Bruce B . G . Clarke Bruce Bennett Gorham Clarke ( born January 26 , 1943 , Ft . Benning , Georgia ) is a former U . S . Army officer . Clarke is currently president of Bruce Clarke Consultants , Inc . , a defense consulting firm . He is widely published on military and national security affairs including " Expendable Warriors " and a regular column for the " Examiner " . Family . Clarke was born in Ft . Benning , Georgia to LTC Arthur F . Gorham and Corrine " Colonel " Bennett Gorham ( later Clarke ) . After LTC Gorham was killed leading paratroopers from the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment during Operation Husky , the allied invasion of Sicily during World War II , Clarke ' s mother married Edwin R . Clarke who adopted Clarke . Clarke ' s siblings are Dr . Richard Clarke and Cindy Clarke Carnahan . Clarke married his wife Sue in 1969 after the two had met on a blind date during a golf tournament upon his return from Vietnam . While a graduate student at UCLA , the Clarkes appeared on the " Newlywed Game " winning a bedroom set . The Clarkes have three children , a daughter and two sons , and three grandsons . Education . Clarke attended public schools in Wichita , Kansas before winning a scholarship to Middlesex School in Concord , Massachusetts . Excelling both as a student and as an athlete , Clarke was accepted to both Stanford and Harvard but , to the surprise of many of his Ivy League - bound classmates , elected to attend the U . S . Military Academy at West Point . In 1961 , Clarke joined the Class of 1965 at West Point . While at West Point , Clarke was known for overloading on political science courses . He graduated third in his class in military history . Upon graduation in June 1965 , Clarke received a commission as a second lieutenant in the cavalry . Clarke holds a master of arts degree from the University of California , Los Angeles . He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College and the National War College . Clarke was a member of MIT ' s Center for International Studies ' Seminar II . The Battle of Khe Sanh . In January 2013 , Clarke used his " Examiner " column to recount his experiences at Khe Sanh and pay tribute to all those who fought there . What follows is the text of that article : In Expendable Warriors : The Battle of Khe Sanh and the Vietnam War I argue that the US won the battle of Khe Sanh and lost the war at the very same time . There was a battle fought in Khe Sanh village on 21 and 22 January 1968 that very few people know about . Every military historian knows of the artillery barrages and the trenches that were the siege of the Khe Sanh Combat Base ( KSCB ) , but what has been called the biggest ground battle of Khe Sanh took place when at 5 AM on 21 January 1968 the 66th Regiment , 304th North Vietnamese Army ( NVA ) Division launched an attack against the Huong Hoa District Headquarters in Khe Sanh Village ( about 4 km south of the Khe Sanh Combat Base ) . The ensuing fight pitted a mixed force of five different groups ( 175 men ) inside the compound against 2000 men of the NVA force — the little band of warriors included : The attack was from three directions with the main effort coming from the southwest against the RF Company . The weather was extremely poor with very heavy fog . The initial enemy assault was beaten off by the courageous efforts of the RF Company and by almost constant barrages of artillery using variable time fused rounds . Alter the initial assault was broken , the enemy simply backed off and using the positions he had already prepared , attempted to destroy the key bunkers by recoilless rifle and rocket propelled grenade fire . Simultaneously it moved into Khe Sanh village and setup mortars with which they attempted to shell the compound . At this time the police station was still communicating with the District Headquarters and made it possible to put effective fire on the enemy moving into the village . For the next four hours there were constant attacks or probes against the compound which were beaten off by the valiant efforts of Bru ( Montagnard ) PFs and the Vietnamese RFs working as a coordinated team and reinforced by the CAP Marines , which SGT Balanco moved to meet the threat . At about 1130 the fog burned off , during the next five hours there were three attempts to resupply the beleaguered garrison , which was in dire straits for ammunition . All during the afternoon CPT Ward Britt , an Air Force FAC , working out of Quang Tri put in numerous air strikes on the massed NVA who were trying to reorganize . On one of these airstrikes he put in two fighters on 100 NVA in the open and after it was over he could not see any movement , just bodies . The night of 21 January the NVA were unable to make an attack and only sniped throughout the night . Captains Nhi and Clarke collaborated continually and estimated where the NVA would withdraw to . A B - 52 strike was requested and it was later learned that the strike had hit the Regiment , The next morning the evacuation of District Headquarters was ordered after Colonel David Lownds , the commander of the 26th Marine Regiment , ordered the evacuation of the Marines from the garrison and denied further artillery support — over 1200 rounds had been fired in the last 24 hours in support of the District Headquarters defense . The Marines and the wounded were evacuated by air . CPT Clarke and SFC King , two of the advisors , accompanied the District Forces who , using an unknown route , successfully escaped from the District Headquarters . That afternoon CPT Clarke accompanied a Special Forces strike team that conducted a heliborne raid back into the District Headquarters to destroy everything that the District Forces had left behind and to evacuate the over 150 weapons that the District Forces had captured . The District government , forces , and advisors spent the next two and a half months in exile at the Khe Sanh Combat Base where they dodged artillery rounds , took part in the defense of the Combat Base , and operated an intelligence net . The siege of KSCB lasted for 76 more days . During that time the ” agony of Khe Sanh ” played on the front pages and news reports on Main Street thought out the country . The result was that while the battle of Khe Sanh was won ( two NVA divisions were rendered combat ineffective ) but the public relations battle and thus the war was lost . Army career . Following Ranger and Airborne Schools , Clarke commanded a 160 - man airborne cavalry troop in Germany . From there he deployed to Vietnam first as an assistant district advisor and then as a district advisor . Clarke fought in the Battle of Khe Sanh and later participated in both the planning and retaking of the combat base . In 2007 , Clarke wrote about his experiences in " Expendable Warriors " from Praeger Security International . Returning from Vietnam , and recently married , Clarke moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California , Los Angeles where he earned a master of arts degree . Because of a shortage of officers , Clarke was forced to leave UCLA before finishing his PhD for a teaching post in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point . Among his students at West Point was David H . Petraeus . Clarke next attended the Command and General Staff College at Ft . Leavenworth , Kansas and then moved up through a variety of positions within the 1st Infantry Division at Ft . Riley , Kansas . In 1979 , Clarke was tapped to join the Army Staff in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans in the Political - Military Division under future Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General John Shalikashvili . One of his first assignments was as a member of the Reagan - Carter presidential transition team . Clarke also worked on the ABM Treaty . In early 1982 , he left the Pentagon to take command of the 2nd Squadron , 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Bad Kissingen , Germany . Clarke and his troopers were responsible for over 150 - km of the East - West German border in the Fulda Gap . During this period , the Squadron fielded both the M1 Abrams main battle tank and the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle . Next , Clarke attended the National War College graduating with the class of 1985 . From there he joined the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency inside the State Department working for Ambassador Ken Adelman . Clarke served as the senior military officer in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union . After his first year at the State Department he was selected for brigade command but the busy pace of Soviet - American negotiations caused his assignment to be extended one year beyond the normal two year posting . In his three years at the State Department , he regularly shuttled between negotiations in Washington and Geneva . This period include three summit meetings between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev : the November 1985 Geneva Summit , the October 1986 Reykjavík Summit and the December 1987 Washington summit where the Intermediate - Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed . In 1988 , Clarke returned to the uniformed Army as commander of the 2nd Brigade , 1st Infantry Division at Ft . Riley , Kansas . The brigade was composed of 2 - 16 Infantry Battalion , 3 - 37 Armor Battalion , and 4 - 37 Armor Battalion , plus supporting units and a battalion from the Minnesota National Guard . Clarke ' s training of the Dagger Brigade for desert combat would prove fortuitous as days after giving up command in 1990 to Colonel Tony Moreno , Iraqi forces overran Kuwait . The 2nd Brigade eventually helped lead the ground invasion during Operation Desert Storm capturing Safwan , the site of the cease fire talks between General Norman Schwarzkopf and Iraqi commanders . In recognition of his service to the armor community , in 1990 Clarke was inducted into the Order of Saint George , one of the U . S . Armor Association ' s highest honors . That same year , Kansas Governor Mike Hayden named Clarke an " honorary Kansan " apparently unaware that Clarke was a lifelong Kansan . Clarke ' s final posting was as Director of National Security Studies at the U . S . Army War College in Carlisle , Pennsylvania . While at the Army War College he published extensively on military modernization and helped shape the work on conflict termination studies . In late - 1992 this work was put to the test when , following President George H . W . Bush ' s deployment of forces to Somalia for Operation Restore Hope , Clarke led a team to consult with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on building an exit strategy . The military and political bureaucracies rejected their advice and failed to establish a coherent policy to guide the withdrawal of forces . The U . S . was further drawn into the conflict before President Bill Clinton pulled troops out after the Battle of Mogadishu and the Blackhawk down incident . Clinton and his Secretary of Defense Leslie Aspin were roundly criticized for also failing to establish an exit strategy . For his work at the Army War College , Clarke was awarded the General Dwight D . Eisenhower Chair in National Security in 1994 . In 1995 , following 30 - years on active duty , Clarke retired . Army Chief of Staff General Gordon R . Sullivan presided over the ceremony and awarded Clarke the Legion of Merit . Post - Army career . Following his retirement from the Army , Clarke was the Training Manager at the Royal Saudi Land Forces Armored Institute in Tabuk , Saudi Arabia training Saudi armor officers and soldiers on the M1A2 main battle tank . After the Gulf War , the Saudis purchased 315 M1 tanks , enough to outfit a full armored division ( or two mechanized infantry divisions ) . In 1998 Clarke returned to the U . S . and joined QuVis , a start - up technology company , where he helped them develop their military and government business . In 2000 , Clarke founded Bruce Clarke Consultants , Inc . to work with defense contractors on technology integration issues . Since 2005 he has also served as an advisor to Rockhill Partners , a venture capital partnership . His work on defense issues , national security strategy and knowledge of the Middle East has led to his advising at least two members of the U . S . Senate . He also drew upon his experience during the Carter - Reagan presidential transition as a paid advisor to incoming Kansas Governor Bill Graves . Publications . Clarke is the author of " Expendable Warriors " ( Praeger Security International , 2007 ) with a foreword by former Joint Chiefs Chairman General John Vessey . The book is set to be released in paperback in April 2009 by Stackpole Books . He is also the author of " Conflict Termination : A Rational Model " ( Strategic Studies Institute , U . S . Army War College , 1992 ) . He was a contributor to " Managing Contemporary Conflict : Pillars of Success " edited by Max G . Manwaring and William J . Olson ( Westview Press , 1996 ) and " Maneuver Warfare Anthology " , edited by Richard D . Hooker , Jr . ( The Presidio Press , 1993 ) . In addition to a regular column for the Examiner he began writing in July 2009 , Clarke has authored numerous publications for military audiences having been published in the " Army Times " , " Armor " , the " Joint Forces Journal " , " Military Review " , " Infantry " , " Field Artillery " and the " Journal of Conflict and Terrorism " . Clarke has also been published in the " Washington Post " , the " Baltimore Sun " , and " The Topeka Capital - Journal " .