The US presidency said in a statement that Biden will announce his intention to nominate the African-American general to the highest military office in the United States at a ceremony to be held in the Rose Garden of the White House.
If the Senate approves Gen. Brown’s appointment, he will succeed Gen. Mark Milley, who served as Chief of Staff since Oct. 1, 2019, and his term will soon end.
Who is General Charles Brown?
General Brown will become the second African-American to hold the highest military post in US history, having been preceded only by General Colin Powell in the 1990s. The sixty-year-old general will also work under the orders of a black secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, in a precedent in the history of the United States. General Brown is a former pilot with 3,000 flying hours, including 130 hours on combat missions. After being appointed brigade commander, Brown assumed the post of commander of United States Air Forces in the Middle East and Pacific. General Brown’s name has emerged amid anti-racism protests in the United States following the death of George Floyd three years ago, which took place under the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’. That day, the senior officer posted a video clip in which he spoke about the discrimination he himself faced, including in the army. In the Air Force, he said, “I was often the only African American in my squadron and, as a senior officer, the only African American in the room.” He added: “I remember the pressure I was under to do nothing wrong, especially in front of my bosses who I didn’t think expected much of me as an African American. ” He stressed that he was working “doubly hard” to prove that their expectations and stereotypes of African Americans were wrong.
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