William Harry McRaven (6 November 1955-) was a US Navy Admiral who served as Commander of JSOC from June 2008 to August 2011 and commander of SOCOM from 8 August 2011 to 28 August 2014.
Biography[]
William Harry McRaven was born in Pinehurst, North Carolina in 1955, and he was commissioned into the US Navy in 1977. He served as a task unit commander during the Gulf War, as leader of the counter-al-Qaeda Task Force 714 during the Iraq War, as Commander of JSOC from 2008 to 2011, and as commander of SOCOM from 2011 to 2014. On 2 May 2011, he oversaw Operation Neptune Spear, the raid which resulted in the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. He retired in 2014, going on to serve as Chancellor of the University of Texas System from 2015 to 2018. On 20 October 2020, he publicly stated that, while he was a pro-life, pro-gun rights, small-government, strong-defense, and patriotic conservative, he supported Black Lives Matter, Dreamers, diversity and inclusion, education, climate change awareness, and the First Amendment, and he formally endorsed the Democrat Joe Biden for President; he had previously criticized Donald Trump for revoking former CIA Director John O. Brennan's security clearance, for his abandoning of the Kurds during Operation Peace Spring, and for firing Joseph Maguire as he investigated foreign involvement in the 2020 presidential election.