New LeMay commander challenges the center to stay out in front
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. -- Amid the roar of helicopters avoiding Hurricane Irma and landing on the flight line only a few hundred yards away, the Airmen of the LeMay Center welcomed a new commander Friday.
Maj. Gen. Michael D. Rothstein assumed command of the Curtis E. LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education during a ceremony there this morning. In assuming command of the center, Rothstein also serves as Air University vice commander.
After formally receiving the LeMay flag from Commander and President of Air University Lt. Gen. Steven L. Kwast, and acknowledging his family, Rothstein continued by addressing the relationship between AU, Maxwell-Gunter and the community.
“The relationship between the Air Force and the local community is strategically vital to our national security,” Rothstein said. “… our bases don’t survive without the support of the local community. You have in me a partner who is committed to that relationship.”
Addressing the Airmen of the LeMay Center, he acknowledged the stellar reputation they had built, and challenged them to maintain their reputation as part of the Air Force’s leading developers of airpower doctrine and education
“What we do to shape the intellectual concepts that will guide our nation through the next war has to be done now,” he said.
The U.S. Air Force Academy graduate was last Deputy Assistant Secretary for Plans, Programs and Operations, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. He earned his pilot wings at Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training at Sheppard AFB, Texas, and was assigned as an F-16 pilot.
He has commanded an operations support squadron, an air operations group, two fighter wings and an air expeditionary wing in Afghanistan. He also served as the Director of Operations and Plans, U.S. Air Forces Central at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, and Chief, Activities Synchronization, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is a command pilot with more than 2,500 hours in the F-16, C-130, T-37 and T-38.