In a ceremony at the Alabama National Guard Joint Force Headquarters in Montgomery on Friday, Brigadier General David K. Pritchett officially assumed command of the Alabama National Guard.
Pritchett was promoted after the retirement of former Adjutant General Major General Sheryl E. Gordon, the first woman to ever hold the position.
Gordon, in her farewell remarks, called it a privilege to have led Alabama’s National Guard.
“They believe in the hard and necessary work we are called to do, and they believe in the honorable men and women who do it,” she said. “There’s no place I would have rather spent this career and no people I would have rather served than those of the great state of Alabama.”
Brig. Gen. Pritchett, who most recently served as the Director of Joint Staff of the Wyoming National Guard and the Deputy Commanding General for Field Artillery at the Fires Center of Excellence on Fort Sill, spoke about his priorities in filling his new role.
“With the growing instability in the Middle East and around the world, we owe it to our soldiers and our airmen and their families to make sure they are taken care of,” said Pritchett.
“I will continue to move this organization forward, and it will be a standards-based organization that I will lead from the front,” he said. “I am deeply honored and humbled to serve as your Adjutant General, and I look forward to getting out and meeting the great men and women of the Army and the Air National Guard.”
An Alabama native, Pritchett, began his military career in 1988 with the U.S. Marine Corps before entering the Army Reserve Officer Program at Auburn University and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Alabama National Guard in 1991. He remained in the Alabama National Guard until 2018 when he transferred his service to Fort Sill.
Austen Shipley is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News.
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