Eric Smith (general)

Eric M. Smith (born December 8, 1965) is an American general who has served as the 39th commandant of the United States Marine Corps since 2023. Smith was born in Missouri and raised in Texas. He received his commission in the United States Marine Corps via the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps when he graduated from Texas A&M University in 1987. Early in his career, he was deployed during the Gulf War and during Operation Assured Response in Liberia. He was the Naval Section Chief of the U.S. Military Group in Venezuela from 2001 to 2003. Smith was deployed for the Iraq War multiple times, and for the war in Afghanistan. He commanded United States Marine Corps Forces South from 2015 to 2016. Smith was then the senior military assistant to the U.S. secretary of defense under Ash Carter and Jim Mattis. After that, he commanded the 1st Marine Division from 2017 to 2018, and the III Marine Expeditionary Force from 2018 to 2019. He then served as the commander of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command before he became the 36th assistant commandant of the Marine Corps in 2021. At the commandant of the Marine Corps, he continued implementation of Force Design, which started under his predecessor.