Gen. Shalikashvili Hospitalized for Stroke

FORT LEWIS, Wash. – Retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili (search), chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early years of the Clinton administration, has been hospitalized in guarded condition at an Army hospital here, a spokesman said Monday.

Shalikashvili, 68, entered Madigan Medical Center on Saturday morning, and the family is requesting that no more information be released, said Mike Meines, a hospital spokesman.

The former NATO (search) supreme allied commander spoke at the Democratic National Convention in July, endorsing John Kerry (search) for president.

"I do not stand here as a political figure," he told the convention. "Rather, I am here as an old soldier and a new Democrat."

In a statement Monday, Kerry called Shalikashvili "a good friend, a trusted adviser."

He added that he had called the general's family to say that he and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, were "praying for a speedy recovery and stand ready to do anything we can to help."

Shalikashvili served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the Clinton administration from 1993, the year Clinton took office, until 1997, when the general retired from the Army.

At a gathering honoring Shalikashvili when he retired, President Clinton pointed out that he made the recommendations that sent U.S. troops into harm's way in Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf and a host of other world hotspots that had proliferated since the end of the Cold War.

"In every conversation we ever had," Clinton said at the time, "he never minced words, he never postured or pulled punches, he never shied away from tough issues or tough calls, and most important, he never shied away from doing what he believed was the right thing."

Shalikashvili's willingness to commit U.S. forces to crises in remote countries rarely if ever seen on the list of "vital national interests" set him apart from his better-known predecessor, Gen. Colin Powell.

Earlier, under President George H.W. Bush (search), Shalikashvili served as NATO's supreme allied commander and also commander in chief of all U.S. armed forces in Europe. At the end of the first Gulf War, he was in charge of the Kurdish relief operation in Iraq.

He came to the United States in 1952 from his native Poland when he was 16. He enlisted in the Army six years later, beginning his rise through the ranks.

He and his wife, Joan, moved to Steilacoom, near the Army base south of Tacoma, in 1998.