Army trained to protect old civic leader (5)
I believe the answer is:
mayor
'civic leader' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'army trained to protect old' is the wordplay.
'trained' indicates an anagram (to train can mean to grow something into a shape).
'to protect' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are held or protected).
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'army' is an anagram of 'mayr'.
'mayr' placed around 'o' is 'MAYOR'.
(Other definitions for mayor that I've seen before include "Town's elected head" , "City manager" , "Local bigwig" , "Local dignitary" , "Town's chief citizen." .)