Mark Milley
Mark Alexander Milley is a retired United States Army general who served as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023. He had previously served as the 39th chief of staff of the Army from 2015 to 2019 and held multiple command and staff positions in eight divisions and special forces.
A Reserve Officers' Training Corps graduate from Princeton University, Milley earned his commission as an armor officer in 1980. He later received a master's degree from Columbia University. He had numerous deployments during his career, notably including Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, the Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. During his first term, President Donald Trump appointed Milley chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the tenth U.S. Army officer to be chairman. As chairman, Milley was the highest-ranking officer in the United States Armed Forces and the principal military advisor to the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.
Following threats by Trump, President Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to Milley and other officials before he left office on 20 January 2025. Hours after Trump's inauguration for his second term that same day, Milley's official portrait, unveiled at the Pentagon on 10 January, was removed. A few days later, his security clearance was suspended and his security detail withdrawn.
Early life and education
Milley was born on 20 June 1958, in Winchester, Massachusetts. He is of Irish descent, and was raised Roman Catholic. His paternal grandfather, Peter, was from Newfoundland and served with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment during the Gallipoli campaign in World War I. His father, Alexander, enlisted in the U.S. Navy in March 1943 as a naval corpsman. He was assigned to the 4th Marine Division and landed at Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. After the war, he worked as a restaurateur and food-broker. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus, whose membership is limited to Catholic men. Milley's mother, Mary Elizabeth, was a nurse who served with the Navy's WAVES in World War II and is described by Milley as a "break-the-glass-ceiling" type of woman.Milley attended a Catholic grammar school where he played hockey. Good grades and athletic ability led to his being recruited to Belmont Hill School. and afterwards to Princeton University where he played varsity ice hockey.
There he joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, and in 1980 graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics after completing a 185-page-long senior thesis titled "The Irish Republican Army: A Critical Analysis of Revolutionary Guerrilla Organization in Theory and Practice". Milley holds a Master of International Affairs degree from the School of International & Public Affairs at Columbia University and another Master of Arts degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College. He is also an attendee of the MIT Center for International Studies Seminar XXI National Security Studies Program.
Military career
Milley earned his commission as an armor officer through Princeton's Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps program in 1980. His career included assignments with the 82nd Airborne Division, 5th Special Forces Group, 7th Infantry Division, 2nd Infantry Division, Joint Readiness Training Center, 25th Infantry Division, Operations Staff of the Joint Staff, and a posting as Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. His deployments included the Multinational Force and Observers in Egypt, Operation Just Cause in Panama, Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti, Operation Joint Endeavor and Joint Forge in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq, three tours during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and other deployments to Colombia, Somalia, and South Korea.Milley held multiple command and staff positions in eight divisions and units, including the 5th Special Forces Group and 10th Mountain Division, throughout his military career. He served as a commander of ODA 543, a 12-man combat diver-qualified Special Forces team. He commanded 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division, in South Korea from 1996 to 1998. He served as commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division from December 2003 to July 2005; deputy commanding general for operations of the 101st Airborne Division from July 2007 to April 2008, and as commanding general of the 10th Mountain Division from November 2011 to December 2012. Milley commanded III Corps, based at Fort Hood, Texas, from December 2012 to August 2014, and concurrently the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command from May 2013 to February 2014. He served as the commanding general of the United States Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina from August 2014 to August 2015.
Chief of Staff of the Army
Milley was appointed chief of staff of the Army on 14 August 2015. In his initial message to the U.S. Army, General Milley laid out his priorities on readiness, the future Army, and taking care of troops. "We must ensure the Army remains ready as the world's premier combat force. Readiness for ground combat is—and will remain—the U.S. Army's #1 priority. We will do what it takes to build an agile, adaptive Army of the future".Modernization and reform
During his tenure, Milley focused heavily on modernization efforts for the Army, which included a new command designed to consolidate the methods that deliver Army capabilities, similar to the approach used by U.S. Special Operations Command. At the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, Milley described the areas targeted for modernization, including tanks, aircraft and weapons. Milley said: "Faster results will be obtained...as we shift to a SOCOM-like model of buy, try, decide and acquire rather than the current industrial-age linear model that takes years to establish requirements, decades to test, and it may take a long, long time to go from idea to delivery". He warned: "If we adapt to the changing character of war, and we embrace the institutional changes that we need to implement, then we will continue to be the most lethal fighting force in the world for the next seven decades and beyond. If we do not, we will lose the next war".In February 2017, the Army announced the establishment of Security Force Assistance Brigades. Also known as SFABs, these permanent units were established in Fort Benning with a core mission to conduct security cooperation activities and serve as a quick response to combatant commander requirements.
File:Joseph Dunford and Mark Milley 181208-D-SW162-0396.jpg|thumb|General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks with Milley before the 2018 Army–Navy Game.
While their training would be similar to that of Special Forces, soldiers in the SFABs would not be considered Special Forces, Milley said. "They will be trained in many ways similar to Special Forces, but they are not Special Forces". These SFABs will be structured using the non-commissioned and commissioned officers of infantry brigade combat teams to train foreign military units in conventional light infantry tactics, Milley said.
In 2018, Secretary of the Army Mark Esper and Milley established Army Futures Command in Austin, Texas, to take advantage of nearby academic and industrial expertise. Coequal in status to the Army's three senior most commands: Army Forces Command, Army Material Command, and Army Training and Doctrine Command, it represented one of the largest reform initiatives undertaken in more than forty years. Beyond developing future warfighting concepts, eight cross-functional teams conducted research to further the Army's modernization priorities: long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicles, air and missile defenses, soldier lethality, synthetic training environments, future vehicle lift platforms, and assured positioning, navigation, and timing.
In 2018, Esper and Milley also led the roll-out of a new Army Combat Fitness Test. The new fitness test was designed to improve overall combat readiness and mimic physical tasks and stresses associated with combat and was set to replace the 40-year-old Army fitness test by October 2020. Milley said: "We want to make sure that our soldiers are... in top physical shape to withstand the rigors of ground combat. Combat is not for the faint of heart, it's not for the weak-kneed, it's not for those who are not psychologically resilient and tough and hardened to the brutality, to the viciousness of it".
Army Green Service Uniform
In early 2017, Milley and then-Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel A. Dailey began considering the possibility of bringing back an iconic two-tone uniform known as the "Pinks and Greens" to honor the "greatest generation" of soldiers who fought in World War II.The Army believed the reintroduction of the uniform would give soldiers a uniform for professional environments that honored the Army heritage, reconnect today's soldiers with their service history, strengthen pride, bolster recruiting and enhance readiness.
According to an Army Times poll conducted in the fall of 2018, of the 32,000 respondents, 72 percent indicated they were ready to embrace a new uniform, while 28 percent said they were happy with the current blue Army Service Uniform. Soldiers did express concerns about the need for an additional uniform as well as the costs associated with acquiring the new uniform. The Army tried to address this concern in its official roll-out announcement on 11 November 2018, indicating the uniform would be cost-neutral for enlisted soldiers, who would be able to purchase the new "everyday business-wear uniform" with their existing annual clothing allowance. The Army also indicated the new uniform would come "at no additional cost" to U.S. taxpayers and would be made in the U.S. Secretary of the Army Esper, who also championed the iconic "pinks and greens" uniform and worked with Milley and Dailey on the initiative, approved its return in November 2018.