Spokesmen of CENTCOM refuse to answer questions about Franks’ background, which is very sketchy, and few details are found in any of the published biographical sources.

Biographical entries about Franks are quite unusual in that they do not include the names of his parents or his religion.

Asked about why so little information is available about the man who will lead U.S. armed forces in war, a Defense Dept. spokesman said: “He’s had his bio out that he wants to put out. He has certain rights.”
“Because we are in a different age, that is force protection,” Pentagon spokesman Dan Hetlage said about the secrecy behind Franks’ background. “That’s a personal decision [to release personal information]. It makes no difference [his religion]. He takes his orders from the President. Would it make a difference if Gen. Franks or Gen. Hetlage were in command?”

Franks is said to be the only child of Ray, a Wynnewood, Okla., construction worker, and Lorene, a seamstress and homemaker. Soon after his birth in 1945, his family is said to have relocated to George W. Bush's former hometown of Midland, Texas, where Franks was a lineman on the high school football squad, who apparently made little impression. When Franks first surfaced as the commander of CENTCOM, journalists could find no one in Midland who could actually remember him having lived there.

An archivist in Midland checked the town records for American Free Press and found the Franks family listed only from 1955 to 1962, during which time Ray Franks worked at a local hardware store. Oddly, from 1945 to 1955 there is no mention of the Franks family in Midland records, according to the archivist. The same year Tommy finished high school, the family apparently disappeared from Midland records.

Having attended the same high school in Midland as the president’s wife, Laura Bush, Franks moved to Austin where he attended University of Texas for about two years before dropping out and joining the army. After serving in Vietnam, Franks was selected to participate in the Army's "Boot Strap Degree Completion Program," and subsequently attended the University of Texas, Arlington, where he graduated with a degree in Business Administration in 1971.

Franks collected three Purple Hearts in Vietnam although how he was injured is not a matter of public record.

After a long career in the army, Franks, who is an artillery specialist, was promoted to general by former Secretary of Defense William Cohen and placed in charge of Central Command, which is responsible for the entire Middle East area.

“My faith in God is important,” Franks said in an interview, however, it is not known which faith he belongs to. Although it has been said that Franks is of Russian Jewish extraction, the son or grandson of Khazar Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, like Gen. Wesley Kanne Clark (who was raised as a Protestant in Little Rock), the religious and ethnic background of Tommy Franks is simply not known.


Biography

“That in itself says a lot,” independent investigator James W. von Brunn of Easton, Maryland, told AFP. “He’s hiding something,” Von Brunn said. Having conducted “an intensive search” into Frank’s background von Brunn “was unable to find anything.”

Franks was born in Wynnewood, Okla., on June 17, 1945. Dropping out of the University of Texas in 1965, after his sophomore year, Franks joined the Army, got a commission as an artillery lieutenant and shipped out for Vietnam.

While in Vietnam, he spent most of his time directing fire on the enemy. He was wounded three times and received three Purple Hearts. Upon his return, he finished college, receiving a business degree from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Franks married Cathryn Carley in 1969, and they have a daughter, Jacqy.
After Vietnam, Franks began a rapid rise through the military ranks. In the early 1970s, he commanded an armored engineer company in West Germany. He completed tours at the Pentagon in the Army Inspector General's Office and later as an Army liaison with Congressional leaders. During Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, he served with the First Cavalry Division.

Franks took over U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), one of nine unified commands in the Department of Defense, four months before the attack in Yemen on the USS Cole in October 2000. He worked at Central Command's headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla.

http://community.webshots.com/album/3695913JbEmdsdtzb/1