Here’s the Army’s next chief of staff, pending Senate confirmation

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville has been nominated to become the 40th Army chief.

His nomination was delivered to the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 25.

McConville is a U.S. Military Academy graduate from Quincy, Massachusetts, and has been serving as the Army vice chief since June 2017. He has had a long career as an Army aviator, having flown AH-64 Apaches, OH-58 Kiowa Warriors and AH-1 Cobras.

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The vice chief has played a major role in the Army’s massive transformation for the past several years. Along with Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy, he led the charge in establishing the Army’s new four-star command — Army Futures Command — that will tackle major modernization priorities as the force moves into the future and faces more challenging threats.

McConville also worked alongside McCarthy, Army Chief Gen. Mark Milley and Army Secretary Mark Esper to find billions of dollars to fund the Army’s modernization efforts. The four leaders took deep dives, program by program, over the past year during what the service calls “night court” to make decisions on legacy programs to free up money to develop new capabilities.

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