General Jay Raymond
Chief of Operations, U.S. Space Force
John William “Jay” Raymond was born in 1952. He grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and earned a degree in Administrative Management from Clemson University. He was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force and assigned to a strategic missile wing at Grand Forks Air Force Base.
He has been involved in the aerospace divisions of the U.S. Air Force from the beginning. After time stationed at the Pentagon, he assumed command of a space surveillance squadron located in England. Back in the U.S., he became Deputy Commander of an operations group, where he was assigned to the office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. A year later, he returned to Vandenberg Air Force Base and assumed command of an operations group, serving there until he was reassigned to the Air Force Space Command, taking on several positions there.
He served in the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.
Raymond was confirmed as the Air Force Space Command’s top general in 2016. In March 2019, he was nominated to become the Commander of the United States Space Command, and in December 2019, he became the U.S. Space Force’s first Chief of Space Operations.
In the News…
Chief of Operations of the Space Force, General Jay Raymond, is making the case for the importance of the Space Force, the newest military service created by President Donald Trump in 2019.
“The establishment of the United States Space Force is so important,” General Raymond said, speaking urgently to a virtual conference of defense sector insiders.
“Both China and Russia have missiles that they can launch from the ground and kinetically destroy a satellite in low-Earth orbit in a matter of minutes,” the commander said to the Air Force Association gathering. “Space is a war-fighting domain, just like air, land, and sea,” he continued. “We are purpose-built to stay ahead of that growing threat.”
“We now have a service that is focused on protecting and defending that domain and all the benefits,” stated General Raymond. “We cannot afford, as a nation, to lose space. That’s why the Space Force is so important,” he said. “We’re not going to lose space. We’re the best in the world of space, and we are running fast.”
