Joe Kent's Patriotic Service

The man who spent 20 years of his life fighting America's forever wars in the Middle East and lost his wife to an ISIS attack is vilified by "puffy petulant" policy wonks who never served a day.

Reading the revolting vilifications of Joe Kent—who just resigned his position as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in protest of the Iran war—prompted me to review his life and military service.

Joe Kent (born April 11, 1980) enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1998 at age seventeen as an infantryman (11B) shortly after graduating high school.

He quickly completed Airborne School and the Ranger Indoctrination Program to join the 75th Ranger Regiment, where he served as a rifleman and team leader from late 1998 through December 2001 at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Kent entered the Special Forces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty), North Carolina, a few days before the September 11 attacks. He completed the course in June 2003, earning his Green Beret and qualifying as an 18B Special Forces Weapons Sergeant.

Kent was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where he served in various roles, including as a weapons sergeant, intelligence sergeant, and later as a Special Forces Warrant Officer.

During his time in the 5th Special Forces Group, he completed multiple combat deployments, including participation in the First Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2003–2004. Following this combat service—some of the hottest in the history of U.S. infantry ground war—he served in multiple tours, focusing on counterterrorism, training indigenous forces, and intelligence collection.

Kent served ten years with the 5th Special Forces Group, which included eight combat deployments during that period. He then joined the U.S. Army Special Missions Unit (comparable to Delta Force), where he performed intelligence operations and attended CIA operations courses. He deployed with joint Special Operations Task Forces targeting high-value individuals in combat and non-combat zones.

Over his 20-year Army career (1998–2018), Kent completed 11 combat tours primarily in Iraq, with additional deployments to Yemen, North Africa, and other high-threat regions. He earned numerous commendations, including six Bronze Stars (with valor or for combat service), the Combat Infantryman’s Badge, and the Meritorious Service Medal.

After retiring from the Army in 2018, Kent transitioned to the Central Intelligence Agency as a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the Special Activities Center from May 2018 to May 2019. His work for the CIA augmented his special operations experience in counterterrorism and intelligence.

In government service, he advised on counterterrorism issues, including roles in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as an advisor and Chief of Staff under DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

In 2025, he was appointed and confirmed as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), where he served as the principal counterterrorism advisor to the President, overseeing threat analysis, the Terrorist Watchlist, and coordination of U.S. counterterrorism efforts until his resignation in March 2026.

Kent’s career shows his lifelong commitment to national security, starting with frontline combat service, elite special operations expertise, intelligence work, and high-level advisory roles in counterterrorism.

In addition to spending his entire youth either preparing for combat or in combat in some of the most spartan and unpleasant places in the world, he lost his wife, Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, in a suicide bombing in Syria during operations against ISIS.

Every great power in history, starting with the Greeks in Homer’s day, has celebrated the valor of its young warriors — the “thin red line of 'eroes” of Kipling’s famous poem “Tommy.”

For centuries in the West, children were taught the inspiring story of the Spartan King Leonidas and his small group of warriors at Thermopylae ass, whose famous replied to Xerxes’s demand for their weapons: "Μολὼν λαβέ" ("Come and take them").

Indeed, just before the Battle of Gonzales, Texas in 1835, Sarah Seely DeWitt and her daughter, Evaline DeWitt and Caroline Zumwalt made a flag from a wedding dress, inscribed with an image of a cannon and the words “Come and Take It” to express defiance against Mexican soldiers seeking to reclaim their cannon.

Here in the United States, we throw one of our greatest warriors under the bus when he dares to speak his conscience.

The contrast between Joe Kent and Washington’s policy wonks reminds me of the poem “Base Details” by the British World War I poet, Siegried Sassoon.

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. “Poor young chap,”
I’d say — “I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.”
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die — in bed.

For years I have thought that our entire Washington establishment is sprinting in a mad dash to the bottom. With their revolting vilification of Joe Kent, our Establishment just hit bedrock.