WASHINGTON — The Air Force fighter pilot about to be nominated as the following chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acquired his name signal by ejecting from a burning F-16 fighter jet excessive above the Florida Everglades and falling into the watery sludge beneath.

It was January 1991, and then-Capt. CQ Brown Jr. had simply sufficient time in his parachute above alligator-full wetlands for a thought to pop into his head. “Hope there’s nothing down there,” Brown stated in an interview on the Aspen Security Forum final 12 months.

He landed within the muck, which coated his physique and acquired “in his boots and everything.” Which is how the nominee to be the nation’s subsequent high navy officer acquired his name signal: “Swamp Thing.”

Brown, now a four-star basic and the Air Force chief, will probably be nominated by President Joe Biden on Thursday. If confirmed, Brown would substitute Army Gen. Mark Milley, whose time period ends in October. Biden is scheduled to unveil Brown as his choose throughout a Rose Garden occasion on Thursday afternoon.

The name signal reveal was a uncommon inside look into Brown, who retains his playing cards near his chest. He’s spent a lot of his profession being one of many Air Force’s high aviators, one in all its few Black pilots and sometimes one of many solely African Americans in his squadron.

To today, his core tenets are to “execute at a high standard, personally and professionally,” Brown stated this month at an Air Force Association convention in Colorado. “I do not play for second place. If I’m in, I’m in to win - I do not play to lose.”

He’s been many firsts, together with the Air Force’s first Black commander of the Pacific Air Forces, and most just lately its first Black chief of employees, making him the primary African American to guide any of the navy branches.

If confirmed, he could be a part of one other first - the primary time the Pentagon’s high two posts have been held by African Americans, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin the highest civilian chief. Brown wouldn't be the primary African American to be chairman, the Pentagon’s high navy publish; that distinction went to the late Army Gen. Colin Powell.

Brown, 60, has commanded the nation’s air energy in any respect ranges. Born in San Antonio, he's from a household of Army troopers. His grandfather led a segregated Army unit in World War II and his father was an artillery officer and Vietnam War veteran. Brown grew up on a number of navy bases and states, which helped instill in him a way of mission.

His nomination caps a four-decade navy profession that spans his fee as a distinguished ROTC graduate from Texas Tech University in 1984 to his White House nomination this week. He was extensively seen inside navy circles because the frontrunner for the chairmanship, with the best instructions and a observe file of driving institutional change, attributes seen as wanted to push the Pentagon onto a extra trendy footing to fulfill China’s rise.

For the previous two years Brown has pressed “Accelerate, Change or Lose” inside the Air Force. The marketing campaign very a lot has China in thoughts, pushing the service to shed legacy warplanes and velocity its efforts to counter hypersonics, drones and area weapons, the place the navy’s lingering Cold War-era stock doesn't match up.

In individual, Brown is personal, considerate and deliberate. He is seen as a distinction to Milley, who has remained outspoken all through his tenure, typically to the ire of former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers.

“He’s not prone to blurt out something without some serious thought in his own mind, some serious kind of balancing of the opportunities or options,” stated retired Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, who is aware of Brown from when Brown labored for him as a member of the Air Staff.

Brown has greater than 3,000 flying hours and repeat assignments to the Air Force Weapons School - an elite aerial preventing college much like the Navy’s TOPGUN. Only about 1% of Air Force fighter pilots are accepted, Moseley stated.

When Brown needed to eject from the burning F-16 in 1991, after the gas tank broke off mid-flight, he stated the timing couldn’t have been worse.

“I was a bit frustrated because it happened just before the selection for weapons school,” he stated on the Aspen discussion board. He stated he needed to apply thrice earlier than he acquired in, noting that it’s “pretty competitive.”

But he rose to the highest there, too, incomes a spot as an teacher, “which is like 1% of the 1%,” Moseley stated.

Brown returned to the weapons college as its commandant. By then it had expanded from fighter-only exclusivity to educating mixed airpower operations, with tankers, bombers and cargo planes.

Brown noticed that the varsity “required a different approach and attitude,” stated retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bill Rew. Earlier commandants had tried to institute a brand new mantra, “Humble, Approachable, Credible,” however it had not taken root.

Under Brown the cultural shift took maintain and stays in place at the moment, stated Rew, who was one in all Brown’s instructors on the weapons college and wing commander throughout Brown’s time as commandant.

“It takes a certain kind of leadership, that doesn’t force cultural change on people but explains it and motivates them on why that change is important,” Rew stated.

In June 2020, Brown was only a week from being confirmed by the Senate to function chief of employees of the Air Force when he felt the necessity to communicate out on George Floyd’s homicide.

It was dangerous and inopportune time for the final to attract public consideration and pull again the curtain on his personal ideas. But he did so anyway, after discussions together with his spouse and sons concerning the homicide, which satisfied him he wanted to say one thing.

In a June 2020 video message to the service titled “Here’s What I’m Thinking About,” Brown described how he’d pressured himself “to perform error-free” as a pilot and officer his complete life, however nonetheless confronted bias. He stated he’d been questioned about his credentials, even when he wore the identical flight go well with and wings as each different pilot.

It’s been 30 years since Powell turned the primary Black chairman, serving from 1989 to 1993. But whereas African Americans make up 17.2% of the 1.3 million active-duty service members, solely 9% of officers are Black, in accordance with a 2021 Defense Department report.

“I’m thinking about my mentors and how I rarely had a mentor that looked like me,” Brown stated within the video.

“I’m fascinated by how my nomination supplies some hope, but in addition comes with a heavy burden - I can’t repair centuries of racism in our nation, nor can I repair a long time of discrimination which will have impacted members of our Air Force.

“I’m thinking about how I can make improvements, personally, professionally and institutionally,” so all airmen may excel.

His choice to talk out didn't value him. His Senate affirmation vote was 98-0.

But just like the temporary second in Aspen, the private video message was a rarity. After affirmation, he lowered his public profile once more, and set to work.

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