Lloyd Austin, a retired four-star Army general, has been confirmed by the Senate, making him the first Black defense secretary in U.S. history.
The Senate approved President Biden’s nomination for Pentagon chief in a near-unanimous 93-2 vote Friday.
Austin becomes just the third Pentagon chief to serve after receiving a waiver. He joins George Marshall, a retired general of the Army nominated in 1950 by President Harry Truman, and retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, former President Donald Trump’s first defense secretary in 2017.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained that he was voting in favor of Austin because presidents should be allowed the latitude to fill their administration with “qualified, mainstream people.”
He also lamented that Congress once again had to pass a waiver in order for Austin to serve in the post.
During his confirmation hearing, Austin called it a “critical” issue and said that better screening is needed for military recruits. He also shared an anecdote with lawmakers about when he was working with the 82nd Airborne Division in North Carolina years ago.
“We woke up one day and discovered that we had extremist elements in our ranks and they did bad things,” Austin said without providing details. “The signs for that activity were there all along. We just didn’t know what to look for or what to pay attention to.”
“But we learned from that,” he said.
Austin graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975 with a commission in the Infantry, according to his biography from the American Academy of Diplomacy.
He was born in Mobile, Ala., but grew up in Thomasville, Ga. That’s the same Georgia town where Army Lt. Henry O. Flipper was born.
Flipper was born a slave in 1856 and went on to become the first Black graduate of West Point and the first African American commissioned officer in the Army.
