Trump Picks General H.R. McMaster as National Security Adviser

On Monday, President Donald Trump named Lt. Gen. Herbert Raymond "H.R." McMaster as his new national security adviser following the resignation of Michael Flynn last week. He will retain the assistance of Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as the National Security Council’s chief of staff, after Kellogg served as the acting national security adviser in Flynn’s absence. Trump said “that combination is something very, very special” in reference to the tandem of McMaster and Kellogg.

McMaster, 54, is known as "The Iconoclast General" and is a career military officer who has served in the Army since 1984 after graduating from West Point. He led armored regiments during the Gulf War and the Iraq War, and helped plan coalition efforts to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the Gulf War, he earned a Silver Star when the nine tanks under his command destroyed over 80 Iraqi tanks and vehicles. Prior to accepting the national security adviser role, McMaster served as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

He’s also an accomplished historian, having earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American history. As part of his dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, McMaster wrote Dereliction of Duty, which criticized U.S. strategy during the Vietnam War on the grounds that military officers didn’t do enough to challenge the views of President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The book is on the official reading list of the U.S. Marine Corps.

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— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Mike Pryor - 82nd Airborne / Public Domain)