The Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army has announced that Brig. Gen. Edward M. Reeder, Jr. will be the next commanding general of the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, based out of Fort Bragg, N.C., according to a May 4 Department of Defense press release.
Reeder is currently the commanding general of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne), also at Fort Bragg, where he oversees the Army's operational Special Forces groups.
At SWCS, Reeder will command the units and directorates that train, educate and manage the Army's three special-operations regiments: Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations.
Reeder, a 1982 graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., has commanded the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command in Afghanistan and the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg prior to its move to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. He has been assigned to SWCS twice before, as a Special Forces Qualification Course student and as the aide-de-camp to Brig. Gen. David J. Baratto, the SWCS commanding general in the early 1990s.
Reeder's combat tours include a deployment as the National Civil Defense Advisor in the Republic of El Salvador in 1988, command of a Special Forces detachment in the Republic of Panama in 1989, command of Special Operations Task Force 32 in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom in both 2002 and 2003, command of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and command of CFSOCC--A from 2009 to 2010.
Maj. Gen. Bennet S. Sacolick, the current SWCS commanding general since August 2010, will next serve as the Director of Force Management and Development for the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., according to the same Department of Defense release.
A change-of-command ceremony for SWCS, where Sacolick will pass responsibility for the SWCS mission and Soldiers along to Reeder, will be scheduled and announced at a later date.
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