Brigadier General Ernest C. “Ernie” Audino, U.S. Army (Ret.), graduated from West Point in 1983 and retired in 2011 after a 28-year career spanning armor, cavalry, infantry, and Stryker assignments. He served as Executive Assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as Deputy Director of Operations, Readiness, and Mobilization at Headquarters, Department of the Army. He is the only U.S. general officer to have served a full year as a combat advisor embedded inside a Kurdish Peshmerga brigade in Iraq, and is a Senior Military Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy.