Armed Forces News

Army Gen. Mark A. Milley was sworn in as the nation’s 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during a Sept. 30 ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va. “We are the best-equipped, best-trained, best-led military in human history, and our adversaries should know never to underestimate our skill, our capability and our combat power,” Milley said in his acceptance speech. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, the outgoing JCS chairman, administered the oath.

On the same day, Ryan McCarthy was sworn in as the 24th secretary of the Army. McCarthy, 46, assumes the service’s top civilian post after a career in industry and on Capitol Hill. In his acceptance speech, he promised to tackle the service’s biggest problems. “We will reverse the negative trends in suicide, sexual assault, and sexual harassment that tear at the fabric of our formations,” McCarthy said.