Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 20, 2014

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Mike Jackson

Mike Jackson (born 1944) is a retired British Army officer and one of its most high-profile generals since the Second World War. Originally commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1963, he transferred to the Parachute Regiment. On the first of his tours of duty in Northern Ireland with the regiment, he was present as an adjutant at the events of Bloody Sunday (1972), when soldiers opened fire on protesters, killing 13 people. He was assigned to a staff post at the Ministry of Defence in 1982 before assuming command of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, in 1984. Jackson served his first tour in the Balkans in 1994, commanding a multi-national division of the Implementation Force, and was appointed commander of NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in 1997. In this role, he controversially refused to obey an order from American General Wesley Clark (his immediate superior in the NATO chain of command during the Kosovo War) to block the runways of Pristina Airport. Upon his return to the UK, Jackson was promoted to full general and later served as Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, from 2003 to 2006. (Full article...)

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