Capt. William D. Byrne Jr., the commandant of the Naval Academy, has been selected for promotion and assigned to lead the U.S. Navy in Korea, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Byrne, who was a record-setting quarterback as a midshipman at the academy in the 1980s, returned to Annapolis as its second-in-command in 2013.
He has been selected for promotion to rear admiral (lower half), officials said, and will coordinate between U.S. naval forces and those of South Korea.
He is to be replaced by Marine Col. Stephen Liszewski, an Annapolis native who grew up in Montgomery County and graduated from the academy in 1990.
Liszewski is the second Marine to serve as commandant. He has also served as an artillery officer in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The commandant of midshipmen is responsible for the military and professional development of the midshipmen at the elite training ground for future Naval and Marine Corps officers. The position, second at the academy only to the superintendent, is analogous to a dean of students at a civilian college.
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