In a historical move, US President Barack Obama has nominated Eric Fanning as Army secretary and make him the first openly gay person to serve in that role. Fanning has been active in gay rights and served on the board of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that aims to increase “the number of openly LGBT officials at all levels of government.”
Fanning, 47, has been a specialist on national security issues for more than two decades and has played a key role overseeing some of the Pentagon’s biggest shipbuilding and fighter jet programs. Now he will oversee an Army that has been battered by the longest stretch of continuous combat in U.S. history and is facing potentially severe budget cuts.
As Army secretary, Fanning will be teamed with Gen. Mark Milley, who took over in August as the Army’s top general, the chief of staff. Battered by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has had to deal with a spike in suicides as the wars drew to an end. Fanning’s sexual orientation seemed a non-issue among Republicans and Democrats in Congress, who were far more worried about the state of the Army.
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