Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

TCB Conference Banner
cipherbrief

Welcome! Log in to stay connected and make the most of your experience.

Input clean

Why We Call it the Army Family

EntertainmentCipher Brief Expert View
Lieutenant General Guy Swan III (Ret.)
By Lieutenant General Guy Swan III (Ret.)
Former Commander, U.S. Army North
Lieutenant General (Ret) Guy C. Swan III currently serves as Vice President at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA). During more than 35 years of active service, he commanded at every level through Army Service Component Command. A career armor/cavalry officer, his general officer assignments included Commanding General of U.S. Army North (ARNORTH); Director of Operations for United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM); Commanding General of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington and Commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region; Commanding General of the 7th Army Training Command in Germany; and Chief of Staff and Director of Operations for the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, is a member of the Homeland Security Experts Group (HSEG) and the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a Certified Emergency Manager (CEM).

Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan III (Ret.) currently serves as an AUSA Vice President. During more than 35 years of active service he commanded at every level through Army Service Component Command. 

On this Memorial Day I and many members of the West Point Class of 1976 will be remembering First Lieutenant Laura Walker, Class of 2003, daughter of our classmate and friend, Lieutenant General (Retired) Keith Walker.

Laura, a terrific young leader and U.S. Army engineer officer, was killed in action in Afghanistan on August 18, 2005 in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.
One of the saddest duties I ever had to perform during my own military career was to escort Keith to meet his daughter’s remains as they were returned to Dover AFB, like thousands of other military servicemen and women lost over the last 20 years and who will also be remembered this Memorial Day.
Now my own son, himself a First Lieutenant and fellow West Point  graduate, is serving in America’s Army and following in the footsteps of Laura Walker - his babysitter 25 years ago.
That’s why we call it the Army Family.
Read more from Lieutenant General Guy C. Swan III (Ret.) in The Cipher Brief...
EntertainmentCipher Brief Expert View
u.s. armythe cipher briefnational securitymilitarymemorial dayintelligenceafghanistan

The Latest Opinions

Economic Security in an Age of Strategic Competition

Calder Walton

Economic Security in an Age of Strategic Competition

There is a growing perception among long-standing US allies that they need to expand commercial relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). [...] More

Calder Walton

The Morning Brief: What the PDB Can Offer the Corporate Leadership Team

Phillip Consentino

The Morning Brief: What the PDB Can Offer the Corporate Leadership Team

CEOs of major corporations need to make hugely consequential decisions every day, but many start their mornings in fragmented and reactive [...] More

How Gulf States Turned Crisis Into Confidence

Patrick Weninger

How Gulf States Turned Crisis Into Confidence

The Epidemic of PatriotismHow war, intelligence, technology, and state competence are building a new nationalism in the Gulf.There is an old idea in [...] More

Related Articles

The Last Undefended Perimeter

Jennifer Ewbank

The Last Undefended Perimeter

Russia has industrialized cognitive warfare, producing synthetic media at scale through a modular system that targets soldiers, civilians, and [...] More

Cipher Brief Expert View

Inside the Pentagon’s High-Stakes Nuclear Overhaul

Walter Pincus

Inside the Pentagon’s High-Stakes Nuclear Overhaul

“The unfortunate truth is that it's fallen to the lot of all of us to modernize the entire [U.S.] nuclear triad at once. Probably, in retrospect, we [...] More

Walter PincusFine Print

Britain’s Antisemitism Crisis Is Now a National Security Threat

Nick Fishwick

Britain’s Antisemitism Crisis Is Now a National Security Threat

There has been yet another terrorist attack targeting Britain’s Jewish community. This time, two Jewish men were stabbed on Wednesday in Golders [...] More

Cipher Brief Expert ViewNick Fishwick
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky (L) speak next to the first batch of Ukrainian made drone missiles "Peklo" (Hell) delivered to the Defence Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv on December 6, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Long-Range War: How Drone & Missile Strikes Are Taking the Fight Deep Inside Russia

DEEP DIVE – By any traditional definition, the city of Ryazan doesn’t belong on a list of battlegrounds in the Ukraine war. There are no Ukrainian [...] More

EuropeUkraine
A ship crosses the Baltic Sea at sunrise

The War You Can’t See: Gray Zone Operations Are Reshaping Global Security

In the middle of the night, with no witnesses, a single ship flagged out of Hong Kong drags its anchor across the Baltic Sea. In silence, it severs a [...] More

Dave PittsInternationalNATOEspionageNational Security

How Does the Intelligence Community Adapt in the Age of AI?

Geof Kahn

How Does the Intelligence Community Adapt in the Age of AI?

OPINION — CIA Director William Burns’ recent remarks to the Ditchley Foundation highlighted three key challenges to American security; (1) strategic [...] More

Alternative PerspectivesIntelligenceTech/CyberCIA
{{}}