General Charles Q. Brown Jr. is known for standing firm in the storm.
There was the time in 1991 when his F-16 was struck by lightning and he had to eject into the alligator-infested Everglades, earning him the call sign “Swamp Thang.” The time in 2020, just days before his Senate confirmation as head of the Air Force, when he spoke quietly but forcefully in a video about the many African Americans who have suffered the same fate as George Floyd.
And so it was last summer, when a lone Republican senator from Alabama held up his confirmation as President Biden’s senior military adviser for months. General Brown, known as CQ, kept his head bowed as Democrats and Republicans squared off.
“You know that old commercial: ‘When EF Hutton speaks, people listen?'” Gen. David L. Goldfein, a retired former Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview. “CQ is the guy in the room who never had the most words to say, but he always had the most to offer.”
On Friday, General Brown, a four-star Air Force fighter pilot with 130 combat flight hours during his 39 years of service, was sworn in as the nation’s highest-ranking military officer. His four-year term begins on Sunday.
He will succeed Gen. Mark A. Milley, whose tenure was marked by a volatile president and one crisis after another.
At a ceremony just outside Washington, President Biden praised General Brown’s “steadfast behavior.” The president then criticized Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s reluctance to pursue military promotions, calling it “an insult” to candidates’ years of service.
The military is avowedly apolitical, but that proved to be a challenge under President Donald J. Trump, who often sought to use the military for political purposes. The tensions led to the breakdown of his relationship with General Milley. Just last week, Mr. Trump expressed his anger, calling General Milley a “woke train wreck.”
General Milley said at his farewell on Friday: “We take no oath to any country, tribe or religion. We do not take an oath to a king or queen, to a tyrant, to a dictator or to a would-be dictator.”
“We don’t swear an oath to anyone,” he added. “No, we take an oath to the Constitution, to the idea that defines America.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III thanked General Milley for his years of sacrifice and service, calling him a “scholar and warrior.”
“Thank you for everything you have done and given,” he said.
Mr. Austin then praised General Brown’s leadership and said he will “defend our democracy without batting an eyelid.”
The new chairman’s colleagues at the Pentagon say he is prepared for whatever comes his way.
“CQ is not only stable, but also extremely cooperative and a team player, and I believe he can collaborate, communicate and lead in any situation in the future,” said Admiral Craig S. Faller, retired and with General Brown served when both were in Central Command.
Admiral Faller was also the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during the Trump administration. Mr. Mattis resigned two years into his term in protest at Mr. Trump’s Syria policy and his rejection of international alliances.
The admiral said that during their time together in Central Command, General Brown was known for his ability to “lower the pulse” of any crisis, whether in Yemen, Iran or piracy.
“Often CQ was leading the counterterrorism operations, and when I said, ‘CQ will be there,’ the commanders would say, ‘Great, no problem then, got it,'” Admiral Faller said.
Young Chuck, as he was then known, was born in San Antonio in 1962 to a military family and grew up determined to be an architect, even though his father, Charles Q. Brown, served two tours of duty in the Army in Vietnam and retired as a colonel. His grandfather, Robert E. Brown, served in the Pacific during World War II.
The elder Charles Brown persuaded his son to join the ROTC at Texas Tech, telling him that “four years in the military won’t hurt,” General Brown said in an interview. After six months, young CQ wanted out. ROTC meant he had less time to hang out with his friends and play sports.
But then, during a summer program at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, he boarded a Cessna T-37, a small, loud twin-engine plane affectionately nicknamed the “Tweety Bird” because of the high-pitched screeches and whistles it made. The flight was “like a roller coaster ride,” General Brown recalled.
And just like that he was hooked.
In 1984, General Brown received his Air Force commission.
Seven years later, he was flying an F-16A Fighting Falcon over a populated area near Homestead, Florida, when lightning struck. General Brown saw the flash of light, but it was an Air Force superior who radioed him that his plane was on fire. General Brown described the story in the usual matter-of-fact way that pilots talk about vital events in the sky.
“He said, ‘You lost your gas tank in the middle and there’s a little fire burning back there,'” General Brown recalled.
He turned his plane toward the Everglades, pulled the yellow eject handle, and parachuted into the swamp below. And “Swamp Thang” was born.
No one in the halls of the Pentagon calls him that anymore. He is a “CQ” to everyone, even if enlisted soldiers would never say that to his face.
But he electrified those same teams with his George Floyd video in 2020. Against a dark background, a serious General Brown in fatigues stared into the camera.
“As a commander of Pacific Air Forces, a senior leader in our Air Force, and an African American, many of you may be wondering what I think about the current events surrounding the tragic death of George Floyd,” said General Brown. “Here’s what I’m thinking about.”
Admiral Faller said he was so touched by the video that he called his friend and asked General Brown to appear at one of his weekly virtual “Brown Bag” sessions.
“Normally there would be about 100 people,” Admiral Faller said. “For CQ we had about 500 people.”