General Sir Michael David Jackson (born 21 March 1944) is a retired British Army officer and one of its most high-profile generals since the Second World War. Originally commissioned into the Intelligence Corps in 1963, he transferred to the Parachute Regiment, with which he served two of his three tours of duty in Northern Ireland. In 1994, Jackson served his first tour in the Balkans, where he commanded a multi-national division of the Implementation Force. Following a staff job back in the UK, he was appointed commander of NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) in 1997. He returned to the Balkans with the ARRC during the Kosovo War, during which he famously refused to obey an order from American General Wesley Clark. Upon his return to the UK, Jackson was promoted to full general and appointed Commander-in-Chief, Land Command, the second-most senior position in the British Army. After three years as Commander-in-Chief, Jackson was appointed Chief of the General Staff (CGS), the professional head of the British Army, in 2003. He was succeeded as Chief of the General Staff by Sir Richard Dannatt in 2006, and retired from the Army after serving for almost 45 years. (Full article...)