This year, Governor Dan McKee named U.S. Army Brigadier General Andrew J. Chevalier the new Commanding General of the Rhode Island National Guard. Chevalier is from North Kingstown and brings to the role over 35 years of experience with the state’s National Guard. In this conversation with afternoon host Dave Fallon, he said serving in Iraq in the early 2000s helped prepare him for his new role as the Guard’s commanding general.
Interview highlights
On what the National Guard does
Andrew Chevalier: So the Rhode Island National Guard, and the National Guard writ large, is the Combat Operational Reserve for the Department of Defense. We are trained and equipped to be prepared to support both our nation and our state. We take two oaths in the National Guard; an oath to assist the state in times of emergency, and on the federal side, we take the oath to, if mobilized, to fight and win our nation’s wars alongside our active duty soldiers and airmen.
On how his deployment in Iraq helped prepare him for his new role
Chevalier: You know, it evolves over time. I am a perpetual learner. It gave me some experience in dealing with leading soldiers under stressful conditions. The foundation of my leadership is to treat everyone with dignity and respect. My focus is people, number one, our soldiers and our airmen, and then the readiness of those soldiers in the airmen. So all of that kind of circles back into my strategic leadership at this point. But the foundation of it has never changed.
On how the National Guard may be pulled into the Trump administration’s imperialist approach to foreign policy
Chevalier: I will say from my lens that there is no appetite to get into that kind of work from the National Guard. Having said that, as a National Guard officer, we take two oaths; our federal oath, as I mentioned earlier, and our state oath. I was appointed by Governor McKee and I will continue to support Governor McKee in his policies. We’ll see how that plays out if the Rhode Island National Guard is requested for any type of assistance at the national level.
On the Rhode Island National Guard’s recruitment challenges
I will tell you the challenge that we’re dealing with, Dave, at this point is that our retirement-age-eligible service members are continuing to increase while our market of eligible military-aged population continues to decrease. So we need to reconcile that and we do that through innovation, through priorities within our recruiting forces and making sure that the word gets out there. So while we are doing well in recruiting, we need to keep at it because of those challenges.
This interview was conducted by The Public’s Radio.
