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By Jim Buice

For the Clemmons Courier

Mike Combest has lived all over the world as a retired U.S. Army brigadier general, but he quickly admits there’s no better place than Clemmons.

After living “the typical nomadic Army life” and moving 21 times while serving on every continent but Antarctica, Combest vividly remembers when he and his wife, Janice, came to the village in November 2006.

“We moved here because a lady named Karen Taylor told us to check it out,” he said. “Karen was the chief of staff of my last command. After Janice and I decided it was time to retire, she said, ‘If you check out a small town called Clemmons, N.C., you won’t look anywhere else.’ So we drove down to Clemmons and spent a morning looking around, and Janice said, ‘This is the place. We don’t need to look anywhere else.’ That was 19 years ago, and she was right.”

“Of all the places we had the good fortune to live and work in, not one of these surpasses this amazing community,” Combest said. “We had the great luck to live and deploy throughout the U.S. — Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, California, Georgia, New York, Virginia, Alaska, Maryland, Washington D.C., Florida, South Carolina; and overseas — Germany, Belgium, Korea, Australia, Japan, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc. Some may be more dramatic or exciting or famous, but none offers a better quality of life than Clemmons — not even close.”

The Combests have been married for 48 years and have three sons, Bradley, Kevin and Ian. Out of all of their moves, the longest time-on-station was in Alaska, at Fort Richardson with the 6th Infantry Division.

“We spent five years there,” Combest said, “one year of which I spent deployed to the Middle East — Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc.”  

Certainly, Combest has lived a complete life, starting in his days growing up in a tiny Oklahoma town named Velva Alma, “with nothing there — only cows and oil field rigs.”

Things changed when he went to West Point, N.Y., where he prepared for his career and the “great opportunity” of over three decades in the Army, where, among many other things, “I got paid to go to Australia and live in cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.”

At West Point, he fell in love with boxing, which became his favorite sport, and made numerous trips to Yankee Stadium to pull for the Yankees. After all, he always idolized fellow Oklahoman Mickey Mantle and actually met the legendary Joe DiMaggio one day in the city at a hot dog stand in Central Park.

And speaking of sports, Combest is an avid runner — and not just jogging or a 5K. Just last month, at the age of 72, he participated in the Bataan Memorial Death March in White Sands, N.M., which is a 26-mile race carrying a 40-pound backpack through the Organ and San Andres mountains.

Other highlights include the Midnight Marathon in West Virginia — a start-to-finish in the dark with a headlamp through the Allegheny Mountains, and the Mongolia Sunrise to Sunset endurance race last August — 40K through the Sayan mountains.

But that’s only a part of it.

After his “retirement” in Clemmons nearly two decades ago, Combest has spent time helping out the library — “mainly hauling books and other grunt work,” and supporting the Rotary Club and “the great work that outfit does.” He admits to being “lucky enough to still judge high school debates” as he was invited to judge at the 2024 National High School Debate championships at Harvard, saying “I got a free hoodie out of the deal.”

Combest said he has “pretty much handed off the small agriculture business to my partner for day-to-day operations” but remains an independent consultant specializing in strategy, operations and organization.

“I have been fortunate to have a couple of articles/papers published — most recently, “Radically Rethinking the Field Artillery” in the Hoover Institution’s ‘Strategika’ journal and the Army’s Field Artillery Journal,” Combest said. “I have been invited to pen a couple of articles concerning U.S. strategic and operational doctrine.”

Then there’s his important role on the Clemmons Village Council, running for office the first time in 2015 at the urging of friends and neighbors, where he turned out to be the top vote-getter in the election.   

Combest said: “My aim was to help us accomplish seven real, measurable outcomes — (1) safe neighborhoods,  (2) incredibly low taxes, (3) no debt, (4) outstanding schools, (5) a booming business sector, (6) the absolute best municipal services and (7) safe and convenient travel and traffic. I ran a second time after being re-appointed to fill a council vacancy, committing to again accomplish the same seven objectives.”

His goal of bringing two very practical working philosophies to the council include: (1) Count every penny, make every penny count; and (2) Quality growth and quality of life are not incompatible — when we make smart, tough decisions.”

Going forward, Combest said that the village has two huge challenges and opportunities.

“The first involves growth, and the second is maintaining authority to set and enforce the zoning and building standards that are right for Clemmons,” he said. “Clemmons continues to be the Crown Jewel of Carolina.’ As such, we attract high-quality growth and investment.  Consequently, we are the fastest-growing community in the Triad, and among the fastest growing in the state. We know how to both grow and protect our extraordinary quality of life.

“Our challenge is making the smart, often tough decisions required to do so. This primarily involves determining which developments to approve and disapprove. When we get these decisions right, we pave the way to increase prosperity, create new opportunities and protect our superior quality of life.”  

He added that the second challenge/opportunity involves “a continued full-scale assault in the N.C. legislature to pass numerous bills designed to strip local governments of their authority to set and enforce the standards required to fulfill their mandates as set in North Carolina statute, which specifically charges towns and cities with crafting and enforcing zoning and planning regulations that ‘promote the public health, safety and general welfare.’

“As in 2023, legislation is now being driven that will greatly reduce, and in many cases eliminate Clemmons’ ability to meet these obligations. Fortunately, in 2023 we were able to keep this legislation from passing. Defeating it took a great deal of hard work — coalition building, research, going to Raleigh to make our case, etc. This year we will be challenged once again to defeat these efforts.”

Like many things involving Combest’s mission, he felt like the council “still had a good deal of unfinished work in progress when 2023 rolled around, so I decided to run again. I am slated to complete this term in 2027.”

And then he’ll see what’s next. Either way, he can rest assured that Clemmons is the place he calls home.