The United States secretary of defense, secondarily titled the secretary of war, is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a hig
Pete Hegseth Official Portrait
Donald Rumsfeld is sworn in as Secretary of Defense by Associate Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart as U.S. President Gerald R. Ford and Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff General George S. Brown watch at The Pentagon on 20 November 1975.
Department of Defense organizational chart (December 2013)
James Forrestal Sec Of Def
Lloyd Austin
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Lloyd James Austin III is a retired United States Army general who served as the 28th United States secretary of defense, from 2021 to 2025, under the Biden administration.
United States Secretary of Defense
…the previous ten years. Congress can legislatively waive this restriction and has done so three times, for George C. Marshall Jr., James N. Mattis, and Lloyd J. Austin III. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the secretary of defense and the president; while the chairman may…
Official portrait, 2023
Colonel Lloyd Austin in 1998
Austin in a meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Lieutenant General David Barno, and U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2003
Austin during the Iraq War on September 11, 2007