Eric Fanning was nominated by President Obama to be the next Secretary of the army Friday and if confirmed will be the first openly gay person to hold the position.
According to the NY Times Fanning is well liked at the Pentagon and the decision came as no surprise. He has been serving as the acting under secretary of the Army and has previously served as Air Force under secretary, deputy under secretary of the Navy and deputy chief management officer of the Navy.
Fanning, if confirmed by the Senate, will be taking ranks at a difficult time for the Army. He will take on the task of helping the Army rebuild ranks that are the lowest they’ve been since shortly after WWII as well as budgeting issues and address suicide concerns among soldiers that have recently returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
A report by Times quoted Obama as stating “Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to his new role. I look forward to working with Eric to keep our army the very best in the world.”
Fanning is also an active member of the LGBT community and played an active role in the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell.”
Image courtesy of Kristin Callahan/INFphoto.com
There has been a critical error on your website.<\/p>
Learn more about debugging in WordPress.<\/a><\/p>","data":{"status":500},"additional_errors":[]}