Retired U.S. Army Gen. Robert Brown, president of the Association of the United States Army and former commander of U.S. Army Pacific, speaks at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., Oct. 15, 2025. (Aaron Troutman/U.S. Army)
When Army Gen. Robert Brown was set to retire as commander of U.S. Army Pacific after a 38-year military career in 2019, he was mindful of sage advice given by those who retired before him.
“Never take the first job offered when you retire from the Army,” he recalled during a phone interview April 28.
He promptly ignored that advice when the first offer arrived, to lead the Association of the U.S. Army.
“I took it in a heartbeat,” said the former four-star general who has been president and CEO of the association since October 2021.
That second career was a natural fit.
Brown played a key role in AUSA’s launch in 2013 of the Land Forces Pacific Symposium and Exhibition, or LANPAC, in Honolulu. And since taking the reins at AUSA, he has shepherded the conference into a cornerstone event for the organization.
This year’s LANPAC, which begins Tuesday, however, will be the last steered by Brown, who plans to “fully retire” in early 2027.
Brown’s career frequently intersected with the Indo-Pacific region, from his command of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, from 2003 to 2005, to commanding I Corps headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., from 2012 to 2014.
Brown said that upon taking that latter command, he received “the clearest guidance I’ve ever gotten in my life,” with President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of the Army John McHugh all declaring the U.S. military would be pivoting to the Pacific.
“So, it was pretty obvious: rebalance,” Brown said. “But then, OK, how do you do it?”
The notion of holding an annual land forces conference focusing on the region arose from a chance meeting he had with retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan, at the time the president of AUSA.
Sullivan tossed out the idea of a symposium where “we can pull the Indo-Pacific nations together,” Brown said.
Brown said he got buy-in for the idea from the then-commander of U.S. Army Pacific, Lt. Gen. Francis Wiercinski, and Adm. Samuel Locklear, then commander of U.S. Pacific Command.
“So, the intention – and it worked -- was to bring everybody, allies and partners, closer together, understanding more the challenges, understanding each other better, understanding what China was trying to do, what North Korea was trying to do,” Brown said.
The first years of the symposium were low-key affairs, with panels and speakers almost all from the United States, he said. Now military officials from three dozen Indo-Pacific nations attend, with many eager to be panelists, Brown said.
By Brown’s reckoning, a LANPAC watershed moment came in 2016 when during the opening keynote speech Adm. Harry Harris, chief at what was PACOM, now Indo-Pacific Command, tasked the assembled Army brass with projecting power from land to sink ships.
“We have it now today, the PrSM missile, Precision Strike Missile,” he said. The missile was employed in Operation Epic Fury against Iran this year.
“And LANPAC was important, because if an Army general had asked for it, I don’t think we’d have it,” Brown said with a chuckle. “But a PACOM commander, a Navy admiral, asking the Army to be able to take ships -- we got it.”
