JSOC General Expected to be Next Leader of America’s Special Operations Forces
JSOC General Expected to be Next Leader of America’s Special Operations Forces by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Washington Post
… the Army’s two most senior special operations officers, Gen. Joseph Votel and Lt. Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas, are the Pentagon’s new picks to lead two of its most influential four-star headquarters. The moves are not yet official, but they would put Votel and Thomas in charge of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command respectively, both based in Tampa, Florida.
… Thomas’s promotion, if confirmed, would appear to affirm the primacy not only of special operations within the military, but of JSOC’s hunter-killer units within the bigger special operations community. That trend began under the George W. Bush administration — it was who Bush famously told the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, “JSOC is awesome” — and has only intensified during the Obama years.
Thomas would be the third former JSOC commander in a row to head up SOCOM; the last time a career Green Beret held the post was more than 15 years ago, before the war on terror began, even though Green Berets account for by the far the plurality of SOCOM’s special operators and are seeing increased use from Africa to Afghanistan as the military tries to shape the war efforts of allied militaries and irregular forces…
