Lt. Gen. Stanley Clarke retired Dec. 18 as the director of Air National Guard, saying the Air Force has given him “too many blessings to count.”
In a ceremony at the ANG Readiness Center at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, Clarke reflected on his nearly 35 years of service and 4,000 flight hours.
“I always wanted to be a fighter pilot, I just wasn’t sure someone would give me the chance,” he said. “I can vividly recall flying at 100 feet over the swamps of Carolina in brand new A-10s, and squeezing the trigger on a 30mm cannon for the first time. And I can still play scenes in my head of avoiding anti-aircraft artillery over Iraq in F-16s.”
“The Air Force took me places I would have never had the opportunity to go otherwise,” Clarke continued. “Not all the memories have been good ones … I’ve touched the flag-draped caskets at Bagram, and I’ve been at Dover to watch them come home. However, the good memories outnumber the bad…and [I have] too many blessing to count.”
Secretary Deborah Lee James is expected to shortly nominate a replacement, who must be approved by Congress. Maj. Gen. Brian Neal, current deputy director of ANG, will serve as the acting director in the interim.
Fellow officers at the ceremony lauded Clarke’s service.
“He is an insightful, thoughtful and very dynamic leader,” said Brig. Gen. Michael Taheri, ANG Readiness Center commander. “He’s often quiet, and you wouldn’t know it but the wheels are always turning, so when he does speak, he speaks with the kind of measured thoughts that are always one step ahead of where I wish I could have been before I started talking to him.”
Air Force Times had the opportunity to sit down with Clarke for an interview shortly after he announced his retirement.
