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VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON – An African American officer will now lead a U.S. military service branch for the first time in history, after the Senate confirmed Gen. Charles Brown Jr. on Tuesday as U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff in a unanimous vote of 98-0.<\/p>\n
Prior to his confirmation, Brown served as the commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces, responsible for Air Force activities in the U.S. and Indo-Pacific Command theater spread over half the globe.<\/p>\n
He also served as the deputy commander for U.S. Central Command, which overseas U.S. military activity in the Middle East, from July 2016-July 2018. Before that, he was the commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s historic confirmation comes as the country is engulfed in protests over racial and social injustice after African American George Floyd died in police custody last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thinking about how my nomination can provide some hope, but also comes with a heavy burden. I can\u2019t fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force,\u201d Brown said Friday in a video to the Air Force.<\/p>\n
n the video,\u00a0<\/b>Brown said he hoped for the wisdom and knowledge to lead in these \u201cdifficult times\u201d and to\u00a0make improvements\u00a0\u201cso that all airmen both today and tomorrow appreciate the value of diversity and can serve in an environment where they can reach their full potential.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He spoke candidly about his own experiences\u00a0of racism, which he said\u00a0\u201cdidn’t always sing of liberty and equality,\u201d from being asked,\u00a0\u201cAre you a pilot?\u201d as he wore the same flight suit and flight wings as the other white pilots in his squadron, to\u00a0being told by other African Americans that\u00a0he\u00a0\u201cwasn\u2019t black enough\u201d\u00a0since\u00a0he\u00a0was spending more time with\u00a0his\u00a0squadron than\u00a0with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sen.\u00a0Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, called Brown an \u201cinspiring leader\u00a0\u2014\u00a0brave, authentic, and unifying\u201d\u00a0\u2014\u00a0whose expertise in the Indo-Pacific theater will be an asset as the military turns more of its focus toward that part of the globe.\u00a0<\/p>\n Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm.\u00a0(Ret.)\u00a0Mike Mullen,\u00a0called Brown\u2019s confirmation Tuesday \u201ca big step in the right direction,\u201d but\u00a0he\u00a0worried about a shrinking pool of African American leaders in the U.S. military.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI left some eight-and-a-half years ago, and I worry a great deal that we’ve regressed since that time because the numbers just aren’t there,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Brown\u00a0was nominated March 2 to replace\u00a0Gen. David\u00a0Goldfein, who is expected to retire in the coming weeks\u00a0from\u00a0the top Air Force job.\u00a0Goldfein, another command pilot, served as\u00a0vice\u00a0chief of\u00a0staff of the Air Force,\u00a0director of the Joint\u00a0staff and commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command prior to becoming chief of the Air Force.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON – An African American officer will now lead a U.S. military service branch for the first time in history, after the Senate confirmed Gen. Charles Brown Jr. on Tuesday as U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff in a unanimous vote of 98-0. Prior to his confirmation, Brown served as the commander of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n![\"Senate](\"https:\/\/media.voltron.voanews.com\/Drupal\/01live-166\/styles\/sourced_737px_wide\/s3\/2020-06\/AP_20128504765755.jpg?itok=jnYuqP3Z\")
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>
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\nBrown, an F-16 fighter jet pilot, has flown nearly 3,000 hours and 130 combat hours during his\u00a0more than\u00a035 years of service. He\u00a0was commissioned in 1984 as a distinguished graduate of the ROTC program at Texas Tech University.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n