Georgia Defense Department to mark change of command
The Georgia Department of Defense is scheduled to hold a ceremony Thursday marking a change of its command.
Brig. Gen. Joe Jarrard, now the department’s assistant adjutant general, will replace Adjutant General Jim Butterworth as part of a Cabinet reshuffling for Gov. Nathan Deal’s second term. Butterworth is taking charge of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. When he takes command, Jarrard will oversee a $534.9 million budget and more than 15,000 Guard soldiers and airmen, State Defense Force volunteers and others.
Deal has also selected Col. Thomas Carden, the Georgia Army National Guard's chief of staff, to replace Jarrard as the state's assistant adjutant general. Carden will take charge of more than 11,000 Georgia soldiers.
The ceremony is set for Thursday afternoon in Hangar 1 at the Clay National Guard Center in Marietta. Deal and Gen. Frank Grass, chief of the National Guard Bureau, are expected to attend.
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Jeremy Redmon is an award-winning journalist, essayist and educator with more than three decades of experience reporting for newspapers. He has written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 2005.
