United States of America : Dan Caine may not be a household name but to those who served with him, he’s the real deal. President Donald Trump’s decision to nominate Caine to be the next chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff surprised many but their history dates back to a meeting in Iraq in 2018. Caine, a deputy commander in the campaign against ISIS by then took a gutsy leap and told Trump that the group could be destroyed in a week. The former president carried that confidence forward.
“He’s a real general, he’s not a TV general,” Trump said recently. Unlike his predecessors, Caine didn’t lead a branch of the armed forces but his career says it all. An F-16 pilot with some 2,800 hours of flight time under his belt far more than you could possibly imagine, he was airborne on 9/11 when orders came down to take out any hijacked aircraft threatening Washington.
Caine’s path began at Virginia Military Institute where he followed his fighter pilot father. He worked in the White House, the CIA and briefly tried his hand as an entrepreneur after active service.
Now he confronts a Senate confirmation process that could be difficult, particularly since Trump said he had been “passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden.” If confirmed, Caine will arrive at a military still grappling with profound changes during Trump’s time at the helm.
