A Brooklyn-born Marine general is expected to be chosen by President Bush to be the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, officials said.
Peter Pace, 59, a Naval Academy graduate who was raised in Teaneck, N.J., was recommended for the top job by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Pace’s mom knows he’s the right man for the job.
“This is striking me as awesome,” Pace’s mother, Doris, 86, said from her New Jersey home last night. “He’s been good at everything he’s ever done. I’m sure that he will do a very good job, if the President should pick him.”
Her son has spent nearly four years as the Joint Chiefs’ vice chairman, and would be the first Marine to hold the top job. Not bad for a product of Teaneck’s public-school system.
His mother describes the lean Marine as “just a normal kid” who’s “very low key” and “humble.”
“If you saw him in civilian clothing, you’d never know he was in the military,” she said.
Pace was born in the old Norwegian Hospital, near the family’s Bay Ridge home, but they moved to Teaneck when he was 14 months old.
The future general loved playing soccer while growing up. He also played the trumpet in the school band.
“He always said he just loved growing up in Teaneck,” his mother said.
He decided he wanted to go to Annapolis while watching the Army-Navy football game as a teen. He served in Vietnam and held a variety of posts in South Korea, Somalia and as an aide in the White House.
If confirmed by the Senate, Pace would succeed retiring Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers.