cases every aspect of their health, well-being and comfort.
And, Dan, what we learned in the United States Armed Forces, we had a recruiting motto. We called it "Be All You Could Be." And somebody thought, "Boy, that's a genius of a motto." Well, it did bring in a lot of recruits, but it became a lot more than a motto.
What we discovered in our training out in the desert as we were rebuilding the Army after Vietnam was that the generals and the colonels don't win battles. The battles are won at the front end of the organization, at the bottom of the organ-- They're won by the infantrymen, the tank commander, and the gunner with his eye on the site (SIC). They're won by the mechanic who works all night to fix the equipment.
The generals and the colonels are up there waving their arms and they're on the radio and they're giving instructions but it has to translate into real action. And that means you've got to train and educate, motivate and inspire the people at the bottom of the organization, and you've got to take care of their families. And this is the image of leadership that I would like to bring to the American people. |
