Black Marine colonel to be promoted after a long wait
WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps is promoting Col. Anthony Henderson, a combat-tested Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, to brigadier general, a move that cracks the doorway for the service to potentially promote an African American to its most senior ranks.
The Marine Corps, which had passed over Henderson for four years, has placed him on a highly selective list of nine colonels to be granted a coveted one star that denotes general rank status — brigadier general. The list, which was signed by President Joe Biden, arrived Wednesday evening at the Senate Armed Services Committee to start the required confirmation process, according to the committee’s website.
Normally, such promotions would not garner much attention. But Henderson is a Black man with combat command experience in a service that has never, in its 245-year history, had a four-star officer who was not a white man. And even the one-, twoand three-star Marine Corps officer positions are predominantly white and male — particularly the ones in the combat specialties that feed the four-star ranks.
If Henderson is confirmed by the Senate, he will become the rare Black general with a shot of getting all the way to the top.
“Tony Henderson has the potential to be the commandant of the Marine Corps,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Bailey, the first Black man to command the 1st Marine Division, from 2011 to 2013. “He’s an individual who will work above and beyond what is required. This is well overdue.”
The Pentagon, which for the first time has a Black secretary of defense, is facing a reckoning on race after the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol laid bare the deep inroads that extremist groups have made into the U.S. military, both active duty and retired: A number of the Capitol rioters with ties to extremist groups also have ties to military service.
One of the first things Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III did after assuming the helm of the Pentagon was to order up a servicewide “Stand Down” to address extremism in the military. The term is used in the military to refer to an issue — in the past it was safety or sexual assault or suicide — that the defense secretary decided was important enough that it needs to be addressed through discussions with troops worldwide.
Henderson, 53, was passed over three times for brigadier general. In 2019, the Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer, even added a handwritten recommendation to Henderson’s candidacy.
But each time, the promotion board demurred and instead forwarded slates made up primarily of white men.
Since the Corps first admitted African American troops in 1942, the last military service to do so, only 25 have obtained the rank of general in any form. Not one has made it to the top four-star rank, an honor the Marines have so far bestowed solely on white men — 72 of them.
Six African Americans reached lieutenant general, or three stars.
Henderson had not been reached for comment Thursday morning.
Henderson led Marines through intense fighting in the Garmsir district known as Jugroom Fort in Afghanistan in 2008. Marines commanded by Henderson during those fierce days and nights say he stood out like an action figure.
One story about Henderson from that time has become the stuff of legend among the Marines who fought beside him in Garmsir.
They recall the time that Henderson, after losing radio contact, climbed to the top of a local house to look for his Marines, drew fire from the Taliban, and did a “combat roll” flip off the roof to avoid a rocket-propelled grenade, landing on his feet on the ground. That story electrified Marines fighting in Afghanistan at the time and has been told and retold.