General James McConville
Army Chief of Staff
James Charles McConville was born in March 1959 in Quincy, Massachusetts. He graduated from the United States Military Academy and was commissioned as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army. He earned an MS degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and was a national security fellow at Harvard University.
His command assignments include Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division, where he also served as commander of the joint task force during Operation Enduring Freedom. He also commanded in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the war in Afghanistan.
He has served in staff assignments including as Chief Legislative Liaison, Executive Officer to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, and as U.S. Army Deputy Chief of Staff, among others. He was made Army Chief of Staff in July 2019.
McConville is a Master Army Aviator qualified in the Kiowa Warrior, Longbow Apache, Cobra, and other aircraft.
In the News…
The Army announced a 10-year contract with Microsoft for a program that had already been in the works with Microsoft to create a custom high-tech goggle designed to bring night and thermal vision and situational awareness capabilities to soldiers in close combat.
The Integrated Visual Augmentation System will lean on the tech giant to create a military-use device that uses augmented reality and machine learning that will also help train soldiers.
Army Chief of Staff General James McConville explained it this way:
“It is our heads-up display system that will serve as the nerve center for the integrated squad combat system. This allows the soldier to understand the threat picture in real time during day or nighttime operations and reduces computation time from minutes down to seconds. Speed and quality decision-making increases our soldiers’ survivability and lethality.”
