News / Military
By Howard Altman / Tampa Bay Times / May 9, 2016
PHOTO: Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., nominated as the No. 2 officer at U.S. Central Command, was once deputy director of CentCom’s operations directorate. (U.S. Air Force)
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE — As the head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown has overseen an aerial bombardment campaign against the so-called Islamic State that has delivered nearly 12,000 airstrikes against the miliant group since Aug. 8, 2014.
Brown’s next job will likely be at MacDill Air Force Base.
He was nominated for the position of deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, where he would replace recently retired Vice Adm. Mark Fox. If approved by the U.S. Senate, he would serve under Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the new CentCom commander.
For Brown, this would mark a return to MacDill. Between May 2011 and March 2013, he served as deputy director of CentCom’s operations directorate.
Brown was commissioned in 1984 as a distinguished graduate of the ROTC program at Texas Tech University, according to his official biography.
He has served at the Air Force Weapons School as an F-16 instructor, commanded a fighter squadron, was an aide-de-camp to the Air Force Chief of Staff and a National Defense Fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses. As a pilot, he has had nearly 3,000 hours flying time in F-16s, AC-130s, B-1s, B-2s, B-52s and other aircraft.
In a wide-ranging interview in November, Brown talked about the value of the KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling tankers, of which there are 16 based at MacDill.
“We can’t do anything without the tanker fleet that we have here,” said Brown. “I was talking to the wing commander yesterday about how they fly a big percentage of all the tanker hours in the world with just a small percentage of the assets. For example, on a daily basis, we’re passing nearly 350,000 gallons of gas, which, if you’re a NASCAR fan, that’s about 58 NASCAR races and that’s every day. It’s not just the operations we do in Iraq and Syria, we do air refueling in Afghanistan as well.”
At MacDill, the tankers are flown by the 6th Air Mobility Wing and the 927th Air Refueling Wing.
“We have nearly 50 tankers between here at Al Udied (in Qatar) and what have in Turkey that rotate every day,” he said. “I guarantee someone here is from MacDill. MacDill is part of the team. Hats off to the entire tanker fleet and particularly the folks at MacDill.”
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The man Brown would replace was an historic figure.
On Jan. 17, 1991, Fox shot down an Iraqi air force MiG-21. It was the first day of Operation Desert Storm, and Fox, then a lieutenant commander, was flying an F-18 Hornet at the time.
He was the last active-duty service member to shoot down an enemy aircraft.
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