Guy Sands-Pingot


Guy Ludvic Sands-Pingot was an American brigadier general of the United States Army Reserve. He served as Commander of the 353rd Civil Affairs Command located at Fort Wadsworth, New York from 3 December 2005 through 6 December 2008.

Early military career and background

A native of New York City, Sands was born on October 27, 1957. He attended public schools graduating as a Regents Scholar from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York in 1974, then went on to Fordham University, where he was a member of the ROTC and the Pershing Rifles drill team. Sands was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant in 1978, after graduating from The City College of New York with a BA in Political Science with a specialization in Russian Area Studies. He went on active duty with assignments in the Berlin Brigade, followed by assignments as a Tactical Officer at the US Army Ranger Training Brigade before being posted to Korea where he served on the General Staff of the 2nd Infantry Division and later as Commander of the United Nations Honor Guard Company.
Returning to Fort Benning, Georgia in 1984, he was selected to serve as a Senior Platoon Trainer, and completed his active duty service in 1988. He then accepted a fellowship to study international economics at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. After graduating he joined the New York Army National Guard, where he commanded the 142nd Infantry Detachment until he was recalled to active duty during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, with the 48th Infantry Brigade of the Georgia Army National Guard.

Special Forces training, Bosnia, and Kosovo

Following release from active duty, he was selected for Special Forces training with the 20th Special Forces Group, and he underwent training at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center & School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, completing the Special Forces Officer Qualification Course in 1993.
After completing Special Forces and Russian language training, he was accepted for assignment in the 353rd Civil Affairs Command in 1994. For the next six years he served in a variety of civil-military positions with a focus on the Balkans, the first assignment being with the United Nations Protection Force during the Bosnian Civil War throughout 1995 and later with the NATO Implementation Force and Stabilization Force.
On the civilian side he worked in various managerial level positions in Bosnia with the Department of States Train and Equip Program for the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina Army, and afterward with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission in Bosnia. In October 1998 he was selected to serve as a senior planner for the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission which he stayed with until evacuating from Serbia to the Republic of Macedonia in March 1999 for the duration of the NATO Air Campaign.
Following this assignment he returned to Kosovo in a civilian status in order to serve as the Chief of Plans and Liaison for the newly established OSCE Mission to Kosovo. He was subsequently named by the United Nations Mission in Kosovo as the International Administrator of one of the Municipal Districts of Kosovo and later served on active duty as Deputy J9 at the Headquarters of KFOR in Pristina, Kosovo.
He was eventually removed from his positions with UNPROFOR due to concerns by UN commanders that he was conducting espionage against the peace-keeping effort on behalf of the US.

Service in Afghanistan and Iraq

Returning to the United States following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, he assumed Command of the 411th Civil Affairs Battalion located in Danbury, Connecticut. This was followed by study at the Army War College in 2003.
Following promotion to colonel and graduation he assumed command of the 360th Civil Affairs Brigade at Fort Jackson, South Carolina in July 2003, he subsequently mobilized and deployed to the Central Command Area of Operations as the Commander of the Combined Joint Civil Affairs Task Force which provided all civil-military operations throughout Afghanistan from September 2004 to July 2005.
He was then nominated and confirmed to the rank of brigadier general in November 2005 in order to assume command of the 353rd Civil Affairs Command in Staten Island, New York in December 2005.

Civilian service in Afghanistan and Homeland Defense

After retiring in 2006, he was selected and appointed in 2008 to serve as a Senior Executive civilian government official as the assistant Inspector General for Inspections within the newly created Office of the Special Inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction. In this position he assisted in standing up this new congressionally created agency charged with reporting to the American people where over $104 billion of reconstruction money has been spent in Afghanistan since 2001. This position took him throughout Afghanistan during 2009 and resulted in the publishing of numerous reports of inspections on various projects.
In May 2010 he was selected to serve as the Deputy to the Commanding General of US Army North/Fifth Army at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas and appointed as a Tier-2 level member of the Senior Executive Service. He and his wife Valentina and their daughter, Maria-Margaret reside in San Antonio, Texas.
In 2018 he was considered for a senior position at US Citizenship and Immigration services, but withdrew from consideration after his past anti-Muslim social media posts came to light.

Education

In addition to his master's degree in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College, he holds advanced post-graduate degrees in Political Economy from Fordham University, International Relations from Troy State University, and International Economics from St. Andrews University, as well as having completed graduate work at Oxford University, and the University of South Carolina where he is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Political Science.

Awards and decorations