Was stationed in Germany
Brown is set to become the new US Chief of Staff
05/25/2023, 11:08 p.m
US President Biden wants to make the current US Air Force Chief of Staff, Charles Brown, US Chief of Staff. In the new role, he would succeed Mark Milley. Senate approval is still pending.
US Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Brown is set to become the new Armed Forces Chief of Staff. This was announced by President Joe Biden in the White House. He referred to Brown as a fighter. “He knows what it means to be in the middle of a battle and keep a cool head when things get tough.” The high-ranking military – born in 1962 – is to succeed Mark Milley. The US Senate still has to approve the appointment.
The Chief of Staff is the US President’s military adviser and directs the Department of Defense’s strategic planning. Brown has been Air Force Chief of Staff since 2020 and was nominated by former President Donald Trump. He is the first black man to lead a branch of the US military. In a previous function he was also stationed in Germany from 2014 to 2015 – as head of an Air Force department for operations and nuclear deterrence at the US base in Ramstein.
Brown shared his own experiences with racism and made history, Biden said. After the death of George Floyd in a brutal police operation almost three years ago, Brown caused a stir with an emotional video in which he spoke about his own experiences in the army as a black man. “I think of my career in the Air Force, where I was often the only African American on my squadron, or as a senior officer, the only African American in the room.”
He often had the impression that he had to “work twice as hard” as others to prove to his superiors that prejudice against black people was wrong.
The current Chief of Staff Milley’s four-year term ends in September. The army general took up the post in 2019 under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump.