DATE: Saturday, October 25, 1997            TAG: 9710250310

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   50 lines

NORFOLK ADMIRAL UP FOR PENTAGON POST HE'S COMMANDED 2ND FLEET SINCE '96.

Vice Adm. Vern Clark, commander of the Norfolk-based 2nd Fleet, has been tapped to become director of operations for the joint staff at the Pentagon. Vice Adm. William J. Fallon, deputy and chief of staff of the U.S. Atlantic Command here, has been nominated to succeed him.

Both moves were announced Friday, following nominations to the new posts by President Clinton. They await Senate approval.

Clark, 53, has commanded the 2nd Fleet since March 1996, his duties including supervision of predeployment training for carrier battle groups from the fleet's command ship, the Mount Whitney.

If his selection is approved, he would become the main coordinator between the joint staff and any U.S. military operation taking place anywhere in the world.

Before taking the 2nd Fleet job, the three-star admiral was deputy chief of staff of the Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk. His naval career has included a broad range of sea and shore commands; during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, he served as director of the Joint Staff Crisis Action Team.

His at-sea commands include the patrol gunboat Grand Rapids, the fast frigate McCloy, the destroyer Spruance and destroyer squadrons 17 and 5. He also commanded Cruiser-Destroyer Group Three/Carl Vinson Battle Group.

Clark, who is a native of Sioux City, Iowa, lives with his wife, Connie, in Norfolk.

Fallon, 52, has served in his current position since September 1996.

He is an aviator who commanded an A-6 Intruder squadron - Attack Squadron 65 - aboard the carrier Eisenhower in 1984-85. He later commanded Medium Attack Wing 8 at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, and Air Wing 8 aboard the carrier Theodore Roosevelt.

While aboard that carrier, he led 80 warplanes on missions into Kuwait and Iraq during Desert Storm.

Fallon led the Navy's only 10-squadron carrier air wing, the service's largest with more than 2,400 sailors. In the gulf, the air wing conducted more than 4,300 Desert Storm missions, striking 531 targets with 4.5 million pounds of ordnance.

The air wing logged nearly 12,000 missions and 27,727 flight hours.

Fallon is a graduate of Villanova University and has been a naval flight officer since 1967. He has accumulated more than 4,800 flight hours and 1,300 carrier landings. ILLUSTRATION: Vice Adm. Clark

Vice Adm. Fallon

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