Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson, I Corps commander, speaks during a ceremony at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in February 2022. (Talysa Lloyd McCall/U.S. Army)
The Pentagon on Thursday named Army Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson as the nominee to command U.S. Forces Korea, a triple-hatted position that includes leading the Combined Forces and United Nations commands.
President Joe Biden nominated Brunson, commander of I Corps at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., to succeed Gen. Paul LaCamera, who took command on the Korean Peninsula in July 2021, according to a statement from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. If approved by the Senate, Brunson would also pin on the fourth star of a full general.
Previously, Brunson has led the 7th Infantry Division and served as deputy commander for operations of the 10th Mountain Division. For a year, he was XVIII Airborne Corps chief of staff for Operation Inherent Resolve, the decade-old fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to the General Officer Management Office.
As USFK commander, he would lead the approximately 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea. The head of the Combined Forces Command oversees the U.S. and South Korean headquarters charged with deterring or combatting aggression from North Korea. U.N. Command is the 18-nation force that maintains peace and upholds the armistice that ended hostilities during the Korean War in 1953.
The two sides in that conflict technically remain at war.
Brunson is the eldest of three sons whose father, Albert Brunson, a retired Army sergeant major, served in the Vietnam War, according to a profile produced by Lewis-McChord on Feb. 16, 2022.
Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson recognizes Japanese soldiers at the closing ceremony for the annual Yama Sakura exercise at Camp Asaka, Japan, in December 2023. (Angelo Mejia/U.S. Army)
According to the Army and his LinkedIn page, Brunson is a 1990 graduate of Hampton University in Virginia, a historically Black, private college, where he joined the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, lettered in football and was commissioned as a second lieutenant through the ROTC. He holds a master’s degree in national security and strategy from the Army War College.
“All I’ve ever wanted was to be a Soldier,” Brunson said in the Army profile. “I’ve never aspired to be a doctor, a lawyer or an educator. I just wanted to be a Soldier, because that’s what I saw in my dad. Going into the Army was a natural continuation for me after being with a group of men (Omega Psi Phi) that I really wanted to be around every day.” Brunson’s younger twin brothers, LaHavie and Tavi Brunson, also served. LaHavie Brunson was a staff officer at Headquarters, Department of the Army, and Tavi Brunson commanded the 528th Sustainment Brigade until July 2023, but now describes himself as “professional citizen,” according to the brothers’ LinkedIn profiles.
The general’s wife, Kirsten Brunson, a retired colonel, was the Army’s first Black female judge, according to the service. They share three children: daughters Raechel and Rebekah, who have taught English in South Korea, and son Joshua, according to the Army profile.
In an April 9 podcast by the China Landpower Studies Center, Brunson talked about historical ties the United States has in the Indo-Pacific and the role the U.S. military plays alongside its allies in the region.
“It’s protection, it’s posture, it’s sustainment,” he said. “It’s taking best advantage of what our partners can do, as opposed to trying to make them in our image, but to appreciate where they are. There is posture in the region because we have friends, partners and allies there, and we have to take best advantage of that.”
