Fact FileName: Gen Sir Michael Jackson
Age: 55
Occupation: Head of NATO's ACE Rapid Reaction Corps
Why in the news: His role in Kosovo has made him the best known general since Stormin' Norman
With each new revelation the gross human tragedy spewed up by the conflict in Kosovo has become increasingly difficult to stomach. Like the story journalist Robert Fisk has written about a dead Kosovar Albanian baby named Kfor.
Named after the NATO force in Kosovo, she was born without medical assistance: her umbilical cord was cut with a razor. Two days later she died as her parents hid in the basement of their Pristina home. The Serbs were on one last vicious rampage before the country was liberated.
It is worth recalling now because, had the little girl lived, Kfor's parents were going to ask Gen Sir Michael Jackson to be the child's godfather. They had decided to ask the Kfor commander to take this symbolic role in their child's life and they believed he would accept.
To Kosovar Albanians, Gen Jackson is hero, saviour, protector and avenger all rolled into one. No wonder. It is he, as head of the roughly 50,000-strong Kfor troops, who has been charged with the task of safely guiding the ethnic Albanian refugees back to their homeland. Meanwhile, the British tabloid press has built him up as some kind of camouflage-clad Terminator.
Jackson, who is under 24-hour protection by SAS guards, certainly has the physical demeanour to fit the half Moses, half Rambo role that has been thrust upon him. A tall, muscular figure, he exudes authority from his bright red beret to his polished army boots. His face is lived-in and weather-beaten, his expression suitably grim, and his eyes are nothing more than two harsh-looking slits above several dark bags, a permanent hangover from months of sleepless nights.
If anyone was likely to talk sense into the Serbs it was this stoic general who has the reputation as Britain's toughest soldier. Variously nicknamed Macho Jacko, Darth Vader and the Prince of Darkness (nicknames he hates) he is reputed to have a fierce temper that means he is both feared and respected by his subordinates.
He was said to have been exasperated by the intransigence of the Yugoslav delegation when he attended meetings with them as commander of NATO's Rapid Reaction Force to discuss the withdrawal of Serb troops from the region. Being forced to check everything he does with NATO heads in Brussels before he can take action is also anathema to this determined man who has gone where the action was for much of his career.
Gen Jackson was born just before D-Day into a service family and was groomed from an early age for military life. He attended the Royal Military College and at 19 was commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps. He learnt Russian there and continued his studies of the language at Birmingham University from which he graduated in 1967.
Three years later he joined the Parachute Regiment at Aldershot, to which he remains loyal. During his time with the Paras he made several tours to Northern Ireland, spending a total of six years there. It is unknown whether Jackson, who served as a member of the 1st Parachute Regiment which shot dead 13 people in Derry on Bloody Sunday, will be called before the British government's new inquiry into the tragedy. In an interview with The Irish Times in Macedonia about three weeks ago he said it was a government decision. Events that day were "utterly unplanned and unsought for", he said, and amounted to "a tragedy all round". Between stints in the North, Jackson took a number of posts including one, Director of Army Personnel, which he once said was about "bands, bog-roll and buggery". But it was on taking over command of 3 (UK) Division in 1994 that his involvement in the Balkans began. In 1995 and 1996 he headed the British arm of the NATO peacekeeping troops in Bosnia and was highly praised for his input. On his return he was appointed head of NATO ACE Rapid Reaction Corps.
Characterised by himself as a nomad, he shuns any sort of special treatment, sleeping in a US Marines cot while in Macedonia and, like Churchill, taking regular naps in the afternoon to maintain his stamina. He is capable of great diplomacy, observers say, and as television viewers have witnessed for themselves he is an excellent communicator.
When not helping resolve what is perhaps the last major conflict of the 20th century he lives in England with his wife and son, Thomas. He has two grown-up children from a previous marriage, one of whom is a Para. He spends his spare time, such as it is, reading, travelling, skiing and playing tennis.
His military hero is the Duke of Wellington. "I admire his style," he once told a reporter, "his focus on how best to do the job at hand". Had the ground war in Kosovo gone ahead, it most probably would have turned out to be Gen Sir Michael Jackson's Waterloo.