US President Joe Biden has nominated a Filipino-American Iraq war veteran to serve as undersecretary of the Air Force.
Gina Ortiz Jones will be the first woman of color and a Filipino-American to hold the post if her appointment will be confirmed. Her mother, Victorina Ortiz, was a Filipina public school teacher who immigrated to the United States, NBC News reported.
“Commissioned through the Air Force ROTC program at Boston University, Ms. Jones served as an Air Force intelligence officer and deployed to Iraq with the 18th Air Support Operations Group supporting close air support operations,” the White House said about Jones.
Jones served as an intelligence officer in the US Air Force from 2003 to 2006.
She also served in various posts in the military including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), where she was an inaugural member of US Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany and adviser on military operations in Central and South America with the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade and US Army South.
Jones entered politics in 2018 when she ran for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District under the Democratic party and again in 2020.
