Cnn
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The Air Force retirement general announced the next president of the chiefs of staff jointly by the president Donald Trump After Brusque Friday Night Tir From his predecessor is a respected F-16 F-16 driver which is described by current and former officials who served with him as a professional with a “strong moral center”.
John Dan “Razin” Caine, who was noticed for the first time by Trump in 2018 for his involvement in the fight against the Islamic State, spent a large part of his career working in special operations and with the community of Intelligence and is the light, humble and apolitical manners, have declared them officials. He has long stolen under the radar given the very classified nature of his work – and he preferred it in this way, the officials said.
“There is a little story that he was chosen because he is a partisan guy,” a military official told CNN who served with Caine and has known him for more than a decade. “In my personal experience and my professional experience, I have never seen any indication that, and knowing it, it has never been partial towards any political party or mentioned anything in our time together.”
Caine, who retired in December as a three-star lieutenant-general, was plunged into the center of a political storm when Trump suddenly announced that he would replace General Charles Q. Brown, who was president Makes spouses since October 2023.
It is rare that a retired general is recalled in active service, but this has already happened. General Peter Schoomaker of the army, for example, was recalled to become the chief of staff of the army in 2003.
He is also very unusual that a three -star general receives his fourth star after being raised to the presidency, the most senior military officer in the country. The former presidents received their fourth star by first leading a combat command or by serving as a department head before becoming the main general military adviser in the United States to the president.
But Caine has already been in unexpected positions. On the morning of September 11, he was used at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, DC. Although it was not initially planned to fly this day “The podcast afterburnSeveral weeks ago.
“It is a question of being willing to protect and defend this nation and work alongside incredible professionals who are also ready to go to the carpet to defend our nation,” said Caine.
Trump Disadoned Caine for years after the two met in Iraq during the president’s first term. At the time, Caine was the deputy commander of the US Central Command Special Operations Component and Deputy Commander of Special Operation-Optization-Optization Inherent Resolution in Iraq.
In remarks at the conservative political action conference in 2019, the president described Caine as being out of “central cast” and recalled that Caine had told him when they met in Iraq that the United States could Have the campaign against the Islamic State “totally completed in a week. “”
“I said,” Why didn’t my other generals tell me that? ” Why didn’t they tell me that? “Said Trump in 2019. In an article on social social on Friday evening, Trump called Caine as” Warfighter “who” contributed to the complete annihilation of the Islamic State caliphate “.
Trump also said that Caine said he “loved” Trump and “would kill you” while putting on a hat “Make America Great Again”.
But the military manager who served with Caine said on Saturday that Caine “had no Maga Chapeau; he never put one.
The manager added that Caine, before accepting the presidency, wanted to make sure that Brown was “respectfully and personally taken care of”.
“Everything I have known about General Caine in the past decade has been marked by character, integrity and humility,” said the military official. “I have never seen him not to do the right thing. All judgments on the mission. Never was a guy who stops with difficult conversations or hard calls on the battlefield. »»
Caine, an F-16 driver who stole more than 150 hours of combat, commanded in October 1990 through the training body for reserve officers Program at Virginia Military Institute, according to her official biography. His father was also a fighter pilot, and Caine described him as “the family business” in his interview with “The Afterburn”.
He had an unusual career trajectory, going from a fighter pilot to the National Air Guard at the upper level of command of joint special operations. Caine joined a venture capital company called Shield Capital after his retirement in December and was “entrepreneur and investor in series” from 2009 to 2016 while serving part-time in the National Guard, according to his official biography of the air Strength.
Among its prices and military decorations are the Distinguished Flying Cross, which is awarded for heroism during its flight, the Superior Défense Service Medal and a bronze star with a bunter bunter leaves.
Caine has recognized his unusual career path in the podcast interview and said he had entered the community of special operations forces after having deployed with them several times over the years.
“What brought me into the SOF community was relationships and deployment together,” he said. “These are really relationships.” In the interview, Caine recalled that his experience with SOF really started when he helped air operations that plan to hunt Iraqi scud missiles during Operation Iraki Freedom.
He said he had learned at the start of his career to be “humble, credible and accessible”.
“I couldn’t, and I would never really do it, I would drink my own kool-aid,” said Caine.
In the video part of the podcast, Caine can wear several bracelets in memory of past wars and those with which he served – a bracelet of intellectual memory; A blue to recognize the 121 Falls of Air America, the CIA secret airline operated during Vietnam; And a green in memory of the more than 60 soldiers with whom he served or who served under the one who was killed in combat, the military official told CNN.
Although generally erased, Caine was “super aggressive” in the cockpit as a pilot, pushing the plane to his limits and generally “a little wild man” while flying, said the military official. This earned him the “razin” call signal of his squadron commander at the time – a play on his family name and the expression “raising caïn”, which is used to describe someone who is rowdy or disruptor.
From 2021, towards the end of the Caine career, he was associate director of military affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency – the main bond of the agency with the Ministry of Defense. Before that, he helped supervise some of the most sensitive information and operations of the Pentagon Ministry of Defense.
In contrast striking with Trump, who has long hosted a deep distrust of the intelligence community, Caine described working at the CIA from 2021 to 2024 as one of the great honors of his career.
“I do not know how I was chosen, but I am grateful to have done so,” Caine told “The Afterburn”, calling the agency “a very special place”.
“Working at the CIA is a bit like Fight Club: you are not talking about Fight Club,” he said. “But there are world class professionals there, every day, by grasping it in a way that we cannot even imagine. And the honor and the privilege of serving with each of them are very close and dear to me. I woke up every day by working in this work to understand how I was going to win the privilege of serving. »»
The retired general Frank McKenzie, the former head of the American central command, told CNN that he had worked “a certain number of very sensitive operations” with Caine when Caine was at the CIA.
“I found it exceptionally talented, very professional and a good officer in all ways,” said McKenzie on Saturday, adding that Caine is out and gregarious with “a strong moral center”.
Caine did not mention the policy in any of the rare public comments he has made over the years. But in the podcast interview, he presented the need to reform the Pentagon acquisition process – something that defense secretary Pete Hegseth has also called a priority in recent years.
“Our capacity as a nation to fight war to be pivoted at high speed, to keep a step ahead of these emerging technologies, will be very important in the future,” said Caine. “There are a whole bunch of things that we must do better as a joint force and as a Ministry of Defense in the sense of the reform of the acquisition so that we can make sure that these young people (first deprived of First class) and E-1S and e- The 2s and (non-commissioned officers) have the kit and the capacity they need. »»