John W. Nicholson Jr. graduated from West Point in 1982 and was commissioned into the infantry. He earned a Bronze Star with "V" device as a paratroop lieutenant during the invasion of Grenada in 1983. He was a strategist for Eric Shinseki at the point of the 9/11 attacks. He went on to do six tours in Afghanistan. Nicholson was the deputy director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization. He became commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in 2012. In 2014 Nicholson took control of the NATO Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey. Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2016 that "Since 9/11, the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan has largely defined my service." Nicholson was given command of the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, amid a worsening security situation. Nicholson apologized in person for U.S. involvement in the Kunduz hospital airstrike. General Nicholson has testified before the following Congressional Committees: The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and the Senate Armed Services Committee. He participated in numerous sessions of the NATO North Atlantic Council, to include the Ambassadors to NATO, Chiefs of Defense, Defense Ministers, Foreign Ministers and Heads of State of the Alliance. In 2017, as the commanding general in Afghanistan, General Nicholson, drew attention when he said in a press conference that his command “continued to get reports of” Russian assistance to the Taliban, including weapons — something that was the subject of internal debate within the intelligence community at the time but appears to have been validated by media reporting in July 2020. In January 2019, Nicholson was found to be responsible, along with General Francis H. Kearney III and Marine investigator Patrick Pihana, of gross errors in judgment in false accusations against a seven-member Marine elite commando force in 2007. The group was expelled from Afghanistan in 2007 amid unproven allegations that they massacred innocent bystanders in the frantic minutes following an ambush. They were cleared of wrongdoing more than a year later, after the case was heard by a military court. However, Nicholson and Kearney did little to set the record straight for 11 years. The group was fully vindicated in a report approved in January 2019 by the Navy Department. Nicholson retired from the Army in 2018 before the report was published.
