Air Force fighter pilot tapped by Biden to be next Joint Chiefs chairman has history of firsts
By TARA COPP
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force fighter pilot tapped to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff got his call sign by ejecting from a burning F-16 fighter jet high above the Florida Everglades and falling into the watery sludge below. It was January 1991, and then-Capt. CQ Brown Jr. had just enough time in his parachute above alligator-full wetlands. He landed in the muck, which coated his body. That’s how the man nominated to be the country’s next top military officer got his call sign: “Swamp Thing.” President Joe Biden announced he was nominating Brown for the chairman’s job during a Rose Garden event on Thursday.