NEWS
In Camp Fallujah, Iraq, local sheiks listen to then U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Brother Walter E. Gaskin, commanding general of Multi-National Forces West, on Jan. 16, 2008.
Lt. Gen. Brother Walter E. Gaskin
Gaskin Marks One Year at NATO
Decorated Three-Star Marine Helps Lead Alliance FOR THE PAST YEAR, while the United States and other Western countries have engaged in military missions around the globe, world leaders have counted on Lt. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin for guidance and counsel. On March 22, Brother Gaskin celebrated his one-year anniversary as deputy chairman of the Military Committee for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed in 1949. Gaskin, a Marine, was promoted a year ago, in March 2010, from major general to his three-star rank, along with his NATO appointment. As deputy chairman of the Military Committee he holds the secondhighest military position in the alliance of Western democratic nations and is the highest-ranking American in uniform at NATO. The Military Committee, comprised of military representatives and member states’ chiefs of defense, is the senior military authority in the alliance and is the primary source of military advice to NATO’s civilian decision-making bodies, the North Atlantic Council and the Nuclear Planning Group. Based at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, its advice is sought prior to any authorization for military action and, consequently, represents an essential link between the political decision-making process and the military structure of NATO. Gaskin is a key link in that chain. A longtime member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Gaskin was initiated at Delta Eta Chapter at Savannah State University (SSU) in Savannah, Ga.
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“He continues to make his fellow brothers from Delta Eta Chapter proud,” said Ellis Albright, Georgia district director for Alpha and a Delta Eta alumnus. Before assuming his NATO post, Gaskin served as the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, N.C., from June 2006 until July 2008. He also served as the commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), of which he led its deployment to Al Anbar Province, Iraq, as the commanding general of Multi-National Forces West. Having a career than spans four decades of service, Gaskin has been vice director of The Joint Staff at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; the commanding general of the Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico, Va., and chief of staff of the Naval Striking and Support Forces-Southern Europe. A 1974 graduate from SSU’s Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) Program with a Bachelor of Science degree, Gaskin also earned a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Okla., in 1992. He also completed the Senior Executive Fellows Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. His professional military education includes The Basic School and Amphibious Warfare School in Quantico, Va.; the United States Army Command and Staff College in Leavenworth, Kan.; and the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pa. H