President Donald Trump on Friday night formally nominated Army Secretary Mark Esper to be the next Secretary of Defense.
Esper, an Army veteran who served in the first Iraq war, was named the acting secretary of defense earlier this week.
The move came after Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan withdrew from the job before his formal nomination ever went to the Senate, citing a "painful" family situation that would hurt his children and reopen "wounds we have worked years to heal."
Esper was sworn in as Army secretary in November 2017 following a seven-year stint as vice president for government relations at defense contractor Raytheon. That lobbyist background raised immediate alarms from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which said that Raytheon had recently won multiple government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Esper spent more than a decade in the Army, including serving in the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and 1991 with the 101st Airborne Division. He has won the Bronze Star Medal and other awards.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
