Gen. John Shalikashvili, 75, the first foreign-born soldier to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, died Saturday at an Army hospital in Washington state of complications after a stroke.
Shalikashvili succeeded Gen. Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 1993 under President Bill Clinton and served until 1997. He advised Clinton on crises in the Balkans, Haiti and other troubled places.
The general was born in Poland, and his family emigrated in 1952, when he was 16. He became a citizen in 1958 and was drafted two months later. He rose through the ranks and at the end of the first Gulf War was put in charge of the U.S. military's first major humanitarian mission: returning starving Kurds to Iraq.
Referring to the general by his nickname, President Obama said that "from his arrival in the United States as a 16-year-old Polish immigrant after the Second World War, to a young man who learned English from John Wayne movies, to his rise to the highest ranks of our military, Shali's life was an 'only-in-America' story. By any measure, he made our country a safer and better place."
When Clinton selected Shalikashvili for chairman, the general had been sharply critical of the West's delay in intervening in Bosnia. "He never minced words; he never postured or pulled punches; he never shied away from tough issues or tough calls; and most important, he never shied away from doing what he believed was the right thing," Clinton said on Saturday.
The general was the chairman when the military's don't ask, don't tell policy toward gay and lesbian service members was adopted. He supported the policy at the time but later changed his mind. In a 2007 opinion piece in the New York Times, he wrote that the policy had been "a useful speed bump that allowed temperatures to cool for a period of time while the culture continued to evolve." But he said that conversations with soldiers had convinced him that gay men and lesbians serving openly "would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces."
Asked at the time of his confirmation how he felt about women in the military, he replied, "I feel great about women in the military."
NEW YORK TIMES
