“You don't pick generals off park benches. … They are experts at what they do and lot of thinking goes into it.”

— Tom Clancy

1990s, CNN interview (1999)
Context: My vision for this book and the others in the series is to let people know what kind of commanders we have. You don't pick generals off park benches. … They are experts at what they do and lot of thinking goes into it. And I want to get across to people the intellectual dimension of command, to let people know that it's hard to be a general. And the people we have with general stars on their shoulders are pretty smart and pretty good guys.

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Tom Clancy 83

American author 1947–2013

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