David L. Goldfein
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David Lee Goldfein (born December 21, 1959) is a retired
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
four-star general who last served as the 21st
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force The chief of staff of the Air Force ( acronym: CSAF, or AF/CC) is the service chief of the United States Air Force. They are the principal military advisor to the secretary of the Air Force on matter pertaining to the Air Force. They are a m ...
. He previously served as the vice chief of staff of the Air Force and, prior to that, he served as the
director of the Joint Staff The director of the Joint Staff (DJS) is a three-star officer who assists the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a cabinet of senior military officers within the United States Armed Forces who advise the secretary of defense and the president on milita ...
, a position within the
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, which advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and ...
who assists the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) is the presiding officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The chairman is the highest-ranking and most senior military officer in the United States Armed Forces Chairman: appointment; gra ...
. Goldfein retired from the Air Force on October 1, 2020, after over 37 years of service.


Early life and education

Born at Laon-Couvron Air Base in France, Goldfein is the son of William Michael "Goldie" Goldfein (November 26, 1931 – June 19, 2019) and Mary Vanni. His paternal grandfather, Boatswain's mate second class Joseph William Goldfein (June 25, 1896 – June 19, 1974), served in
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
with the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
, and his father was a
colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...
in the Air Force from 1949 to 1982 and fought in the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
. After his retirement, Goldfein's father worked for the Combined Federal Campaign in
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for 5 years and then the Link Aviation Devices in
Binghamton, New York Binghamton ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the c ...
for 5 years. His elder brother, Stephen M. Goldfein also served in the Air Force from 1978 to 2008, retiring as a major general; Stephen Goldfein also served as
Director of the Joint Staff The director of the Joint Staff (DJS) is a three-star officer who assists the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a cabinet of senior military officers within the United States Armed Forces who advise the secretary of defense and the president on milita ...
, a position his brother David would later hold. David Goldfein received his commission from the
United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academies, United States service academy in Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force Academy Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs. I ...
, where he received a B.S. degree in philosophy in 1983. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis AFB. He is a Distinguished Eagle Scout and former ranger at the
Philmont Scout Ranch Philmont Scout Ranch is a ranch located in Colfax County, New Mexico, United States, near the village of Cimarron. Donated by oil baron Waite Phillips, the ranch is owned by Scouting America. It is a high adventure base where crews of Scouts ...
.


Military career

Goldfein is a Command Pilot with more than 4,200 flying hours with the T-37, T-38,
F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it e ...
C/D, F-117A, MC-12W, and MQ-9. Goldfein commanded United States Air Forces Central,
Shaw AFB Shaw Air Force Base (Shaw AFB) is a United States Air Force (USAF) base located approximately west-northwest of downtown Sumter, South Carolina. It is one of the largest military bases operated by the United States, and is under the jurisdict ...
, SC and Al Udeid AB, Qatar; 49th Fighter Wing,
Holloman AFB Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base established in 1942 located six miles (10 km) southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, which is the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The ba ...
, NM; 52d Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem AB, Germany; 366th Operations Group, Mountain Home AFB, ID; and the 555th Fighter Squadron, Aviano AB, Italy. Goldfein flew combat missions during the
Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...
, and later deployed to the Vicenza Combined Air Operations Center for
Operation Deliberate Force Operation Deliberate Force was a sustained air campaign conducted by NATO, in concert with the UNPROFOR ground operations, to undermine the military capability of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), which had threatened and attacked UN-desig ...
. As commander of the 555th Fighter Squadron, he led his squadron flying an F-16 fighter in
Operation Allied Force The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...
. During the operation, on 2 May 1999, Goldfein's F-16 was shot down over western Serbia by a S-125
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-ai ...
fired by the 3rd Battery of the 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade of the
Yugoslav Air Force The Air Force and Air Defence ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Ратно ваздухопловство и противваздушна одбрана, Ratno vazduhoplovstvo i protivvazdušna odbrana ; abbr. sh-Cyrl-Latn, label=none, separator=/, РВ и ПВ ...
. Goldfein successfully ejected, and was subsequently rescued by
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
helicopters.


Chief of Staff of the Air Force

On April 26, 2016, Defense Secretary
Ash Carter Ashton Baldwin Carter (September 24, 1954 – October 24, 2022) was an American government official and academic who served as the 25th United States secretary of defense from February 2015 to January 2017. He later served as director of the B ...
announced that President Obama had nominated Goldfein to succeed General Mark Welsh as the 21st Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Goldfein's experience as a consensus builder, as well as his role in formulating the Air Force's contributions to the Defense Department's third offset strategy were cited by Carter and
Secretary of the Air Force The secretary of the Air Force, sometimes referred to as the secretary of the Department of the Air Force, (SecAF, or SAF/OS) is the head of the Department of the Air Force and the service secretary for the United States Air Force and United Sta ...
Deborah Lee James as reasons for his selection. His confirmation hearing took place on June 16, and he succeeded Welsh on July 1, two days after his confirmation. As CSAF, Goldfein spearheaded the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) and Advanced Battle Management (ABMS) systems, designed to connect service-level networks, platforms and sensors into a network for communicating battle information across the joint force. The aim of rapidly connecting all aircraft data and sensors to each other, as well as, to other military assets was a special focus of the subject as he led the service. He prioritized restoring the squadron as the principal warfighting unit of the Air Force, giving squadron commanders greater autonomy over their units, standardizing squadron command responsibilities and delegating more financial resources to squadron-level activities. Goldfein also led a proposal to increase from 312 to 386 operational squadrons. In September 2016, Goldfein personally selected the name "Raider" from more than 2000 naming submissions for the prototype B-21 bomber, in honor of the Doolittle Raiders. Goldfein initially opposed the creation of an independent
space force A space force is a military branch of a nation's armed forces that conducts military operations in outer space and space warfare. The world's first space force was the Russian Space Forces, established in 1992 as an independent military service. ...
, concerned that the creation of a new service branch would, through competition for a larger share of the Defense budget, compromise joint warfighting capability in the space domain. He remarked that establishing the Space Force would create a "balancing act" of building a service branch based on joint warfighting capability while simultaneously developing its own service culture. He eventually became supportive of the plan upon engagement with field commanders at
Maxwell Air Force Base Maxwell Air Force Base , officially known as Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, is a United States Air Force (USAF) installation under the Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The installation is located in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. ...
, many of whom supported the need for a separate service branch. Goldfein said in an interview with ''National Defense'' that "a service chief singularly focused on space, space operations and space integration" could expedite military profitability in the space domain more efficiently than under the umbrella of the Air Force. In August 2017, Goldfein joined other members of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) is the body of the most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense, which advises the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and ...
in condemning racism in the wake of the
Unite the Right rally The Unite the Right rally was a White supremacy#United States, white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, whi ...
in
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, which was organized by an ex-Marine. In June 2020, Goldfein publicly denounced the
murder of George Floyd On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old White police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a c ...
in a memo, calling it a "national tragedy" and adding that Americans "should be outraged" at the brutality shown during the incident. He supported his senior enlisted advisor, Chief Kaleth O. Wright, who responded to Floyd's murder on social media. Alongside Air Force secretary Barbara Barrett, Goldfein subsequently directed an inspector general investigation into racial inequality and advancement opportunities for African-Americans in the Air Force. Goldfein's term as Air Force chief of staff ended on August 6, 2020, and he was succeeded by General Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was confirmed in June. He retired in October of the same year.


Candidate for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Goldfein was a candidate to replace General Joseph Dunford as
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) is the presiding officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The chairman is the highest-ranking and most senior military officer in the United States Armed Forces Chairman: appointment; gra ...
in 2019. He was favored for the appointment by both Dunford and Secretary of Defense
Jim Mattis James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is an American military officer who served as the 26th United States secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. A retired United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps four-star General (United States), gene ...
. President
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, who was feuding with Mattis, nominated General Mark Milley instead. Goldfein did not express any rancor over not being selected, stating that the president had "the absolute right and responsibility to pick the principal military adviser that he wants."


Post-retirement

Three and a half months after retiring, Goldfein joined the investment firm Blackstone. He also began serving as a Senior Fellow at the
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (or simply Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL) is a not-for-profit university-affiliated research center (UARC) in Howard County, Maryland. It is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University ...
in March 2021. In March 2023, Goldfein joined Shield Capital's National Security Advisory Board, alongside H. R. McMaster, Letitia Long, James G. Stavridis and Sean Stackley.


Assignments

#October 1983 – October 1984, student, undergraduate pilot training, Sheppard AFB, Texas #October 1984 – February 1988, T-38 instructor pilot, 90th Flying Training Squadron, Sheppard AFB, Texas #February 1988 – January 1992, F-16 instructor pilot and flight commander, 17th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Shaw AFB, S.C. #January 1992 – June 1992, student, USAF Fighter Weapons Instructor Course, Nellis AFB, Nev. #June 1992 – July 1994, squadron weapons officer and Chief, Wing Weapons and Tactics, 366th Composite Wing, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho #July 1994 – June 1995, student, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Ala. #June 1995 – May 1996, special assistant to the Commander, Allied Air Forces Southern Europe and Sixteenth Air Force, Naples, Italy #May 1996 – August 1997, executive officer to the Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe,
Ramstein Air Base Ramstein Air Base is a United States Air Force installation located in Rhineland-Palatinate, southwestern Germany. It serves as the headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA) and NATO Alli ...
, Germany #August 1997 – June 1998, operations officer, 555th Fighter Squadron, Aviano AB, Italy #June 1998 – July 2000, Commander, 555th Fighter Squadron, Aviano AB, Italy #July 2000 – June 2001, student, National Defense Fellow, State Department Senior Seminar, Arlington, Va. #July 2001 – July 2002, Deputy Division Chief, Combat Forces, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. #August 2002 – July 2004, Commander, 366th Operations Group, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho #July 2004 – June 2006, Commander, 52d Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem AB, Germany #June 2006 – January 2008, Commander, 49th Fighter Wing, Holloman AFB, N.M. #January 2008 – August 2009, Deputy Director of Programs, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Programs, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington D.C. #August 2009 – August 2011, Director of Operations, Air Combat Command,
Joint Base Langley-Eustis A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGra ...
, Va. #August 2011 – July 2013, Commander, U.S. Air Forces Central Command, Southwest Asia #August 2013 – August 2015, Director, Joint Staff,
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...
, Washington, D.C. #August 2015 – July 2016, Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. #July 2016 – August 2020, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.


Awards and decorations


Effective dates of promotion


References


External links

* , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldfein, David L. 1959 births 21st-century American Jews Air War College alumni Jewish American military personnel Chiefs of staff of the United States Air Force Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun Living people Recipients of the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal Recipients of the Air Medal Recipients of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States) Recipients of the Humanitarian Service Medal Recipients of the Legion of Merit Shot-down aviators United States Air Force Academy alumni United States Air Force generals Vice chiefs of staff of the United States Air Force