Marine Corps Assistant Commandant Tests Positive for Covid-19

[Jeanne Maria]

Gen. Gary Thomas, the Marine Corps’s No. 2 general, has been in self-quarantine since Oct. 6, with mild symptoms

Gen. Gary Thomas, who was at a Pentagon meeting last week with other military leaders, had contact with a senior Coast Guard admiral who also contracted Covid-19.

PHOTO: HAILEY D. CLAY/U.S. MARINE CORPS

By Gordon Lubold and Nancy A. Youssef

Updated Oct. 7, 2020 8:21 pm ET

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WASHINGTON—The assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Gen. Gary Thomas, has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in quarantine, Marine Corps officials said.

Gen. Thomas, who was at a Pentagon meeting last week with other military leaders, had contact with a senior Coast Guard admiral who also contracted the disease.

A Pentagon spokesman said no additional senior leaders have tested positive.

Gen. Thomas, 58, is an aviator who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also held several positions in the Pentagon, including as a planner within the Joint Staff. A native of Austin, Texas, he was commissioned in 1984.

On Tuesday the Pentagon said that nearly all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a body that consists of the top commanders from each of the armed services, would enter a quarantine out of an “abundance of caution” after Adm. Charles Ray, vice commandant of the Coast Guard, tested positive Monday for the virus.

The previous Friday, Adm. Ray attended a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting in a small, secure windowless room in the Pentagon known as the Tank. Gen. Thomas was in that meeting.

Adm. Ray, along with chiefs from each of the services, was last at the White House Sept. 27 for a ceremony, presided over by President Trump, for Gold Star families, those who have lost a loved one in combat.

In White House photos of that event, no one was wearing a mask or socially distancing.

Before Gen. Thomas’s diagnosis, defense officials said the chiefs had planned to return to the Pentagon on Oct. 13.

Write to 

Gordon Lubold at Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com 

and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com

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