Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind’s tenure as the head of Air Force Special Operations Command was eventful.
As soon as he took the helm in December 2022, the longtime special operations pilot had to tackle ongoing maintenance issues facing the service’s CV-22 Osprey aircraft, including groundings, flight restrictions and, ultimately, the tragic death of eight of his airmen in November when their tiltrotor aircraft crashed in Japan due to an unknown mechanical failure.
Just two months before he was set to leave his command, one of his commandos — 23-year-old Senior Airman Roger Fortson — was suddenly killed by a Florida sheriff’s deputy while he was FaceTiming his girlfriend at his apartment, prompting public outcry about another police brutality incident.
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Bauernfeind, a self-described introvert, admitted in a nearly hourlong exclusive interview with Military.com that addressing those crises wasn’t easy but taught him how to respond to those tragedies as humanly as possible.
He relinquished his role as the Air Force Special Operations commander Tuesday and is heading to his next position as the superintendent of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. It’s a vastly different assignment, but one that he feels prepared for, not only because he’s a 1991 graduate of that military service academy, but also due to the hard truths he learned, and shared with others, amid…
