Tommy Franks
Tommy Franks was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, United States on June 17th, 1945 and is the War Hero. At the age of 78, Tommy Franks biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Tommy Ray Franks (born June 17, 1945) is a retired army general.
His last military role was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, which was in charge of US military operations in a 25-country area, including the Middle East.
Franks took over General Anthony Zinni's position on July 6, 2000, and he continued until his retirement on July 7, 2003. In response to the September 11 attacks in Afghanistan, Franks was the US general in command of the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
He oversaw the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Saddam Hussein's overtrowening.
Early life and education
Tommy Ray Bentley was born in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, and was adopted by Ray and Lorene "Pete" Parker Franks. Franks attended Midland High School and graduated from Robert E. Lee High School in Midland, Texas, a year before First Lady Laura Bush. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, where he was a brother of Delta Upsilon International Fraternity. Due to poor grades and a lack of motivation, he dropped out of college after two years. Franks decided to give himself a "jolt" and join the United States Army.
Franks continued to enroll at the University of Texas in Arlington, Texas, where he earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1971. He earned a Master of Science in Public Administration from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, and he is a graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College and the Army War College.
Personal life
Franks has been operating Franks & Associates LLC, a private consulting firm active in the disaster recovery industry, since 2003. General Franks formed a joint venture with Innovative Decon Solutions in June 2006.
Franks released his memoirs in American Soldier (HarperCollins), which debuted as Number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list in August 2004, displacing President Bill Clinton's memoir from the top spot. One reviewer lauded General Franks' memories of his Vietnam service but later said that the book, as the Iraq war itself, "begins better than it ends." In recalling the earlier war, the reviewer expressed disappointment that Franks had "relied less on the official record and more on his own experience and memories."
Franks, a Republican congressman from New York, endorsed President George W. Bush for re-election on August 31. On December 14, 2004, President Bush gave Franks the country's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Franks also worked as a spokesperson for Teen Arrive Alive, a company that uses GPS in cellular phones to notify parents how fast their teenage children are driving in the same month.
Franks was named to the Bank of America board of directors in December 2005, a position he held until resigning on September 11, 2009, as part of a "exodus" of ten directors from April to August, 2009. Starting in 2008, the bank had received $45 billion in U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds and suffered massive losses.
Franks also serves on the board of directors of OSI Restaurant Partners. Chuck E. Cheese's board of directors was elected on March 26, 2008.
Franks serves on the National Park Foundation's Board of Directors. He is a consultant to the Central Command Memorial Foundation and the Military Child Education Coalition, as well as a Spokesman for the Southeastern Guide Dogs Organization.
In addition, he serves on the Board of Trustees for William Penn University, a university that was established and sponsored by the Society of Friends (Quakers).
In Hobart, Oklahoma, a museum dedicated to him exists.
Franks currently resides in Roosevelt, Oklahoma.
Franks' involvement with the charitable Coalition to Salute America's Heroes, which he charged $100,000 to raise funds for wounded veterans, was revealed in January 2008. Franks withdrew his funding for the organization in late 2005 after congressional investigators and watchdog organizations' allegations that only 25% of the funds made it to wounded veterans, relative to the industry's average of 85%. Roger Chapin, the charity's president, and his wife had reportedly been living on the charity's funds, according to Roger Chapin. "What kind of person would insist, or even allow himself to be paid to raise money for those who were injured while under his custody?" Franks said. Franks says he ended his involvement in the cause when he realized that the bulk of the funds he raised went to the charity rather than the troops."
Military career
Franks was enlisted in the United States Army in 1965 and underwent Basic Education at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and received his Advanced Individual Education as a cryptologic analyst at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Private First Class Franks, who stood out among his classmates in outstanding marksmanship and leadership qualities, was chosen to attend the Artillery and Missile Officer Candidate School in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1967. He was posted in Vietnam's 9th Infantry Division, where he served as forward observer, aerial observer, and Assistant S-3 with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Field Artillery, following his first tour as a battery Assistant Executive Officer at Fort Sill. During this tour, he served as Fire Chief Officer and Fire Support Officer with the 5th Battalion (mechanized). It was also his 60th Infantry.
Franks restored to Fort Sill, where he commanded a cannon battery in the Artillery Training Center in 1968. He was selected to enroll in the Army's "Boot Strap Degree Completion Service" in 1969 and later attended the University of Texas at Arlington, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in 1971. He was stationed in West Germany's 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he commanded the 1st Squadron Howitzer Battery and served as Squadron S-3 after attending the Artillery Officer Advanced Course. During this tour, he commanded the 84th Armored Engineer Company and served as Regimental Assistant S-3.
Franks, after graduating from Armed Forces Staff College, was sent to The Pentagon in 1976, where he served as an Army Inspector General in the Investigations Division. He was first posted to the Office of the Chief of Staff, Army, where he served on the Congressional Affairs Team and later as an Executive Assistant.
Franks returned to West Germany in 1981, as the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Field Artillery (2st Armored Division) was commanded for three years. He returned to the United States in 1984 to attend the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he also completed graduate studies at the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. He was sent as III Corps Deputy Assistant G3, a post he held until 1987, when he took over the 1st Cavalry Division Artillery. During this tour, he served as Chief of Staff in the 1st Cavalry Division.
During Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, Franks' first general officer service was Assistant Division Commander (Maneuver). He was stationed as Assistant Commandant of the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill from 1991-1992. He was posted in 1992 as the first Director of the Louisiana Maneuvers Task Force, the Army's Chief of Staff, and was stationed in South Korea as the CJG3 of Combined Forces Command and United States Forces Korea.
Franks commanded the 2nd Infantry Division, Korea, from 1995 to 1997. In May 1997, he took over Third United States Army Central Command in Atlanta, Georgia, a post he held until June 2000 when he was chosen for promotion to general and assignment as Commander in Chief, United States Central Command. In reaction to the September 11 attacks, Franks was the US general in charge of the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrowrow of the Taliban in government. He was also responsible for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Saddam Hussein's overthrowrow.
Franks' time as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan cites his inability to deploy 800 US Army Rangers to the Battle of Tora Bora as a key factor in allowing Osama bin Laden to escape into Pakistan. Franks' decision, according to Peter Bergen, a respected journalist and analyst on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, was "one of the best military blunders in recent US history," which allowed al-Qaeda to recover and begin to revolt, according to a leading journalist and scholar of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Franks defended his decision with the help of other notable US military figures, including the Delta Force commander at Tora Bora, was convinced that bin-Laden was at Tora Bora, but Fury and others argued that the evidence that bin-Laden was present was convincing; but the team was dissatisfied because of a lack of training from allied Afghan troops.
Franks' resignation was announced on May 22, 2003. Rumsfeld had reportedly offered him the post of Chief of Staff of the United States Army, but he declined. Franks' resignation took place on July 7, 2003.
Franks' awards include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal; Army Distinguished Service Medal; and a pair of oak leaf clusters; and a number of other national and international service awards. He wields the Army Identification Badge and the Aircraft Crewmember's Badge. He is an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004.
According to authors, Franks was beaten down by repeated demands from US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to reduce the number of US troops deployed in war plans and postpone the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division, a planned follow-on unit that was supposed to deploy in April 2003. Franks' command was more broadly focused on the immediate threat facing it – defeating Saddam Hussein and Baghdad – and few were able to divertt funds away from that effort toward longer-term post-war needs.
The writers also challenged his decision during the war to hold sealift ships carrying the equipment for the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at sea rather than bringing the pieces ashore in Kuwait sooner, so the division may have arrived in Iraq earlier than it did to raise force numbers in post-war Iraq. According to Franks, the Iraqis were tricked into believing a US attack was yet to arrive from Turkey, although Colin Powell and others have doubted his belief.
Franks wanted to retire after the war's big combat phase, but the war was too long for preparing and prosecuting two major wars and leading the global war against terrorism since September 2001. As a result, Gordon and Trainor say he was slow to respond during the crucial months following Baghdad's fall. Michael Delong and John Abizaid, the two deputies, were at odds with each other until Abizaid replaced Franks in the middle of the summer of 2003, and they suspect there was a leadership gap at US Central Command. Delong retired with a bitter taste in his mouth and wrote his own book about the headquarters' leadership deficiencies. They also note that there was a command change in Iraq as V Corps and General Ricardo Sanchez took over US forces in Iraq, which had not fully equipped and prepared for the mission in advance.
Thomas E. Ricks, a veteran defense and Pentagon reporter, echoes officers who served under Franks' argument that, although tactically correct, he lacked the tactical mindset and global intelligence required for the job. Some close to him said he was more thoughtful than he seemed. Secretary Rumsfeld and his staff were unable to address the Iraq War in military terms and had a duty to put forward more resistances to military planning. He was also chastised for failing to consider alternate perspectives and distracting himself from day-to-day operations as the ground war ended and was prepared for retirement, despite being both demanding and goal focused.
Franks said in the case of another terrorist attack, American constitutional rights may be discarded by popular demand in favour of a military state, according to Time magazine. Franks said that "the worst thing that could happen" is if terrorists obtain and use a biological, chemical, or nuclear bomb that inflicts heavy casualties in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks. "The Western world, the free world, loses what it treasures most, and that is freedom and democracy, which we've seen for a few hundred years in this grand experiment we've called democracy," Franks said. Franks then expressed "in a concrete sense" what he expects to happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
"It means the possibility of a mass-produced weapon and a major, casualty-producing event elsewhere in the Western world" — it could be in the United States of America — that could force our people to rethink our own Constitution and start to militarize our world in order to prevent a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event." "In fact, this leads to the unraveling of our Constitution's fabric."
"No one in this world was more shocked than I when war not used against our troops as they moved toward Baghdad," Franks said on December 2, 2005.
