President Biden has nominated two female generals to run combatant commands, months after recommendations for their promotion was held up by the Pentagon because they fear Trump would reject them because they are women.
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost has been nominated to head U.S. Transportation Command, and Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson to head U.S. Southern command and to receive her fourth star, the Pentagon announced Saturday, according to Military. com.
Van Ovost is currently the only female four-star general in the military, and just the fifth in Air Force history. She currently serves as the commander of the Air Force’s Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. She has also served as a test pilot; commanded a refueling squadron, a training wing and an airlift wing; headed the C-17 Globemaster III program at the Pentagon, and served as vice director of the joint staff, according to Military.com.
Richardson is currently head of U.S. Army North at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas. She is a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter pilot who flew in combat during the Iraq War in 2003. If she is confirmed, she will be the second female four-star in Army history.
Both women would become the highest-ranking female officers currently serving in the U.S. military, if confirmed, as is expected.
The New York Times reported last month that former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley postponed endorsing their promotions under the Trump administration because they “feared that any candidates other than white men for jobs mostly held by white men might run into turmoil once their nominations reached the White House.”
But, Christopher Miller who took over as Secretary of Defense after Esper’s ouster told the Times that the promotions were delayed because of “timing considerations, not that they were women.”
