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Soldier - General Sir Mike Jackson
- Newsnight
- 6 Sep 07, PM
General Sir Mike Jackson's autobiography Soldier details key events during his 45 years of service in the British Army. From early cadet days, through service in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, to commanding troops in Kosovo and overseeing deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, the book examines the changing face of British soldiering and warfare.
Since standing down as Chief of Staff in , he has been outspoken on many issues surrounding the military, most recently criticising US post-Iraq invasion plans.
The following extract is from the opening chapter of the book, Schoolboy.
From Chapter 1 - Schoolboy
I am a soldier. I have held every rank in the British Army from officer cadet to four-star general. I am now retired, but my almost forty-five years of service ensure that I remain a soldier at heart. My father was a soldier, my elder son has been a soldier and my younger son is thinking about becoming a soldier. My father-in-law, my brothers-in-law and my son-in-law have all been soldiers – so the Army is something of a family tradition. But my father didn’t push me
SOLDIER: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY First edition by GENERAL SIR MIKE JACKSON () Hardcover
Some insights to chew on as well. Jackson mentions three times an analogy of the rope, which has multiple strands, which individually may be weak, but together are strong; likewise in nation building, there must be a military, economic, political and a reconstruction strand (and more) in order for efforts not be in vain.
His commentary on the Iraq war was also interesting; he comments that the real problem was not that there was no plan for nation building there, but that those plans were ignored by Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.
The first half of the book was less insightful but still enjoyable. It basically involved reading about him climbing the military ladder with some drama in Northern Ireland.
I gave it four stars just because the second half of the book was markedly better than the first.
HOW SHOULD A general and the head of the British Army be judged by his peers? By his exploits on the battlefield as he climbed the promotional ladder, or by his adroitness and skills as a Whitehall warrior, serving the interests of his soldiers in the stifling bureaucracy of the Ministry of Defence?
General Sir Mike Jackson was never happier than when he was in command of thousands of troops, making tactical and strategic decisions upon which the lives of his men depended. He was a tough commander who was ready to stand up to his superiors when he believed that they were giving him wrong advice or questionable orders – notably in the Kosovo campaign in when he had bitter arguments with General Wesley Clark, his American military boss, whom he believed had gone “barking”.
However, in Whitehall, Jackson was not a happy man. He never warmed to the Civil Service/military rivalries unique to the MoD, and hated the bureaucrats’ obsession with “process”. His view was that if a job needed to be done, it should be done. But “process” always got in the way, and his frustrations often spilled out, although not in public.
Unlike his successor as Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Ri
Soldier: The Autobiography of General Sir Mike Jackson
General Sir Mike Jackson's illustrious career in the British Army has spanned almost 45 years and all that time he has shown loyalty, courage and commitment to the British army whilst also being an undeniable media attraction. A man of substance where foreign policy is concerned, he has served in theatres from the Artic to the jungle but is perhaps best known for his role in charge of the British troops to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for assembling the British ground component of the coalition that toppled the Taliban, for equipping and organising the army we dispatched to defeat in Iraq and for re-organising the British army with aplomb. His drive, enthusiasm and dominating personality were always popular with his soldiers and drove him right to the top of his profession. He may have been a general but he never stopped caring about the men and women in his charge, despite the politics. Soldier: The Autobiography exhibits all the qualities for which Jackson is admired; his professionalism, his honesty, his directness, his exuberance and his sense of humour. Most of all it gives a vivid sense of what modern soldieri
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