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Wesley Clark

Wesley Kanne Clark (born Wesley J. Kanne, December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He commanded an infantry company in the Vietnam War, where he was shot four times and awarded a Silver Star for gallantry in combat. Clark served as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000, commanding Operation Allied Force during the Kosovo War. He spent 34 years in the U.S. Army, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In 2003, Clark launched his candidacy for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries. After winning only the Oklahoma state primary, he withdrew from the race in February 2004, endorsing and campaigning for the eventual Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Clark leads a political action committee, "WesPAC", which he formed after the 2004 primaries and used to support Democratic Party candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. Clark was considered a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008, but, on September 15, 2007, endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton. After Clinton dropped out of the presidential race, Clark endorsed the then-presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama.

Clark has his own consulting firm, Wesley K. Clark and Associates, and is chairman and CEO of Enverra, a licensed boutique investment bank. He has worked with over 100 private and public companies on energy, security, and financial services. Clark is engaged in business in North America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. Between July 2012 and November 2015, he was an honorary special advisor to Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta on economic and security matters.

Early life and education
Clark's father's family was Jewish; his paternal grandparents, Jacob Kanne and Ida Goldman, immigrated to the United States from Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire, in response to the Pale of Settlement and anti-Jewish violence from Russian pogroms. Clark's father, Benjamin Jacob Kanne, graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law and served in the U.S. Naval Reserve as an ensign during World War I, although he never participated in combat. Kanne, living in Chicago, became involved with ward politics in the 1920s as a prosecutor and served in local offices. He served as a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention that nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt as the party's presidential candidate (though his name does not appear on the published roll of convention delegates). His mother was of English ancestry and was a Methodist.

Kanne came from the Kohen family line, and Clark's son has characterized Clark's parents' marriage, between his Methodist mother, Veneta (née Updegraff), and his Jewish father, Benjamin Jacob Kanne, as "about as multicultural as you could've gotten in 1944".

Clark was born Wesley J. Kanne in Chicago on December 23, 1944. His father Benjamin died on December 6, 1948; his mother then moved the family to Little Rock, Arkansas. The move was made to escape the cost of living in the city of Chicago, for the support Veneta's family in Arkansas could provide, and her feeling of being an outsider to the religion of the Kanne family. Once in Little Rock, Veneta married Victor Clark, whom she met while working as a secretary at a bank. Victor raised Wesley as his son, and officially adopted him on Wesley's 16th birthday. Wesley's name was changed to Wesley Kanne Clark. Victor Clark's name actually replaced that of Wesley's biological father on his birth certificate, something Wesley would later say that he wished they had not done. Veneta raised Wesley without telling him of his Jewish ancestry to protect him from the anti-Jewish activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the southern U.S. Although his mother was Methodist, Clark chose a Baptist church after moving to Little Rock and continued attending it throughout his childhood.

He graduated from Hall High School with a National Merit Scholarship. He helped take their swim team to the state championship, filling in for a sick teammate by swimming two legs of a relay. Clark has often repeated the anecdote that he decided he wanted to go to West Point after meeting a cadet with glasses who told Clark (who wore glasses as well) that one did not need perfect vision to attend West Point as Clark had thought. Clark applied, and he was accepted on April 24, 1962.

Military career
Clark's military career began July 2, 1962, when he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He later said that Douglas MacArthur's famous "Duty, honor, country" speech was an important influence on his view of the military. The speech was given to the class of 1962 several months before Clark entered West Point, but a recording was played for his class when they first arrived.

Clark sat in the front in many of his classes, a position held by the highest performer in class. Clark participated heavily in debate, was consistently within the top 5% of his class as a whole (earning him "Distinguished Cadet" stars on his uniform) and graduated as valedictorian of his class. The valedictorian is allowed to choose their career specialty in the Army, and Clark selected armor. He met Gertrude Kingston (whom he later married) at a USO dance for midshipmen and West Point cadets.

Clark applied for a Rhodes Scholarship during his senior year at West Point, and learned in December 1965 that he had been accepted. He spent his summer at the United States Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He completed his master's degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford in August 1968. While he was at Oxford, a Jewish cousin of Clark's who lived in England telephoned him and informed him of his Jewish heritage, having received permission from Veneta Clark. Clark spent three months after graduation at Fort Knox, Kentucky, going through the Armor Officer Basic Course, then went on to Ranger School at Fort Benning. He was promoted to captain and was assigned as commander of the A Company of the 1st Battalion, 63rd Armor, 24th Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Vietnam War
Clark was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division and flew to Vietnam in July 1969, during the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He worked as a staff officer, collecting data and helping in operations planning, and was awarded the Bronze Star for his work with the staff. Clark was then given command of A Company, 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division in January 1970. In February, only one month into his command, he was shot four times by a Viet Cong soldier with an AK-47. The wounded Clark shouted orders to his men, who counterattacked and defeated the Viet Cong force. Clark had injuries to his right shoulder, right hand, right hip, and right leg, and was sent to Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, to recuperate. He was awarded the Silver Star and the Combat Infantryman Badge for his actions during the encounter.

Clark converted to Catholicism, his wife Gertrude's religion, while in Vietnam. He saw his son, Wesley Clark, Jr., for the first time while at the Valley Forge Hospital. Clark commanded C Company, 6th Battalion, 32nd Armor, 194th Armored Brigade, a company composed of wounded soldiers, at Fort Knox. Clark has said this command is what made him decide to continue his military career past the eight-year commitment required by West Point, which would have concluded in 1974. Clark completed his Armor Officer Advanced Course while at Fort Knox, taking additional elective courses and writing an article that won the Armor Association Writing Award. His next posting was to the office of the Army Chief of Staff in Washington, D.C., where he worked in the "Modern Volunteer Army" program from May to July 1971. He then served as an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point for three years from July 1971 to 1974.

Clark graduated as the Distinguished Graduate and George C. Marshall Award winner from the Command and General Staff College (CGSC), earning his military Master of Arts degree in military science from the CGSC with a thesis on American policies of gradualism in the Vietnam War. Clark's theory was one of applying force swiftly to achieve escalation dominance, a concept that would eventually become established as U.S. national security policy in the form of the Weinberger Doctrine and its successor, the Powell Doctrine. Clark was promoted to major upon his graduation from the CGSC.

Post-Vietnam War
In 1975, Clark was appointed a White House Fellow in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a special assistant to its director, James Thomas Lynn. He was one of 14 appointed out of 2,307 applicants. Lynn also gave Clark a six-week assignment to assist John Marsh, then a counselor to the president. Clark was approached during his fellowship to help push for a memorial to Vietnam veterans. He worked with the movement that helped lead to the creation of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Clark served in two commands with the 1st Armored Division based in Germany from August 1976 to February 1978, first as S-3 of the 3rd Battalion, 35th Armor and then as S-3 for 3rd Brigade. Clark's brigade commander while in the former position said Clark was "singularly outstanding, notably superb". He was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his work with the division.

The brigade commander had also said that "word of Major Clark's exceptional talent spread", and in one case reached the desk of then Supreme Allied Commander Alexander Haig. Haig personally selected Clark to serve as a special assistant on his staff, a post he held from February 1978 to June 1979. While on staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Clark wrote policy reports and coordinated two multinational military exercises. As a result of his work on Haig's staff, Clark was promoted to lieutenant colonel and was awarded the Legion of Merit. After his European post, he moved on to Fort Carson, Colorado, where he served first as the executive officer of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division from August 1979 to February 1980, then as the commander of the 1st Battalion, 77th Armor, 4th Infantry Division from February 1980 to July 1982. According to the American journalist David Halberstam, the commander at Fort Carson, then Major General John Hudachek, had a reputation of disliking West Point graduates and fast-rising officers such as Clark. Still, Clark was selected first in his year group for full colonel and attended the National War College immediately after his battalion command. Clark graduated in June 1983, and was promoted to full colonel in October 1983.

Following his graduation, Clark worked in Washington, D.C., from July 1983 to 1984 in the offices of the Chief and Deputy Chiefs of Staff of the United States Army, earning a second Legion of Merit for his work. He then served as the Operations Group commander at the Fort Irwin Military Reservation from August 1984 to June 1986. He was awarded another Legion of Merit and a Meritorious Service Medal for his work at Fort Irwin and was given a brigade command at Fort Carson in 1986. He commanded the 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division there from April 1986 to March 1988. Veneta Clark, Wesley's mother, died of a heart attack on Mother's Day in 1986. Regarding his term as brigade commander, one of his battalion commanders called Clark the "most brilliant and gifted officer [he'd] ever known". After Fort Carson, Clark returned to the Command and General Staff College to direct and further develop the Battle Command Training Program (BCTP) there until October 1989. The BCTP was created to use escalation training to teach senior officers war-fighting skills, according to the commanding general at the time. On November 1, 1989, Clark was promoted to brigadier general.

Clark returned to Fort Irwin and commanded the National Training Center (NTC) from October 1989 to 1991. The Gulf War occurred during Clark's command, and many National Guard divisional round-out brigades trained under his command. Multiple generals commanding American forces in Iraq and Kuwait said Clark's training helped bring about results in the field and that he had successfully begun training a new generation of the military that had moved past Vietnam-era strategy. He was awarded another Legion of Merit for his "personal efforts" that were "instrumental in maintaining" the NTC, according to the citation. He served in a planning post after this, as the deputy chief of staff for concepts, doctrine, and developments at Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, Virginia. While there, he helped the commanding general of TRADOC prepare the army for war and develop new post-Cold War strategies. Clark pushed for technological advancement in the army to establish a digital network for military command, which he called the "digitization of the battlefield". He was promoted to major general in October 1992 at the end of this command.

Fort Hood
Clark's divisional command came with the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. Clark was in command during three separate deployments of forces from Fort Hood for peacekeeping in Kuwait.

His Officer Evaluation Report (OER) for his command at Fort Hood called him "one of the Army's best and brightest". Clark was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work at Fort Hood and was promoted to lieutenant general at the end of his command in 1994. Clark's next assignment was an appointment as the Director, Strategic Plans and Policy (J5), on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), from April 1994 to June 1996. In this position, he helped develop and coordinate world-wide US military policy and strategy. He participated with Richard Holbrooke in the Dayton Peace Process, which ended the Bosnian war in former Yugoslavia. During this period, he also participated in "back-stopping" nuclear negotiations in Korea, planning the restoration of democracy in Haiti, shifting the United States Southern Command headquarters from Panama to Miami, imposing tougher restrictions on Saddam Hussein, rewriting the National Military Strategy, and developing Joint Vision 2010 for future US war-fighting.

United States Southern Command
Army regulations set a so-called "ticking clock" upon promotion to a three-star general, essentially requiring that Clark be promoted to another post within two years from his initial promotion or retire. This deadline ended in 1996 and Clark said he was not optimistic about receiving such a promotion because rumors at the time suggested General Dennis Reimer did not want to recommend him for promotion although "no specific reason was given". According to Clark's book, General Robert H. Scales said that it was likely Clark's reputation for intelligence was responsible for feelings of resentment from other generals. Clark was named to the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) post despite these rumors. Congress approved his promotion to full general in June 1996, and General John M. Shalikashvili signed the order. Clark said he was not the original nominee, but the first officer chosen "hadn't been accepted for some reason".

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Clark began planning work for responses to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina upon his appointment in 1994 as the Director, Strategic Plans and Policy (J5) on the JCS staff. While collecting information to outline military options for resolving the conflict, Clark met with Bosnian Serb military leaders including Ratko Mladić, who was later accused of war crimes and genocide. Clark was photographed exchanging hats with Mladić, and the photo drew controversy in the United States. A Washington Post story was published claiming Clark had made the visit despite a warning from the U.S. ambassador. Some Clinton administration members privately said the incident was "like cavorting with Hermann Göring". Clark listed the visit in the itinerary he submitted to the ambassador, but he learned only afterwards that it was not approved. He said there had been no warning and no one had told him to cancel the visit, although two Congressmen called for his dismissal regardless. Clark later said he regretted the exchange, and the issue was ultimately resolved as President Clinton sent a letter defending Clark to Congress and the controversy subsided. Clark said it was his "first experience in the rough and tumble of high visibility ... and a painful few days". Conservative pundit Robert Novak later referred to the hat exchange in a column during Clark's 2004 presidential campaign, citing it as a "problem" with Clark as a candidate.

Clark was sent to Bosnia by Secretary of Defense William Perry to serve as the military member to a diplomatic negotiating team headed by assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke later described Clark's position as "complicated" because it presented him with future possibilities but "might put him into career-endangering conflicts with more senior officers". While the team was driving along a mountain road during the first week, the road gave way, and one of the vehicles fell over a cliff carrying passengers including Holbrooke's deputy, Robert Frasure, a deputy assistant Secretary of Defense, Joseph Kruzel, and Air Force Colonel Nelson Drew. Following funeral services in Washington, D.C., the negotiations continued and the team eventually reached the Dayton Agreement at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and later signed it in Paris on December 14, 1995.

Clark returned to the European theater and the Balkans following his USSOUTHCOM position when he was appointed to U.S. European Command in the summer of 1997 by President Clinton. He was, as with SOUTHCOM, not the original nominee for the position. The Army had already selected another general for the post. Because President Clinton and General Shalikashvili believed Clark was the best man for the post, he eventually received the nomination. Shalikashvili noted he "had a very strong role in [Clark's] last two jobs". Clark noted during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services committee that he believed NATO had shifted since the end of the Cold War from protecting Europe from the Soviet Union to working towards more general stability in the region. Clark also addressed issues related to his then-current command of USSOUTHCOM, such as support for the School of the Americas and his belief that the United States must continue aid to some South American nations to effectively fight the War on Drugs. Clark was quickly confirmed by a voice vote the same day as his confirmation hearing, giving him the command of 109,000 American troops, their 150,000 family members, 50,000 civilians aiding the military, and all American military activities in 89 countries and territories of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The position made Clark the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), which granted him overall command of NATO military forces in Europe.

Kosovo War
The largest event of Clark's tenure as SACEUR was NATO's confrontation with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War. On September 22, 1998, the United Nations Security Council introduced Resolution 1199 calling for an end to hostilities in Kosovo, and Richard Holbrooke again tried to negotiate a peace. This process came to an unsuccessful end, however, following the Račak massacre. Then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tried to force Yugoslavia into allowing separation of Kosovo with the Rambouillet Agreement, which Yugoslavia refused. Clark was not at the Rambouillet talks. He separately tried to convince Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milošević by telling him "there's an activation order. And if they tell me to bomb you, I'm going to bomb you good." Clark later alleged that Milošević launched into an emotional tirade against Albanians and said that they'd been "handled" in the 1940s by ethnic cleansing.

On orders from President Clinton, Clark started the bombings codenamed Operation Allied Force on March 24, 1999, to try to enforce U.N. Resolution 1199 following Yugoslavia's refusal of the Rambouillet Agreement. However, critics note that Resolution 1199 was a call for cessation of hostilities and did not authorize any organization to take military action. US Secretary of Defense William Cohen felt that Clark had powerful allies at the White House, such as President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who allowed him to circumvent the Pentagon in promoting his strategic ideas. Clark felt, however, that he was not being included enough in discussions with the National Command Authority, leading him to describe himself as "just a NATO officer who also reported to the United States". This command conflict came to a ceremonial head when Clark was initially not invited to a summit in Washington, D.C., to commemorate NATO's 50th anniversary, despite being its supreme military commander. Clark eventually secured an invitation to the summit, but was told by Cohen to say nothing about ground troops, and Clark agreed.

Clark returned to SHAPE following the summit and briefed the press on the continued bombing operations. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked a question about the effect of bombings on Serbian forces, and Clark noted that merely counting the number of opposing troops did not show Milošević's true losses because he was bringing in reinforcements. Many American news organizations capitalized on the remark in a way Clark said "distorted the comment" with headlines such as "NATO Chief Admits Bombs Fail to Stem Serb Operations" in The New York Times. Clark later defended his remarks, saying this was a "complete misunderstanding of my statement and of the facts," and President Clinton agreed that Clark's remarks were misconstrued. Regardless, Clark received a call the following evening from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton, who said he had been told by Secretary Cohen to deliver a piece of guidance verbatim: "Get your fucking face off the TV. No more briefings, period. That's it."

The bombing campaign received criticism when it bombed the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters on April 23, 1999. The attack which killed sixteen civilian employees was labeled as a war crime by Amnesty International and as an act of terrorism by Noam Chomsky. NATO expressed its justification for the bombing by saying that the station operated as a propaganda tool for the Milošević regime. Operation Allied Force experienced another problem when NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7, 1999. The operation had been organized against numerous Serbian targets, including "Target 493, the Federal Procurement and Supply Directorate Headquarters", although the intended target building was actually 300 meters away from the targeted area. The embassy was located at this mistaken target, and three Chinese journalists were killed. Clark's intelligence officer called Clark taking full responsibility and offering to resign, but Clark declined, saying it was not the officer's fault. Defense Secretary Cohen and CIA Director George Tenet took responsibility the next day. Tenet would later explain in testimony before the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on July 22, 1999, that the targeting system used street addresses, which gave inaccurate positions for air bombings. He also said that the various databases of off-limit targets did not have the up-to-date address for the relatively new embassy location.

The bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999, on the order of Secretary General of NATO Javier Solana after Milošević complied with conditions the international community had set and Yugoslav forces began to withdraw from Kosovo. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 was adopted that same day, placing Kosovo under United Nations administration and authorizing a Kosovo peacekeeping force. NATO suffered no combat deaths, although two crew members died in an Apache helicopter crash. A F-117A was downed near the village of Budjanovci. The bombing resulted in an estimated 495 civilian deaths and 820 wounded, as reported to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia estimated that the number of civilians killed is higher than 2,000 and that more than 5,000 have been wounded. Human Rights Watch estimates the number of civilian deaths due to NATO bombings as somewhere between 488 and 527.

Milošević's term in office in Yugoslavia was coming to an end, and the elections that came on September 24, 2000, were protested due to allegations of fraud and rigged elections. This all came to a head on October 5 in the so-called Bulldozer Revolution. Milošević resigned on October 7. The Democratic Opposition of Serbia won a majority in parliamentary elections that December. Milošević was taken into custody on April 1, 2001, and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on June 28 to face charges of war crimes and genocide. Clark was called to testify in a closed session of Milošević's trial in December 2003. He testified on issues ranging from the Srebrenica massacre to conversations Clark had had with Milošević during his career. Some anti-war activist groups also label Clark and Bill Clinton (along with several others) as war criminals for NATO's entire bombing campaign, saying the entire operation was in violation of the NATO charter.

Incident at Pristina airport
One of Clark's most controversial decisions during his SACEUR command was his attempted operation at Priština International Airport immediately after the end of the Kosovo War. Russian forces had arrived in Kosovo and were heading for the airport on June 12, 1999, two days after the bombing campaign ended, expecting to help police that section of Kosovo. Clark, on the other hand, had planned for the Kosovo Force to police the area. Clark called then-Secretary General of NATO, Javier Solana, and was told "of course you have to get to the airport" and "you have transfer of authority" in the area.

The British commander of the Kosovo Force, General Mike Jackson, however, refused to allow the British forces led by Captain James Blunt to block the Russians through military action saying "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you." Jackson has said he refused to take action because he did not believe it was worth the risk of a military confrontation with the Russians, instead insisting that troops encircle the airfield. The stand-off lasted two weeks. Russian forces continued to occupy the airport, until eventually an agreement was secured for them to be integrated into peace-keeping duties, while remaining outside of NATO command.

Jackson's refusal was criticized by some senior U.S. military personnel, with General Hugh Shelton calling it "troubling". During hearings in the United States Senate, Senator John Warner suggested that the refusal might have been illegal, and that if it was legal, rules potentially should be changed. Still, British Chief of the Defence Staff Charles Guthrie agreed with Jackson. Clark was subsequently ordered to step down from his position two months earlier than expected. Jackson continued his career after the Pristina Incident: He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (1998), received the Distinguished Service Order (1999), became Commander-in-Chief, Land Command (2000), and finally, in 2003, Chief of the General Staff, the highest position in the British Army.

Retirement
Clark received another call from General Shelton in July 1999 in which he was told that Secretary Cohen wanted Clark to leave his command in April 2000, less than three years after he assumed the post. Clark was surprised by this, because he believed SACEURs were expected to serve at least three years. Clark was told that this was necessary because General Joseph Ralston was leaving his post as the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would need another 4-star command within 60 days or he would be forced to retire. Ralston was not going to be appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff due to an extramarital affair in his past, and the SACEUR position was said to be the last potential post for him. Clark said this explanation "didn't wash"; he believed the legal issues did not necessarily bar him from a full term. Clinton signed on to Ralston's reassignment, although David Halberstam wrote that the president and Madeleine Albright were angered at Clark's treatment. Clark spent the remainder of his time as SACEUR overseeing peacekeeper forces and, without a new command to take, was forced into retirement from the military on May 2, 2000.

Rumors persisted that Clark was forced out due to his contentious relationship with some in Washington, D.C.; however, he has dismissed such rumors, calling it a "routine personnel action". The Department of Defense said it was merely a "general rotation of American senior ranks". However, a NATO ambassador told the International Herald Tribune that Clark's dismissal seemed to be a "political thing from the United States". General Shelton, working for the competing presidential campaign of John Edwards in 2003–2004, said of Clark during his 2004 campaign that "the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote." Shelton never elaborated further on what these issues were.

Civilian career
Clark was chairman of the investment bank Rodman Renshaw, which filed for bankruptcy. The bank's questionable practices and Clark's direct role were detailed in the hit documentary film The China Hustle. Clark began a public speaking tour in the summer of 2000 and approached several former government officials for advice on work after life in government, including House Speaker Newt Gingrich, White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty, and Richard Holbrooke. Clark took McLarty's advice to move back to Little Rock, Arkansas, and took a position with Stephens Inc, an investment firm headquartered there. He took several other board positions at defense-related firms, and in March 2003 he amicably left Stephens Inc to found Wesley K. Clark & Associates. Clark wrote two books, Waging Modern War and Winning Modern Wars. He also authored forewords for a series of military biographies and a series of editorials. In 2021 he published academic article Hybrid Warfare and the Challenge of Cyberattacks in The Challenge to NATO: Global Security and the Atlantic Alliance.

Clark had amassed only about $3.1 million towards his $40 million goal by 2003, and he began considering running for public office instead of pursuing his business career.

Clark is also a member of the Atlantic Council's board of directors.

2004 presidential campaign
Clark has said that he began to truly define his politics only after his military retirement and the 2000 presidential election, won by George W. Bush. Clark had a conversation with Condoleezza Rice in which she told him that the war in Kosovo would not have occurred under Bush. Clark found such an admission unsettling, as he had been selected for the SACEUR position because he believed more in the interventionist policies of the Clinton administration. He said he would see it as a sign that things were "starting to go wrong" with American foreign policy under Bush. Clark supported the administration's War in Afghanistan in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks but did not support the Iraq War.

Clark met with a group of wealthy New York Democrats including Alan Patricof to tell them he was considering running for the presidency in the 2004 election. Patricof, a supporter of Al Gore in 2000, met with all the Democratic candidates but supported Clark in 2004. Clark said that he voted for Al Gore and Ronald Reagan, held equal esteem for Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman, and was a registered independent voter throughout his military career. Clark stated that he decided he was a Democrat because "I was pro-affirmative action, I was pro-choice, I was pro-education ... I'm pro-health care ... I realized I was either going to be the loneliest Republican in America or I was going to be a happy Democrat." Clark said he liked the Democratic party, which he saw as standing for "internationalism", "ordinary men and women", and "fair play".

A "Draft Clark" campaign began to grow with the launch of DraftWesleyClark.com on April 10, 2003. The organization signed up tens of thousands of volunteers, made 150 media appearances discussing Clark, and raised $1.5 million in pledges for his campaign. A different website, DraftClark2004.com, was the first organization to register as a political action committee in June 2003 to persuade Clark to run. They had presented him with 1000 emails in May 2003 from throughout the country asking him to run. One of DraftClark2004's founders, Brent Blackaby, said of the draft effort: "Just fifty-two years ago citizens from all over the country were successful in their efforts to draft General Eisenhower. We intend to do the same in 2004 by drafting General Clark. If he runs, he wins."

In June 2003, Clark said that he was "seriously consider[ing]" running for president in an appearance on Meet the Press. Clark announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential primary elections from Little Rock on September 17, 2003, months after the other candidates. He acknowledged the influence of the Draft Clark movement, saying they "took an inconceivable idea and made it conceivable". The campaign raised $3.5 million in the first two weeks. The internet campaign would also establish the Clark Community Network of blogs, which remains in use and made heavy use of Meetup.com, where DraftWesleyClark.com had established the second-largest community of Meetups at the time.

Clark's loyalty to the Democratic Party was questioned by some as soon as he entered the race. Senator Joe Lieberman called Clark's party choice a matter of "political convenience, not conviction". Republican governor Bill Owens of Colorado and University of Denver president Marc Holtzman have claimed Clark once said "I would have been a Republican if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls." Clark later claimed he was simply joking, but both Owens and Holtzman said the remark was delivered "very directly" and "wasn't a joke". Katharine Q. Seelye wrote that many believed Clark had chosen to be a Democrat in 2004 only because it was "the only party that did not have a nominee". On May 11, 2001, Clark also delivered a speech to the Pulaski County Republican Party in Arkansas saying he was "very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul O'Neill—people I know very well—our president George W. Bush". U.S. News & World Report ran a story two weeks later claiming Clark had considered a political run as a Republican.

Clark, coming from a non-political background, had no position papers to define his agenda for the public. Once in the campaign, however, several volunteers established a network of connections with the media, and Clark began to explain his stances on a variety of issues. He was, as he had told The Washington Post in October, pro-choice and pro-affirmative action. He called for a repeal of recent Bush tax cuts for people earning more than $200,000 and suggested providing healthcare for the uninsured by altering the current system rather than transferring to a completely new universal health care system. He backed environmental causes such as promising to reverse "scaled down rules" the Bush administration had applied to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and dealing with the potential effects of global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, livestock flatulence and other sources. Clark also proposed a global effort to strengthen American relations with other nations, reviewing the PATRIOT Act, and investing $100 billion in homeland security. Finally, he released a budget plan that claimed to save $2.35 trillion over ten years through a repeal of the Bush tax cuts, sharing the cost of the Iraq War with other nations, and cutting government waste.

Some have speculated that Clark's inexperience at giving "soundbite" answers hurt him in the media during his primary campaign. The day after he launched his campaign, for example, he was asked if he would have voted for the Iraq War Resolution, which granted President Bush the power to wage the Iraq War, a large issue in the 2004 campaign. Clark said, "At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that's too simple a question," then "I don't know if I would have or not. I've said it both ways because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position—on balance, I probably would have voted for it." Finally, Clark's press secretary clarified his position as "you said you would have voted for the resolution as leverage for a UN-based solution." After this series of responses, although Clark opposed the war, The New York Times ran a story with the headline "Clark Says He Would Have Voted for War". Clark was repeatedly portrayed as unsure on this critical issue by his opponents throughout the primary season. He was forced to continue to clarify his position and at the second primary debate he said, "I think it's really embarrassing that a group of candidates up here are working on changing the leadership in this country and can't get their own story straight ... I would have never voted for war. The war was an unnecessary war, it was an elective war, and it's been a huge strategic mistake for this country."

Another media incident started during the New Hampshire primary September 27, 2003, when Clark was asked by Space Shuttle astronaut Jay C. Buckey what his vision for the space program was after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Clark responded he was a great believer in the exploration of space but wanted a vision well beyond that of a new shuttle or space plane. "I would like to see mankind get off this planet. I'd like to know what's out there beyond the solar system." Clark thought such a vision could probably require a lifetime of research and development in various fields of science and technology. Then at the end of his remarks, Clark dropped a bombshell when he said "I still believe in mass-energy equivalence. But I can't believe that in all of human history we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go. I happen to believe that mankind can do it. I've argued with physicists about it. I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative." These comments prompted a series of derisive headlines, such as "Beam Us Up, General Clark" in The New York Times, "Clark is Light-Years Ahead of the Competition" in The Washington Post, "General Relativity (Retired)" on the U.S. News & World Report website, and "Clark Campaigns at Light Speed" in Wired magazine.

Several polls from September to November 2003 showed Clark leading the Democratic field of candidates or as a close second to Howard Dean with the Gallup poll having him in first place in the presidential race at 20% as late as October 2003. The John Edwards campaign brought on Hugh Shelton—the general who had said Clark was made to leave the SACEUR post early due to "integrity and character issues"—as an advisor, a move that drew criticism from the Clark campaign. Since Dean consistently polled in the lead in the Iowa caucuses, Clark opted out of participating in the caucuses entirely to focus on later primaries instead. The 2004 Iowa caucuses marked a turning point in the campaign for the Democratic nomination, however, as front-runners Dean and Dick Gephardt garnered results far lower than expected, and John Kerry and John Edwards' campaigns benefited in Clark's absence. Clark performed reasonably well in later primaries, including a tie for third place with Edwards in the New Hampshire primary and a narrow victory in the Oklahoma primary over Edwards. However, he saw his third-place finishes in Tennessee and Virginia as signs that he had lost the South, a focus of his campaign. He withdrew from the race on February 11, 2004, and announced his endorsement of John Kerry at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on February 13. Clark believed his opting out of the Iowa caucus was one of his campaign's biggest mistakes, saying to one supporter the day before he withdrew from the race that "everything would have been different if we had [been in Iowa]."

Post-2004 campaign
Clark continued to speak in support of Kerry (and the eventual Kerry/Edwards ticket) throughout the remainder of the 2004 presidential campaign, including speaking at the 2004 Democratic National Convention on the final evening. He founded a political action committee, WesPAC, in April 2004. Fox News Channel announced in June 2005 that they had signed General Clark as a military and foreign affairs analyst. He joined the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA as a senior fellow. A managing partner of the companies that support the center, Ronald Burkle, described Clark's position as "illuminat[ing] the center's research" and "teaching [the] contemporary role of the United States in the international community".

Clark campaigned heavily throughout the 2006 midterm election campaign, supporting numerous Democrats in a variety of federal, statewide, and state legislature campaigns. Ultimately his PAC aided 42 Democratic candidates who won their elections, including 25 who won seats formerly held by Republicans and 6 newly elected veteran members of the House and Senate. Clark was the most-requested surrogate of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee throughout the 2006 campaign, and sometimes appeared with the leadership of the Democratic Party when they commented on security issues.

Clark has opposed taking military action against Iran and in January 2007 he criticized what he called "New York money people" pushing for a war. This led to accusations of antisemitism.

In September 2007 Clark's memoir A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country. In the book Clark alleged that during a visit to the Pentagon in the autumn of 2001 after 9/11, a "senior general" told him that the Office of the Secretary of Defense had produced a confidential paper proposing a series of regime change operations in seven countries over a period of five years. He had made the allegation a number of times in public and media appearances in 2006 and 2007. The book also described a conversation Clark had with Paul Wolfowitz in May 1991 after the Gulf War, quoting Wolfowitz as lamenting the non-removal of Saddam Hussein, but also telling him that "...we did learn one thing that's very important. With the end of the Cold War, we can now use our military with impunity. The Soviets won't come in to block us. And we've got five, maybe 10, years to clean up these old Soviet surrogate regimes like Iraq and Syria before the next superpower emerges to challenge us...".

Clark serves on the Advisory Boards of the Global Panel Foundation and the National Security Network. He is also the chairman of Enverra, and was also chairman of Rodman & Renshaw, a New York investment bank, and Growth Energy. His chairmanship at Rodman & Renshaw is part of the documentary The China Hustle. Clark is interviewed about his involvement in selling toxic stocks of unregulated Chinese companies; eventually though, he exits the interview to avoid association with Rodman & Renshaw, which went bankrupt in 2013. The film speculates that the company used his name as chairman to gain legitimacy for its operations.

Tiversa
In July 2007, Clark testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability about the discovery of classified information on file-sharing networks by the cybersecurity firm Tiversa, where he served on the board of advisers.

Speculation of 2008 presidential campaign
Clark was mentioned as a potential 2008 presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket before endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. Before that time, he was ranked within the top Democratic candidates according to some Internet polls. After endorsing Hillary Clinton, Clark campaigned for her in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Ohio and in campaign commercials. There are many reports that Clinton had already decided to choose Clark to be her running mate had she won the nomination. The Clinton campaign even considered picking Clark as a running mate with the team running together in the primaries, though the idea was later abandoned. After Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination, Clark voiced his support for Obama. Clark was considered to be one of Obama's possible vice-presidential running mates. Clark, however, publicly endorsed Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius for the position, introducing her as "the next Vice President of the United States" at a June 2008 fundraiser in Texas. Obama eventually chose Joe Biden as his running mate.

McCain military service controversy
On June 29, 2008, Clark made comments on Face the Nation that were critical of Republican John McCain, calling into question the notion that McCain's military service alone had given him experience relevant to being president. "I certainly honor [McCain's] service as a prisoner of war", Clark said, "but he hasn't held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded—it wasn't a wartime squadron. He hasn't been in there and ordered the bombs to fall." When moderator Bob Schieffer noted that Obama had no military experience to prepare him for the presidency nor had he "ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down", Clark responded that, ultimately, Obama had not based his presidential bid on his military experience, as McCain has done throughout his campaign. Clark's retort, however, is what drew rebuke. In referring to McCain's military experience, he stated: "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." Both the McCain and Obama campaigns subsequently released statements rejecting Clark's comment. However, Clark has received the backing of several prominent liberal groups such as MoveOn.org and military veteran groups such as VoteVets.org; Obama ultimately stated that Clark's comments were "inartful" and were not intended to attack McCain's military service. In the days following the controversial interview, Clark went on several news programs to reiterate his true admiration and heartfelt support for McCain's military service as a fellow veteran who had been wounded in combat. In each program, Clark reminded the commentator and the viewing public that while he honored McCain's service, he had serious concerns about McCain's judgment in matters of national security policy, calling McCain "untested and untried".

Book on modern wars
In Clark's book Winning Modern Wars, published in 2003, he describes his conversation with a military officer in the Pentagon shortly after 9/11 regarding a plan to attack seven countries in five years: "As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran." Clark regards the 2003 invasion of Iraq as "a huge mistake".

Paradise Papers
On November 5, 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that online gambling company The Stars Group, then Amaya, along with its former member of board of directors Wesley Clark, did business with offshore law firm Appleby.

Reality television career
Clark was the host of Stars Earn Stripes, a reality television program that aired on NBC for four episodes in 2012. The program followed celebrities who competed in challenges based on U.S. military exercises.

Awards and honors
Wesley Clark has been awarded numerous honors, awards, and knighthoods over the course of his military and civilian career. Notable military awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with four oak leaf clusters, the Legion of Merit with three oak leaf clusters, the Silver Star, and the Bronze Star with an oak leaf cluster. Internationally Clark has received numerous civilian honors such as the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and military honors such as the Grand Cross of the Medal of Military Merit from Portugal and knighthoods. Clark has been awarded some honors as a civilian, such as the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General John Shalikashvili, in 1998, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. The people of Gjakova, Kosovo, named a street after him for his role in helping their city and country. The city of Madison in Alabama has also named a boulevard after Clark. Municipal approval has been granted for the construction of a new street to be named "General Clark Court" in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He has also been appointed a Fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA. He is a member of the guiding coalition of the Project on National Security Reform. In 2000 he was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In 2013, General Clark was awarded the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award jointly presented by the Prague Society for International Cooperation and Global Panel Foundation.

title: Wesley Clark


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Greenbrier

Greenbrier or Green Brier may refer to:

 * Smilax, a plant genus commonly called greenbrier

Places in the United States

 * Greenbrier, Alabama
 * Greenbrier, Arkansas
 * Green Brier, Illinois
 * Greenbrier, Indiana (disambiguation)
 * Greenbrier, Lexington, Kentucky
 * Greenbrier, Missouri
 * Greenbrier, Tennessee
 * Greenbrier, Virginia
 * Greenbrier (Great Smoky Mountains), a valley Tennessee
 * Greenbrier County, West Virginia
 * The Greenbrier, a resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
 * a nuclear bunker under Project Greek Island

Streams

 * Greenbrier River, in West Virginia, U.S.
 * Greenbrier Creek (Rocky River tributary), in North Carolina, U.S.

Other uses

 * Greenbrier (film), the working title of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
 * Greenbrier Classic, a PGA golf tournament
 * The Greenbrier Companies, an American manufacturing corporation
 * Greenbrier High School (disambiguation)
 * Chevrolet Greenbrier, the name of two vehicles

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Greenbrier


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Rosy starling

The rosy starling (Pastor roseus) is a passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae, also known as the rose-coloured starling or rose-coloured pastor. The species was recently placed in its own monotypic genus, Pastor, and split from Sturnus. This split is supported by recent studies, though other related species within its new genus are not yet known for certain.

Taxonomy
The rosy starling was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus and coined the binomial name Turdus roseus. Linnaeus gave the type locality as Lapland and Switzerland. It is now the only species placed in the genus Pastor that was introduced by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1815. The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised. The genus name and the old English name come from the Latin pastor meaning "shepherd", and by extension a pastor. The specific roseus is Latin for "rose-coloured".

Formerly, some authorities also considered the maroon oriole to be a species within the genus Pastor.

Description
The adult rosy starling is highly distinctive, with its pink body, pale orange legs and bill, and glossy black head, wings and tail. Males in the breeding season have elongated head feathers which form a wispy crest that is fluffed and more prominent when the bird gets excited. In winter, the crest is shorter, and the edges of black feathers within the plumage become paler as the edges of these feather erode. Winter plumage in males is comparatively dull.

Females in contrast have a short crest and lack the sharp separation between pink and black.

The juvenile birds can be distinguished from common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) by its obviously paler plumage and short yellow bill. Young birds moult into a subdued version of the adult plumage in autumn, yet these lack the crest. They do not acquire their adult plumage until they are nearly one year old in females, and nearly two years in males. The latter grow plumage very similar to adult females in their second year, but are distinguished by longer crests and noticeably pale feather edges than female juvenile birds.

Distribution and habitat
The breeding range of this bird is in steppes, semi-deserts and deserts of Central Asia and Southeast Europe. It can be found from northwestern Mongolia via Dzungarei, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to southern Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Its southern range extends to the north of Afghanistan and Iran. Irregular and rare broods are also observed outside of this area (Romania) It is a strong migrant, and winters in India and tropical Asia. In India in winter, it often appears to outnumber the local starlings and mynas. The rosy starling is a bird of steppe and open agricultural land. In years when grasshoppers and other insects are abundant, it will erupt well beyond its core range, with significant numbers reaching France, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The starling is a summer visitor for northwestern Afghanistan, passage migrants in the rest of the Afghanistan and a regular winter visitor in India.

Behaviour and ecology
Rosy starlings (Pastor roseus) are highly gregarious birds, and often form large, noisy flocks, which can on occasion be a pest for growers of cereal crops or orchards; the birds are strongly attracted to flowering trees. However, they are also greatly beneficial to farmers because they prey on pests such as locusts and grasshoppers, thereby limiting their numbers. The birds breed in tight colonies in a very short breeding season timed to take advantage of peak abundance of grasshoppers between months of May to June.

Breeding
The rosy starling is a colonial breeder, and like other starlings, is highly gregarious, forming large winter flocks. It also shares other species' omnivorous diet, although it prefers insects. The song is a typical starling mixture of squeaks and rattles, given with much wing trembling. In Xinjiang, China, farmers used to use insecticide to eliminate locust, which is costly and polluting. In the 1980s, experts found that rosy starlings which fly to Xinjiang farms and feed on locusts could be used for control instead. The experts begin to build artificial nests to attract rosy starlings, an effort reported to be so successful that the number of locusts was insufficient to feed the birds, causing many juveniles to die from hunger. By the 2000s many Xinjiang farms greatly decreased the usage of insecticide.

Food and feeding
The rosy starling feeds chiefly on fruits, berries, flower-nectar, cereal grains and insects. Specific observations of preferred food types made on the feeding habits of rosy starling are listed as: Fruits and berries: Ficus (many species), Lantana spp., Ziziphus oenopolia, Bridelia montana, Streblus asper, grapes, mulberries (Morus), dates, Salvadora persica, Capparis aphylla and chillies. Flower-nectar: Salmalia persica, Bombax insigne, Erythrina indica and Erythrina suberosa, Butea monosperma, Careya arborea. Cereal grains: Jowar and bajra. Insects: largely locusts and grasshoppers, beetles of the families Lucanidae, Elateridae, Tenebrionidae, Buprestidae, Scarabaeidae and Curculionidae.

title: Rosy starling


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Induction coil

An induction coil or "spark coil" (archaically known as an inductorium or Ruhmkorff coil after Heinrich Rühmkorff) is a type of electrical transformer  used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current (DC) supply. To create the flux changes necessary to induce voltage in the secondary coil, the direct current in the primary coil is repeatedly interrupted by a vibrating mechanical contact called an interrupter. Invented in 1836 by the Irish-Catholic priest Nicholas Callan, with additional research by Charles Grafton Page and others, the induction coil was the first type of transformer. It was widely used in x-ray machines, spark-gap radio transmitters,  arc lighting and quack medical electrotherapy devices from the 1880s to the 1920s. Today its only common use is as the ignition coils in internal combustion engines and in physics education to demonstrate induction.

Construction and function
An induction coil consists of two coils of insulated wire wound around a common iron core (M). One coil, called the primary winding (P), is made from relatively few (tens or hundreds) turns of coarse wire. The other coil, the secondary winding, (S) typically consists of up to a million turns of fine wire (up to 40 gauge).

An electric current is passed through the primary, creating a magnetic field. Because of the common core, most of the primary's magnetic field couples with the secondary winding. The primary behaves as an inductor, storing energy in the associated magnetic field. When the primary current is suddenly interrupted, the magnetic field rapidly collapses. This causes a high voltage pulse to be developed across the secondary terminals through electromagnetic induction. Because of the large number of turns in the secondary coil, the secondary voltage pulse is typically many thousands of volts. This voltage is often sufficient to cause an electric spark, to jump across an air gap (G) separating the secondary's output terminals. For this reason, induction coils were called spark coils.

An induction coil is traditionally characterised by the length of spark it can produce; a '4 inch' (10 cm) induction coil could produce a 4 inch spark. Until the development of the cathode ray oscilloscope, this was the most reliable measurement of peak voltage of such asymmetric waveforms. The relationship between spark length and voltage is linear within a wide range:
 * 4 inch = 110kV; 8 inch = 150kV; 12 inch = 190kV; 16 inch = 230kV

Curves supplied by a 1984 reference agree closely with those values.

Interrupter
To operate the coil continually, the DC supply current must be repeatedly connected and disconnected to create the magnetic field changes needed for induction. To do that, induction coils use a magnetically activated vibrating arm called an interrupter or break (A) to rapidly connect and break the current flowing into the primary coil. The interrupter is mounted on the end of the coil next to the iron core. When the power is turned on, the increasing current in the primary coil produces an increasing magnetic field, the magnetic field attracts the interrupter's iron armature (A). After a time, the magnetic attraction overcomes the armature's spring force, and the armature begins to move. When the armature has moved far enough, the pair of contacts (K) in the primary circuit open and disconnect the primary current. Disconnecting the current causes the magnetic field to collapse and create the spark. Also, the collapsed field no longer attracts the armature, so the spring force accelerates the armature toward its initial position. A short time later the contacts reconnect, and the current starts building the magnetic field again. The whole process starts over and repeats many times per second. The secondary voltage $i_{1}$ ( red, left), is roughly proportional to the rate of change of primary current $v_{2}$ ( blue ).

Opposite potentials are induced in the secondary when the interrupter 'breaks' the circuit and 'closes' the circuit. However, the current change in the primary is much more abrupt when the interrupter 'breaks'. When the contacts close, the current builds up slowly in the primary because the supply voltage has a limited ability to force current through the coil's inductance. In contrast, when the interrupter contacts open, the current falls to zero suddenly. So the pulse of voltage induced in the secondary at 'break' is much larger than the pulse induced at 'close', it is the 'break' that generates the coil's high voltage output.

Capacitor
An arc forms at the interrupter contacts on break which has undesirable effects: the arc consumes energy stored in the magnetic field, reduces the output voltage, and damages the contacts. To prevent this, a quenching capacitor (C) of 0.5 to 15 μF is connected across the primary coil to slow the rise in the voltage after a break. The capacitor and primary winding together form a tuned circuit, so on break, a damped sinusoidal wave of current flows in the primary and likewise induces a damped wave in the secondary. As a result, the high voltage output consists of a series of damped waves (left).

Construction details
To prevent the high voltages generated in the coil from breaking down the thin insulation and arcing between the secondary wires, the secondary coil uses special construction so as to avoid having wires carrying large voltage differences lying next to each other. In one widely used technique, the secondary coil is wound in many thin flat pancake-shaped sections (called "pies"), connected in series.

The primary coil is first wound on the iron core and insulated from the secondary with a thick paper or rubber coating. Then each secondary subcoil is connected to the coil next to it and slid onto the iron core, insulated from adjoining coils with waxed cardboard disks. The voltage developed in each subcoil isn't large enough to jump between the wires in the subcoil. Large voltages are only developed across many subcoils in series, which are too widely separated to arc over. To give the entire coil a final insulating coating, it is immersed in melted paraffin wax or rosin; the air evacuated to ensure there are no air bubbles left inside and the paraffin allowed to solidify, so the entire coil is encased in wax. To prevent eddy currents, which cause energy losses, the iron core is made of a bundle of parallel iron wires, individually coated with shellac to insulate them electrically. The eddy currents, which flow in loops in the core perpendicular to the magnetic axis, are blocked by the layers of insulation. The ends of the insulated primary coil often protruded several inches from either end of the secondary coil, to prevent arcs from the secondary to the primary or the core.

Mercury and electrolytic interrupters
Although modern induction coils used for educational purposes all use the vibrating arm 'hammer' type interrupter described above, these were inadequate for powering the large induction coils used in  spark-gap radio transmitters and x-ray machines around the turn of the 20th century. In powerful coils the high primary current created arcs at the interrupter contacts which quickly destroyed the contacts. Also, since each "break" produces a pulse of voltage from the coil, the more breaks per second the greater the power output. Hammer interrupters were not capable of interruption rates over 200 breaks per second and the ones used on powerful coils were limited to 20 – 40 breaks per second.

Therefore much research went into improving interrupters and improved designs were used in high power coils, with the hammer interrupters only used on small coils under 8" sparks. Léon Foucault and others developed interrupters consisting of an oscillating needle dipping into and out of a container of mercury.  The mercury was covered with a layer of spirits which extinguished the arc quickly, causing faster switching. These were often driven by a separate electromagnet or motor, which allowed the interruption rate and "dwell" time to be adjusted separately from the primary current.

The largest coils used either electrolytic or mercury turbine interrupters. The electrolytic or Wehnelt interrupter, invented by Arthur Wehnelt in 1899, consisted of a short platinum needle anode immersed in an electrolyte of dilute sulfuric acid, with the other side of the circuit connected to a lead plate cathode. When the primary current passed through it, hydrogen gas bubbles formed on the needle which repeatedly broke the circuit. This resulted in a primary current broken randomly at rates up to 2000 breaks per second. They were preferred for powering X-ray tubes. They produced a lot of heat and due to this the hydrogen could explode. Mercury turbine interrupters had a centrifugal pump which sprayed a stream of liquid mercury onto rotating metal contacts. They could achieve interruption rates up to 10,000 breaks per second and were the most widely used type of interrupter in commercial wireless stations.

History

The induction coil was the first type of electrical transformer. During its development between 1836 and the 1860s, mostly by trial and error, researchers discovered many of the principles that governed all transformers, such as the proportionality between turns and output voltage and the use of a "divided" iron core to reduce eddy current losses.

Michael Faraday discovered the principle of induction, Faraday's induction law, in 1831 and did the first experiments with induction between coils of wire. The induction coil was invented by the American physician Charles Grafton Page in 1836 and independently by Irish scientist and Catholic priest Nicholas Callan in the same year at the St. Patrick's College, Maynooth    and improved by William Sturgeon. George Henry Bachhoffner and Sturgeon (1837) independently discovered that a "divided" iron core of iron wires reduced power losses. The early coils had hand cranked interrupters, invented by Callan and Antoine Philibert Masson (1837). The automatic 'hammer' interrupter was invented by Rev. Prof. James William MacGauley (1838) of Dublin, Ireland,  Johann Philipp Wagner (1839), and Christian Ernst Neeff (1847). Hippolyte Fizeau (1853) introduced the use of the quenching capacitor. Heinrich Ruhmkorff generated higher voltages by greatly increasing the length of the secondary, in some coils using 5 or 6 miles (10 km) of wire and produced sparks up to 16 inches. In the early 1850s, American inventor Edward Samuel Ritchie introduced the divided secondary construction to improve insulation. Jonathan Nash Hearder worked on induction coils. Callan's induction coil was named an IEEE Milestone in 2006.

Induction coils were used to provide high voltage for early gas discharge and Crookes tubes and other high voltage research. They were also used to provide entertainment (lighting Geissler tubes, for example) and to drive small "shocking coils", Tesla coils and violet ray devices used in quack medicine. They were used by Hertz to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic waves, as predicted by James Clerk Maxwell and by Lodge and Marconi in the first research into radio waves. Their largest industrial use was probably in early wireless telegraphy spark-gap radio transmitters and to power early cold cathode x-ray tubes from the 1890s to the 1920s, after which they were supplanted in both these applications by AC transformers and vacuum tubes. However their largest use was as the ignition coil or spark coil in the ignition system of internal combustion engines, where they are still used, although the interrupter contacts are now replaced by solid state switches. A smaller version is used to trigger the flash tubes used in cameras and strobe lights.

title: Induction coil


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Sowerby, North Yorkshire

Sowerby is a village, electoral ward and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England immediately south of the neighbouring market town of Thirsk. Although the boundary between the two parishes runs very close to Thirsk town centre, the village retains its own identity and has a separate Parish Council. The author James Herriot lived in the village.

History
The lines of a Roman road can still be seen in the fields to the north and east of the village along the Green Lane and was known as the Saxty Way.

The village is mentioned twice in the Domesday Book as Sorebi in the Yarlestre wapentake. The land was split across both the head manors of Easingwold and Newsham. At the time of the Norman invasion, the manors were split between Earl Morcar and Ligulf, who granted land to Orm. Afterwards, the lands became Crown property. The overlordship was granted to the Mowbray family, who granted land to William Lascelles in 1228. The Lascelles family held their manor until 1602, when it was sold to the Meynell family. The manor has followed the inheritance of the manor at North Kilvington since then. William de Vescy of Kildare held a mesne lordship in the area in the 14th century.

Sowerby has maintained its own parish identity, a sense of place that has waxed and waned due to proximity to a market town. The surviving parish registers date from 1569. During the mid to late 19th century, when wapentakes and hundreds across England and Wales were becoming ill-fitted to administering poor laws, sanitary districts and the administration of justice, some innovations were tried. In the wapentake of Birdforth, some villages near Thirsk were more closely coordinated. Sowerby was ranked as a chapelry, in the parish and union of Thirsk, in the 19th century administration of the wapentake of Birdforth, which is why the parish does not appear on some simplified maps of that time. Eventually the wapentake became inactive as other administrative bodies were implemented, thus Sowerby parish council could be focused on specific needs and issues.

The Lascelles (Lassels) family were also credited with building a terrace of houses at the north end of the village, still known as Blue (or Bribery) Terrace, since tenants were expected to vote for the candidate who supported the Tory cause. Historically, and until its abolition in 1974, Sowerby was part of the North Riding of Yorkshire for administrative purpose. At the same time the former Thirsk Rural District Council, of which Sowerby was also a part, was itself abolished.

Sowerby's name comes from the Norse language, in which it means 'Farmstead (by the) muddy/sour ground'.

In the south of the parish at Blakey Lane, Cod Beck is crossed by Blakey Bridge, a 17th-century cart or packhorse bridge and Grade II listed building. Further south, Cod Beck is crossed again on South Moor Lane by Town End Bridge, another 17th-century packhorse bridge, also Grade II Listed.

An artificial mound known as Pudding Pie Hill is on the east bank of Cod Beck, just off Blakey Lane. This was partially excavated in 1855 (by Lady Frankland Russell) and was found to be a sepulchral tumulus of a type known as a bowl barrow. The remains of a Saxon warrior and two other skeletons were discovered, along with cremated bones, various artefacts and coins.

There are five war memorials in Sowerby, one outside St Oswald's Church and two each inside St Oswald's Church and Sowerby Methodist Church, listing 63 local men who died in the First World War and 18 who died in the Second World War.

Planning permission was given in 2012 for the building of a new housing estate of over 1,000 homes, called Sowerby Gateway, at the southern end of the village, resulting in a vastly increased demand for infrastructure and additional services. As a result a new supermarket has been opened as part of the development, along with an Extra Care Home, a new primary school, retail units, a hotel and a new Sports Village. There is also a new industrial/commercial estate being developed immediately adjacent to the residential area to provide additional employment opportunities. The whole development is expected to be completed by 2022. As part of the "planning gain" from the development a new four-way junction was completed in 2019, to replace an existing two-way junction, giving full northbound as well as southbound access to the Thirsk By-pass (A168) dual carriageway.

Governance
The village lies within the Thirsk and Malton UK Parliament constituency. It also lies within the Sowerby electoral division of North Yorkshire County Council and the was part of the Sowerby ward of Hambleton District Council. The first tier of local government covering Sowerby is Sowerby Parish Council, which was first elected following the Local Government Act of 1894. Currently the Council has eleven members, who are subject to election every four years. The Council meets monthly in Thirsk and Sowerby Town Hall.

Geography
The boundary of the civil parish runs from the A168/A19 junction north to the Moor Lane Stell. From here it runs west, crossing Cod Beck and down Chapel Lane to then follow the A61 as far as Millbank Court. Here it runs south of the housing to cross the East Coast Main Line and then runs south to the boundary of Topcliffe airfield. It then runs east to include most of the small hamlet of Thorpefield and on to Ox Moor plantation. The boundary then follows the southerly route of the Cod Beck as far as, but not including, the hamlet of Westholme. It returns northwards to encompass Sowerby Parks to the A19 at Mile House and then to the A168/A19 junction. Paradise Beck lies wholly within the parish and joins Cod Beck near Sowerby Parks Farm.

The centre of the village has an avenue of English lime trees on Front Street, planted to celebrate the jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. To the east of the village is a publicly owned open pasture and recreation area known as the Sowerby Flatts. The fields show rig and furrow cultivation marks (i.e. dug with a spade rather than a plough) and the river shows signs of the abandoned project (started c. 1768) to build a canal from the centre of Thirsk to connect with the River Swale.

Demography
The 1881 UK Census recorded the population as 1,743. The 2001 UK Census recorded the population as 3,699 in 1,529 households. Of the total population, 48.3% were male and 51.7% were female with 2,851 being more than sixteen years old. There were 1,585 dwellings of which 493 were detached. The 2011 UK Census recorded the population as 4,249 in 1,808 households.

Education
The primary schools in the village are Sowerby Primary Academy and All Saints Roman Catholic Primary School. Sowerby Primary Academy was originally opened as a National School in 1872 in a building on Front Street but that building has now been converted into private housing. Its current premises on Topcliffe Road were opened in 1919 to house Thirsk Grammar School. When the Grammar School moved out in 1957 the premises were taken over by Sowerby Junior School. In 1980, following the closure of Sowerby Infants School, which was still located in the former National School on Front Street, the Junior and Infants Schools were merged on the Topcliffe Road site to form Sowerby County Primary School.

Thirsk School and Sixth Form College, the secondary school for the town and the surrounding rural area, is located in Sowerby and has around 1,100 pupils. Its catchment area covers Alanbrooke, All Saints RC, Baldersby St James CE, Carlton Miniott, Dishforth CE, Pickhill CE, Sessay CE, South Kilvington CE, Sowerby, Thirsk and Topcliffe CE Primary Schools and includes some areas served by Knayton CE Primary School. The school was established in 1957 by the then North Riding County Council, as Thirsk Grammar and Modern School, to provide secondary education in Thirsk, Sowerby and the surrounding district. It became Thirsk School in 1970 and is now organised as an 11-18 mixed comprehensive secondary school. From 2004 it was renamed Thirsk School and Sixth Form College.

Economy
The area's main industry is farming, although many people commute to nearby towns and cities for employment. There is significant employment in retail and in the public sector through Education, the Community Library, the Leisure Centre, local Health and Care Services and the Household Waste Recycling Centre. There are in addition many small and medium-sized businesses. The village also serves the local tourist industry, with holiday cottages, a hotel, bed and breakfast providers and a touring caravan site just to the south of the village.

Amenities include a pub/restaurant, The Crown and Anchor, which is a Grade II Listed building. Also within the parish bounds is the volunteer-run Ritz Cinema in Westgate. It was opened as a picture house in 1912 by Walter Power after converting the building from the original 19th-century Mechanics' Institute. After closing in the early 1970s, it was re-opened in 1983. There was another brief closure between 1994 and 1995. It has a seating capacity of 215.

Religion
The parish church of St Oswald dates from about 1140. In 1145, Roger de Mowbray gave the care of the chapel at Sowerby to the Prior of Newburgh and historical records show that several members of the Lascelles family are buried here. The structure was rebuilt in 1842 and 1883 to accommodate a growing population. The church is a Grade II* listed building.

A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built on Front Street in 1865, with a school added in 1871.

Notable residents

 * The educationalist, John Rowntree, father of York-based cocoa and chocolate manufacturer Joseph Rowntree, was educated at a Quaker school in the village.
 * Labour M.P., member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, trades union activist and National Vice-President of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, local councillor and magistrate Joan Maynard lived and died here.
 * The author James Herriot (pen name of Alf Wight) lived at a house in Topcliffe Road.
 * Ralph Bell (died 1733), MP for Thirsk 1710–17.

title: Sowerby, North Yorkshire


text:
White-throated sparrow

The white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) is a passerine bird of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae. It breeds in northern North America and winters in the southern United States.

Taxonomy
In 1760 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the white-throated sparrow in the second volume of his Gleanings of Natural History. He used the current English name. Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a "neat drawing in colours" supplied by the American naturalist William Bartram from Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. When the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin revised and expanded Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae in 1789 he included the white-throated sparrow. He placed it with the finches in the genus Fringilla and coined the binomial name Fringilla albicollis. The white-throated sparrow is now one of five American sparrows placed in the genus Zonotrichia that was introduced by William Swainson in 1832. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ζωνη (zōnē) meaning "band" and θριξ (thrix), τριχος (trikhos) meaning "hair". The specific epithet albicollis combines Latin albus meaning "white" with Modern Latin -collis meaning "necked". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.

Description
The white-throated sparrow is a passerine bird of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae. It measures 15 to 19 cm in length with a wingspan of 23 cm. Typical weight is 22 to 32 g, with an average of 26 g. Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 6.3 to 7.9 cm, the tail is 6.8 to 7.7 cm, the bill is 1 to 1.2 cm and the tarsus is 2.2 to 2.4 cm. They are similar in appearance to the white-crowned sparrow, but with white throat markings and yellow lores.

There are two adult plumage variations known as the tan-striped and white-striped forms. On the white-striped form the crown is black with a white central stripe. The supercilium is white as well. The auriculars are gray with the upper edge forming a black eye line.

On the tan form, the crown is dark brown with a tan central stripe. The supercilium is tan as well. The auriculars are gray/light brown with the upper edge forming a brown eye line. Both variations feature dark eyes, a white throat, yellow lores and gray bill. There is variation and some individuals may show dark lateral stripes of each side of the throat.

They almost always pair with the opposite color morph for breeding. The two color morphs occur in approximately equal numbers. Both male and female white-striped birds are more aggressive than tan-striped birds during the breeding season. The aggression is linked to an increased rate of estrogen receptor alpha expression in white-striped birds.

The breast has gray/tan streaks and the streaks continue down the flanks but the belly is generally light gray. The wings are rufous with two distinct white wing bars. Sexes are morphologically similar.

Breeding
White-throated sparrows breed in central Canada and New England. They nest either on the ground under shrubs or low in trees in deciduous or mixed forest areas and lay three to five brown-marked blue or green-white eggs.

The tan and white morphs of white-throated sparrows use different reproductive strategies. Tan males invest in parental care and guard their mates from others searching for extra pair copulations (EPCs). White males invest in securing additional mates and EPCs through song advertisement and intruding into neighboring territory. Female morphs have similar differences, where tan females invest in parental care and white females solicit EPCs and engage in brood parasitism, leaving their eggs in another's nest to be raised and fed. Mating with the opposite morphs and using alternative reproductive strategies helps maintain competitive equilibrium. This behaviour has been described genetically to follow from the chromosomal inversion of a supergene which acts as an extra pair of sex-determining genes, resulting in four phenotypes that reproduce in a disassortative mating pattern.

Wintering and migration
In winter, this species migrates to the southern and eastern United States. They are differential migrants with females migrating farther, increasing the proportion of females at lower latitudes in the Atlantic flyway. Females are smaller so they would not perform as optimally at colder, higher latitudes, and females avoid competition with the dominant males of the winter hierarchies by migrating farther. There is also no benefit for females to be among the first to return after winter, so migrating farther allows the males to return and establish territory a few weeks before their arrival. It stays year round in the Atlantic provinces of Canada. This bird is a rare vagrant to western Europe. Alongside some other species such as the cardinal, dark-eyed junco, song sparrow and chickadees, this species ranks among the most abundant native birds during winter in eastern North America.

Despite a high level of conspecific rivalry within white-throated sparrows, this species is often dominated by other seed-eating winter residents, even those that are no larger than itself like the song sparrow, and thus may endure high levels of predation while foraging since restricted to sub-optimal sites at times by competition. Not to mention numerous mammalian carnivores, at least ten avian predators often hunt them and they are among the most regular prey species for some smaller raptors, i.e. the sharp-shinned hawk and eastern screech-owl.

Diet
These birds forage on the ground under or near thickets or in low vegetation by kicking backward with both feet simultaneously. They mainly eat seeds, insects and berries, and are attracted to bird feeders. Blackberries, grapes, and rose hips are some fruits they eat. One of its favorite seeds is millet, but it will also feed on black oil sunflower and different seeds. During the summer, insects and other small invertebrates make up a larger portion of their diet.

Song and calls
White-throated sparrows produce song laterally through the left side of their syrinx, and control of their syrinx involves both their central and peripheral nervous systems. After damage to motor control of the left side of the syrinx, individuals were still able to produce sound but their song pattern was distorted, indicating the left side chiefly controls their production of song. There are at least two distinct songs sung by this species. One consists of an initial note, followed by three or so repeated notes at an interval of about a major third above. The second song consists of an initial note, a second a whole step lower, and a third note, repeated two or three times, about a minor third below that. This second song is commonly described by use of mnemonics with the cadence of "Po-or Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" (or "O-oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada") The rhythm is very regular, and the timbre could be described as pinched. These musical intervals are only approximate; to a human ear the song often sounds out of tune. The repeated note will often change in pitch very slightly, contributing to this effect.

As reported by National Geographic in 2020, ornithologists have discovered a new song for the white-throated sparrow. This bird song begins in the same way as the typical song, but with a subtle difference: the repeating triplets, as in "Peabody", become doublets, as in "Cherry", ending with a final single tone. This new tune began to appear in British Columbia, Canada, and then spread east.

The white-throated sparrow also has at least two calls, in addition to its song.

title: White-throated sparrow