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New AFSOC vice commander named

  • Published
  • By 82nd Training Wing Public Affairs
  • 82nd Training Wing Public Affairs
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  82nd Training Wing Commander Brig. Gen. O.G. Mannon was named the next vice commander of Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field, Fla., the Department of Defense announced Oct. 2.

Replacing him at the helm of the 82nd TRW will be Brig. Gen. Darryl W. Burke, currently of 12th Air Force vice commander at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

"This is bittersweet for Barb and me," General Mannon said. "I've spent most of my career in the Special Operations community, so I look forward to working with old friends and bringing my experience to the table there."

"But I'll tell you what, I am really going to miss meeting with the young Airmen who come through Sheppard's door every week -- it gives you faith in the future to visit with them," he said. "And I'm also going to miss living in North Texas and enjoying the incredible support the community gives to Sheppard. There's just nothing like it anywhere."

Prior to his assignment at 12th Air Force, General Burke was the senior military assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force. He served as commander of the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing in Southwest Asia from 2005 to 2006 and as vice commander of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB before that.

A graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., where he also received his Master of Science Degree, General Burke began his Air Force career in 1983, training as a weapons controller then serving as an E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System weapons director at Tinker AFB, Okla. He entered undergraduate navigator training in 1986.

He has been a squadron commander twice and is a master navigator with 3,700 flying hours, including 133 combat hours and 250 combat support hours. He has flown the B-52 Stratofortress, E-3, KE-3, T-38 Talon and U-2. He was an operator for RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system.

General Burke's awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, the Meritorious Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, the Air Medal and the Aerial Achievement Medal.

The change of command date has not yet been finalized.