General Marco Antônio Freire Gomes officially assumed, this Thursday (31), the Brazilian Army Command, in a ceremony at the Army Club, in Brasília, with the presence of President Jair Bolsonaro.
Freire Gomes replaces General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, who was in charge of the post almost a year ago and who will now be the new Minister of Defense. Nogueira replaces Braga Netto, who left office to run in the elections as a likely candidate for vice president on Bolsonaro’s re-election ticket.
“I feel a pang in my heart for leaving the daily interaction with my troops, and with the Army’s duties, but I can say that I deliver the command fully realized as commander of an army that has soldiers of high professional and moral value, and that to the people Brazilians have always served and will serve”, said General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira in his farewell speech. The new army commander did not speak at the ceremony.
In the morning, President Jair Bolsonaro had sworn in to nine ministers and other members of the government who left their positions to run for elective positions in the October elections of this year.
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Marco Antônio Freire Gomes held the position of Commander of Land Operations, in Brasília. The general was born on July 31, 1957, in Pirassununga, in the interior of São Paulo, and joined the Army on February 14, 1977, at the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (Aman), in Resende (RJ). He was declared an aspiring cavalry officer in December 1980.
As a General Officer, he held the positions of Commander of the Special Operations Brigade and of the Special Operations Command, in Goiânia; 1st Deputy Chief of the Ground Operations Command (Coter), in Brasília; Commander of the 10th Military Region, in Fortaleza; Executive Secretary of the GSI/PR, in Brasília; Military Commander of the Northeast, in Recife; and Land Operations Commander, in Brasília.
During his military career, he served in Cavalry units, such as the 10th Mechanized Cavalry Regiment (RC Mec), in Bela Vista (MS); the 10th Mechanized Cavalry Squadron, in Recife (PE); and the 16th RC Mec, in Bayeux (PB). In addition, he served in the 1st Special Forces Battalion and the Parachute Infantry Brigade Command, both in Rio de Janeiro (RJ); and was a member of the United Nations Observer Group in Central America (ONUCA). He was an instructor at the Special Instruction Section (SIESP) of the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (AMAN); and also the first Commander of the 1st Commando Action Battalion, in Goiânia (GO).
Also as a senior officer, he served as Head of the Operations Division and Intelligence Division of the Institutional Security Office of the Presidency of the Republic (GSI/PR), in Brasília (DF); Head of the Regional Military Service of the 11th Military Region Command, in Brasília (DF); Military Attaché for Defense and the Army at the Embassy of Brazil in the Kingdom of Spain; Head of the Doctrine Section and Assistant to the 3rd Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, in Brasília (DF); Officer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Ministry of Defense, in Brasília (DF); and Official of the GSI/PR, also in the capital.
