Lt. Gen. Stanley Clarke, the director of the Air National Guard, will retire, according to an internal Air Force memo. Clarke has served as ANG director since March 2013. He previously served as the commander of 1st Air Force and Continental US North American Aerospace Defense Command Region at Tyndall AFB, Fla. Clarke, who was commissioned in 1981, is a command pilot with more than 4,000 hours in the A-10, F-16, C-26, and T-38. The Air Force announcement did not include the official date of retirement.
Just over a year ago, in July 2025, the Air Force established a dedicated office on the Air Staff for communications/cyber functions, separate from the intelligence directorate it had long been attached to. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Phillips, Deputy Chief of Staff for Warfighter Communications and Cyber Systems, recently sat…