General Charles Flynn
Commanding General, U.S. Army Pacific
Charles A. Flynn was born in 1983 in Middletown, Rhode Island. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Rhode Island where he was also a member of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps. He received an M.A. in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College and an M.S. in Joint Campaign Planning from the Joint Forces Staff College of National Defense University.
He has served with the Rangers, Airborne, and Pathfinder teams. He was deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was an airborne commander in Iraq and later served as executive assistant to the Director of the Joint Staff for Afghanistan.
He served as the 82nd Airborne Division’s deputy commander for U.S. Army Forces Command and was assigned as deputy commander of US. Army Pacific. He became commander of the United States Army Pacific in January 2021 after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
In the News…
United States Army tanks are becoming lighter and easier to deploy. The M1E3 Abrams is lighter, faster, and more fuel-efficient than existing Abrams. According to the Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific, General Charles Flynn, the new properties have great relevance to the Pacific.
General Flynn recently stated, “I believe that you need the entire inventory of combined arms ground maneuver in order to fight in restricted terrain. Tank and armor capabilities in the Pacific are absolutely necessary for conducting operations out here in restricted terrain. And there is plenty of restricted terrain out here.”
He said that integrated land power that connects the U.S. with allies such as the Philippines, Australia, and South Korea, creates optimal opportunity for multinational cooperation.
General Flynn said, “Going all the way back to World War II, tanks have been an important part of the Combined Arms force out here (the Pacific)… a number of nations in the region have tanks, they have armored divisions. The Philippine Army is a good example… Australia just purchased M-1 tanks. And we trained with the Australian Army in Talisman Sabre with their newly arrived M-1s.”
He added, “In my view, the security architecture that actually binds this region together is the Army. These nations have large armies. They don’t have large navies and air forces, but they have large armies. And the dialogue and the relationships and the rehearsals and the readiness that we gain and the interoperability increases that we gain is of enormous value.”
