The Department of Defense announced on Dec. 5 that retired U.S. Army Gen. Montgomery Meigs, professor of public administration in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, has been named director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Task Force, reporting to the deputy secretary of defense, effective Dec. 12. Meigs will take a one-year leave from the Maxwell School to return to the Pentagon.
The task force was formed in 2003 to coordinate resources across the military branches and technologies in order to defeat current and future improvised explosive device (IED) threats. As part of his new position, Meigs will oversee the creation of a training center to assist the service branches in providing troops with pre-deployment IED threat training.
Meigs has extensive experience in asymmetric warfare and in addressing the IED threat. Before his retirement from the U.S. Army, he served on active duty for more than 35 years, most recently as commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe and of NATO's peacekeeping force in Bosnia. He previously served as commandant of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and was a professor of history at the U. S. Military Academy.
A military analyst for NBC News, Meigs has published various articles on military policy and leadership, as well as a book, "Slide Rules and Submarines" (National Defense University Press, 1990). Meigs earned a B.S. degree from the United States Military Academy, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
